Characters that where better than the story they were in

The White Hunter

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Hawki said:
-Mael Radec in Killzone 2 (I actually quite like KZ2, but its plot is easily the weak point. Radec however, is the one character that truly stands out, even if he's not a deep one)
He is incredibly badass. Troop of heavily armed space marines kicks his doors in and he just pulls a knife like let's dance bitches.

Guerilla are really good at making me like the Helghast a lot more than any of the garbage protagonists they put out.

Also they have cooler guns.

OT: Viktor Reznov - Call of Duty: Black Ops. He's the only interestinbg character and he turns out the be a hallucination because convulution is fun.

Dracula, also Death - Lords of Shadow 2. The whole game is just a heaping pile of what the fuck were they thinking, I DON'T NEED STEALTH IN MY CASTLEVANIA DAMN IT. Dracula and Christopher Lee as Death are both great still though.
 

happyninja42

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The Dracula from Van Helsing. My god he was so gloriously over the top in that movie. I still think that movie is actually pretty good in a pulp comic kind of way, but I never got tired of seeing Dracula on screen in that. The actor seemed to be having a blast playing that scenery chewing villain, and I was eating it up right along with him.
 

major_chaos

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I actuality felt the characters in The Division, both your quartet of main base support personnel and the villains, had a huge amount of potential so its a shame they were stuck in a game that barely gave a damn about story.

Also the other hunters in Metroid Prime 3 deserved better than that whimper of a final installment.
 

Ragsnstitches

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In games? Vaas from Far Cry stands out. I think it's actually pretty common for Far Cry games to have good characters completely wasted.

I'm not even talking about his early exit, but he is practically the only thing holding up that narrative and once he's gone they completely fail to realise the potential of his role in the story. Vaas is a twisted reflection of Jason Brodies character, an unsettling example of what embracing the local culture leads to. Even though he's renegade from the "good tribe" he is exactly what that tribe creates... he just indulged himself rather then serving the cult.

Considering Brodies character is weak sauce, having a strong villain define him in contrast was a good way to give his character some life. It works for batman and his villains at least.

Movie wise? Well we have a really good one lately... Batfleck. He is the bright and shining star caught in gravitational pull of a gargantuan black hole, being warped and twisted by his proximity to it. His version of bats is good because he made Batman interesting... something Christian Bales batman lacked.
 

laggyteabag

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Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan deserved a better story than the Star Wars prequels gave him. He was pretty much stealing every scene that he was in, and he was one of the only shining lights within that horribly written, and that horribly directed CG mess of a trilogy. Oh well. Maybe he gets that standalone movie that we have been hearing rumblings about.

Ragsnstitches said:
In games? Vaas from Far Cry stands out.
Oh my god, what a waste that was. Vaas was absolutely brilliant, and probably one of my favourite videogame villains to date, and they threw him away half way through the game. The only reason that I remember Hoyt was because I feel contempt for him, as he was the one that replaced Vaas and couldn't hold a candle to him. Same feeling for L and N in Death Note.
 

DefunctTheory

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Well, to parrot what other people said...

Vaas, Far Cry 3 - Pretty obvious one.

Sandman, Spider-Man 3 - Oh man, yes. Sandman, typically a third stringer, especially compared to Venom and the Goblins, completely stole the show. In some ways, I'm actually sad about that - Much like Batflick, all his awesome really does is highlight how bad everything else in the movie is.

Batman, Dawn of Justice - Like Ewan McGregor, I feel really bad for Affleck. He really put everything he could into that movie, and it shows, but everyone and everything around him just fails to succeed.

Obi Wan, Star Wars E1-3 - Ewan McGregor was just magnificent.

Laggyteabag said:
Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan deserved a better story than the Star Wars prequels gave him. He was pretty much stealing every scene that he was in, and he was one of the only shining lights within that horribly written, and that horribly directed CG mess of a trilogy. Oh well. Maybe he gets that standalone movie that we have been hearing rumblings about.
Don't you dare tease me. I'd kill for one last McGregor/Obi Wan moment, where he doesn't have to wade through the terribleness of Lucas's script, directing, and poor casting of those around him. Fett and Solo can go suck a lemon, give me a Wan movie!
 

sageoftruth

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That's how I felt about the characters from the game Resonance of Fate. For all I know, the story might actually be pretty good, but it took forever to actually take off, to the point where I quit before I had the chance to get invested. However, the main protagonists and their interactions really carried it for me up to that point. It was this game that made me realize that good characters and a good story aren't the same thing.
 

sageoftruth

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Simply by existing in a movie where everyone's lines made people cringe, I think Darth Maul qualifies by virtue of literally having nothing to say in the whole movie.
 

