Ever Cheer For the Bad Guy?

[swolf]

The only time I can remember was fairly recent when I was watching "Avatar". I found myself hoping that the military would "destroy those d*mn hippie smurfs"...I didn't miss the point of the movie, I just didn't care. Forget the "Eywa", give them the internet, it's the same thing...except with p----um, "adult material". I know, that's not my most mature thread response but I just got laid off from a menial job so I'm not my usual self. Seriously, I'm a good enough chef to prepare fancy gourmet dishes for dignified people but not good enough for a cheap fast food job?! How does that make sense? GRR!!! Oh well, I take solace in the fact that the new guy...which they had me train (added insult to injury since they thought I was dumb enough to believe the stupid reason they claimed for adding him...even though I didn't ask, sounds like a guilty conscience to me...also, I saw it coming and would've quit but I would rather collect unemployment instead)...anyways, the new guy was talking about how he already has another job set up and will quit without notice for that new job in two weeks. I also take solace in cold...refreshing BEER!!! (No, I'm not drunk...yet.)

Also, the humans from Avatar. It was a spur of the moment thing, I can't remember what made me hate the blue freaks so much

Also, why didn't we just introduce them to the internet? Then, they could stop crying about their tree.

 

[Guffe]

I think the bad guys should win, not all the time ofcourse but sometimes.

Spoiler

The movie Chaos does this very well, the bad guy does not win, but neither does the good guy. It's more to the bad guy in the end but it's done in a very very fantastic way. You should all check it out.

End of Spoiler.


How do I do spoiler boxes? I would've needed one now obviously but I am kinda new to the different things you can do in a Forum post.

 

[Crystal Cuckoo]

Iago in Othello. Evil genius at work and at the same time really quite likeable, as opposed to Othello, the whiny one.

The version with Kenneth Branagh as Iago and Laurence Fishburne as Othello is especially awesome

Oh god, I hated Othello.

"Hey, I think your wife is cheating on you." And then he choked a *****.

 

[RaphaelsRedemption]

I also rooted for the orphan in Orphan. Huh.
OT: I don't necessarily always root for the bad guy to win, but I always find myself hoping that every good guy in the movie (or TV show) will just die.

This is funny.

In Australia, "rooting" was an insult. Very, very crude. You rooted a sheila, or told a ba**ard to "go and get rooted".

I think it's lost a lot of it's meaning now, what with us becoming more and more internationally aware, but I still feel odd about the word.

I would say "barrack" instead.

And I can't help wanting the poor, twisted, clever villians to win in almost every movie with a "big" actor as the hero.

The new Star Trek movie comes to mind. The heroes were prats, while Eric Bana made a compelling... whatever it was. Romulan. I think.

Ooooh, better go brush up on my Star Trek notes, I used to know...

 

[tkioz]

All the freaking time. All the freaking time. Most "heroes" drive me up the bloody wall. Unless the hero has more brains then what God gave a hamster I usually root for the villain (unless they're like a total monster that murders little kids and rapes puppies)

Avatar, anyone?

Fuck those tree loving godless socialist hippies. Capitalism is the true way of life!

I wanted to see both sides get their asses kicked into orbit frankly. The hippies were naive and downright selfish (yes, selfish, they were offered anything they could want in return for rocks that would save an entire race) and the corp was just plain Hollywood dumb/evil, there are better ways to use those avatars to get what you want, it's called a long game, just watching the movie I came up with 10 more cost effective and less violent methods of getting that junk.

 

[Neikun]

In Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, I really liked Roman and wished he'd pop into more scenes throughout the game.

 

[Ironic]

In Law Abiding Citizen, I wanted Clyde to kill everyone.

Definitely.

I also find it weird how in Dexter, almost everyone roots for Dexter, though at the end of the day, he's a murdering psycho-killer. Having said that, I root for Dexter.

 

[Edavies696]

umm Wesker from resident evil 5 i didn't want him to succeed, but i didn't cheer when he started kick the crap out of Sheva

 

[Snipermanic]

I wanted Harry to kill Colin Farrell in In Bruge, I always seem nearly always side with the "bad" characters in films

 

[Therumancer]

I always wanted The Empire to win. Of course they didn't.

Actually they do more or less. One key element of Star Wars is that the good guys are doomed, the entire point is that the universal cycle is changing and "The Force" has dictated that it's time for another reign of evil. This is why the force is cloudy for the good guys, the sith are so powerful, and Anakin/Darth Vader is prophecied to "bring balance" to the force when balance is "down" when the good guys/Jedi Council is ascendant. This was a key element in "Knight Of The Old Republic II" and why Kreia wanted to kill The Force itself to give everyone true control of their destiny.

The thing is that a period of balance comes before a "reign" and this is why Papaltine fell. However "The Empire" is still out there. Ignoring all the novels and so on, the basic idea is that despite the high note on which the series ended, eventually the bad guys are going to take over once way or another.

