Who (or what) are your favorite movie villains of all-time?

[ijustposthere]

Sorry Remy, the Joker didn't win. Maybe you could argue he played to a draw, but he didn't win. His ultimate goal was Batman, and Batman/Gordon covered up everything with Dent. Darth Vader lost when he allowed Anakin Skywalker to regain control.

 

[NCChiFan]

Toss another obscure one out there, but it isn't a person. The Event Horizon. That ship still bothers me at night, in my lonely place.

 

[number51]

1. Your facts are wrong. Keyser Soze escaped at the end as the whole point of the movie is how he outsmarted everyone by pretending to be a crippled petty thing. So 1 is a flat out win. He kills the only person that can identify him and he gets away and disappears.

Your a good man remy, a little obsessive, but good. Soze killed the only person that could identify him before spending so much time with law enforcement officials on both coasts. After that everybody knows him, he went from 100% anonymous to one of the most recognizable criminals in the world. it's not just the cops that know him now it's all the criminals he fucked over, nowhere to hide. He went from complete freedom, the ability to walk down the street anywhere in the world to spending the rest of his life in a hole.

Win? I like freedom, so I call that a giant loss, really one of the biggest **** ups in movie history.

 

[remydat]

Sorry Remy, the Joker didn't win. Maybe you could argue he played to a draw, but he didn't win. His ultimate goal was Batman, and Batman/Gordon covered up everything with Dent. Darth Vader lost when he allowed Anakin Skywalker to regain control.

Joker's ultimate goal was to create chaos and Havoc which he did. Again, the movie makes it clear with the whole, "Some people just want to watch the world burn," comment. Batman was never the ultimate goal, he was simply one destination on a journey of chaos and destruction. A journey that continues in a Dark Knight Rises as 8 years after the events of Dark Knight, Gordon and Batman are both broken and affected by their covering up Dent's crimes. Gordon to the point that he writes a letter confessing the cover up which Bane finds and Batman as he has become a recluse and retired as the Batman. This despite the fact organized crime has been defeated but their cover up of Dent is what ultimately causes things to crumble yet again. Joker's victory was in corrupting Dent and Gordon via the cover-up and driving Batman to retire.

Darth Vader and Anakin are one in the same. You really have to do some mental gymnastics to pretend like his overcoming the dark side that had consumed him was not him winning.

Again, I'm going off what the movies say. If you want to consider that not winning then that's your choice. In the context of movie villains, I think they succeeded so to each his/her own I guess.

 

[remydat]

Your a good man remy, a little obsessive, but good. Soze killed the only person that could identify him before spending so much time with law enforcement officials on both coasts. After that everybody knows him, he went from 100% anonymous to one of the most recognizable criminals in the world. it's not just the cops that know him now it's all the criminals he fucked over, nowhere to hide. He went from complete freedom, the ability to walk down the street anywhere in the world to spending the rest of his life in a hole.

Win? I like freedom, so I call that a giant loss, really one of the biggest **** ups in movie history.

And again, if there was a future movie showing the fall-out, you may have a point.

Instead the movie ends with it being made clear that the expectation is that Soze will disappear never to be heard from again. That's what the movie says dude. That he will return to the shadows from whence he came. He will continue to run his business from the shadows as he had been doing before.

Like you are free to consider him losing but in the context of the OP, the movie makes it clear that this is a win for Soze.

So like I said to each his/her own. In a movie world where Villains tend to lose without any sort of gain achieved, these characters won within the context of the world the movie created.

 

[ijustposthere]

Nah man, Darth Vader and Anakin are not one in the same. The actions of each under either side of the force clarify that. Vader even says as much when taking Luke to the Emperor.

As for Joker, yeah, he wants chaos, but his ultimate goal is getting Batman to kill. He fails in that goal. All the chaos, is to get Batman to break his rule. Like I said, if you want to argue that it was a draw, I can agree with that, but he didn't win.

EDIT: Re: Vader, regardless of how you slice it he lost. The Emperor was trying to turn Luke into his apprentice, and was goading him in to fighting Vader. Luke defeated Vader. Vader only defeated Palpatine with a selfless act, and at that point, he was no longer the bad guy.

 

[remydat]

Nah man, Darth Vader and Anakin are not one in the same. The actions of each under either side of the force clarify that. Vader even says as much when taking Luke to the Emperor.

As for Joker, yeah, he wants chaos, but his ultimate goal is getting Batman to kill. He fails in that goal. All the chaos, is to get Batman to break his rule. Like I said, if you want to argue that it was a draw, I can agree with that, but he didn't win.

