1 Jaws, obviously, is just a monster. The Aliens are just monsters.

Yeah, but in Aliens the company man Burke was the real bad guy.

2 I agree with Gabriel, particularly when it comes to James Bond movies.  Gawd that one with the ice castle thingy was horrid.  I find it too difficult to suspend my disbelief when the evil corp is the villain... kind of like why I just can't get into House.  No hospital would keep a liability like that guy on staff and no shareholders are that stupid either. 

3 All these films brought to you by the kind hearted wondefully humane little pottery and arts shops such as

Disney (Buenavista, Touchstone, ABC)
Time-Warner (Warner Brothers, New Line, CW)
GE, soon Comcast (Universal, NBC)
Viacom (Paramount, CBS)
Newscorp (20th Century Fox, Fox)
Sony

4 I get turned off by "evil corporations" as the bad guys for two reasons: 

1) They've been done to death.  They're the current default "bad guys", and frankly, I'm getting bored with "insert generic evil corporation" plots. 

2)  They are so common that I suspect that much of Hollywood is purposely casting them as villains in an attempt to move the public towards socialism.  There's far too much preaching in today's movies and television as it is, IMHO.

5 Yoyodyne! Sometimes good, sometimes evil. Nobody seems to remember that they also created the android in the short-lived sitcom "Holmes and Yoyo", played by John Schuck. Whether that makes them good or evil in that case is an exercise left for the reader.

6 TLDR

7 Big Business in bed with Big Government is the worst of all. Who can deny? You can do terrorists, of course. You just have to consider the terrorists themselves to be the ground troops while the more refined characters are pulling the strings. Like a George Soros.

8 Everyone knows I'm the best villain ever.

9 They cannot engage in witty jousting. Because they are brainwashed lunatics who worship a God of Murder. What the hell kind of dialogue can you have with them? What becomes of the social confrontation in your fantasy-action movie?

I can tell you don't watch "NCIS."  Early on, they had a recurring villain who was exactly what you say is impossible: a cultured, educated, witty, scary smart Arab terrorist. He was a much more interesting, and much more hate-able, character than the average run-of-the-mill terrorist (of which "NCIS" has had several as bad guys).

10 You're very close to your Mother. After years of Oedipal frustration, you became a rightwing lunatic after you usurped the Father and nailed the Bitch.

You love domination.

11 3 All these films brought to you by the kind hearted wondefully humane little pottery and arts shops such as

Disney (Buenavista, Touchstone, ABC)
Time-Warner (Warner Brothers, New Line, CW)
GE, soon Comcast (Universal, NBC)
Viacom (Paramount, CBS)
Newscorp (20th Century Fox, Fox)
Sony

As a one time employee of one of the above, I can tell you those corporations and their subsidiary studios have only the well being of employees in mind

Well, the employees of OTHER corporations

Disney is still known as "Mousechwitz" and "Duckau" in Burbank

12 You gettin' paid by the word now, Ace?

13  Your Superego is your id.

You're neurotic, in other words.

14 8 Everyone knows I'm the best villain ever.

Played by an actor who's best scene is when he was dropped from the 32nd floor of Nakatomi Towers.

15 I lost a lot of interest in "24" when Jack gave up killing muzzie terrorists to focus his badassery on shadowy multinational ubercorporations bent on world domination

16 Has anyone else noticed that in movies, and media in general, that Corporations only "cut" jobs, but Politicians "create" jobs.

17 >>>Early on, they had a recurring villain who was exactly what you say is impossible: a cultured, educated, witty, scary smart Arab terrorist. He was a much more interesting, and much more hate-able, character than the average run-of-the-mill terrorist I hear that. But note they had to sort of make a fantasy terrorist.

18
Dang...... Aces word count is catching up to me.

19 Browns beat the Steelers.
heh

20 What's with this TLDR and "being paid by the word" shit? If you don't want to read, don't fucking read. I don't have to hear about it every time you decided to skip.

21 Best "Evil Corporation" evar? Virtucon!

Some of my favorite dialogue from Austin Powers:

Dr. Evil: Shit. Oh hell, let's just do what we always do. Hijack some nuclear weapons and hold the world hostage. Yeah? Good! Gentlemen, it has come to my attention that a breakaway Russian Republic called Kreplachistan will be transferring a nuclear warhead to the United Nations in a few days. Here's the plan. We get the warhead and we hold the world ransom for... ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

Number Two: Don't you think we should ask for *more* than a million dollars? A million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days. Virtucon alone makes over 9 billion dollars a year!

Dr. Evil: Really? That's a lot of money. Okay then, we hold the world ransom for... One... Hundred... BILLION DOLLARS!

22 WTF is a twitter?

23 Here's the other thing. I know, and I agree, that Hollywood is avoiding using realistic jihadist terrorists for heavies for political reasons. I want to see such movies.

You forgot one;

Evil corporations will not show up at their homes in Malibu and slowly cut them apart with a rusty knife.

24 I'm doing some writing lately. That means I'm actually doing a little more work. I need to get ragged on this every day? Fine, tomorrow nothing but headlines and links.

25 Sorry, went off, I'm tired. You were probably just kidding. Sorry but I was sort of proud of myself for doing more work than usual today. Got pissy about the snark.

26 Throw me in with those who think the whole Evil Corporation as Movie Villains is overdone.  And it's getting more ludacrious.  For example, the new Bond film had one interesting premise - that corporations can latch onto the "green" theme to do evil.  However, it's so screwed up that Maddox had to pen a whole piece about it. 

27 Evidently, your love of corporations requires you to demand fawning and obeisant support for legacy subsidies to insurance stockholders.

You're a little whore, in other words.

28 I'm making a list... and people who piss off ace for no good reason are in the "naughty" column. 

29  But no one cuts you a check for spreading the gospel of corporate domination.

In other words, you're stupid.

30 #23  Evil corporations will not show up at their homes in Malibu and slowly cut them apart with a rusty knife.

No, but I did see a movie where henchmen of an evil Big Oil Corporation broke an employee's fingers with a whalebone club and then cut off his leg with a pipe cutter.

/That would be Steven Seagal's On Deadly Ground.

31 You say it's overdone but what organizations apart from governments have access to so many vehicles, weapons, troopers, etc.? You want to go with governments? Okay, you fight either a made-up foreign government with a fake name (East Slobotnick) and the hero beats it, but it's fake. Or you fight a real one, but the hero obviously can't defeat North Korea, he just defeats one little thing about them. I mean, this is sort of like saying "It's a cliche that the villain in a movie is always rich and connected and evil."

32 Ergie, did your mom feed you your pills today?  Or was it the nurse at the Colorado High School?

33 Weyland-Yutani from the Aliens line of stories is prolly my favorite "evil corporation".  Not over done with the political overtone to be stupidly obvious and heavy handed.  Just inserted into the story lines that you subtly get the message that the acid for blood super bugs running around are the result of "corporate greed".

34

Plus, everyone hates their corporate boss in RL. So there's that fantasy at play as well.

{decompresses exposed Boss on the surface of Mars}

35 Is this week that Ace decided to do long-ass posts?  Full of pee and vinegar are we?

If this is a reflection of how you're worried that you'll be getting a lump of coal this year instead of that pony, it's OK.  We M&M's would send one to you anyway; that our way of showin' the love.

Do I need to let you know my post is full of sarcasm?

36 Well Google is pretty damn evil.

37 25 Sorry, went off, I'm tired. You were probably just kidding.

Sorry but I was sort of proud of myself for doing more work than usual today. Got pissy about the snark.


++

Well written.  Its all good

38

"You know Burke, I don't know which species is worse; you don't see
them fucking each other over for a goddam percentage!" - Ripley

Movie corporations? Wayne Enterprizes = The Dark Knight (or The Batman)

 

The Browns beat the Steelers?  Hell must've finally frozen over up on the North Coast. It's damn cold enough here.

39 You know the problem? Ergie wants to be my friend. He wants to be my friend, he thinks we have a fantasy friendship going on, so he's gosh-darn disappointed in me.

40 Don;t forget the Evil Corporations in 24 who have limitless supplies of helicopters and super-trained commandos that no one can ever seem to track down.

41 25 Sorry, went off, I'm tired. You were probably just kidding.

Sorry but I was sort of proud of myself for doing more work than usual today. Got pissy about the snark.

Posted by: ace at December 10, 2009 11:20 PM (jlvw3)

Yeah, I thought it was brief and concise, myself.

42 Posted by: kbdabear at December 10, 2009 11:09 PM (sYxEE)

--Don't forget Disney is also Miramax.

43

Hey kid, I crap bigger than you.

44 Complaining about this fellow Ace making money by the word? Poppycock.

45 I can tell you don't watch "NCIS."  Early on, they had a recurring villain who was exactly what you say is impossible: a cultured, educated, witty, scary smart Arab terrorist. He was a much more interesting, and much more hate-able, character than the average run-of-the-mill terrorist (of which "NCIS" has had several as bad guys).

Posted by: wolfwalker at December 10, 2009 11:13 PM (br8fl)

--Sleeper Cell, the too-brief series on Showtime, aslo had a suave terrorist ringleader.

46 >>>on;t forget the Evil Corporations in 24 who have limitless supplies of helicopters and super-trained commandos that no one can ever seem to track down. but that's sort of the thing, you sort of need some borderline-plausible explanation for that stuff. I mean, how do you explain all these elite troopers these guys have? WHo's footing the bills? Where are they getting their guns and vehicles from? Even when you don't have a corporation per se you often sort of have it -- Shadow Company in Lethal Weapon was pretty corporate, although, I guess, it really was just a gang of ex-special forces guys.

47 Absolutely hilarious!

48 And I'm a big fan of Blue Sun. I even got a Blue Sun t-shirt before Fox or whoever shutdown a Firefly merchant site.

49 Eh, I just love these movies, the Bonds, the RoboCops, the Total Recalls, the Aliens. Hell, I even have fond memories of Rising Sun, if you remember that movie. The Evil Corporation thing just reminds me of my favorite movies from the 80s.

50

No, but I did see a movie where henchmen of an evil Big Oil Corporation broke an employee's fingers with a whalebone club and then cut off his leg with a pipe cutter.

Gotta love the Seagal. That scene kills me every time. In fact, if I see it's on I'll sit down and watch it until that scene comes on.

 

51 Get thee behind me, sockpuppet!

52 How do we get stuff if there aren't corporations? I don't understand what sort of world the loony lefties want to live in if they plan on eradicating the corporations. And why don't they ever acknowledge that Apple is a corporation as much as Microsoft is. And Google too. Wanna talk about an evil corporation bent on world domination, I think Google is the very definition. I want to see a movie where Google is the bad guy.

53 Meeting Ajourned!

54 Weyland-Yutani from the Aliens line of stories is prolly my favorite "evil corporation".  Not over done with the political overtone to be stupidly obvious and heavy handed.  Just inserted into the story lines that you subtly get the message that the acid for blood super bugs running around are the result of "corporate greed".

Posted by: fixerupper at December 10, 2009 11:25 PM (AlZQ+)

As far as liberals go, you can just substitute Weyland-Yutani for Wal Mart or Haliburton and get the same effect.

And as for the acid for blood superbugs, have you ever been in a Wal Mart between midnight and 4 a.m. ? Put me on the Sulaco any day.

55 #31  Or you fight a real one, but the hero obviously can't defeat North Korea, he just defeats one little thing about them.

If these Evil Corporations were as all-encompassing and as all-powerful as depicted in these movies (they must have a huge profit margin as to afford military-grade weaponry and highly trained shock troops and assassin teams), wouldn't the heroes only be able to defeat a part of them?

Hell, in the RE series, Umbrella always seemed to come back.  I think this ruined the story-line near the end.

56 After the Bond films made a copy of Rupert Murdoch as a villain, I figure Soros would make a good one.

For that matter, Bin Laden would make a good movie villain.  You can dress him a little better and make him a little smarter, but it would work.

57 Those evil capitalists with their top hats and profits! They own everything and the people are slaves! Did you know you have to tip your hat to a capitalist when you see him on the street? If you don't they throw you in jail!

I understand where you're coming from Ace, but I think it shows how easy it is to vilify corporations, than it is to actually create a villain that doesn't fall into a mold.

I only agree with Gabe because I'm tired of the mold. Give me something fresh and new, not another rehash.

58
Even when you don't have a corporation per se you often sort of have it -- Shadow Company in Lethal Weapon was pretty corporate, although, I guess, it really was just a gang of ex-special forces guys.

Posted by: ace at December 10, 2009 11:32 PM (jlvw3)

--Osama bin Laden is a multi-billionaire.  Let's not forget.  And he does not have to report to shareholders.

59 You shouldn't discount the plot device that is the muslim leader who isn't really much of a muslim, but uses the uneducated masses and their strict adherence to religious dogma that is so easily manipulated into beneficial action. It's not unreasonable to have a leader using a religion he doesn't really care about in order to control a large group of fanatics to gain power.

60 I don't think having the Big Evil Corporation as the villain is bad, I would just like some variety in the villains.  But that would take some creativity, something that is sorely lacking in Hollyweird these days.

61 >>>Yeah, but in Aliens the company man Burke was the real bad guy. The real bad guy? Nah... but he was in effect an ally of the aliens, part of their forces. and he did satisfy the social component part of it. Kind of hard to accept "the real bad guy" dies halfway through the movie. The queen was the real bad guy. Burke was her human toady. Her wormtongue.

