ST Villain/Evil Archetypes Of The ST

i think a lot of of people dislike the new films because there is no bad guy they can hold up as "THE ULTIMATE VILLAIN". no villain they can "love". they're all awful people.

kylo isn't cool enough for some. snoke was but he died. there is no vader, no maul and no sidious. this trilogy goes against the trope of making the villain cool and awesome to behold. the villains are portrayed as horrible, flawed individuals and people don't seem comfortable with that. they want straight evil.

"snoke is all powerful and has a plan, etc, etc."

but evil isn't lile that... especially now. evil is better represented in the new films because it's more realistic.

the archetypes of evil have started to fail us.

thoughts?

 

IMHO here ST made a very serious mistake, so serious that I cannot forgive it at all. Previously SW had the greatest villains ever, we had the pure, brilliant evil (Palpy, Tarkin) and Lord Vader, a brilliant and conflicted evil, with darkness so deep it can give anyone the creeps but with a very hidden capacity of love that could conquer this darkness despite everything. We knew that redemption is not for everyone, some would never repent and would never be forgiven, while we could see that it is possible to come back, given the right circumstances.

Now we have incompetent evils and ridiculously incompetent evils: no creeps but laugh and parody, and no reason, and no moral teachings... only Kylo gives me some hope, but he is being so far off the WOW factor his grandfather possessed (even as a Jedi), that I wonder how history will judge him. I hope he'll become a freakingly competent emperor/ supreme leader though, just to prove me wrong.

 

Kylo is neither here nor there. He's not straight up like Vader or Palpatine. He's "conflicted". However, now that Snoke is gone, what is there to be conflicted about?

Vader fell because Palpatine took advantage of his vulnerabilities which was his care for Padme. We have NO idea how Snoke turned Ben Solo and thus have no context for Ben's fall.

And then you have Hux....case closed.

 

Hux is your textbook evil villain. Evil for the sake of being evil. He’s the one we need to look out for.

Kylo is a tragic villain. He seems to firmly believe he needs to tear down the old and create a new......status quo(?)

Yeah that’s got to be the word I’m looking for

 

Kylo Ren has already become one of the more popular saga characters that there’s been following TLJ.

In a movie that’s largely about learning from and overcoming failure, TLJ showed Kylo Ren achieving the life goal he’s wanted for a long time. In his mind he succeeded.

Kylo Ren is a villain who contains aspects of his parents and mentors and idols. In particular Anakin during his ROTS slide. I think Anakin’s grandson is becoming both more respected and more liked by many fans as they get to know him more and watch him develop. I’m certainly sensing that all over.

 

Well, a lot of people do love Kylo Ren. Haven’t you heard that he is a “sexy emo honeypot”?

Not everyone is into that, but those who don’t like his character usually don’t because they don’t find him threatening, not because of “realism”. I mean, he is no Joffrey Baratheon, who was actually universally hated AND threatening. Kylo Ren also doesn’t exist in a reality that is reacting to a Columbine high school massacre. He exists in a fictional world that more than often makes it clear how utterly fictional it is, and the audience reacts to him either like he is joke or like he a hot Byronic tragic villain.

As for Snoke, well, his presence was short-lived so not much to say, but he was entertaining and had presence. He felt threatening at least. Hux is a typical Saturday morning cartoon villain. I liked him in TFA, but in TLJ he was just a terrible character.

 

the problem is neither Hux nor Kylo are a threat to the main heroes, Hux is basically comic relief at this point and Kylo has managed to loose once and then had his life saved by the hero, any further confrontation between the two is pointless since we know Rey can easily defeat him

 

Kylo is possibly the best character in Star Wars and the breakout cultural star of the Sequel Trilogy. If you want disposable easy black-white villains, there's always the MCU.

 

The Dark Side has cookies. This is all I need to know.

 

I think Kylo is going to find that the power he gained with becoming Supreme Leader, and embracing the Dark Side is not filling the hole in his soul...

 

I think that underplays Hux quite a bit... Kylo too. The entire resistance from D'Qar was reduced to a couple dozen people by the end of the film. Seems like a threat to me.