-

That said, sometimes I "cheer for the bad guys". Especially when it comes to vintage franchise horror movies. I mean you WILL notice that Freddy Kruegar and Jason Vorhees are iconic, and *MOST* of the people they kill are twits in one way or another. As various people analyzing horror movies point out, a lot of these things are morality plays of a sort. This is also one of the things that made "Evil Dead" so popular, because in the original it turned the general formula on it's head, making it so it's the least worthy/most annoying character who survives/saves the day when he goes through a "I don't care anymore" type transformation. Going from Ash the trembling uber-wuss, to the Ash we all know and love.

Oh and let's not forget Godzilla movies.

-

In other cases I will be honest in saying that I think the bad guys are right, even if they are doing something unpleasant. This occurs often when political analogies are involved, or some noble goal is dismissed simply because it would kill a whole heck of a lot of people. I've had similar thoughts about what needs to be done today (as I've posted before), and overpopulation is one of the major problems that contributes to everything from enviromental problems, to the over-consumption of resources which is rapidly leading to planetary depletion, to the continued division of humanity preventing a lot of advancement and making space exploration impractical which hampers finding more living space and resources to allow for a larger population.

Stories like "The Watchmen" are powerful in part because they make this point, Ozymandias was a mass murderer, but he DID save the world, even if arguably he'll be the one ruling it. When looking at some bad guys plans I can't help but comparing at times, probably because I read "Watchmen" for the first time when I was so young. "Is it worth it?" can be a valid overall question, and while depressing the fact that when a plan is viable the answer is probably "yes" when you put instinctive morality/distaste for murder behind you and look at things through the cold eye of logic.

 

[lewiswhitling]

the predator.. in both movies.

 

[lewiswhitling]

actually, sorry for the double post, but i think it's interesting how standards have actually changed here. By the standards of the sixties, cinema often has the "villain" winning. In the old days, the law would ALWAYS win.. in movies like the league of gentlemen etc. If it involved the american government, the person who broke the law would always lose. Nowadays we have films like oceans 11 etc, and batman, who openly promote and beautify illegal activites.

So maybe, just maybe, a new genre of films will soon come, where the monster habitually wins. I hope so anyway

 

[deus-ex-machina]

The demon from paranormal activity. Please kill these idiots.

Actually, this is a perfect chance to introduce what I like to call Harman's Law. 99% of the characters in horror movies are "stupid white people": people who inevitably go into the house, try to hide the body, go off by themselves with the serial killer around, or open the box containing the unspeakable evil. .99% are black people who always die because horror movie villains are racists. The other .01% of horror movie characters who make all of the right decisions but still get screwed in the end. I call those characters "tragic heroes"

In the interest of science, I am offering internet cookies to anybody who can give an example of a horror movie with no "stupid white people" moments.

Home Sweet Home - One of the worst Horror movies ever but if I remember, the family only move into the house. There is nothing inherantly stupid in moving house. But it's just the first safehold that the manic psycho comes across in his travels.

Also I would say something along the lines of A Tale Of Two Sisters (Janghwa, Hongryeon). Technically, there are no stupid WHITE people in the film.

 

[Veleste]

First memory of rooting for the badguy I guess was Frollo. Even though now, older, I realise he's a creepy stalker I just hated Phoebus' 'jock' like personality. The storyline in that book is really messed up.

Obviously Death Note, it's come up a lot already, but I was really rooting for Kira at first, he was doing a lot of good, then the power went to his head and it all quickly went downhill.

Hans Gruber, my god if there was ever a bad guy you could love it was him. McClaine was cool and all but 'SHOOT ZE GLASS!'

 

[Doomsday11]

Prince Nuada Hellboy 2
Dexter Morgan(Not really sure if that counts)
The comedian(again up to interpretation)

 

[Chris^^]

all the time, I love movie bad guys, they're so much cooler than the stereotypical boring good guy, but then when you get a good guy of questionable morals I still hate them =S

but generally I like evil forces because I hate people in generally, but especially the type of person that they're fighting (moral ones)

 

[psychowatcher]

I usually tend to root for the bad guys because I often find the heroes of what I watch to be too damn boring and/or annoying to the point where you want to wring their necks. I also tend to identify with the rage of some villains who are after revenge. Like in Law Abiding Citizen. I wanted Clyde to murder everyone because, well, everyone deserved it. And I would feel the same in his shoes. Hell, in some movies, the bad guy is the result of the "good guys" being total dicks. There are also movies where the bad guy is who you want to win, either for the sake of entertainment or because the prtagonists have less of a survival instinct than someone who is in a coma. Example: Final Destination series. Death is the bad guy.

So yeah, "Yay bad guys" seems to be my default setting, with a few exceptions.

 

[Seraphic Star]

The inverse case: I just want that freaking Dexter to get shot, or go to jail.