What Makes a Villain

First of all, this is not entirely based on an English textbook definition of a villain or even an antagonist, but I'll do my best to provide legitimate definitions. Second, most of this will be right off the top of my head. And third, I've been inspired to write this because of how much I loved the Joker in The Dark Knight. I just felt I'd write an essay for the heck of it to detail what I think makes a great villain.

For the sake of substance, I'm going to include the Wikipedia villain page here. And for the sake of being thorough, I'll also include the Wikipedia antagonist page as well.

And in case you're the lazy type, you may take my summarized definitions here. The antagonist is simply the character, characters, or force that provides opposition to the protagonist, who is basically the story's main character. A villain is basically an antagonist that's evil in some sense of the word.

I'll limit examples to villains from films, but I'll step out of those boundaries slightly in one instance. Anyways...

I've glanced at The Online Film Critics Society top 100 villains of all time, which seems to not have been updated since October 1st, 2002. But we need a reference point, so we'll use it anyway. For the purposes of simplicity, I'll just copy and paste the top 20 right here:

1 Star Wars etc. - Darth Vader - David Prowse/James Earl Jones
2 Silence of the Lambs, The etc. - Hannibal Lecter - Anthony Hopkins
3 Psycho etc. - Norman Bates - Anthony Perkins
4 Die Hard - Hans Gruber - Alan Rickman
5 Blue Velvet - Frank Booth - Dennis Hopper
6 Night of the Hunter - Rev. Harry Powell - Robert Mitchum
7 2001: A Space Odyssey - HAL 9000 - Douglas Rain (voice)
8 Wizard of Oz, The - The Wicked Witch of the West - Margaret Hamilton
9 Nosferatu - Graf Orlock - Max Schreck
10 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - Khan Noonien Singh - Ricardo Montalban
11 Clockwork Orange, A - Alex - Malcolm McDowell
12 Usual Suspects, The - Keyzer Soze - (mystery/actor's name withheld)
13 Third Man, The - Harry Lime - Orson Welles
14 Schindler's List - Amon Goeth - Ralph Fiennes
15 Halloween - Michael Myers (aka The Shape) - Nick Castle
16 Batman (1989) - The Joker - Jack Nicholson
17 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Nurse Ratched - Louise Fletcher
18 Manchurian Candidate, The - Mrs. Iselin - Angela Lansbury
19 Jaws - The shark - himself
20 Se7en - John Doe - Kevin Spacey

I hadn't seen all these films, so I'll just comment on what I can.

Starting at the top is none other than Darth Vader. I'm not entirely sure he's the greatest, but he's definitely an iconic and solid villain. Sure, there are plenty of movies where the villain is the head of some enemy government or military, and that's a serviceable villain. But Vader excels because he's much more. Grand Moff Tarkin in the same movie represents the typical military strategist trying to impose the will of the Imperial Forces over the Rebel Alliance and our plucky heroes. But that's too typical. Peter Cushing played the part well, but his part was basically the token figurehead of the already established organization that provides antagonistic counterpoint to the film's protagonists. What sets Vader apart is not just the fact that he uses the Dark Side of the Force, but that he's less than human. By today's standards, he would be a walking cripple with an iron lung. He doesn't even have his own voice, can't breathe unfiltered air, and has no empathy. He's both literally and figuratively inhuman, yet he walks, talks, and interacts with other humans in the same manner they do.

As I write this, I'm reminded of Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith from The Matrix, also a pretty good villain. To summarize, the film's protagonists are Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, and whoever else are the rebelling, awakened humans who seek to free the farmed humans from the oppressive clutches of the machines, robots, and computer programs (the last one being key to the whole antagonist part of the film). Agent Smith is not only the program representative of the machines, antagonizing Morpheus and company, but he (it?) has his (its) own renegade agenda which threatens the goals of the machines. Now, it's been a while since I saw it, but if I remember correctly, I think the program wants its own independent existence or something. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I do recognize one thing about it: it's one thing to have two armies squaring off against each other (like the Rebels and the Imperials of Star Wars), but it's another to have the leading antagonist (read: Agent Smith) being just as problematic to his/its own side as he/it is to the protagonist side. Very chaotic.