62 There was a Eastern Europe country too..  Tran-Carpathia or something like that.

Posted by: Dave C at December 10, 2009 11:37 PM (qmecx)

--I think Transcarpathia was a generic name given to that part of Austria-Hungary . . . beyond the Carpathian Mountains.

63 48 The other move/TV villain I've been seeing is the security contractor.   *cough* Blackwater types*..

Posted by: Dave C

Yeah, that's starting to really piss me off. It's sort of like attack the military by proxy, considering most if not all the guys working for "security contractors" used to be military 'special forces/SEALS' of some type or another.

64 >>>You shouldn't discount the plot device that is the muslim leader who isn't really much of a muslim, but uses the uneducated masses and their strict adherence to religious dogma that is so easily manipulated into beneficial action. It's not unreasonable to have a leader using a religion he doesn't really care about in order to control a large group of fanatics to gain power. True... and didn't 24 do that in their "Muslim" season? this is a fair idea but it's not repeatable, over and over, like the bare-bones Evil Corporation idea is. They do it to death, yes. I'm just saying -- there's a reason they do it to death.

65 #65  Yeah, that's starting to really piss me off. It's sort of like attack the military by proxy, considering most if not all the guys working for "security contractors" used to be military 'special forces/SEALS' of some type or another.

That so screwed up Jericho for me (Note - a company arranged the nuking of about 2 dozen cities to take over the government).  And that was a damn good show in the beginning.

66 It might also be a bit too realistic for hollywood though, as you mentioned. And for what it's worth, I enjoy your larger posts as you have an entertaining writing ability.

67 I think you'll be able to judge "our" progress when you start to see more conservative themed entertainment show up in the shows and theaters. 

I was encouraged when movies like Saving Private Ryan, Patriot, Independence Day etc were rolling off the movie sets.... but that shit dried up fast after Iraq and we started to get Syriana, Rendition, and that gawd awful global warming flick that froze the world. (cant remember the title)

I hoping the V series starts the cultural examination of overeaching govt trying to subjeugate the populace with the cover of "we're here to save you". 

Yes Im looking at you Mr Obama.

68
How about the evil broadcasting corporations like Network 23 in Max Headroom and CIVIC-TV in Videodrome ? Evil broadcasting corporations seemed to have been the rage in the late 70's and early eighties.

69 I grok what your sayin' Ace, but the evil corporation has become so cliched that I just tune out when it comes up. Even on shows I follow and enjoy.

As is the need for every movie to have no less at stake than the future of the world.

Enough. I simply cannot relate, and I suspect I'm not alone.

Give me more thrillers along the lines of Hitcher, where one average protagonist that I can relate to faces an antagonist in a scenario that doesn't require chemical assistance to suspend my disbelief.

Doesn't have to be that small scale, but it doesn't need to be so large that the only possible antagonist must be a Corporate or Religious conspiracy.

Television shows are following the big-screen in this. It's why I never watch Leverage which is nothing more than a modern-day A-Team, except the "good guys" really are crooks, and the bad-guys are the corporations. Don't know if it's like that all the time, but it was like it on the one entire episode I watched with the wife at her request, and the 5 minutes of the second I watched before walking out of the room after telling her how it was going to play out.

I don't care how witty it is, or how intellectually or viscerally stimulating. Hit me with the evil corporation cliche, and more likely than not, I'm done.

70 67 That so screwed up Jericho for me (Note - a company arranged the nuking of about 2 dozen cities to take over the government).  And that was a damn good show in the beginning.

Posted by: Kratos (on the back of Gaia, scaling Mt Olympus)

I've really gotten hooked on ABC's "FlashForward", but the last couple episodes they are bringing out the evil security contractors funded by the evil corporation possibility behind the whole plot of the series storyline.

71 Law & Order;

Crazed guy shoots up a daycare center. Arrested 15 minutes in. Detectives find a matchbook with the name of a corporation. Cut to Dick Cheney lookalike

You know the rest of the plot, change channel to Discovery Channel for
"Ice Truckers; This Time It's Personal!"

72 >>>Give me more thrillers along the lines of Hitcher, where one average protagonist that I can relate to faces an antagonist in a scenario that doesn't require chemical assistance to suspend my disbelief. Those are cool and all, but if you're doing an 80s style action movie, you need a lot of warm bodies to make cold. Since I love the 80s action renaissance (and wish it would come back), I want to keep hope alive.

73 The Operative in Serenity is one of my favorite villains, not just for the obvious Firefly-fanboy reasons, but because he is sane and selfless while committing great evil in the service of what he believes is right. The line where he admits he's a monster and that he won't be living in the perfect world he's creating....it's a great twist on the normal movie villain.

74 I also liked the Parallax View as a kid. Evil, very mysterious corporation. I dug the idea of "The Corporate Wars" in Rollerball (the original). Wasn't sure what they were, but loved the idea that corporations could have actual wars. So I'm just sort of sold on the whole proposition.

75

Ace = prolix - another 1000 words meaning what exactly?

think pithy! think tabloid!

oh, and tell malor to stop flouncing around like an old drag queen.

it's EMBARRASSING.

 

76 I was trying to think of one just to mess with your theory, best I can come up with are the terrorists in True Lies.  Now they were dirty disgusting rotten maggot filled brained allahpundit lovers, but to solve the hot chick problem they went with the art lady as part of the evil conspiracy.

I think this one splits your theory.

77

kbdabear & fixerupper -

 

The Day After Tomorrow (same geek that made Independence Day, and the current 2012 I think). And there was a Dick Cheney look-a-like in the global warming flick that had to go begging to Mexico for our frozen refugees to cross the border into Mexico.  He also wouldn't listen to the 'scientists' when they tried to warn him the end was near.

78 I just want to know why it's never an Australian company that is bad.

79 Yeah, I always loved True Lies for having the balls to have real terrorists as villains. Well... okay, "The Crimson Jihad." I'm not saying it's really impossible. I'm just saying even before jihadism, they kept going to this well over and over, because it's so convenient as far as plotting and stuff. It's just a good contrivance.

80 #74  Since I love the 80s action renaissance (and wish it would come back), I want to keep hope alive.

That's cool.  But there are some movies that did without the Evil Corporation as the villain.  Such as...damn, only thing I'm coming up with is the Rambo series, with the overzealous police-chief, the Vietnamese military, teh Russians, and the Burmese military.

81 No doubt Hollywood finds Big Corporations to be convenient. It's remarkable that every quality which fits Big Corporations to be the cinematic antagonist ad nauseum, would also work for Evil Terrorists. What does it tell us about Hollywood that they prefer American corporations for their baddies over real live baddies?

82 Am really disapointed in NCIS - Los Angeles also. So far we have had rogue security contractors, rogue military equipment manufacters, victims of US military collateral damage, etc. We have had what, eight episodes and every plot but one has been a liberal orgasm of "lets get the US military industrial complex".

83 True Lies also had something for the balls, Jamie Lee Curtis.

84 And sometimes the evil corporations are run by neo-Nazis-types using Middle Eastern fall guys. Like in The Sum Of All Fears.

85

You make a good case, Ace, laying out all the reasons why Evil Corporations make the ideal bad guy.  But you are overthinking this, IMO. 

Evil Corporations are almost always headed up by white men, which is politically correct and easy, no protests or threats of boycotts and worse.  Governments can't be the bad guys in a Hollywood movie, because governments, even if run by bad guys, are still our only real hope of solving our problems. (the one caveat is if it OUR government, run by omg, conservatives!)

So, the whole evil corp thing is PC, fits into and perpetuates their worldview, and is so cliche as to almost be expected.  It's that simple.

86

Best evil corporate overlord?

Mr. Douglas, the mall developer from Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo who wanted to bulldoze the community center.

87 80 I just want to know why it's never an Australian company that is bad.

Hmm, there was that Australian company in Mission Impossible 2, but I don't think they were bad, they just had samples of that chimera bug for whatever reason.

88 I'm going to go with TPC.

89 It's because they're dirty ugly uneducated lunatic-raving little bastards. That's only in The Nation and Bombay. The real America-exploding bad guys are no more dumb and crazy than the RoboCop corporate villain. They have evil plots and windy rationalizations, standard corporate-villain stuff with "Allah" thrown in. Realistic, unexcused, serious-bad-guy terrorists would make great characters. Because they are.

And they have the added interest of always being some kinda sex-weirdos. ...Understand?

Pre-attack strip club scene. In a movie for dudes. Even staged as an anti-dude "This is how you all really look at women, you dirty penis-people," there are naked girls in it.

And even if you leave out that scene (because you're an asshole), you have to show the sweet butts and boobs the guy sees in public all the time that get him seething. Street babe jiggle montage. In a movie for dudes.

If I ran a studio, I'd pump these shits out like Saw sequels (and use my bazillions to buy an armored island to hide on).

90 Dang, did the doc change your meds Ace?  This on top of the threads that shall not be named makes like three epic entries in one week.

91 And sometimes the evil corporations are run by neo-Nazis-types using Middle Eastern fall guys. Like in The Sum Of All Fears.

The best part about that DVD was the voiceover between the director and Tom Clancy, who introduced himself as "the guy who wrote the book they ignored when making this movie."

92 You've given this waaaaaaaaaaay too much thought.

93 That's cool.  But there are some movies that did without the Evil Corporation as the villain.  Such as...damn, only thing I'm coming up with is the Rambo series, with the overzealous police-chief, the Vietnamese military, teh Russians, and the Burmese military.


Running Scared with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines....... no evil corporation..... drug kingpins are the bad guys and lots of warmed bodies turned cod.

Same with Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte in 48 Hours

Not very deep movies ... granted.... but I liked them both.

94 I think there was also a movie with that ginger aussie and the afflac duck that went the terrorist route (can't remember the name), but I think they were clean well shaven and the movie sucked.

95

Methos -

Yep.

96 oops read above, been mentioned.

97

True Lies also had something for with the balls, Jamie Lee Curtis.

FTFY

98 Hey forget the long posts. Ace posted three posts before eight AM today.

99

One irony that jumped out at me from your post, Ace: Liberals, such as those that make most movies, don't, officially at least, consider other cultures, including or especially the hate America crap-sack terrorist breeding ones, any less than ours. Multiculturalism and all that.

So it's surprising that they don't protray them now and then as erudite villains with insight that we spiritually poor, money obessed modern American's just don't have, and a level of exotic charm that makes women swoon.

In some ways, it would be a not-unbelievable portrayal. Certainly, of course, most of the cave-dwelling goat herding Taliban in the hills of Afghanistan that our soldiers are fighting, like the goat herding non-Taliban in Afghanistan, live simple, dirty, unsophistocated lives. But there are Islamists in the world with a sufficient command of their faculties to challenge an action hero; who know all the mores of the west and use our weaknesses against us, and who are able to seduce vaccuous, jaded men and women even occasionally in the west, for a time. Further, these have an array of shadowy yet dangerous skills--Saudi petro dollars, sympathetic Imams, support from a segment of our population and much it in their nations, bomb making skills, devotion, etc.

Obviously if you want to keep an action movie light-themed, you want to avoid the decapitation or mass murder aspect of the crazy Islamists, but you could play up other plots that are dangerous and showy, like blowing up monuments--heck, they do that in action movies as collateral damage all the time.

It could be well done, and it could have verisimilitude that Evil corp. doesn't have to most of us. I don't expect too see it much or soon, but perhaps when Hollywood realizes we're fed up with p.c. stories.

100 It's because they're dirty ugly uneducated lunatic-raving little bastards.

No, they can also be clean-shaven (literally, don't want to go there), western educated engineers and doctors who spend a lot of time in strip clubs. 

The movie villain I want to see is when Hollywood portrays them as cynical cult leaders with pre-teen boys as catamite foot soldiers, acting under the discrete direction of absentee oil princes living the high life in Dubai.  Watching their targets burn while in hot tubs full of Russian hookers.

I also want to see a movie in which environmentalists are crazy neo-luddites being controlled by a shadowy board of international socialists.

Suspect I am just going to have to go watch Staligrad and the Battle of Algiers over and over again.

101 I don't think having the Big Evil Corporation as the villain is bad, I would just like some variety in the villains.  But that would take some creativity, something that is sorely lacking in Hollyweird these days.

I hear you.  What they should really do is break the mold and make a movie where an evil, English speaking military is pushing peace-loving natives off their land so it can be plundered for its natural resources.

102 When Hollywood makes a movie with an evil sole proprietorship, then we're getting somewhere.

103 it really depends for me.  if the corporation is just a background device, then its ok.  if the corporation is the central focus of evil, then it gets irritating. 

James Bond also has SPECTRE (and now QUANTUM).

Beer with Hans?  yes.  Beer with Burke?  fuck no.  There is cool evil and there is douchy evil.

islamofascists have been secondary bad guys in recent movies (iron man and team america being major ones).

they were the primary bad guys in The Seige and Rambo III (afghanistan).

I think that, generally speaking, what makes a good one is a main bad guy who is the mastermind and then there are underlings.  And that is the focus, not their station in life.  If it were, then it would be designed to be making a point, whether its "corporations are evil" or "islamofascists are evil".  That's when a director loses audience because there will be some who disagree with the political viewpoint.

104 I think there was also a movie with that ginger aussie and the afflac duck that went the terrorist route (can't remember the name), but I think they were clean well shaven and the movie sucked.

Posted by: Guy Fawkes at December 10, 2009 11:57 PM (DIYmd)

Are you talking about The Peacemaker with Clooney and kidman ? That was a rogue group of Russian soldiers who stole some nuclear devices. The train scene at the beginning was awesome imho.