Of course they are. They inhabit the same body and share the same consciousness. It's the same person. It's not like he has multiple personality disorder. Anakin made a choice to give in to the dark side and then he made a choice to save his son. Like if Anakin had lived, is it your argument he wouldn't face punishment for his crimes because he's not Darth Vader? That's absurd, legally he is responsible for the crimes Vader committed because he didn't lose free will or agency when turning to the dark side.

Batman was merely one of Jokers targets but not the only one. He clearly went after Dent as well. And again, Joker killing Rachel and the cover up led Batman to retire. So you have 2 previously incorruptible individuals (Dent and Gordon) that violate the law they were charged to upheld. One becomes a sociopath and one is so guilt ridden he wants to confess. Then you have Batman choosing to retire instead of fight. That's not a draw in my point. The dude fucked up the lives of the 3 main heroes. Hell give him a loss for or draw for Batman and he's still 2-1 or 2-0-1 because Dent and Gordon took Ls.

 

[number51]

That he will return to the shadows from whence he came. He will continue to run his business from the shadows as he had been doing before.

Before? Like when he could walk freely anywhere in the world? You can run your business from the shadows and still be completely anonymous. Run your business and have the freedom to go anywhere, like it was before his brilliant plan.

Soze fucked up, he lost his freedom, epic failure.

"But, but that's what he wanted!" Okay he's an idiot. Can we just agree on that?

 

[remydat]

Before? Like when he could walk freely anywhere in the world? You can run your business from the shadows and still be completely anonymous. Run your business and have the freedom to go anywhere, like it was before his brilliant plan.

Soze fucked up, he lost his freedom, epic failure.

"But, but that's what he wanted!" Okay he's an idiot. Can we just agree on that?

Again you are completely ignoring the facts of the movie.

1. The vast majority of people think Soze isn't real.

2. Marquez knew not just Soze's face but had intimate knowledge of his businesses. It's that intimate knowledge that would prove this mythical criminal is real and provide an ability for a case to be made against him.

3. Criminals that work for Soze don't even know when they are working for Soze hence why Maraquez was so important.

4. Soze was given immunity by the Feds not the Customs dude.

5. The Customs dude has a single sketch of a now dead Hungarian of Verbal Kint ie a guy everyone already knows was at the scene of the incident. Any decent lawyer could easily argue the sketch with no corroborating evidence just proves Kint was there and that the dead Hungarian was simply confused.

6. Kint's entire conversation with the Customs Agent was essentially off the record because he already has his immunity deal and literally was just waiting for it to be processed.

7. The movie closes with the narration that he will just disappear never to be heard from again.

So what freedom has Soze lost? The Customs Agent knows his face but he doesn't have any kind of convincing proof to overrule the FBI approved immunity provided to Kint since the witness is dead and provided a sketch of someone that everyone already knows was there. He also has no idea of how Soze's operations work or how to link any crimes to Soze/Kint since those names are just criminal aliases.

So yes the movie tells us he won. If you want to write a sequel where the Customs Agent tracks down and arrests Kint and somehow creates evidence out of thin air to link Kink to all of his criminal enterprises then be my guest. As it stands now Kint could literally walk back into the Customs Agent's office and said agent has absolutely zero jurisdiction or grounds to overrule the immunity deal. Like that's kid of the point of killing all witnesses which all witnesses are dead.

 

[Tater]

Again you are completely ignoring the facts of the movie.

1. The vast majority of people think Soze isn't real.

2. Marquez knew not just Soze's face but had intimate knowledge of his businesses. It's that intimate knowledge that would prove this mythical criminal is real and provide an ability for a case to be made against him.

3. Criminals that work for Soze don't even know when they are working for Soze hence why Maraquez was so important.

4. Soze was given immunity by the Feds not the Customs dude.

5. The Customs dude has a single sketch of a now dead Hungarian of Verbal Kint ie a guy everyone already knows was at the scene of the incident. Any decent lawyer could easily argue the sketch with no corroborating evidence just proves Kint was there and that the dead Hungarian was simply confused.

6. Kint's entire conversation with the Customs Agent was essentially off the record because he already has his immunity deal and literally was just waiting for it to be processed.