The biggest strike against Agent Smith, in my opinion, is that the setting is too far removed from reality. Jaws is pretty good because it's basically a great white shark gone berserk. And we know that great white sharks are real and they are carnivorous. Agent Smith is a fictional character in a world so fictional that a good portion of the movie has to be spent explaining it and immersing the audience within it. Granted, the problem with Jaws is the shark is only a threat to anyone living on or visiting Amity Island (and even then, they have to be in the water), but it's at least a commonly accessible scenario.

That's not to say a villain has to be completely realistic, though. Vader is indeed a great villain, in spite of him being made of nonexistent, fictional technology, being a dark wielder of a supernatural power, and existing a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (where venturing into and colonizing space is common and practical). However, it doesn't take too much to be immersed in the setting to appreciate him. This is what makes Khan from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan so great as well: the setting is a little distant and nonexistent, but it's comparable and the wills and ambitions of the characters aren't too foreign. As a side point, I believe that much of great science fiction is just an alternate setting that can otherwise take place in historical fiction, Shakespeare, modern day cops n' robbers fare, etc. I've heard that Vader is based on Macbeth and Hamlet, I think. He could easily be a fascist megalomaniacal figurehead of some despotic nation. Likewise, what makes The Wrath of Khan so great is it's like a high seas pirate ship cannon battle between a noble commander and a ruthless pirate.

Like all my previous blog essays, this one is off the top of my head. Therefore, it's very much stream-of-consciousness. So before I forget, I'll get right on to two of my favorite villains in film: the alien monsters in John Carpenter's The Thing and--yeah, you guessed it--Heath Ledger's Joker. I'll try and go in order.

The Thing is a great horror movie (and if you haven't seen it, rent it and watch it on a good laptop through decent headphones, with the lights out, and no outside distractions). It's a familiar premise in horror, but there are two things going for The Thing in that regard: it's a relatively old film and so it precedes many other films following the same premise and also it just uses the premise perfectly. The premise is basically a small group of people gathered in an isolated location for a common reason (like the horny teenagers in however many of the Friday the 13th movies). In this case, it's a bunch of scientists and researchers stationed way out in Antarctica, cut off from the rest of the populated planet with no escape, stumbling upon an alien life form that crashed on Earth well before the transition from B.C. to A.D. This is one of those animalist, brainless villains that's more of a dangerous monster than it is an intellectual adversary (not to suggest the monster is stupid, just not verbose on its own). Those are always fun because it's not like the antagonist chooses to be a destructive force; it just is. And the monster's actions are two-fold: One, it overtakes and consumes a human, breeds itself asexually, and creates a perfect mimetic copy of the human victim, and Two, the realization of this creates an uneasy paranoia among the rest of the crew. This is the only horror movie I know of where you're not just worried about who or what's on the other side of the door, but you're also worried about whether or not the guy waiting next to you is actually human or alien monster. I'm sure Invasion of the Body Snatchers would be another such film, but it doesn't have that afraid-of-the-dark vibe.

Then there's the Joker. And I have to use Heath's for reference. Not so much because I don't like Nicholson's approach (because I do like it), but more because I'm trying to stick to movies and Heath's interpretation at least captured the spirit of the comic book Joker to a T. Here's a villain who doesn't care about mob rule, money, clout among a city's judges and politicians, women, drugs, some kind of honor, or revenge. He comes out of nowhere, manipulates people as he sees fit, and just causes mayhem. I think that a great villain has a high ratio of quantity and wickedness of deeds done to his/her/its reasons for committing them, and the Joker from The Dark Knight captures that aspect perfectly.