 

The lack of a good villain is a huge problem with this franchise. Unlike some I think, Snoke didn’t interest me at all. I didn’t think he was interesting and I didn’t think anyone had a plan for his story which made it worse. Kylo has potential from TFA. I wanted Kylo to kill Snoke and take his place. But, I wanted Kylo to grow as a villain and become believably scary in order to be the ultimate villain. That never happened.

I don’t understand what they’re going for with Kylo. He’s still super whiny, but there is zero sympathetic about his story so it’s become just annoying, not compelling. On the flip side, he’s the cardinal sin for a villain - not scary. Worse, it’s like RJ tried to make him not scary. With a few minor tweaks, he could have been scary in TLJ. There’s just too much focus on his temper tantrums and indecision, without leaving a sense of his craftiness or downright evil intent.

I’m not sure if he plotted to overthrow Snoke or just fell into it. That. Is. So. Lame. I’m not sure if he wanted to kill the Resistance because he wants to run the galaxy in his evil ways or because Leia and Rey hurt his fee fees. That. Is. So. Lame.

 

I would have preferred a real villain, but more a combination of Palpatine (at PT times) and Vader (at OT times). His goal could have been different and less to rule the galaxy, but more to destroy it, which could have caused conflict within the bad guys. But yes, I cannot connect to Kylo at all or see him as a valid villain. And your heroes are only as good as your villains are, so we have the dilemma. Rey did beat Kylo already 2 times, while Kylo stays a wannabe.

 

Do you think putting full stops after each word makes your argument stronger? No. It. Doesn't.

This is going to become just another thread for complaining about TLJ...surely we have enough of those already.

 

I’m expressing how I feel, not making an argument or trying to convince you of anything.

The OP is about how some feel there is lack of a good villain, no? And then it argues that that’s okay because evil is more realistic in this series? In a discussion of that, it seems reasonable that some would just agree with the first part and not the second.

I do not understand the instinct in these threads to complain about different opinions being expressed. Do you really want conversations where people are dishonest and censored in what they think? Do you want these conversations to be bubbled so only certain povs are valid? Is that engaging discussion in your mind?

I could go find a thread where everyone agrees that Kylo sucks. I would rather be able to discuss what I find interesting and not interesting about him with people that have a wide variety of opinions.

 

ST has zero good villains in my humble opinion. If to define them in one word then that would be "Shallow".
-Snoke is the victim of set up vs pay off huge mistake on JJ/JR part. He turned out to be inferior version of Palpatine with undeveloped background, motivation and humiliating death.
-Hux was somewhat good foil to Kylo and emotional Tarkin in TFA, but was totally destroyed by RJ in TLJ by turning into the joke' producer.
-Phasma is just walking chrome dome. I doubt people would argue that she is the most useless villain in the whole SW saga. Even Nut Ganrey played bigger role and was more influential then she was.
-Kylo supposed to be the Dragon to Snoke's Big Bad, but unlike Vader he isn't competent, he can't be dominant, he is over emotional. He is just isn't scary.
Maybe he is tragic? That was the goal i guess, but without believable background i can't empathize him. And Kylo has no believable background. Why he came to Snoke before Luke's incident? And became chaotic villain who killed numerous people because you saw your uncle with lightsaber? I read too much good fantasy/sci-fi stuff to buy that 10 yo kid writing.
The way he was portrayed in TLJ, killing LST and Han, ordering to wipe out the village of innocent people, was suicidal move for such a character. Emotional unstable, pitiful - he could be somewhat sympathetic if he wasn't shown as the mass murderer. How he supposed to look for me and other people given all the context and details? Kylo is the disgusting aggressive little ferret.
In fact he could have work as the concept, but JJ and RJ failed to execute that concept.

ST villains easily the weakest in SW saga.
I love Darth Vader for his dominant, charismatic nature and believably tragic past.
I love Palpatine for his shady, crafty, hilarious, fabulous personality and tremendous actor's work.
I like Dooku because Chris Lee's charisma.
I like Darth Maul because of martial skills, psychotic nature and CONSISTENCY (yeah, thats why Maul is better Kylo than Kylo himself).