105 How about an evil Muslim terrorist leader who is also an evil CEO of an energy company?

106 My ultimate problem with these "Evil Corp" is well laid out in Austin Powers.

WHY do they do what they do?

Why does Umbrella need to make the T-Virus?  As a bio-weapon, it's pretty useless.  What is the Annual Report of the Drax Corporation?  Why does Weyland-Yutani need to get xenomorphs when they can build human replicants of super-strength and stamina?

What do these people do?  How do they make any money?  Who invests in World Domination?  Who signs on to be "Random Dude in Cooridor who Gets Shot in Act III"?  I'd love to see their Monster.com profile.

107

Evil corporations are due more to lazy writing than anything. If they have to be used, why are they almost always American. I just read a novel called The Gray Man, where the evil corporation is a French conglomerate that pays commando teams from various 3rd world governments to track and kill this bad ass contract killer. It worked, and would make a great movie.  

How someone hasn't worked the Mexican drug cartels as an antagonist is both lazy and PC cowardly.  They are killing people by the thousands in Juarez and Tijuana in increasingly savage ways. That's about as good a bad guy as I can think of.

108 >>>Evil Corporations are almost always headed up by white men, which is politically correct and easy, yes, definitely that too. I see this as a bug and a feature, though. It's a bug, okay, because it's always the same sort of bad guys. It's a feature because the movies I'm talking about -- not movies like The Kingdom, or... can't think of another one -- are *fantasies.* James Bond movies are fantasies. There really is very little attempt to be realistic. Casion Royale was as close as they've gotten and that still just had some superficial nods at a quasi-realism. At heart, he's still a superhero. Most "genre" pictures are fantasies. They're wish-fullfilment and escapism. Some of these movies attempt to mix a fair amount of realism with the fantasy. Tears of the Sun, the Bruce Willis special forces movie, was sort of a realistic war picture with a bit of fantasy action thrown in, a mix. I said, and I do mean, that hollywood owes us some more more realistic or at least quasi-realistic stuff like The Kingdom and Tears of the Sun. They are deliberately avoiding this for all the reasons everyone says. But I'm saying that at the end of the day, these sorts of movies, in any period, are fairly uncommon. it tends to be fantasy that dominates in the action/thriller genre. And in a fantasy, well, I mean, they are trying to escape real-world stuff. And White Dudes are good villains yeah, because no one complains, etc. And no one "reads anything into it." I know conservatives are reading stuff into it. I'm personally not. Ronnie Cox was white but I never took RoboCop to be about White Dudes Being Evil. I guess I just am not usually reading this sort of stuff into movies, *most of the time.* I despised Quantum of Solace because it was 1) inept 2) a major step backwards to the random action sequence every 8 minutes days of the nadir of Roger Moore's tenure and 3) the horrible in your face leftist political messaging. I know a lot of people disagree about that last part, and think that the Evil Corporation there, posing as a leftish "Green" company, is enough to outweight the other stuff. I don't. the other stuff annoyed the hell out of me.

109 Someone mentioned evil broadcast companies.

There have been a few lately.

Deathrace and Gamer

Oh and Running Man had an evil broadcasting corporation behind it.  Complete with insane Richard Dawkins.

110
How about an evil Muslim terrorist leader who is also an evil CEO of an energy company?

Because that would be a documentary... ;-)

111 Is Michael Ironsides always the bad guy?

112 >>>>Beer with Burke? fuck no. There is cool evil and there is douchy evil. No way Burke is awesome. I wouldn't trust him if he sent me to the MedLab, but he's awesome.

113 Little Miss Attila @ 90 I'm going to go with TPC.

I've noticed that every one of my patients hate TPC. Even those who are stockholders hate TPC.

114 your right blazer it was the peacemaker and it was clooney.  and the train scene was good with the elderly couple looking on. went down hill from there.

115 Of course evil corporations aren't real.

Move along people, nothing to see here....

116 the bad guys in the Peacemaker were serbian. In the nineties and into the early 2000s, Hollywood had a hard-on for Serbian villains.

117 Someone make sense of "The Life of David Gale" for me.

118 I didn't read the whole post.  Didn't read any of the comments.  Just wanted to note that Ace sure is writing some long, winding posts the last few days, and I think he may have gotten laid.

119
Is Michael Ironsides always the bad guy?

Posted by: Jean at December 11, 2009 12:04 AM (xCBQ4)

No. He played a good guy in Starship Troopers.

Or were the bugs the good guys, I forget.

120 Quantum of Solace sucked mariachi band balls.

Green weenies co-wrote it, and then showed the world how super duper dangerous hydrogen fuel cells were.

121 or came into possession of a good bottle of scotch.

122 What are some good recent Evil Corporation movies, though? I can't think of any, but I'll admit that could partly be because my default position on movies in the last 5-10 years has changed to complete disdain at the pure unadulterated laziness of Hollywood's output.

123 I not long ago saw The Kill Bill series. Two parts back to back. on one of the movie channels. Kicked My Ass. I Want More.

124 I'll get those tears jerking with the next flick showing a poor hardworking Mexican family thrown off their farm by an evil Gaia raping corporation.

Hopefully I can get the eminent domain thing done to throw a bunch of losers off of the only marshland in Southern California to build the new Dreamworks Studio so I can produce it there.

125 How someone hasn't worked the Mexican drug cartels as an antagonist is both lazy and PC cowardly.  They are killing people by the thousands in Juarez and Tijuana in increasingly savage ways. That's about as good a bad guy as I can think of.

Rambo 4

126 Nuts.  5.  The next one.

127 Wait, so Derka Derkastan in Team America wasn't real? WHAT?!

128 Evil corporations are due more to lazy writing than anything. If they have to be used, why are they almost always American.

That's why I'm looking forward to some Gibson movies where all the evil corporations are Japanese.

129

In the nineties and into the early 2000s, Hollywood had a hard-on for Serbian villains.

of course they did, because the Christian Serbs were picking on those innocent non-jihadi albanian muslims for no good reason.  Think Milosovich.  In the Serbs' case, their real crime is being Christian, and fighting back ruthlessly.

130 Good sci-fi movie with an evil corp villian I saw recently:  "Moon", with Sam Rockwell.  Worth watching.

131 I want to thank ace for a guy type thread outside the ONT which has been taken over by the most evil of corporations, Feminazi Corp. (only half kidding).

Which brings me to my point, I want to see an evil corp movie run by mean nasty women, that has things the blow up. and car or space chase shootouts.

132

I like 'em.  Generally.  From the more plausible, like Kerr-McGee in Silkwood, to the more 2-D, stereotypical evil corporation, like Umbrella Corporation in Resident Evil.  That evilcorp was presented like fine kibuki theater, slick, with all the forms in place.  

It can become annoying when the corporation is a political metaphor symbol of conservative or Republican belief.  That symbol is always the same: half-baked, unoriginal, childish, bigoted, primitve-us-versus-them thinking.  Sometimes I have to block it out to enjoy the movie.  A good rule of thumb might be:  If you're a shit movie and you know it, why try to make some profound political statement?  It's weak and over-done.  But they gots to be heroes, and it gets them the invites to the nicest cocktail parties.   I guess, in an annoying way, that too is kibuki theater--just a form I don't appreciate.

The best ones, it seems, are either plausible or somewhat original--creatively rendered.  I like the "stock character" aspect they've acquired.  When EvilCorp is introduced-we immediately know or suspect a set characterstics.  So it becomes a handy plot device, requiring little or no exposition.  Plus, writers can play upon our expectations, and double-cross the audience. 

Another very cool thing:  Spoofing the stereotype.

133 Who signs on to be "Random Dude in Cooridor who Gets Shot in Act III"?  I'd love to see their Monster.com profile.

I think "Henchman for a Supervillain" would make a good movie, even if you'd have to be careful to avoid any Hank Scorpio references. Reminds me of the conversation about the Death Star contractors in Clerks.

134 rambo 4 was supposed to be the mexican drug cartels, and it was written that way and in rewrites, and then I think Stallone saw a news thing on Burma and changed it. So Rambo 5 is going back to the original, abandoned script. Rambo 4 had an outstanding commentary. Sylverster Stallone didn't do the normal "Everything is wonderful" bullshit, he talked about the real problems on the movie, the director quitting (or being fired), script problems, etc. It was cool to hear a mostly no-bullshit account that sort of made you think you really knew what happened on the project.

135

A couple more points

Why can't the hero kick Kim Jong Il's behind and overthrow NK commies? It's a movie, after all, and so it doesn't have to show all the after math. Sure, they can't do it in every movie, but there's enough despots for a good franchise or two, I think.

Also, with Muslim terrorists as the foes you don't have to feel bad about gunning down the mooks--they wanted to try for paradise anyway!

(Yeah, mostly joking with the second bit there)

136 Made up country names are a major annoyance for me as well.  There's no way they don't sound goofy, plus what, are they worried about offending an actual country?  I think in Commando they go to "Cape Verde" or something; sounds like a city in California.

137 Fawkes....nobody want to see a movie with mean, nasty women.  As Ace said, we want fantasy.

138

That's why I'm looking forward to some Gibson movies where all the evil corporations are Japanese.

I've said before that if Mel's next movie is about a rampaging bear and all the dialog is in GRRRRR!!, then we'll know he IS crazy.

139 Ace, fyi, I just got dinged my the malware.

140 A good evil corporation that actually had a decent front:

The Veidt Corporation

141 the bad guys in the Peacemaker were serbian.

In the nineties and into the early 2000s, Hollywood had a hard-on for Serbian villains.

Posted by: ace at December 11, 2009 12:07 AM (jlvw3)

Actually the bad guys were Russians. The movie actually was attempting to be semi-sympathetic to the Serb who was going to detonate the dirty bomb in a church in Manhattan because his family was killed in a terrorist attack.

Of course its been awhile, but I distinctly remember there being a rogue band of Russian officers and soldiers who stole the nukes in the first place and were trying to make their way to Afghanistan in the movie.

142

Which brings me to my point, I want to see an evil corp movie run by mean nasty women, that has things the blow up. and car or space chase shootouts.


Mr & Mrs Smith???

143 brak:

That was sarcasm, right?

144

How someone hasn't worked the Mexican drug cartels as an antagonist is both lazy and PC cowardly.  They are killing people by the thousands in Juarez and Tijuana in increasingly savage ways. That's about as good a bad guy as I can think of.

They don't want to offend the people who transport their blow.

145 >>>141 Ace, fyi, I just got dinged my the malware. What ad?!?

146 Why can't the make another good mobster movie, the bad guys weren't Dick Cheney typecasts and they were a lot of laughs too

Just can't picture Evil CEO saying to James Bond; "Now go home and get your fuckin' shine box"

147 Speaking of sci-fi evil corps, who can forget the corporation that was doping the miners in Outland?

They're remaking that, by the way, but it doesn't sound like they're keeping much of the original beyond the title.

148 Number Two: Don't you think we should ask for *more* than a million dollars? A million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days. Virtucon alone makes over 9 billion dollars a year!

Dr. Evil: Really? That's a lot of money. Okay then, we hold the world ransom for... One... Hundred... BILLION DOLLARS!

Posted by: Andy at December 10, 2009 11:19 PM (VMyjP)

Piker.

149 The cool thing about Taken was that the bad guys were...crap, I'm blanking. Not Algerian. Some sort of Muslim tights that isn't Middle Eastern. The white slaver people. They weren't Russian. I can't remember but it was nice that the bad guys weren't the traditional sort.

150 blazer, such a weak ass recovery By "bad guys" I meant the guys actually trying to blow up the bomb in NYC, which I'm pretty sure made them the "bad guys," whether in pain or not.

151 Tangentially related:  Here's a cool, short list of rhetorical devices. 

152 Albanian is what you're looking for.

153

What ad?!?

I didn't notice since I was way down here at the bottom of comments. Refreshed and Pow!

Ctrl-alt-del'd my way out of it.

154 I'm probably late to the party, but doesn't anyone remember Blackhawk Down?

155 Mr & Mrs Smith???

hmmm...didn't see it, was it good?  I assumed I wouldn't like that one.

156 Hey I just watched Taken on HBO the other night.

They took out the nails in the thigh scene, and just had the cables hooked to the chair.

Bastards.

157 I've said before that if Mel's next movie is about a rampaging bear and all the dialog is in GRRRRR!!, then we'll know he IS crazy.

William Gibson, I mean.  They guy who wrote Neuromancer.  And yeah, the movies will be better without Mel Gibson or Canoe Reeves.

158 Which brings me to my point, I want to see an evil corp movie run by mean nasty women, that has things the blow up. and car or space chase shootouts.
Posted by: Guy Fawkes at December 11, 2009 12:12 AM

Especially if she's hot, say Angelina Jolie as the evil CEO

Other than that, we got a chick comedy with Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada" ... yech

159 Reminds me of the conversation about the Death Star contractors in Clerks. Ever watch Robot Chicken's take on Star Wars? Pretty funny stuff.

160 Albanian is what you're looking for. Thank you! Knew it was something with an A that ended in -ian and it wasn't Persian or Armenian.

161 Evil Corporations were clever about twice, back in the 1970s.  Then they got stupid and boring.  They aren't realistic.  As someone above pointed out, how do they make money being evil?  How do they hire gunmen and get it past Accounting?  How do they get the Evil Scheme past Legal?  How do they deal with the shareholders?  It's stupid, the work of lazy-ass writers.