For comparison's sake, Killian from the Schwarzenegger flick The Running Man is a sensational host of a game show where convicts risk their lives escaping some dump of a compound from dangerous killers with WWF-gimmick weapons to kill the escapees. And he's doing it for ratings. Such a great villain. Too bad it's just a cheesy popcorn flick (but don't let that stop you from enjoying it). And for contrast, any movie where the villain is the leader of an opposing nation's army who's just fighting for his country is a mediocre villain (low ratio, you see). So is some stupid comedy where the villain is like Stifler from American Pie. Wait, that's an insult to villains. Scratch that.

[Dark Knight spoilers ahead]
Anyways, back to the Joker. Many other villains in superhero settings are just megalomaniacal people completely bent on killing the respective comics' heroes. And when you consider Lex Luthor, Magneto, Green Goblin, and whoever Jeff Bridges played in Iron Man, all of these villains had typical goals: money, power, and killing their respective protagonists.

Not the Joker. He has no grudges. Money means nothing to him. There's no pattern to his deeds. Heck, he doesn't even care about himself. So much so that Batman cracks an interrogation room's one-way mirror with his skull and he's completely unfazed! Not to mention he can manipulate situations to his will effortlessly, such as when he somehow reasons with Harvey/Two-Face after what he did to him and took from him. Even that scene when Batman flips his semi and lures the Joker to getting arrested has an unnerving detail: if you've seen the movie or you're able to think back that far after viewing the film later, you have to consider that while that's going on, Rachel is being rigged to that time bomb and those drums of gas, and Harvey's captors are preparing a similar setup at a location considerably farther away.

Then there's the threat on Coleman Reese who appears on the news where he leaves his fate in the hands of ordinary citizens and gives him a mere hour before deciding to blow up a hospital. And he doesn't even specify which hospital! What's more, he's caused enough mayhem to establish that he ain't bluffing.

The best part about the Joker in The Dark Knight isn't how he kills people. It's not how many people he's killed. It's not even who he's killed. It's why. And other than spreading chaos on a whim, he has no reason. These are the things he does for fun. I challenge anyone to compare the Joker in this film to any dangerous person played by Robert Deniro or Joe Pesce. I already had the pleasure of hearing Gary Oldman say Voldemort is like a Teletubby compared to the Joker. It's this sort of comparison that yields a fun guilty pleasure to those who like the Joker. I'm the last person to rank things in a list as I think it's a crutch of our culture to rank, rate, classify, and categorize everything. But at the same time, stating that a villain is worse than Deniro's character from Goodfellas or some Bond villain says a lot. After all, as a Batman fan, I already get a lot of pleasure comparing the Joker to Two-Face, Poison Ivy, the Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, Bane, etc.

So, if you're reading this and you're writing a script for some action-rich movie that has a protagonist or protagonists squaring off against antagonists or an antagonist, remember that sometimes less is more. We never learned who the Joker is in The Dark Knight. He has no normal identity like Two-Face or Scarecrow (Harvey Dent and Johnathan Crane). We never learned his motives. And we never learned for certain how the Joker really got those scars. And that makes him that much more terrifying. Because the only consistent thing about us human beings and fear is that we pretty much fear the unknown. If you know why a villain does what he/she/it does, or you have some understanding of who/what the villain is or where he/she/it came from, then that removes some of the mystery and the protagonists can use that knowledge to their advantage. But much like the dark, ghosts, aliens, or strangers lurking in shadows, we are absolutely terrified by that which we don't understand.

I'll conclude with the three key factors of a good villain, as I see it:

-Rooted in a setting not too far removed from our own. Or at least, rooted in a setting towards which we can easily relate.

-High ratio of wickedness and frequency of deeds to the villain's reasons for committing them.

And finally...
-Is never fully revealed. A good villain has at least one or two key characteristics that are never fully understood. The unknown should be used well with a good villain.

I beg the reader's pardon for my sporadic writing style. Hopefully, though, those who read this will find it interesting and thought-provoking.

My thoughts on "The Dark Knight" itself

I have seen this film last Saturday, the morning after the day it opened. I grounded myself with some skepticism about Heath's Joker, but I tempered it with some giddy Batman-fan anticipation. After all, the last thing I want to do is eat my own words.