7. The movie closes with the narration that he will just disappear never to be heard from again.

So what freedom has Soze lost? The Customs Agent knows his face but he doesn't have any kind of convincing proof to overrule the FBI approved immunity provided to Kint since the witness is dead and provided a sketch of someone that everyone already knows was there. He also has no idea of how Soze's operations work or how to link any crimes to Soze/Kint since those names are just criminal aliases.

So yes the movie tells us he won. If you want to write a sequel where the Customs Agent tracks down and arrests Kint and somehow creates evidence out of thin air to link Kink to all of his criminal enterprises then be my guest. As it stands now Kint could literally walk back into the Customs Agent's office and said agent has absolutely zero jurisdiction or grounds to overrule the immunity deal. Like that's kid of the point of killing all witnesses which all witnesses are dead.

Why did the agent drop his coffee cup and go running out looking around for him if he didn't know enough to be able to link him to the crimes?




I know I regret getting involved in this one.

 

[number51]

Again you are completely ignoring the facts of the movie.

1. The vast majority of people think Soze isn't real.

2. Marquez knew not just Soze's face but had intimate knowledge of his businesses. It's that intimate knowledge that would prove this mythical criminal is real and provide an ability for a case to be made against him.

3. Criminals that work for Soze don't even know when they are working for Soze hence why Maraquez was so important.

4. Soze was given immunity by the Feds not the Customs dude.

5. The Customs dude has a single sketch of a now dead Hungarian of Verbal Kint ie a guy everyone already knows was at the scene of the incident. Any decent lawyer could easily argue the sketch with no corroborating evidence just proves Kint was there and that the dead Hungarian was simply confused.

6. Kint's entire conversation with the Customs Agent was essentially off the record because he already has his immunity deal and literally was just waiting for it to be processed.

7. The movie closes with the narration that he will just disappear never to be heard from again.

So what freedom has Soze lost? The Customs Agent knows his face but he doesn't have any kind of convincing proof to overrule the FBI approved immunity provided to Kint since the witness is dead and provided a sketch of someone that everyone already knows was there. He also has no idea of how Soze's operations work or how to link any crimes to Soze/Kint since those names are just criminal aliases.

So yes the movie tells us he won. If you want to write a sequel where the Customs Agent tracks down and arrests Kint and somehow creates evidence out of thin air to link Kink to all of his criminal enterprises then be my guest. As it stands now Kint could literally walk back into the Customs Agent's office and said agent has absolutely zero jurisdiction or grounds to overrule the immunity deal. Like that's kid of the point of killing all witnesses which all witnesses are dead.

You are a word machine, an unstoppable argument generator. We know how this will end, I will just stop and you will win by sheer blunt force trauma from your keyboard.

Right after I prove you wrong.

"4. Soze was given immunity by the Feds" But the cops thought Soze wasn't real, why would he need a deal.

"Kint's entire conversation with the Customs Agent was essentially off the record because he already has his immunity deal" I don't think immunity deals with false identities hold up in court, that conversation was a confession.

Who had immunity?


"The Customs dude has a single sketch" The guy spent a day in NYC Jail and a day in a California police station and you think all they have is a sketch? This isn't the 1700's cops have cameras now, they have his image from 1,000 different angles.

So they know he exists, he has no immunity, and they know exactly what he looks like. He is absolutely a wanted man, let's start with suspicion of murder.

You switch between 'yes he will be in hiding forever" to "he will not have to hide because they don't know what he looks like".

They have pictures of him, not sketches, actual photographs. He went from being completely free and anonymous to a well known criminal. His plan cost him his freedom, but you claim that is what he wanted all along.

Any reply short of 500 words will be an insult.

 

[Urblock]

Wow. You guys will argue about anything. :lmao:

 

[number51]

Wow. You guys will argue about anything. :lmao:

That is complete bullshit, please find one other subject remy and I have ever argued about. What's that can't find anything? Not surprised, never happened. You made that up, pulled it out of thin air. I await either proof of your accusations or an apology for your mendacity.

Good day sir, I said good day!

But yeah I've typed more words about The Usual Suspects than about the Bears. I knew exactly what was going to happen when I suggested Soze failed, remy has trigger subjects, that is one. It is amazing to watch him leap into action, Energizer Bunny, no quit in remy.

 

[remydat]

Why did the agent drop his coffee cup and go running out looking around for him if he didn't know enough to be able to link him to the crimes?




I know I regret getting involved in this one.