You want classy villains?  They don't exist.  Never have.  Classiness, culture, wittiness -- they're antithetical to being a villain.  Look at the biggest villains of the 20th century:  Hitler and Stalin.  Both had the personal tastes of a successful pimp.  Neither one would be interesting to talk to.

So the "classy" villain is a total fantasy.  Which means you're justifying a lie -- evil corporations -- to support a fantasy.  Well, if we're dealing in fantasy anyway, why not fantasize something other than an Evil Corporation?  Like, say, an Evil Saudi Prince?  Or an Evil Chicago political fixer?  Or an Evil Scientist lying about the weather as part of a vast international conspiracy?  All of those really exist.

And if you think that makes it too realistic, then hell, just go with Fu Manchu or a crazy third-world dictator or -- if it's a James Bond villain you want -- how about something totally surprising like an enemy spy?

162 hmmm...didn't see it, was it good? I assumed I wouldn't like that one. Worth it for the gunfighting. The corporation bit was sort of nebulous. They were both assassins working for different companies, but the companies weren't the main focus. It was more rom com but with explosions and bullets.

163 I think the distinction to be made is whether an "Evil Corporation" is a corporation that just happens to have an evil mastermind in a position of power, so as to provide the plot with a bunch of resources....or whether the Corporation itself is evil and the nitty-gritty of business takes good young people and turns them into amoral monsters.

I, like Gabe, have had it up to six feet above my ceiling with the concept that profit-driven organizations are soul-sucking vampires of the public, promoting evil because they are essentially "unmutual". In truth, if it wasn't for the organization and resources available to corporations, good ideas would be impossible to scale. There might be ipods in such a world....maybe even as many as 12 of them. Railroads might be able to reach from one town to another....certainly not farther. You could forget about chain stores, franchises, or food grown more than 100 miles away. Forget about autos, gas stations. Things could be invented, sure, but they could never "go public", raise a buttload of money, and go nationwide.

That said, I don't have a problem with a corporation being run by a madman bent on evil. For those of us who are older than dirt, it might be recalled that Dr. No cunningly hid his operation behind a functioning guano business. Diamonds are Forever (the movie) had a successful business being hijacked by the evil Blofeld.

So it depends on whether the evil emanates from the villain and pervades the corporation, or whether it emanates from the corporation and pervades the villain.

164 Ever watch Robot Chicken's take on Star Wars? Pretty funny stuff.

I thought Family Guy's take was funny as hell.

165 What's scary about the Star Trek movies is that there are NO evil corporations as villains, probably due to the fact that the whole Federation is a pack of socialist weenies.

The Ferengi weren't corporations, just moneygrubbing opportunists.

166 The Ferengi were supposed to be villainous merchant-adventurers, but that concept stumbled on the harsh reality that merchant-adventurers are pretty goddamned awesome.  So instead they turned them into Space Jews, because nobody would ever object to using Jews as the villains.

167 Trimegistus:

Watchmen goes into a lot of detail about how the Veidt Corp makes money, and Adrian is really double-dealing being everybody's backs. Even his friends don't really know what he's doing.

168 So instead they turned them into Space Jews, because nobody would ever object to using Jews as the villains. History of the World Pt. II: Jews in Space!!!

169 In the X-Files, the government was both the good guy and the bad guy. You had to figure out aside from Mulder & Scully and Cigarette Man & Kreichek who was who

170

Ace, if it hasn't been said:

You're wandering dangerously close to Hefner's "The Playboy Philosophy" of forty years ago:  tedious  and self-conscious "Think Piece"stuff, obviously never run past an editor, that we all flipped past to get to the Good Parts.

As with most newspaper (remember them?) articles, I read a few paras of your latest and  moved on, once I sensed  Brow Furrowing and an Orgy of Self-Justification.

I detect incipient Andi and Cahrles tendencies here....

 

 

171
blazer,

such a weak ass recovery

By "bad guys" I meant the guys actually trying to blow up the bomb in NYC, which I'm pretty sure made them the "bad guys," whether in pain or not.

Posted by: ace at December 11, 2009 12:17 AM (jlvw3)

I probably haven't seen it in well over ten years or around the time it came out so I'm plenty rusty on it. I'll have to watch it again, it actually was one of the better intrigue movies of the 90's from what I remember. I thought the hijack scene with the Russian commandos jumping the train carrying the nukes and wearing night vision with the laser sights on their rifles in the pitch dark was freaking awesome.

172 Ehh you're right.  It was "Val Verde" in Commando, not Cape Verde, an actual country.  My bad.

173 Or you fight a real one, but the hero obviously can't defeat North Korea, he just defeats one little thing about them.<\i> Team America did. Fuck yeah!

174 150 Speaking of sci-fi evil corps, who can forget the corporation that was doping the miners in Outland?

They're remaking that, by the way, but it doesn't sound like they're keeping much of the original beyond the title.

Posted by: Ace's liver

That was an awesome movie.  A space western, of sorts.  WTF? A remake?

What? They couldn't get the rights to remake Pee's Big Adventure?

175

87

Personally, I await the day when blacks start catching onto this practice and demand to be the major villains (and heroes, of course - thank you Will Smith and Wesley Snipes for bringing some much-needed diversity to the Hollywood hero).

Bringing it back to Bond - Live and Let Die was, I believe, the first major film to feature an intelligent, scheming, cultured, and witty African-American villain.

176 LOL, Pee Wee's Big Adventure ... heh

177 169 The Ferengi were supposed to be villainous merchant-adventurers, but that concept stumbled on the harsh reality that merchant-adventurers are pretty goddamned awesome.

Not just that, it's pretty hard to make scary villains out of comical dwarfs

178 Ok, I've got a great movie villain - let's see if you guys agree.

He'll be a man that few people know much about.
He'll have daddy issues.
He'll have a comedic second in command that will always say something stupid when we need to lighten the mood.
He'll be able to threaten business and community leaders without even having to raise his voice.
He'll be oddly charismatic to the masses - only a small number of people will see through him at first.
He'll run for the highest office of a republic on a message of sweeping away everything old.
Once elected he will focus on robbing the country that elected him, all while convincing the public he is saving them from angry nature itself.

And now, for the hero.

Well, female heroes are in now, so we'll go for that.
And do throw in a curve ball, how about we give her a slightly odd, but homey accent?
She has to be good looking of course.
When not fighting the villain, she'll spend her time with her family and the common folk.
And in her first meeting with the villain she will lose, to set the stage for their second meeting.

Oh, and we'll definitely need a montage in their somewhere. Perhaps we could get this film done in maybe late 2012?

179 Neptune:  I don't know if Ozymandias's operation really counts as an Evil Corporation.  The business is part of O's big evil plan, but he's more of an Evil Mastermind or even Mad Scientist.  In other words, without him, the whole thing would collapse like a house of cards. 

180

yeah, count me as one who doesnt think quantum of solace was nearly as bad as you do.  though it did need about 30 minutes more to fatten up the storyline.  OTOH, it's pace kinda fits with Bond's state of mind then.

and burke is a weasely douche.  I wouldn't trust him around a beer either.  He'd slip you a roofie to teabag you and post the pictures on the internet.

181 Ya know the weird one was Small Soldiers, where they had an evil corp, but they made the soldiers the bad guys.

182

As someone above pointed out, how do they make money being evil? 

Evil henchmen.

How do they hire gunmen and get it past Accounting?

Evil henchwomen with knives.

How do they get the Evil Scheme past Legal? 

Evil lawyers.

How do they deal with the shareholders?

Threaten board members who aren't evil with death.  The others are on board, so don't worry about it.  Shareholders don't know anything.  They stand around like Martin Sheen in Wall Street bitching and moaning like a Greek chorus pretending to be our conscience.  Or something like that.

You want classy villains?  They don't exist.  Never have.

I disagree completely.  Hollywood is littered with them throughout.  How about Hans Gruber in Die Hard?  That guy made the movie. 

 

183 I suspect the real wellspring of the Evil Corporation trope lies in the way media companies treat writers.

184 For a while it seemed as if Hollywood was going to make Nazi's the goto villains again.  Somebody must have reminded them that the Nazi's were Socialists, so they backed off.

185 I like Japanese films that have these super beautiful guy villains that are all dainty like with curly smiles and impeccable fashion sense, and can kick your ass without sweating. Very threatening if you ask me.

186 Things I'd like to see category:  EvilUnion, local 666.  Unions almost never get their comeuppance. 

187 >>>Personally, I await the day when blacks start catching onto this practice and demand to be the major villains (and heroes, of course - thank you Will Smith and Wesley Snipes for bringing some much-needed diversity to the Hollywood hero). This is such a weird thing -- in the attempt to not be "racist," Hollywood has for decades shut black actors out of the best role (and second-most important) role in a huge swath of movies. Unfortunately for black actors, just as Hollywood realizes people aren't going to start going on lynching raids if they see a black villain in movies, the newest fad is to cast black RAPPERS in major roles in movies.

188 The Ferengi were supposed to be villainous merchant-adventurers, but that concept stumbled on the harsh reality that merchant-adventurers are pretty goddamned awesome.

You know who was really awesome that the producers couldn't possibly have intended us to like?

Garak

Gul Dukat during his pirate years was cool too.

189 Trimeg:

True, Veidt is more in the mold of Evil Mastermind/Chessmaster, but he uses the Corp as his apparatus.

I suppose if this were a philosophy class we could navel gaze about whether Veidt was actually evil, since he did end up uniting a fractured world.

190 I am sick and tired of all the motherfuckin' CEO's on this plane!

191 For a while it seemed as if Hollywood was going to make Nazi's the goto villains again. Somebody must have reminded them that the Nazi's were Socialists, so they backed off. Nazis are still a safe target. At least Indy was fighting against the Soviets in the completely unnecessary 4th movie.

192

Halliburton sent me through college, and trained me in the field. Plus, they gave me great-looking red workclothes.

All hail Halliburton!

Anyone who speaks ill of Halliburton to my face gets a Dick Cheney-size assraping, the motherless fucks.

193 Jek:  Of course movies are full of classy villains.  I'm talking about real life.  Depending on how you define "classy" and "villain" you could scare up a handful of examples.  Cardinal Richelieu was classy as hell, but can you really call someone a villain who's a national hero four hundred years later?  Ivan the Terrible was, well, pretty terrible, but nobody ever called him classy. 

The whole "classy villain" trope is pure fantasy.  So since we're entirely making shit up, why does it always have to be a corporation that embodies the fantasy?  Hell, why not an Evil Nonprofit?

194

>How do they get the Evil Scheme past Legal? 

>Evil lawyers.

Wolfram & Hart

195 Funny thing about Wall Street back in the 80s. Most people I know who saw it loved Gordon Gekko and hated Bud Fox.

And Daryl Hannah was a hot tall blonde then, not a middle aged tranny lookalike

196 When I think of women heading evil corporations for some reason that scene in Mommy Dearest comes to mind. Where Joan is sitting at the head of the board table of Pepsi Cola and they want her out.  She gets that look on her face, but there aren't any wire hangers around so she trembles a bit and spouts off, "Don't f*ck with me, boys!"

197 I read the NYT review for Live and Let Die, by the way. (it's one of my favorite Bonds.) The reviewer hectored the movie for having a black villain. Called it basically racist. And it's like -- What? The main villain is a super-educated suave millionaire (like all Bond villains). Are you saying blacks just can't be evil? Huh? That movie launched the career of Geoffrey Holder (Baron Samedi) and Yaphet Kotto. What the HELL are you talking about, you imbeciles?

198 Wolfram & Hart They have to be one of the BEST evil corporations ever. I mean, they even got Angel to join them. And let's not forget the Rossum Corp.

199 So I know already where this is going w/o even hearing Gabe's rebuttal:

Physical: Gay beats Ewok.
Mental: Lawyer beats Blogger.
Social: Do we have to go there....

Sorry guys... I know who wins..... just sayin'

200 188 I like Japanese films that have these super beautiful guy villains that are all dainty like with curly smiles and impeccable fashion sense, and can kick your ass without sweating. Very threatening if you ask me.

Posted by: Percopius

Did you see "Black Rain" with Michael Douglas?

201 >>> Hell, why not an Evil Nonprofit? Bond's SPECTRE is fronted by a nonprofit. A Geneva (IIRC) charity to return "displaced persons" (from wars) to their native lands and track them, etc. Not saying this makes you wrong, just tossin' out some Bond trivia.

202 Nancy Pelosi.

203 Tomorrow Never Dies the villain was the newspaper guy.

204 If the writers of DS9 had a lick of sense, they could have made one of the ongoing metaplots of that series the story of Gul Dukat's transformation from villain to hero.  Instead they made him an over-the-top Stupid Evil cackling lunatic villain.

Bear in mind, I LOVE a good villain, but I also understand (as the people who effin' produced Star Trek seem to have forgotten) that Star Trek, and science fiction in general, doesn't go in for villains.  In a science fictional universe there is no Devil.  There are people who are Wrong, probably because they are ignorant, but Evil in the serious theological sense doesn't really exist. 

Check out TOS Trek and you'll see what I mean.  Most of the "villains" were in fact antagonists.  They had goals which conflicted with those of the heroes, but in other circumstances might just as well have cooperated.  This was even made explicit in some of the episodes, like the one with the Klingons and the whirly energy thing that fed on hatred, or the one with the lizard guy.

205 You want classy villains?  They don't exist.  Never have.  Classiness, culture, wittiness -- they're antithetical to being a villain.  Look at the biggest villains of the 20th century:  Hitler and Stalin.  Both had the personal tastes of a successful pimp.  Neither one would be interesting to talk to.