DefunctTheory

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sageoftruth said:
Simply by existing in a movie where everyone's lines made people cringe, I think Darth Maul qualifies by virtue of literally having nothing to say in the whole movie.
They did some interesting things with Maul in the animated series, at least. In many ways, I think Maul may have actually ended up getting more then his first appearance deserved.
 

rosac

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TakerFoxx said:
First of all, let it be known that the only thing I'm stealing from the "Scenes that were better" thread is the title, and I've wanted to do something like this for a while. So yeah.
thank you for the honesty. I won't remove your hand this time, thief!

OT-

This is a tough one as I often remember storylines rather than characters but... Magneto and Professor X in all the modern xmen. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Michael fassbender and James McCavoy have all done fantastic jobs with the complex characters and their relationships, motivations and beliefs. Apart from X2 (Which I believe to be one of the best superhero movies) and Days of future past which I have not seen yet, these iterations of the characters are very well acted and take centre stage, rising above some of the... dodgier storylines,

Honourable mentions- Sandman in spiderman 3 and Wolverine.
 

Hawki

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The White Hunter said:
Hawki said:
-Mael Radec in Killzone 2 (I actually quite like KZ2, but its plot is easily the weak point. Radec however, is the one character that truly stands out, even if he's not a deep one)
He is incredibly badass. Troop of heavily armed space marines kicks his doors in and he just pulls a knife like let's dance bitches.

Guerilla are really good at making me like the Helghast a lot more than any of the garbage protagonists they put out.
I actually think Guerilla did a good job with the protagonists in Killzone 1. Templar and co. have personalities that, while archatypical, still bounce off each other well. It's much better than KZ2, where Alpha Team's personalities kind of blend in with one another, and where every other word is a curse.
 

CaitSeith

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Mordin in Mass Effect 3. I think the story in ME3 is the weakest in the trilogy. Gone is the moral ambiguity of Cerberus. Gone is the sense of the Reapers being near indestructible cosmic horrors. And don't get me started with the ending. But in all this, I think Mordin shows the peak of his character development here.
I think he wasn't because of Shepard. He screamed because of how painful it was for him to admit it. I tried to go Renegade, but I just couldn't shoot him on the back. Not after that...
 

Politrukk

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Andrew Garfield as Spiderman, he just is to Spiderman what Reynolds is to Deadpool for me, 100%

He does the comicbook spiderman, not this grumpy emo kid but the fun dorky yet charismatic Peter Parker and well as Spiderman himself that's the best costume+personality I've ever seen from spiderman on-screen.

The new guy just proves to me how good Garfield actually was

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfV-0Yv5vNY

This opening just has that classic spiderman feel to it the one I never got from the earlier movies.

There's some big doodoos in this movie but Garfield is not the one to my opinion.



Edit:
You know what the Gears Squad after Gears 1, all those characters except for maybe one of the ladies were absolutely fun and well voice acted, they get a lot of credits, Marcus Fenix may be the epitome of the Space Marine-ish stereotype of soldier but he has enough grit and backstory to back it up, Dominic Santiago just has an enormous tragic storyline, same goes for the Carmine Brothers and Tai Kaluso.

Dizzy,Cole and Baird are just fun and enjoyable characters that bring some flavor to the team along the way I think that's why Baird and Cole got to shine more later on.
 

the December King

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Abyssal Dancer said:
Durzo Blint from 'The Night Angel' trilogy by Brent Weeks.
I was struggling with my choice for this question, but your choice is a good one!

Durzo was easily the most interesting character in that series... ugh, thinking back on it now, I had absolutely zero fucks to give for the protagonist. He and the other super young and hot ninja teen were like young Kvothe from the KingKiller Chronicle, but somehow even more unbelievably infallible. Plenty descriptive writing, but it got sooo tiring to read.

On the other hand, that is just my opinion. To those who liked the series, I meant no offense- I just like main characters to be a little more grounded or flawed.
 

Addendum_Forthcoming

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Isaac Chroner, Children of the Corn (1984) .... I kind of hate 99% of what Stephen King is associated with, CotC is no different. Isaac is the only thing that makes the film worthwhile.


Glorious, artery-blocking cheese.
 

FalloutJack

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We call them Large Hams. They are the ones who can steal the scene with the thing they said, how they said it, and what they were doing when they said it, and you know they were damn-well saying something!


Need I go on?