Because he realized he was lied to and wanted to confront Kint. You will notice, he didn't start a manhunt, he didn't alert any other police, he went after Kint by himself because he wanted to confront him not because he had any power to arrest him. He was a customs agent talking to someone who had already given a statement to the DA and whose immunity had already been granted. Kint talked to him simply because he was waiting for the immunity to processed. Kujan has no authority to arrest or detain him.

Everything Kint told him was pulled from the room. But we know the story Kint told him couldn't be the story he told the Feds in order to get immunity because again all the names, Kobayashi, etc. came from the very room they were meeting in which is not the room the Feds interviewed him in.

So the whole story is simply just Kint fucking with the customs dude because it has zero impact on his immunity deal. That is precisely why the movie made it so he was talking to a Customs dude with no official power rather than the Feds who granted him immunity.

If the movie makers wanted us to think Kint had lost, they would have set the story as him talking to the Feds and them finding out he was lying before he disappeared. They obviously didn't do that.

 

[remydat]

You are a word machine, an unstoppable argument generator. We know how this will end, I will just stop and you will win by sheer blunt force trauma from your keyboard.

Right after I prove you wrong.

"4. Soze was given immunity by the Feds" But the cops thought Soze wasn't real, why would he need a deal.

"Kint's entire conversation with the Customs Agent was essentially off the record because he already has his immunity deal" I don't think immunity deals with false identities hold up in court, that conversation was a confession.

Who had immunity?


"The Customs dude has a single sketch" The guy spent a day in NYC Jail and a day in a California police station and you think all they have is a sketch? This isn't the 1700's cops have cameras now, they have his image from 1,000 different angles.

So they know he exists, he has no immunity, and they know exactly what he looks like. He is absolutely a wanted man, let's start with suspicion of murder.

You switch between 'yes he will be in hiding forever" to "he will not have to hide because they don't know what he looks like".

They have pictures of him, not sketches, actual photographs. He went from being completely free and anonymous to a well known criminal. His plan cost him his freedom, but you claim that is what he wanted all along.

Any reply short of 500 words will be an insult.

Meanwhile, Verbal Kint tells the authorities everything he knows in exchange for immunity. After making his statement to the district attorney, Kint is placed in a police station office where Kujan requests to hear the story again, from the beginning......

Verbal admits that the whole affair, from the beginning, was Keaton's idea. His bail having been posted, Verbal departs with his immunity.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/synopsis

Again he was granted immunity and already gave his official statement. While he was waiting for his bond to be posted, Kujan ie the Customs Agent wants to hear his story again because he believes Keaton was the mastermind behind it. Kujan has no official capacity or power here. Kint is placed in a different interrogation room. His story to Kujan used names that he pulled from the room so it's can't really be the story he told the DA.

The point about the sketch is that the sketch is specifically from the Hungarian who was on the ship that claimed it was Kint who was killing everyone and not Keaton who Kujan was convinced it was. If that Hungarian had lived, Kujan could maybe make a case against Kint as the murderer on the ship and hence it could invalidate the immunity deal. Instead, the Hungarian dies and now Kujan simply has a sketch from a dead man which is meaningless without the dead man to testify.

As Marquez is also dead, there is also no one that knows how to link anything back to Kint. So yes they have his photos but those photos don't prove innocence or guilt. The only thing that would have been able to provide a means to put him away was if Marquez had lived and revealed the inner workings of his organization or if the Hungarian had lived and been able to testify that Kint was the guy who murdered all those people on the docks.

As it stands now, Kint is a free man with immunity. So yes he could walk into Kujan's office and there is nothing Kujan can do to him. I am simply saying the story makes it clear that he will simply return to the shadows and never be seen again. Not because anyone can convict him but because that has always been his preference ie to operate from the shadows.

Now if you disagree, please explain to me what they can charge Kint with and what evidence they have to convict him? All they have is photos of who Kint is. That does not constitute evidence of a crime. And his lying to Kujan doen't invalidate his immunity because Kujan had no authority to question him in the first place. The local detective there simply allowed him to talk to Kint as a courtesy. All Kint is guilty of is lying to a Customs Agent who never arrested him or read him Miranda rights rendering anything he said to Kujan meaningless.

 

[number51]

Meanwhile, Verbal Kint tells the authorities everything he knows in exchange for immunity. After making his statement to the district attorney, Kint is placed in a police station office where Kujan requests to hear the story again, from the beginning......

Verbal admits that the whole affair, from the beginning, was Keaton's idea. His bail having been posted, Verbal departs with his immunity.