Posted by: Trimegistus at December 11, 2009 12:22 AM (uEZYD)

I think your point is now true, but I don't think you can use never.

Looking at modern despots you are correct, they tend to be low brow scum and villainy, even when the State Media tarts them up - like Chavez or Lenin.

But the ruling nobility of Europe certainly fit the mold of urbane and immoral. Tyrannical and philosophical. So if we are going to look for our movie villains, how about the modern ideological decedents of these princes of evil? No, these are not the despots we talked about above, but the members of the transnational progressive elite.

Crichton did a pretty good job with this one, but I think there is plenty left to go around.

Our transnational progressive primary villain could credibly;

1) Argue about philosophy and the future of mankind.
2) Justify a great evil in the name of some nebulous good
3) Put together a cabal of talented individuals to enact this evil above or within the legal structure of the developed world
4) Present a believably sized goliath for our hero to fight against.

206 The thing is most large corporations are too encrusted with bureaucracy to be "actively evil". 

When they do something that turns out in reality to be evil (ex. exploding Ford Pintos) its the result of a grievous engineering oversight of some sort compounded by initial institutional defensive denial further compounded by bean counters, or aggressive action taken by some mid-level executive looking to bust into a phat corporate headquarters office by scoring a "big win" (ex. when IBM was caught spreading bribes down in south America to get contract awards quite a few years ago).

Its been my experience that most of the real evil corporations generate has far more mundane motivations than Hollywood portrays.  The people in the trenches slogging out the products and services aren't in position to do much in the way of evil, and the guys at the top generally recoil in horror from the prospects of bad press associated with evil actions.

Its my opinion that the transmission vector for much of whatever evil does happen is charts and presentations.  As they move up the chain of command, an ever increasing "reality distortion field" starts to surround them and amplify exponentially with the "value add" Chartware Bondo and paint job each management level feels it needs to keep smoothing onto them.  By about the 3rd level, all basis in reality has in fact disappeared to be replaced with Obamaesque magical thinking -- and this is when the evil starts to appear because people start making decisions that aren't based in reality anymore.

207

The Day After Tomorrow (same geek that made Independence Day, and the current 2012 I think). And there was a Dick Cheney look-a-like in the global warming flick that had to go begging to Mexico for our frozen refugees to cross the border into Mexico.  He also wouldn't listen to the 'scientists' when they tried to warn him the end was near.

Posted by: drillanwr at December 10, 2009 11:50 PM (GkYyh)

They filmed that out here. Some kids in my neighborhood were in that scene when they crossed the river into Juarez. Pretty good CGI - it was filmed in the Ro Grande up in Canutillo and looked like they were crossing into the Anapra neighborhood of Juarez, which is where a large part of the drug murders takes place. Talk about the wrong place to go to!

The idiot movie sucked dog ass, of course, but it was entertaining in a perverse way. 

208 18-1:

Like Mustapha Mond, the World Controller in Brave New World?

Though, he wasn't all that evil, just a cog...

209 203 188 I like Japanese films that have these super beautiful guy villains that are all dainty like with curly smiles and impeccable fashion sense, and can kick your ass without sweating. Very threatening if you ask me.

Posted by: Percopius

Did you see "Black Rain" with Michael Douglas?

...yeah, that guy had the curly smile going. I wanted to smash through the screen and kill that fucker - I like villians that are just annoying to look at and when they move and speak it drives you crazy.

Kinda like politicians.

210 "Jaws, obviously, is just a monster"

What are you talking about? Jaws had that hottie with the pony tails!  She had pony tails dude!!

211 I liked Independence Day. Bill Pullman's speech towards the end makes me tear up every time.

212 That movie launched the career of Geoffrey Holder (Baron Samedi) and Yaphet Kotto.

Yaphet Kotto is a rightie if i recall correctly.

213 18-1:  I agree.  Eurocrats or, well, modern American liberals are genuine villains.  But are they really classy?  I guess some of them must be, but surely a proper villain would know when to bow to the Emperor of Japan and when to dine with the King of Norway.  Instead of acting like a clueless schmuck from Chicago.

I know from personal experience that most of them are not really very interesting to talk to.  And it would be torture to be invited to dinner at their sinister headquarters -- tofu and organic arugula, with no wine or dessert.  Plus the whole seducing the henchbabe element vanishes if she's got hairy legs and thinks penises are a snare of the patriarchy.

But, I suppose, it's more plausible than an Evil Corporation.  Let's call this a winnah and start writing a script.

214 I've maintained for years that the environmentalist movement is a golden vein of potential villainy, just waiting to be mined. Consider its advantages: you have the academics/mad scientists of the 'deep ecology' school, who regard the human race as some kind of cancer upon the Earth, and who'd like to see it shackled under an totalitarian system (if not annihilated, outright). There's the True Believer quasi-religious aspect -- where the idealistic looking to "make a difference" are drawn into its web, to become foot soldiers in the service of Gaia, blowing up factories and research labs to Save the Earth™. And then you have the 'corporate', PR-and-fundraising side, where glamorous eco-advocates schmooze the famous and wealthy in order to finance these same destructive anti-technological activities. Really, it's like an evil corporation, terrorist group, and crazy apocalyptic cult all in one!

215 214 I liked Independence Day. Bill Pullman's speech towards the end makes me tear up every time.

Posted by: wherestherum at December 11, 2009 12:48 AM (gofDd)

I hate movies when they make some make-believe President into a superhero. It's always some statist Liberal shit. Those libs are all Stalin-fuckers.

Politicians are never to be trusted with anything more complex than a small stapler, much less a complicated fighter jet, the stupid bastards.

216

The whole "classy villain" trope is pure fantasy.

Still disagree.  Generally speaking, you're correct.  Villains are uninteresting, ugly mental cases.  But Hollywood shows us what is ideal/interesting.  There are classy villain types, and there are good looking carnies--despite what you may expect.  Hollywood shows us peope we want to look at.  Why have a CEO who is as good looking and classy the Robert Gibbs type when you can have one who is more like Christopher Walken?

217 I liked Independence Day. Bill Pullman's speech towards the end makes me tear up every time.

Posted by: wherestherum at December 11, 2009 12:48 AM (gofDd)

Ah yes, I remember one of the sentiments popular at that time was wishing we had a president like that instead of Slick.

Interestingly enough, we went and chose a fighter pilot with a penchant for just that kind of speech for president in 2000.

soon the whole world will hear all of us...

218 Overall, I think villains as individuals are more interesting than vague evil corporations. Think of (drum roll) Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. What a fun freaking character. Faceless corporations aren't as much fun as individuals. However, when a movie is heavily action driven, well, there are certainly times when evil corps will work. It's just doing it all the time is kind of lame. IMHO.

219 did someone just call Robert Gibbs good looking and classy?

220 Most really powerful evil people think they are doing the world a favor.


Nancy Pelosi.

221 >>>Overall, I think villains as individuals are more interesting than vague evil corporations Well, yes, obviously: The villain is always a specific person, plus his right-hand guy and his enforcer. But the Evil Corporation is the background explanation for how this guy is sitting on so much money and resources.

222 Texas Jew, Uhhh, wasn't Bush Sr. a fighter pilot in WWII?

223 This was even made explicit in some of the episodes, like the one with the Klingons and the whirly energy thing that fed on hatred, or the one with the lizard guy.

Yeh, there were pretty much the "we just have to understand why they hate us" kinds of attitudes there.

The Gorn Lizard made me laugh, the costume was so bad I was waiting for him to stomp on a scale model of Tokyo. Kirk hurls a rock at him he can barely lift and the Lizard Guy laughs it off, then chucks a Buick sized boulder at Kirk UP the hill. Vegas odds weren't in Kirk's corner needless to say

Even when you had the Coneheads in the Menagerie torturing Pike and the Brainiac Fred Mertz and Uncle Charlie torturing Kirk and McCoy in the Empath, it was just scientists unemotionally conducting valid experiments.

224 A lot of times the "corporations are evil" line is just implicit, but in movies like The Electric Horseman (Robert Redford) that's the main story line. The evil corporation is cold and doesn't care about anything, represented by Redfords horse.

Redford is actually smart about the way he goes about it though. Saw him on Hardball of all places where he basically said most of his movies have a social/political theme, but he always tries to put the entertainment value first. That way more people will see the movie and his political message will get through whether they know it or not.

225

Interestingly enough, we went and chose a fighter pilot with a penchant for just that kind of speech for president in 2000.

soon the whole world will hear all of us...

Posted by: 18-1 at December 11, 2009 12:54 AM (bgcml)

If Pullman was as lousy a pilot as McCain, he'd have crashed on takeoff.

And McCain is too stupid to make a speech like that. He couldn't even beat a stuttering dimwit social worker from Chicago.

Talk about a gold-plated fuckup.

226 How about the movie version of Rainbow 6? Evil enviros and a plot to kill 90% of humankind.

227 One can posit a connection between villains and the things people fear or desire.  In the 19th century, the fear was still primarily of natural forces, and the desire was for the riches of the frontier.  So the villains were Indians, bandits, etc. 

After World War I science was changing people's lives daily so the Mad Scientist suddenly became a prime villain type.

Evil Corporations started showing up in the Sixties but hit major trope status in the Seventies.  Not coincidentally a time of economic uncertainty. 

Note the rise of legal thrillers in recent years.  Law and lawyers are powerful and that power is both scary and desireable.  So we get hero-lawyers vs. villainous lawyers. 

A prediction:  if Obama's train wreck continues, we'll see more evil-politician stories, more evil-lawyer stories, and maybe a few villainous "community organizers."

228 There was an exception in Star Trek TOS

The Mirror Universe where Kirk was a genocidal egomaniacal prick, as in our world he was just an egomaniacal prick

229 I mean maybe I didn't phrase it right, but I'm not really in favor of just a coporation being the bad guy. I mean the bad guy runs the corporation or is able to draw on its resources.

230 Posted by: TexasJew at December 11, 2009 12:58 AM (hgrfT) 18-1 was talking about W Bush.

231 But are they really classy?

None of the wealthy liberal moonbats we've entertained as potential investors were particularly classy, nor were they particularly interested in the science behind what we're doing.  The "green" angle political aspects, and financials were of interest to them.

Its a good thing our stuff can be pitched as "green" or simply based on the hard nosed economic advantage it can bring to your bottom line. 

232 ACE WALKS IT BACK!

233 227 A lot of times the "corporations are evil" line is just implicit, but in movies like The Electric Horseman (Robert Redford) that's the main story line. The evil corporation is cold and doesn't care about anything, represented by Redfords horse.

Redford is actually smart about the way he goes about it though. Saw him on Hardball of all places where he basically said most of his movies have a social/political theme, but he always tries to put the entertainment value first. That way more people will see the movie and his political message will get through whether they know it or not.

So he is admitting he is a propagandist. He should make kids films, they are easier to indoctrinate.

234 My favorite Star Trek villain after Khan was Christopher Plummer as General Chang. Gotta love a guy who lusts for battle and quotes Shakespeare

235 'Night, all.

236 In the Jason Bourne movies the US gov't, or at least a division of the Defense Dept is the bad guy.

237 Jesus, Ace, this is one of your best pop-culture pieces in months. Maybe years. (If this is what we can expect after such meltdowns as we had earlier this week - not that "you had a meltdown," but the site's whole social being sure did - then I say: more meltdowns!!) Note also this directly parallels the difference between Hannibal Lecter and real serial killers. Even "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" was a pretty flattering portrayal. A realistic serial killer movie would be simply unwatchable. (No, torture-porn doesn't count.) (I hear this is also what "The Corner" is like. "The Wire": dramatized, and how! "The Corner": cinema verite of shrieking crack whores and broken dreams. We kid ourselves that "The Wire" is realistic. It ain't. We can't handle the truth.)

238 225 Texas Jew,

Uhhh, wasn't Bush Sr. a fighter pilot in WWII?

Posted by: wherestherum at December 11, 2009 12:56 AM (gofDd)

Yes, and he later got his ass kicked, not by aliens, but by a draft-dodger from Arkansas.

239 Twilight Zone had lots of sneaky villains who could be parables of today

Especially the "benevolent" aliens who promise peace and plenty at the UN in the classic "To Serve Man"

240 239 In the Jason Bourne movies the US gov't, or at least a division of the Defense Dept is the bad guy.


I really don't like those films. The fake tech-language and fast edits bug me.

241 233 Posted by: TexasJew at December 11, 2009 12:58 AM (hgrfT)

18-1 was talking about W Bush.

Posted by: wherestherum at December 11, 2009 01:01 AM (gofDd)

My mistake. I have no qualms about W, except for that inane Compassionate Conservatism crap and his drink-sailor spending. He's a decent guy, and Laura is an angel.

Disclosure - I used to consult for him back in the oil patch, and his checks never bounced, unlike many others.

242 ..and I hate fake graphical user interfaces they use in films. You know what I mean.

243 My take on corporations is that they are not good or evil, they are indifferent, which some people construe as evil. The ocean is like that. It is indifferent. Once you get in it, it really doesn't care if you live or die.

244 I'm not sure you're right about "terrorists" being filthy, etc. Oh sure, your average on-the-go insurgent probably doesn't smell too good. But the 9/11 hijackers were pretty high-functioning. They weren't Le Chiffre, but they also weren't Multiple Miggs. Filthy, smelly psychosis is more of a Cho Seng Hui (sp.?)/Henry Lee Lucas sorta thing. Terrorists of the sneak-attack-civil-society -from-within type (rather than the cut-your-head off insurgent type, who aren't really "terrorists" in the same sense) aren't crazy ... which is even worse, somehow.