So, yeah, it's a fucking great movie. This is worth noting because we're all used to summer blockbusters being brain candy, and dramas and such are contenders for Oscars. In an effort to justify this claim, I'll relate the general formula of the blockbuster as I have been taught (yes, I took a film class once). The formula--or template, if you will--is basically a film with very well known movie stars (who sometimes differ from actual actors), tons of action, and simplistic dialogue. It has to be an action-packed movie because the story is told primarily through visuals, kind of like a music video where the visuals tell a story, but there's no dialogue or anything because, well, you're watching a music video and there's the song. Anyways, visuals move the story, and dialogue is simplistic so people don't have to think as they watch. This makes it marketable to the lowest common denominator, but also to people overseas who don't feel like reading subtitles. And the blockbuster can follow any drama as long as action and fantastic visuals are abundant. This is how "Jaws" differs from "Midnight Cowboy".

I think it was with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man when we started seeing blockbusters that were legitimately good movies with heart and soul. Well, maybe we were already used to it, but we're talking comic book adaptations. Previously, these were only moderately better than video game adaptations (which are better than....well, let's face it, they suck), but I think it was with Spider-Man when we finally started seeing how good comic book movies are made.

So, not only is The Dark Knight a good comic book movie, but it's also a great crime drama. And this kind of irks me because people are saying that if it's such a good crime drama, then it's not much of a comic book movie. This is bothersome because it suggests that the comic books themselves are too simplistic or immature to be regarded as crime drama fiction. I mean, there's a reason people talk about the great "Batman mythos" and "Batman pathos", because it really is that deep.

It's also one of the few movies I've seen when Batman has to deal with two of his nastier adversaries and you don't feel like the time with one is gypped with the time spent with the other. In Batman Begins, he begins facing against a mob boss, then Scarecrow, and it develops into a battle with Ra's Al Ghul and the League of Shadows. It works because the first two are basically stepping stones up to Ra's Al Ghul. In this one, the Joker is just as significant as Harvey Dent and the rise to "White Knight" to the transformation into Two-Face (I'm trying not to include spoilers, but it's not exactly a secret that this happens anyway).

I also have to praise Nolan for correcting his fight-scene flaws. In Begins, it was a jumble of black movement, and trying to follow the fight was a little like vertigo. Here, you can actually appreciate each punch, block, and kick. It's great.

Now, as far as this being a crime drama versus a comic book movie: it's both. The Batman comics are crime drama. When any of these comics are done well, they're just really rich stories of conflict of some sort. Movies like Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco, No Country for Old Men, and so on, are more or less just that. When something is really good, then it should transpose very nicely into just about any medium.

Back to The Dark Knight...I really do like Heath's Joker. He didn't have that grin. That spooky, creepy, skull-revealing grin. But he had the derangement, the apathy, and the insidious nature. I mean, some people are interested in the opinions of this person and that. And granted, I am interested in what Tim Burton, Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton, Frank Miller, and Alan Moore have to say about it. I'm also interested in Michael Bay's opinion since I read a joke script supposedly written by him for The Dark Knight. Or Will Smith, since a trailer for the film was included in his "I Am Legend" movie and his "Hancock" superhero movie is now overshadowed by The Dark Knight. Or anyone involved in Mamma Mia!, for that matter.

But mostly, I want to know what Robert Deniro, Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese, and Joe Pesce have to say about it. These tough guys who play the typical New York mob villains. I wonder about this because The Joker is the greatest villain, ever. And Heath did the character justice. And it's one thing to hear Pesce and Deniro talk tough and give you a glare like they're about to beat the crap out of you. But they're just angry assholes. This villain is fucking evil and dangerous. It's nice to see a villain that doesn't care about mob rule, or money, or drugs, or ANYTHING! We're used to villains being dangerous because they'll do anything--even kill--to get what they want. Here's a villain that kills...just because!! He's made it clear that he doesn't care about all the things other criminals care about. And that makes him even more dangerous.

So, yeah. Good movie, go see it.