I stopped reading here. Verbal Kint is an alias for Soze, he is not a real person in the movie, he is pretend, make believe, he does not exist in the film therefore he has no immunity. It is like saying a unicorn has immunity.

I'm not reading the rest of that mess, it is clear you have never seen the film, if you had you would know that the non-existent Verbal Kint is not real and you would stop babbling on about his pretend immunity that never existed.

Really though, love you man.

 

[number51]

Why did the agent drop his coffee cup and go running out looking around for him if he didn't know enough to be able to link him to the crimes?




I know I regret getting involved in this one.

Oh you are all in on this, no escape. He dropped his cup to go arrest Soze. Soze will spend the rest of his, what I'm sure will be a very short life, on the run. But that was Sozes plan from the start, I guess he is a freedom hating un-American despicable.

 

[remydat]

I stopped reading here. Verbal Kint is an alias for Soze, he is not a real person in the movie, he is pretend, make believe, he does not exist in the film therefore he has no immunity. It is like saying a unicorn has immunity.

I'm not reading the rest of that mess, it is clear you have never seen the film, if you had you would know that the non-existent Verbal Kint is not real and you would stop babbling on about his pretend immunity that never existed.

Really though, love you man.

Again I will ask you a simple question. What legal evidence do you have Soze exists? What legal evidence do you have of any crimes he has committed? The DA gave Verbal Kint immunity. Verbal Kint has a criminal record, a social security number, a history of petty crimes. You run the Spacey character's fingerprints in the system and Verbal Kint pops up not Keyser Soze.

The audience and Kujan may think he is Soze but neither Kujan nor anyone in this movie world has anything to prove Soze exists and that Kint is in fact Soze. So your error is confusing what the audience thinks it knows with what Kujan can prove.

But again this is simple, present your evidence against the Spacey character?

Until then, "the greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing the world he doesn't exist."

 

[Tater]

Oh you are all in on this, no escape. He dropped his cup to go arrest Soze. Soze will spend the rest of his, what I'm sure will be a very short life, on the run. But that was Sozes plan from the start, I guess he is a freedom hating un-American despicable.

Take a deep breath and re-read my post, it was a reply to Remy's post I agreed with you.

And why get political in a movie thread?

 

[ijustposthere]

Of course they are. They inhabit the same body and share the same consciousness. It's the same person. It's not like he has multiple personality disorder. Anakin made a choice to give in to the dark side and then he made a choice to save his son. Like if Anakin had lived, is it your argument he wouldn't face punishment for his crimes because he's not Darth Vader? That's absurd, legally he is responsible for the crimes Vader committed because he didn't lose free will or agency when turning to the dark side.

Vader, as Anakin, would not have been prosecuted. Who would have been there to prosecute him? Luke? Wasn't happening. From the moment he turned, everyone that realized he was Anakin tried to turn him back to the light. Like I said though, no matter how you slice it, evil Vader lost. Redemption is basically the moral there. Darth Vader lost because Anakin Skywalker won out. I mean, yeah, they're the same person, but they aren't in the realm of the SW universe because of the Force. It's kind of why they change names when turning to the Sith.

Batman was merely one of Jokers targets but not the only one. He clearly went after Dent as well. And again, Joker killing Rachel and the cover up led Batman to retire. So you have 2 previously incorruptible individuals (Dent and Gordon) that violate the law they were charged to upheld. One becomes a sociopath and one is so guilt ridden he wants to confess. Then you have Batman choosing to retire instead of fight. That's not a draw in my point. The dude fucked up the lives of the 3 main heroes. Hell give him a loss for or draw for Batman and he's still 2-1 or 2-0-1 because Dent and Gordon took Ls.

That isn't why Batman retired. He quit because Alfred never gave him her letter explaining to him that he wasn't her choice. That was revealed in the 3rd movie. Joker even tells Batman that he is going to make him break his one rule. Joker's goal is always to get Batman to kill him. On top of that, he fails with the whole boat scene when he tries to prove that "civilized people will eat each other." It's why he was incredible disappointed that Batman saved him. It's the reason he loves Batman, because they will never kill each other. In the movie, he also used Harvey, which never made it to the light of day, until the city had already been taken over and Batman had at that point been defeated by Bane and the League of Shadows. Joker had minimal to no impact on the third story line.

Also, the Joker's goal wasn't to get 3 lives, it was to show Gotham would lose control and eat each other alive. It was a battle for Gotham. It was a battle to make Batman so enraged he kills the Joker. He says and demonstrates so in his final scene. He lost that battle.