245 Yes, and he later got his ass kicked, not by aliens, but by a draft-dodger from Arkansas. Yeah but he's jumping out of planes at age 85!

246 Great post! Hey, take 200 bucks out of petty cash and buy yourself a hammock. On me. Oh, and feel free to take out some bad guys on your way out.

In all honesty, I agree. I have far less problem with hyper-mega-corporations in film than I do with that smug Wall Street "Greed is Good" simplistic bullshit.

247 I admit i liked the Bourne moves, but in the last one the government bad guys were so cartoonish it was like a parody.

248 A prediction:  if Obama's train wreck continues, we'll see more evil-politician stories, more evil-lawyer stories, and maybe a few villainous "community organizers."

That's probably about two years away.  A little more halo needs to wear off, and then there's probably a year in production before release.

anyone remember when Wag The Dog came out?

249

did someone just call Robert Gibbs good looking and classy?

Whoops.  Strike the "good."  Heh.

Truth is.  He's the next Sean Connery.

250 I think LexCorp has to rank up there as one of the all time evil corps.  Talk about unlimited funds, plus Lex Luther, what a great name.

251

Still have my moron card.

252 Uhhh, wasn't Bush Sr. a fighter pilot in WWII?

Dive bombers.  Dauntless or Avenger, I don't remember which.

253 I thought Team America did a good job of mocking the corporation as villain. Every time I see the word corporation I think of this Tim Robbins quote from the movie :
 "Let me explain to you how this works: you see, the corporations finance Team America, and then Team America goes out... and the corporations sit there in their... in their corporation buildings, and... and, and see, they're all corporation-y... and they make money."

254 "So he is admitting he is a propagandist." Nothing inherently wrong with that. What about "On the Waterfront?" That's entertaining propaganda in exactly the sense Redford's talking about. Hell, "Bob Roberts," while an enormous fuck-you to the right, is (I maintain) actually a pretty damn funny movie. (Ray Wise! Gore f'n Vidal in [unintentional?] self-parody mode! Jack Black!)

255 Unfortunately for black actors, just as Hollywood realizes people aren't going to start going on lynching raids if they see a black villain in movies, the newest fad is to cast black RAPPERS in major roles in movies.

There for awhile Ice-T was cleaning up.

Snipes made a pretty good villain in New Jack City.  Smart, ruthless, suave (when necessary).  Everything an evil overlord needs.  Too bad for him that shit doesn't fly with the IRS.

256 I admit i liked the Bourne moves, but in the last one the government bad guys were so cartoonish it was like a parody. I really liked the first one, didn't like the second, and enjoyed the third. I just hated the way the fight scenes were done in the 2nd and 3rd ones. I want to SEE the fighting not feel like I'm the one doing the fighting.

257 anyone remember when Wag The Dog came out?

And Primary Colors.

258 The problem, ace, is that both you and I know the leftists wet their panties when they consider the idea of taking down real-life "Evil Corporations".  Just talk to any leftist who wants single-payer - sure they will argue the merits of government providing health care for people, but they get really passionate about wanting to destroy insurance companies.  So when James Bond defeats Drax or Ripley defeats Weyland, it hits too close to home, to what the real-life leftists really want to do to Exxon-Mobil or Aetna.

Yes in order to have a plausible villain you need an entity that is simultaneously vulnerable enough to be capable of being destroyed by a single hero, and strong enough to have sufficiently deep pockets to make it difficult for the hero to succeed.  Those criteria can plausibly be satisfied by an Evil Corporation, but it can also be plausibly satisfied by any group of people with means.  I want to see the James Bond movie where he has to infiltrate a university in order to stop the mad scientist, under the direction of a deranged university dean, from building a superweapon underneath the football stadium.  Why don't you see that movie?

259 Purple - Avenger

260

Yes, and he later got his ass kicked, not by aliens, but by a draft-dodger from Arkansas.

Posted by: TexasJew at December 11, 2009 01:05 AM (hgrfT)

Don't forget the role of Mr Charts in that debacle. 

Hey, think Hollywood would be interested in making a movie about a crazy *businessman* who was so personally PO'd at the president he'd run against him and get Boss Hog elected president?

261 I haven't found a good electric earwax remover, since they blew up Nakatomi Corporation. 

262

251

Ironically, Wag the Dog was a book written about Bush Sr.

But the movie came out at the perfect time.

263 "I want to see the James Bond movie where he has to infiltrate a university in order to stop the mad scientist, under the direction of a deranged university dean, from building a superweapon underneath the football stadium. Why don't you see that movie?" Howard the Duck!

264 257 "So he is admitting he is a propagandist."

Nothing inherently wrong with that.

What about "On the Waterfront?" That's entertaining propaganda in exactly the sense Redford's talking about.

Hell, "Bob Roberts," while an enormous fuck-you to the right, is (I maintain) actually a pretty damn funny movie. (Ray Wise! Gore f'n Vidal in [unintentional?] self-parody mode! Jack Black!)

P: He is a great film maker, but I don't respect subliminal messages, it means the idea is so weak it needs to be transmitted in a disguise.

265 Or wait - was Jeffrey Jones an academic, or workin for the government?

266 I hate fake graphical user interfaces they use in films.

Yea, that shit is weak.  In general, Hollywood portrayals of technical details is pathetic. 

You would think they'd hire some engineer or scientist to consult on some of the dialog too.  99% of it is completely whacked.

267

Hey, think Hollywood would be interested in making a movie about a crazy *businessman* who was so personally PO'd at the president he'd run against him and get Boss Hog elected president?

Posted by: 18-1 at December 11, 2009 01:15 AM (bgcml)

Ross Perot is lower than a sea slug.

Still, GHW Bush totally raped Reagan's great legacy. Read "The Age of Reagan", pt. 2. Total RINO with a resume.

268 Chemjeff - Super weapons are not built in football stadiums. They are built in squash courts.

269 Oh and don't forget the Soylent Corporation.   They should show up for real as soon as they get this hell care thing done.

270 Did anyone see the mediocre Robin Williams film where he plays the comedian who runs for president? The beginning was actually pretty funny and interesting. Then it fell into the trap of "evil corporation," in this case it was a corporation that produced electronic voting machines. I think the irony has been lost on Hollywood.

271 I want to SEE the fighting not feel like I'm the one doing the fighting.

Yeah, there was one fight scene in the 3rd one that actually made me a little dizzy the editing was so fast.

272 269 I hate fake graphical user interfaces they use in films.

Yea, that shit is weak.  In general, Hollywood portrayals of technical details is pathetic. 

You would think they'd hire some engineer or scientist to consult on some of the dialog too.  99% of it is completely whacked.


P: Yeah, like trying to kill a giant alien spaceship with sidewinder air to air missles. Or trying to kill Godzilla with mavericks. Or when they say Infra Red vision, and its a starlight scope or thermal (or visa versa).

273 Women as villians has been done.  In Like Flint....

Women want to take over the world cause men have fucked it up so badly.  Women employ some evil henchmen to infiltrate the male dominated world but the henchman might have some ulterior motives of their own so the misogynists come in and save the day and the women swoon all over how totally awesome they are.

Totally. Awesome. Movie. 

274

Posted by: wherestherum at December 11, 2009 01:19 AM (gofDd)

I can't watch Robin Williams movies. A longtime dislike of him - in fact, I catch myself wishing that Pam Dawber would show up on screen to stop my misery.

275 Shooter is a movie that pisses me off, because the book Point of Impact had a really good, unusual, and complex villain corporation. And the filmmakers replaced it with the tired old "oil company hires mercenaries to slaughter natives to protect it's oil pipeline".

The original villain in Point of Impact was a Blackwater-type PMC that did some really nasty things for the government in El Salvador in order to force the commie guerrillas to the peace table. They're described as "Atrocities-R-Us" at one point (I think it's even by the main villain himself). The complexity is that they're the typical mercenary villains who massacre villagers....but the massacre is a calculated measure to bring about peace, not even victory, just an end to the civil war. You could argue that they are actually the good guys.

276 276 Women as villians has been done.  In Like Flint....

Women want to take over the world cause men have fucked it up so badly.  Women employ some evil henchmen to infiltrate the male dominated world but the henchman might have some ulterior motives of their own so the misogynists come in and save the day and the women swoon all over how totally awesome they are.

Totally. Awesome. Movie.

P: I fucking love the Flint movies.

277

278 And the filmmakers replaced it with the tired old "oil company hires mercenaries to slaughter natives to protect it's oil pipeline".

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at December 11, 2009 01:22 AM (9Lm5R)

Hell, if it were my pipeline, I'd shoot the bastards too.

278 Andrew Sullivan can't think straight because his head is full of mayonnaise.

279 I still can't believe I called Robert Gibbs good looking and classy.  That's one for the record books.

280 And who can forget Linda Blair and her gang of misfit friends fighting the evil corporation to save their skating rink in Roller Boogie? I, for one, cannot. That movie impacted my life like no other.

281 With the internet and search engines, there's really no excuse for a Hollywood writer to make egregious technical errors anymore. 

A handful of websites will give you the gist of almost any technology and the lingo that goes along with it.

282 Or Xanadu trying to save the art deco building from the evils of mall developers so that Olivia Newton John could leave the world of the Gods to front an awesome house band.  With big hair!

283
A handful of websites will give you the gist of almost any technology and the lingo that goes along with it.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at December 11, 2009 01:28 AM (ffu3D)

You're welcome. Just don't search for any emails that aren't yours...ok?

284 I called Robert Gibbs good looking and classy.

Well, compared to a coked up rabid wildebeast, I suppose he is.

285 284 With the internet and search engines, there's really no excuse for a Hollywood writer to make egregious technical errors anymore. 

A handful of websites will give you the gist of almost any technology and the lingo that goes along with it.

P: Exactly. All you have to do is copy reality. They think they have to modify everything for impact in the film format. Bullshit. They are just fucking lame most of the time. It kills it for me. Like a sub captain saying 'Fire!' when he want to launch a torpedo. Like your going to yell fire on a sub.

286

Well, compared to a coked up rabid wildebeast, I suppose he is.

Throw a face booger in that description, and you got yourself a point.

287 There is a reason why we don't see the Evil University or the Evil Environmentalists or the Evil Union.  We do instead see the Evil Corporation, all the freakin' time.  So don't make excuses for Hollywood, they are the creative geniuses, surely they can find a way for someone OTHER than Umbrella Corp. to be the evil bad guy?

288 Everyone here should watch 'In Like Flint', by the way. I WISH i was in like Flint.

 

289 Any of the Flint movies... James Coburn is my all time favorite.  Flint movies were the progenesis for the Austin Powers movies.  Did you know that the sound that the communicator thingy from HQ in AP movies is the same sound that was used for Flint's communicator thingy... paying homage to the original.

Also, if you like Coburn, try "What Did You Do In the War, Daddy?"  Flint, Carroll O'Connor, Harry Morgan, Aldo Nova... awesomely entertaining comedy war movie.

290 surely they can find a way for someone OTHER than Umbrella Corp. to be the evil bad guy

The G'ould in that SG-1 documentary series were pretty good, although I don't believe for a minute we really defeated them.  I think they're running the Government now.

291 for the people asking for eco-terrorists, watch Blue Submarine No. 6. Not only did the dude melt the ice caps on purpose to kill off humans, he created animal-human hybrids

292 There is a reason why we don't see the Evil University or the Evil Environmentalists or the Evil Union.

Real Genius had the evil university.  Well, the professor, anyway.  Of course, they had evil government too.

293 for the people asking for eco-terrorists, watch Blue Submarine No. 6. Not only did the dude melt the ice caps on purpose to kill off humans, he created animal-human hybrids

Yeah, but the Apocalypse Now ending was lame.

294 Animal House had the evil university president/dean.

295

Once I saw a study that looked at murders by evil corporate executives in movies and on TV versus actual murders committed by corporate executives.  Fiction beat reality in one particular year 6000 something to zero. 

In my personal experience I have found no group of people more honest or caring than Fortune 500 executives.  If you try to climb the corporate ladder through deceit and fraud, someone will eventually saw a rung from beneath your feet. There is payback built into the system. Seeing movies depicting executives as villains drives me crazy.

Now a movie showing an ex-vice president plotting to take over the world with a phony environmental scheme or some college professors cooking their research by poisoning baby harp seals to get more research money while porking COEDS, or some news types doing favors to evil lizard aliens to promote their careersÂ…that would be believable.

 

296 Yeah, but the Apocalypse Now ending was lame.

Posted by: Ace's liver at December 11, 2009 01:54 AM (LtIsn)

true, especially after all that had happened in the story

297 Real Genius had the evil university.  Well, the professor, anyway.  Of course, they had evil government too.

Real Genius was a comedy, dude.

298 Bond would recoil in horror, and then laugh, and then say: "You wish, baby. You wish."

One of my favorite female villians was from James Bond - her name was Xenia Onatopp - she seduced an unsuspecting, and very excited, guy into her bed, sheÂ’d crush him to death with her powerful thighs. NSFW ish sort of .....still the awesome

http://tiny.cc/AJZ9K

299 I'm waiting for the big reveal in Glee that Sue Sylvester is the tool of a deep-pocketed, faceless, conservative cheerleading conglomerate.

300 Real Genius was a comedy, dude.

What?