My thoughts on the hype of "The Dark Knight"

I should point out that this isn't a review of the movie as much as it's a review of the hype surrounding it. I hadn't seen it yet, so I thought it'd be interesting to relay my thoughts before seeing it. Maybe this will be my last bit of objectivity before I see it because seemingly everyone else who's seen it is anything but objective.

To start, I really don't like how Heath Ledger looks as The Joker. Granted, I understand Nolan is going for a real-world perspective with his take on Batman. And that's cool. It is neat to see what life would be like if there really was a Batman (kind of reminds me of Alan Moore's Watchmen, but I digress). So, realistically, I do understand it's a little hard to grasp a guy whose skin is bleached white, his hair permanently dyed green, and his facial tissue either rubberized or chemically eroded to reveal a massive, skull-revealing grin.

But, honestly, if you can't find a plausible way to explain the chemical changes, then it's hard to justify straight make-up. Calling it war paint doesn't hold any weight because, well, who would pain their face white, dye their hair green, and smear lipstick across his or her face to intimidate people? I'd go with a black and white theme and wear yellow contact lenses (which is probably as uncomfortable as scarring your face while failing to widen your mouth). Heck, Michael Jackson has a skin condition that makes him whiter than Jim Gaffigan. Is it so far-fetched to find a chemical that causes a similar effect on the skin?

Let's back-track a little, too. Nolan is going for a realistic approach to Batman and his allies and villains. So everything is at least somewhat feasible and believable (as far as movies go, anyway). Wouldn't a Joker that follows the more traditional origin be much creepier? When people grin, they don't normally show all their teeth and gums. They also don't normally have naturally green hair and white skin. Now, imagine you actually bump into someone that matches that description. You can scoff if you want, but it it actually happened, you'd be creeped out like never before.

Oddly enough, images and trailers featuring Ledger's Joker have invigorated my love for Jack Nicholson's Joker. I previously had my criticisms of Nicholson's portrayal because he was a little old, not skinny and lanky enough, and too short (but so was Michael Keaton, so I guess we should let that slide...). But they put effort in his transformation. He had the hair and skin. And it's an interesting idea that his grin was the result of an ill-equipped (and possibly incompetent) plastic surgeon. But, he grinned and you saw all his teeth. Also--and this is a point I believe isn't mentioned often enough--but he had the glare of a crazy person. Do you remember a year or so ago when there was that international news story about a runaway bride? Do you remember the images of her? She had a wide-eyed look on her face comparable to a doll's. That's craziness. And Nicholson more or less had that same crazy glare.

Now, I admit, he didn't seem as nasty in that role as he does in other roles. But I think that's more a fault of Tim Burton than Jack Nicholson. Take the scene in Batman when a news broadcast features the female anchor laughing for no reason and then keeling over with the same glare and grin, followed by The Joker's intentionally campy "commercial" for his Smilex-tainted products. Yeah, it seems campy, but there's something sinister about making light of poisoning many, many people and flaunting it. Towards the end of his "commercial", he says in true salesman form "I know what you're saying! 'Where can I find these products?' Well that's the gag....chances are, you bought 'em already!". Or, something close to it. I mean, think about it: that means potentially a few hundred people (at least) have keeled over after washing and rinsing with shampoo, applying make-up, brushing their teeth, rinsing with mouthwash, shaving with cream or foam, putting mustard on their hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly on their bread....you get the idea. And he poisoned a few people to death in the museum and at least a hundred or so people in that parade. I know, Batman cut the ropes and sent the balloons to the stratosphere, but not before the people started going nuts and getting poisoned in the streets.

Finally, you have to give Nicholson and Burton credit. Before the movie, most peoples' perceptions of Batman were campy and ridiculous. Unless you knew your comic books and followed them closely (and knew how to argue your case), admitting to liking Batman was akin to admitting to liking The Smurfs. Given the challenges of the relatively inexperienced Tim Burton (Jack Palance once insulted Burton on set, claiming he didn't have anywhere near the experience and clout that Palance had) and this perception of Batman, I'd say he, Nicholson, and Keaton did a pretty good job. Oh yeah, and Danny Elfman, too, because I'm of the firm belief that music helps the movie a ton.