I can hardly find why i should like Snoke, Hux, Phasma or not to despise Kylo.

 

Except your first post does not mention anything interesting about him, just negative things...and I thought the 'That. Is. So. Lame.' stuff just came across as though it was written by a 10 year old, not someone who's interested in a discussion.

It's not about different opinions, it's just that so many threads seem to get bogged down in people listing the same complaints and stating them as though they are facts - they're not really discussing anything, just listing their complaints (see the post above this one).

 

Hux is the monologue villain of this trilogy.

 

Actually my first post talks about how I wanted him to become the big villain because I thought he was so interesting with so much potential in TFA. I liked that turn of events, I only didn’t like how it happened.

Well if you think me emphasizing how much I don’t like certain directions for his character makes me sound like a child, I’ll just say that reacting so defensively to opinions you disagree with doesn’t sound super adult to me either, but what’s the point of that back and forth exactly?

If you think certain posts are bogging down threads, here’s a thought - ignore them. Respond to posts you want to engage with.

Edit re: Hux - he’s ruined as villain. You can’t turn what was once a pretty interesting background villain into the butt of jokes for an entire movie and still expect him to be frightening.

 

I haven't reacted defensively to your opinions, I haven't even said what my opinions are...I've just said that saying things like 'That. Is. So. Lame.' (twice) does not sound like someone who wants to enter into a mature discussion...it sounds like something from a kid's TV show.

Just on Hux: he's not really supposed to be scary. Were any of the generals / admirals in the OT that scary? He's supposed to be something of a pantomime villain - uptight, arrogant, pompous and over the top...what makes him dangerous is the military power he commands, and the fact that he's willing to destroy anyone or anything to get what he wants. I like him, I think his over-the-topness is funny.

 

I can hardly remember the Emperial admirals or generals or captains who were comic in OT. Some of them were incompetent like the guy who got force choked in ESB but they never gave the reasons for the jokes.

 

What about that storm trooper that bonks his head in ANH? I was laughing so hard during that scene that tears were streaming down my face and flooded the whole room and caused everyone in it to drown. I'm now being charged for manslaughter.

 

I love Vader too, but he's just as much of a murderer as Kylo. This is just me, but I wouldn't like it as much if all villains had the exact same personality. Same with Palpatine.
I'm not sure if you're only counting the movies or also the TV shows/EU but if you only mean the movies, there's nothing more consistent about Maul than Kylo, unless you can give me an example of Kylo's inconsistency.

 

You are correct

 

People who grew up on the prequels forget the difference between 6 movies to establish Vader and Palpatine and so far only 2 for Kylo Ren and Snoke. That’s a huge difference. I’d argue we have experienced more character from Kylo Ren and Snoke through 2 films than we did Vader and the Emperor through ANH and TESB.

If an anthology film eventually makes use of Snoke as a younger villain pre-injury and builds his backstory up a little more he could easily grow in interest even knowing his end. A Luke Skywalker anthology film in the future will probably happen with a younger actor. That could be the moment.

Vader is the most dominant Force and one of the scariest on screen villains of all time and voiced by one of the best voices of all time. Nothing can compare to that. Kylo Ren is interesting though and I disagree that he isn’t scary and that he couldn’t become even more confident and dominant by IX. Especially if they cut a year into the future and he seems even older and more in control and menacing with the Force. We have seen his power grow after killing his Master. The Force pull of the saber that Rey overwhelmed him with wasn’t possible again in TLJ. Killing Snoke increased his Dark Side power. He also killed 5 Prateorian guards to her 3 when fully healthy. His biggest weakness is his feelings for her but if she breaks his heart he could become even more Vader-like in his anger. He’s also thinking he’s the hero of this story and that he’s brought the Skywalker bloodline to new heights by becoming the Supreme leader. As feared as Vader was he was still largely a hitman with magic. Kylo Ren now has to lead.

Hux is a weasel but he’s still as evil as it gets and that makes him ruthless and conniving. Those traits are strong allies of antagonism.