301 Real Genius was a manifesto.

302 Tom Clancy did a good job portraying terrorists in the book "The Sum of All Fears".

Then the movie basically ruined it when they replaced the Arab terrorists with "generic Nazis".  After all, who doesn't hate Nazis and the left has managed to push the meme that Nazism is "right wing".

303 The villains I enjoyed getting their just desserts the most were the slime-ball kidnappers in "Man On Fire".  They got exactly what was coming to them. loved it.

Not a corp. but definitely a evil organization with a head mastermind.

304

oh yeah btw,

gabe can't think straight because his head is full of semen!

lol x 6.

 

305 Then the movie basically ruined it...

Most of the Phil Dick short stories that Hollywood took to screen were badly butchered by the writers too (Minority Report wasn't too badly botched).  Seriously, Dick was a master SciFi writer.  Visionary in fact.  You can't improve on anything he wrote by fucking with the characters or story arc, you can only make it worse.

306 Most of the Phil Dick short stories that Hollywood took to screen were badly butchered by the writers too (Minority Report wasn't too badly botched).  Seriously, Dick was a master SciFi writer.  Visionary in fact.  You can't improve on anything he wrote by fucking with the characters or story arc, you can only make it worse.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at December 11, 2009 02:34 AM (ffu3D)

A Scanner Darkly wasn't bad. Be better if they didn't go the rotoscope route though

307 Wait, wait, wait. Rainbox Six was made into an honest-to-God *movie*? Where do I get me summa that? Ace, a proposal has been made that you 'honorarily' ban drunken conservative for hitting 4000! on Banhammer I.

308 O/T:  "US-Japan Rift Grows As Obama Snubs Prime Minister Hatoyama In Copenhagen"

309 Wait, wait, wait. Rainbox Six was made into an honest-to-God *movie*?

Where do I get me summa that?

Posted by: Gregory at December 11, 2009 02:41 AM (cjwF0)

nope, never made the jump to the silver screen though it has been talked about since the book came out. Would love to see it.

Stuck with the videogames.

310 O/T:  "^{Morgan Stanley: Japanese Currency Risk In The Red Zone"}
"Currency traders be warned. Japan could very well step into the currency markets any time now according to a December 10th note from Morgan Stanley.Yen intervention risk is rising, and is now in the 'red zone', implying more than a 30% chance of intervention:"

311 Only 3700 posts to go?

312

"This despite they set up their villains with such cartoonish malevolence that Emperor Palpatine seems more well-rounded and realistic by comparison."

 

Thin Ice, Furboy.  Thin.  Ice.  Just stick to banging your bongo drums and copulating.  Stay with what you know and let us evil megalomaniac types handle the "theory of evil megalomania as portrayed on the screen" type stuff. 

313 This post was a clinic on stream of consciousness writing, I enjoyed this very much.  I think if Hollywood pursues this tired trend of avoiding the real evil in the world we will only have villains that are fat albino neo-Nazi dwarfs with an Eastern European accent and inherited wealth from a pre WWII German coal tar dye company, not a whiff of Islamic fundamentalism in sight. 

314 US-Japan Rift Grows As Obama Snubs Prime Minister Hatoyama In Copenhagen

Major pooch-screwing on that one.  The protocol officer assigned to this trip should be fired.  Anyone who has ever dealt with the Japanese knows that you don't issue flat out refusals like that.  You must leave them room to save face, which didn't happen here.

One of the "code phrases" for turning something down in a face saving manner is "difficult".  You say something like:  "The president would love to speak with you, and we will try to fit you in, but it may be difficult due to preexisting schedules and commitments".

Difficult == Impossible/Fuck Off

This "code" is also symmetric when it comes to anything they're telling you.

Impossible/Fuck Off == Difficult.

When they say accomplishing something may be "difficult", they're really telling you its impossible or won't happen.  Americans typically interpret "difficult" to mean "possible" or "will happen with added effort/funds".

This little language nuance has caused no end of problems for neophyte American businessmen who deal with Japan.  Once you understand it, its no big deal, but when you don't it can be maddening.

315 The day Hollycrats comes up with a storyline where the real badguys are the real badguys, i.e. congressional plumpkins and union bosses arepadding their buddies (of either party) while undermining corporations who are trying their damndest to make jobs is when I'll go see one in theater.  The loud-mouthed libs like Matt Damon made me ignore the Bourne series entirely along with 95% of the rest of the shit out of Cali in the past 20-odd years.  I haven't bothered with one in a decade (cept the girly flicks the wife wanted to go see) (on that Couple's Retreat was surprisingly fun)

But such a film isn't likely to get backing in the current climes.  Though maybe it could.  There's a few good writers out there of conservative leanings.  They don't seem to hardly ever get legs tho.  24 and NCIS are rare examples, but even they have their liberal pinnings.

Ah well.

316 You get to avoid making up stupid-sounding fake foreign country names. This, to me, is huge. My head detonates whenever a movie or tv show makes up fake foreign country. Worse to me than the 555 phone numbers.

This, of all things, was less to me than the premise of Star Trek, where 99% of aliens are amazingly humanoid, with exception of unusual shades of skin and various configurations of head ridges.

Meanwhile for some reason I dig LoTR and sich

317 *less a problem to me

bleh it's late

318

Plenty of learned tangos, Ace.  Mohammed Atta was a school-trained architect and everything.  The best tangos are the ones that blend in.  The muscle are always stupid, and the wise commander keeps the specialist and the muscle seperated until the last minute.

Evil corporations, while once a finely honed instrument of futuristic fantasy, are now sadly relegated to dime-store bad guy. Which is a shame, considering their once great influence.

319 Schlippy: Parallel evolution is how the Star Trek guys technobabble their way out of trouble. Same with Stargate, for that matter. Seriously, except for the snakeheads (Goa'uld), who else is non-humanoid? Mind you, I'm a YEC, so I couldn't really give an arse, but there you are.

320 except for the snakeheads (Goa'uld), who else is non-humanoid?

Retoo's, but they were also invisible.  I think the humanoid thing is usually a costume expediency to avoid having to develop expensive/intricate articulated props and avoid time intensive CGI.  The Nox were easy - put some twigs/grass/glitter in their hair and presto you got a Nox.

If you're doing a weekly series, and it takes a month of computer time to generate CGI for a show, that won't work.  Series format puts production constraints on that a feature doesn't.

321 Not all corporations are evil. We're still trying to figure out that oil tanker rubber bladder

322 Latex is where it's at

323 Did you get my resume?

324 Hmmm.  Gotta slightly disagree here.

Watching US forces take out terrorist scum in Blackhawn Down was pretty darn entertaining.  Especially the part where the Little Bird uses the rooftop full of gunmen as a shooting gallery.

I actually got to meet Colonel McKnight at a Reserve convention in PA.  Even got his autograph.  He looks nothing like Tom Sizemore and is a pretty humble guy.  He hates the movie, states that he didn't do anything that "any other soldier would do."

325 >>>atching US forces take out terrorist scum in Blackhawn Down was pretty darn entertaining. Entertaining, yeah. But that was a serious (violent) drama. Many of the good guys died. It was painful to watch at times. I'm not saying dramas can't be entertaining. But a movie like BHD is obviously not wish fulfillment fantasy. I think part of the thing here is that Hollywood only makes a small number of these types of movies in the prestige format, like BHD, Saving Private Ryan, where it's a spare-no-expense affair with a huge director and aimed at the Oscars. Prestige violent dramas. In those movies, you get realism, but they're not frequent, like one a year, maybe two, and you are crazy to imagine hollywood is going to do a prestige movie with a strong conservative bent. (Well apart from war movies.) Most movies are strictly commercial, intended to reach the broadest audience, not intended to offend or provoke thought, just entertain. and in those movies -- often fantasies -- they're not looking to do a serious depiction of a terrorist. They want to do a fantasy bad guy for a fantasy hero to beat up on. They still owe us those war movies. It should shame them they haven't done one. But in the other kind of movie, the fantasy, they tend to go with safely inoffensive villains that aren't too connected to reality. I mean I hate to defend them on this but it's a matter of economics. There's this weird thing in You Only Live Twice. They keep saying there is "another hostile power" behind the plot, but it's not the USSR. They later allude "Well, they have influence in Japan, but it's not Japan, it's--" and that guy dies. They never say. Now, it seems strongly implied that they are talking about China, but for reason I don't understand, either for political or economic reasons, this movie just kept implying China and stubbornly refused to say the word and name China as the villain. Oh right -- I think the reason was that it was shot in Japan and in order to be allowed to film there, the Japanese Government insisted that China not be named as a villain, to keep any problems from occurring with its larger neighbor. I guess I'm just using that as an example of very weird skittishness about this sort of movie implicating real-world stuff.

326 anyone remember YOLT? Really weird, this "We will not say the word 'China' " thing.

327 It's a great post, ace, and I'm gonna let you finish, but my man John Rambo when up against the baddest villain of all time!

328 Hmmmm.... Team America: World Police?

"Derka-derka-Mohammad-Jihad!"

Yes, I realize that it's a way-over-the-top comedy....

329 Most of the Phil Dick short stories that Hollywood took to screen were badly butchered by the writers too (Minority Report wasn't too badly botched).  Seriously, Dick was a master SciFi writer.  Visionary in fact.  You can't improve on anything he wrote by fucking with the characters or story arc, you can only make it worse.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at December 11, 2009 02:34 AM (ffu3D)





I liked The Man In The High Castle very much. Basically an alternative history read where Japan and Germany win WWII and divide up the world and America between them. The Japanese are portrayed as the lesser of two evils and are into kind of a cold war with the Germans. Some of the descriptions in the book of Nazi tactics and the Nazis themselves are quite chilling.

"The Man" himself is talked about throughout the book as kind of a mysterious John Galtish figure who lives and operates with impunity from a compound somewhere in the Rocky Mountains and you don't get a glimpse of him until the end.

At any rate, an interesting read and not a long one either.

330 I'd like to see the movie where, after the evil corporation is taken down by the courageous and heroic lawyers, the lawyers take half the settlement and split it amongst the four or five lawyers that actually worked on the case while the thousands of plaintiffs each get a couple of hundred apiece, the company folds and hundreds more (most of them plaintiffs) are now unemployed, and some other evil corporation buys the company assets for pennies on the dollar and then refuses to set up shop there because of the heroic lawyers, thereby turning the scene of the movie into a desolate wasteland that no one (including the heroic lawyers) pay any more attention to.

Act 1 scene 1 should be the courtroom scene where the evil corporation is taken down for all of it's worth, the rest of the movie is all the aftermath.

Oh, and you can't forget the feeling, caring progressive government taxing the shit out of the settlements either, and then closing the local aid offices because there isn't enough money to serve the "rural communities" because it's all being used in the progressive urban areas.

You can set it in Detroit.  It has the whole wasteland feel going for it.

331 Congress is about to hand over the purse strings to the Chief Executive.

From Wilson through FDR, our federal government completed its incorporation into a Marxist incubator.

We're past the point of attributing the radical left monopoly in power today with concerns either for Constitutional foundation, dismissed by Wilson, or for concerns regarding unalienable human rights, also dismissed by Wilson as non-existant. Leftist monopoly agenda is written within their legislation, time and again, spelling out the authoritarian feudal order to own the mass population of slaves. The enslavement is always presented as "protection".

Read California Conservative, interview with Michelle Bachmann about H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009.

According to the legislation's language in Section 1101, the “Council and the Board are authorized to receive, and may request the production of, any data or information from members of the Council, as necessary (1) to monitor the financial services market place to identify potential threats to the stability of the United States financial system.” The “Council and Board” are allowed to demand information from financial institutions without getting a search warrant.

This legislation would codify into law a bailout clause. She pointed me towards a document that the House GOP leadership put together titled “10 Reasons to Oppose H.R. 4173.” That document quotes Rep. Brad Sherman, (D-Calif.), as saying this:

    The bill establishes a permanent bailout authority or, as Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) described it, “TARP on steroids.”

In other words, this legislation authorizes the president to spend money without going through the appropriations phase. That means that it eliminates Congress from debating the merits of whether the money should be spent.

332 Hans Gruber deviated from the standard "evil corporation" plot line in one key way.  Normally, the evil corporation's plan is cruising along until either their greed or a key mistake draws the attention of the hero.  The rest of the show ia a race where the evil corporation tries to complete the evil plan before the hero can catch up to them.

In Hans Gruber's case, his plan came asunder not through any mistake of his own.  He had the misfortune of capturing a building containing the most bad-ass cop ever.  Had it not been for that, his plan would have likely succeeded.

333 Arguing with Gabriel (the Avatar fanboy) is like winning a silver medal at special olympics. Yeah, Aces, you won.

334 Always really liked YOLT. Always thought it never got much Bond respect. Great Bond stuff: the trapped-and-shot-in-folding-bed opening, the burial at sea, little nelly, screaming, panic-stricken astronauts, and the great Donald Pleasence-as-Blofeld that doesn't get enough screen time. And it was definitely strange re China. Obviously them pitting US and USSR against each other.  

335 lots of warmed bodies turned cod. Sounds like a fish tale

336

Gotta do some real work, so I haven't read every post (just 100 or so), but I tend to agree that evil corporations have been done to death.  Yeah, you have a lot of mileage in them plotwise, but it's becoming so cliched that when the big reveal is an evil corporation behind everything, it just leads to eye rolls.  How about a plot twist where an evil corporation turns out to actually be on the good side, and some unexpected villian is casting the corporation as evil for some red on red action between it and the hero?