So, The Dark Knight is now officially in theaters. Most people are claiming it's the greatest super-hero movie ever made and calling Nolan a genius and so on, so forth. If I were only going on Batman Begins, I'd say he was a flawed amateur. It's getting ridiculous because there's virtually no objectivity. So far, my favorite super-hero movie is Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (although the sequel is good enough to take its place in my hierarchy), but it's not a perfect movie and I can certainly see that not everyone would enjoy that movie, comic book geek or otherwise. I'm at least happy that some editor at Salon.com has given The Dark Knight a less than stellar review, and I at least appreciate that it seems possible to not like the movie. Even though they referred to Michael Caine's character as Arthur and compared Ledger's Joker to Conrad Veidt's Gwynplaine from the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs. That last point is idiotic in my opinion because the only thing about Veidt's Gwynplaine that holds any salt is his appearance. If Ledger looked more like Veidt in that movie, then I'd be as rabid and excited as the next fan boy.

I should probably justify my criticism further of Ledger's look. I understand that appearances shouldn't be judged so harshly. Now, in the case of super-hero movies like X-Men and...well, I'm not sure what else, there are visual specifics that I can forgive. Sure, Wolverine didn't have the yellow get-up from the comics, but I actually appreciate that. After all, the yellow get-up made him look like a Mexican wrestler. I'd rather see him with a more functional uniform, and that's what we got. I still didn't like that movie, but they at least did a mostly decent job of Wolverine/Logan.

On the other hand, the visual is pretty important. You're adapting a comic book, the only written medium where the visual appearance is as pronounced as that of a summer blockbuster movie. Often, they're gaudy, colorful, and exaggerated. Some of the visual details are malleable, such as the example I just discussed in the last paragraph. But some visuals are so canon that they shouldn't be altered at all. Even Cesar Romeo was pretty accurate to his comic counterpart. Except for his mustache, but I've seen the show as a kid and even I didn't notice it until editors on web sites and magazines pointed it out. He wasn't spooky, but the show ran during the camp age of Batman comics, so it was actually in line.

So, now I have to somehow convince myself to just accept Ledger's visual interpretation of The Joker when I see The Dark Knight, even though I don't find it the least bit creepy. I know the movie is only PG-13, but I've seen movies with that rating that gave me nightmares. Certainly, being a grown man, I'm more resistant to them, but I should still be spooked by a real-world, no-nonsense Joker. And I'm not. Come to think of it, I don't find Bale's Batman all that intimidating, but that's more a critique of his cape and cowl. I can forgive the body armor, so that's no issue. What does bother me is that he doesn't have square shoulders and the "ears" on his cowl look kind of dumb. My favorite comic book visual of Batman is from The Killing Joke, from maybe the third page. It's the moment he walks into The Joker's cell and he's standing in the doorway, forming a silhouette of himself. He's nothing but a shadow, but seeing him as a shadow and not a man is pretty intimidating. Not to mention the square shoulders and almost block-shaped head make him look like a monolith of doom or something. If you don't know what I'm talking about, see if you can find an impressive image of Maximilian from Disney's The Black Hole.

Maybe I think too much about it. And why not? I am a geek, and people like me aren't that different from sports fans who discuss and argue ad nauseum about whether their favorite baseball team needs a new pitcher, hitter, or short stop. I just wish other people gave things like this this much thought. I wouldn't feel so weird and discussions thereof would be (in my opinion) much less idiotic.

Anyways, I intend to see the new Batman movie, and I do hope I'll like it. I just have to point out I'm not going to convince myself to like it and be a rabid fan boy so I can agree with a bunch of people. The last one (Batman Begins) was a good effort, but not a flawless one. I don't think I've ever seen a flawless movie, and I don't think this one will be any different in that regard. All the same, I hope it's good. And I only trust myself on this matter. Sorry.