Also, the story doesn't necessarily have to be man vs. man.  I see a jihadist movie as being more man vs. nature, similar to a zombie movie or something.  You're not there to match wits with terrorists, your there to kill them before they kill you, or to survive the onslaught until escape or reinforcements.  Apart from the whole "honorable opposing field commander" subplot, We Were Soldiers took this approach.

337 I liked this article a lot. In a way it reminds me of FrankJ and his obsession with dinosaurs with mounted lasers. I can see where Ace is coming from in the way that evil corporations make the best fictional villains because of their huge resources. I also agree that they've been done to death, but are hard to top.

338 I always thought an inventive twist on action-movie villainy was in the anime 'Gunsmith Cats' -- the guy ultimately behind the mobsters and bent cops is revealed to be a liberal/populist Senator famous for his gun-control activism.

339 Personally, I'd really like to see a return of the "Courageous and Badass Patriotic Soldier Infiltrates Evil Empire and Wreaks Havoc" variety.

Exploding camel-jockeys or soldiers without vowels in their names would ensue.  Commandos/black helicopters/high-tech weaponry courtesy of insane dictator of choice.

James Bond was often good for this kind of thing, unless it was one of the fruity Roger Moore movies.

340 I've actually gotten into some fun arguments about the fact that I think Raza in the most recent Ironman movie is an awesome villain.  Why?  He just wants to take over Asia.  Come on, that's one of the grandest goals of all of history.  Sure, sure, the movie punked out on giving him an ideology but I put him in the using idiots to forward his actual goal of world domination.  The fact that I think Faran Tahir is hot like fire bears no part in this evaluation. 

Also, in Ironman (movieverse) the Stark Corporation is both the villian and the hero.  I found that interesting, that Jebidah's actions were plainly against what Tony and his father wanted.  Tony's hero's journey is in realizing that he needs to stop mouthing peace through superior firepower and start actually doing it. 

Didn't the Jack Ryan, Jr. Clancy novel have part of it's plot the whole Muslim extremism being manipulated by someone who didn't give a shit about the ideology but was using that as a handy way to destablize the world? 

341 This is why I liked Iron Man so much. The good guy and the bad guy worked for the same corporation. The corporation itself wasn't evil. It was just there. It only got evil when Jeff Bridges took it over.

342

Ace,

Have you gone on the wagon?

Have you stopped smoking?

Had a sex change operation?

Got a new prescription of Ritalin?

 

What's with these LONG posts?

 

 

343 Late to the thread here but are we counting the evil capitalist scum suckers such as the villains in Caddyshack and every other 80's movie where someone wants to buy the ski resort and bulldoze it or only allow rich people? You know the ones where a group of kids would get together and defeat by having a training montage and a race at the end of the movie.

344 You gotta have a montage...

345

My favorite episode of Simon and Simon brilliantly subverted this trope.  Downtown Brown asks the boys to help out his TV reporter girlfriend whoÂ’s working on a story about a poor schlub being “harassed” by a development company thatÂ’s trying to take his house.  Turns out the schlub is actually a creepy stalker with a shrine to the reporter and the company was just trying to offer fair market value for his place.

346 BURBERRY Scarf | CD Keys

347 FWIW, Bollywood uses Islamist terrorists as convenient villains all the time. But in their case, the terrorists are portrayed as agents of Pakistan, or of domestic politicians playing different communities off against each other for political leverage, both of which are realistic in India. (A few examples would be The Hero: Love Story of a Spy, Khakhee, Fanaa, or Mission Kashmir, if you're inclined to Netflix them). 

348 Just about every Disney movie that has come out in the past 15 years has evil developers as the villein.

My question to Hollywood; is there EVER a good guy developer?

349 344: Really? I'll need to look into that. Though t is hardly surprising given that the author of Gunsmith Cats LOVES his guns. In the good way, of course.

350

Ace, I love this post. I dig where you're coming from. I love the old Bond movies (though I'll have to disagree on YOLT) and that whole mystique but the fly in the ointment is that nobody is playing this stuff up 80s action movie style. EvilCo with its evil military contractors always seems either through familiarity with the trope and the awful uses of it or through just modern ham-handed nonsense writing to not be played up for the pulp evil but instead as jabs at capitalism.

The problem, I'd say, is not with evil corps but just crappy writers.

That said, I went into I, Robot with Will Smith knowing nothing and I respected it for its turnabout of who the TRUE VILLAIN was.

351 I love YOLT, as it is the source of the great Bond enemy Superbase Assault cliche, and the beginning of the huge divergence from the novels into something new. The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker are essentially remakes of YOLT. Flint movies are great little gems, as are the better Matt Helm movies, both of which cannot be topped for hot 60's babes.

352

Real Genius asserted that the highest-IQ people in university are simultaneously the most humane people and the best students of diplomacy and military history; and based on that ought to act as a veto on the State's executive power.

Val Kilmer should have stayed in his dorm with his penis-stretcher.

353 I see my reign as the ultimate villain ever continues to go unchallenged.

354

Real Genius sucked. War Games was another one of this "if we only listened to the hippy genius he would save us all" schticks.

The comedies of the 80's even followed this genre. In Caddyshack, the evil guy was a rich white guy, the heroes seduced his daughter, beat him socially (Chevy Chase) and his own game of golf at the end.  

355 I disagree completely.  Hollywood is littered with them throughout.  How about Hans Gruber in Die Hard?  That guy made the movie.

True. But he was less terrorist and more bank robber. A bank robber with a big crew, and a lot of ordinance. In fact:

Joseph Takagi: You want money? What kind of terrorists are you?

Hans Gruber: Who said we were terrorists?

...

Holly Gennero McClane: After all your posturing, all your little speeches, you're nothing but a common thief.

Hans Gruber: I am an exceptional thief, Mrs. McClane. And since I'm moving up to kidnapping, you should be more polite.

356 Great, now I have to watch Die Hard again. Though it's the perfect Christmas movie, so who's complaining ...

357

My question to Hollywood; is there EVER a good guy developer?

Eh, sort of.  In 'Caddyshack', Rodney Dangerfield is the obnoxious nouveau-riche businessman who's on the protagonists' side.  He's put in a lumber yard next door to the golf course and threatens to buy the whole country club as a way of taunting the villain, Judge Smails (Ted Knight).

358 I'm not sure that I would categorize Rodney Dangerfield's character in Caddy Shack as a portrayal of a "good guy" developer.

I guess technically you could say yes, but the movie portrayed him as a bumbling buffoon.

359

If Hollywood is to be believed, succcessful American corporations spend their every waking moment plotting acts of immeasurable villainy against innocents around the globe....

....and Islam is a largely misunderstood (and unfairly maligned) "religion of Peace."

 

360

It's a pattern of the Blame-America-First Brigades.

Constantly demonizing Americans and American corporations allows us to ignore the numerouss real threats facing our nation.

361

It is interesting to see how far in advance the left softens up the battefield. In Watchmen there is a real evil general who bore an uncanny resemblence to Gen. Petraeus. 

362

  I think that the only way we'll ever see "terrorists" portrayed accurately as villains in a Hollywood movie would be if they matched them up against an innocent Afghan tribesman - sort of "primitive screwhead vs. righteous primitive screwhead". 

 

  Its kindof how they did "Apocalypto", and you could also say that "Army of Darkness" is also a "Regular Joe vs. Primitive Screwheads" movie, even though it is mainly a Sam Raimi Horror-Comedy.

 

  Another movie I remember as doing a good job of matching up a "Western Man" vs. "Primitives" was The Naked Prey.

363 It is pretty sad when the orcs from the lord of the rings come off as more relatable and sympathetic than real life adveraries.

364

And, of  course, the left couldn't make an anti-war movie that anyone would go see, so they had to come up with a proxy in Avatar.  Cameron's a raging pinko, remember drowning the poor in Titanic , not killing people in T2 ?

365 True Lies is an interesting movie to throw in this discussion. It was certainly a fantasy. And could you make a case that the villians were in fact NOT superior to the hero in any real regard. Smarter? No. More powerful? No. Socially adept? And the "No" hat trick. So why did it work? At times they looked like buffons... see the "dead battery in the camera" scene. I mean if what you say is true, and I think on balance you have some points, how did this movie work as a fantasy? Wish fulfullment? Pure effects? Jamie Lee in a thong?

366 solo, I think I overstated, but when people talk, they don't endlessly caveat and call out exceptions. You're right on that. It's not that I meant to say --okay, maybe I did at times mean to say this -- that this sort of movie CANNOT ever be made. It's more that I'm pointing out, hey, here are some legitimate, nothing-to-do-with politics things you're shooting for in an action fantasy, and Evil Corporation as bad guy in background helps satisfy them greatly, so it should come as little surprise it keeps coming up. Same with terrorists -- these guys are unsatisfying villains for these reasons, so it's not surprising they don't come up so often. So my overstatement is in the realm of kind of talking in terms of "never." Never is the wrong way to discuss it, and I overstated. It's like when someone pointed out "You can have a cultured terrorist head, maybe a cynical opportunist exploiting his lower-level dummy zealots and that would serve the 'social threat' function, and also give you a non-pathetic major villain." I think true lies did that to some extent -- the main bad guy was not a clown like some of his underlings. That's true, and yeah, True Lies is one of my favorite movies from the 90s so I wish I'd remembered that and mentioned that. But I'm saying that that particular trick of dealing with this, while an option, cannot be endless duplicated. You can't, say, put out that kind of movie with that kind of villain every year. People would start to notice the strong resemblance to last year's release. That's more of a one-off, or a "once in a while" sort of option. I guess at some point you could say "Hey, that's no more repetitive and duplicative than the Evil Corporation idea that you don't mind seeing repeated." At that point I guess I can't argue with you anymore, because I can't say you're wrong. I can just offer my opinion that Generic Accomplished Non-Ethnic Bad Guy at an Evil Corporation seems (to me) less specific and so it's not a big deal if a bunch of movies come out with this basic premise, whereas what you propose -- the True Lies sort of movie -- is pretty specific about a set of bad guys so if a bunch of True Lies type moves came out, their similarities would be more noticeable. But at that point, you could say, "If one cliche works, and serves as a valid workhorse, why can't a NEW cliche serve the same purpose?" And I guess I'd say, "Hmmm... Maybe you're right. Maybe there is no reason the Evil Corporation cliche couldn't be easily swapped out for the Urbane and Intelligent Master Terrorist Cliche, and maybe would be no more distractingly cliched than the first one." Not sure. You guys may be right.

367 >>> but it's becoming so cliched that when the big reveal is an evil corporation behind everything, it just leads to eye rolls. Well that's not true in this sense: Most of the movies in this genre don't make much effort to conceal who the villains are, so there isn't a "big reveal." Some do, yeah. But usually it's clear to the audience who the bad guys are in ten minutes, and the hero figures that out ten minutes later, after some pretty simple sleuthing. In RoboCop, the corporation, or at least the top active corporate officer (okay Ronnie Cox wasn't the top officer, but he was like the top day-to-day guy) was revealed to be the baddie slightly later than that, but.. I don't know it was still only like 40 minutes in or something.

368 Actually part of my argument here is really "In Defense of *CLICHES*." I think a lot of people are dismissive of cliches and toss that word around as if deeming something a cliche is a big burn. Here's a cliche -- "Hey, Dude? Your Best Friend? From the War? The one you saved or who saved you? The guy played by an older character actor who projects warmth? HE'S A BAD GUY DUDE AND HE HIRED YOU TO LOOK INTO THIS BECAUSE HE THOUGHT HE COULD CONTROL YOU. Now that you're on to the truth, your Best Friend War Buddy IS GOING TO KILL YOU, MAN!!!" That is obviously not exactly a novel twist. Do I mind it? No, I don't. Not if the movie is well done. Cliches like this are cliches for a reason. I mean, you have to watch just being endlessly dismissive of all cliches, because at some point you are really dismissing basic stuff, like, "Oh, it's a CLICHE that the hero is extremely competent but conflicted by a dark past, and it's CLICHE that he is able to keep prevailing despite overwhelming odds against him, and it's a CLICHE that he wins in the end and gets the girl." I mean, yeah, "cliches." But... I'm more than willing to grant those cliches. Because a certain type of movie I love -- the action fantasy -- is defined by those cliches. Without those cliches, the genre doesn't exist. I mean, this whole thing about no cliches? Well, isn't it convenient that the final true decisive confrontation between hero and villain happens in Act III about 100 minutes into the movie? What's the way to deviate from that? Hero kills villain early in act II and then spends the rest of the movie tracking down minor players? How about villain kills HERO in the second act? That's a new way to deal with things. Not cliched. Villain wins, and wins *early* in the movie. I guess I'm starting to parodize your position on "cliches," but seriously, cliches are cliches for a reason.

369 As a rule, I think it's fair to say a movie seems cliched and tired when it's NOTHING but one cliche after another. Usually a movie seems inventive and novel and fresh when they subvert/avoid/change one or two cliches. Then we usually credit it as coming at us with something new. But in those movies -- the ones that seem fresh because they avoid/subvert one or two cliches -- they usually are making good use of three or four other older cliches. It's the one or two departure from the tired and obvious that makes it seem smart and clever. Yet look closely and you'll see the movie still relies on several other cliches.

370 Here's a cliche: Good Guy throws bad guy off of top of very tall building at end of movie. Cliche. Happens all the time. And yeah, sometimes it annoys me... but usually in bad movies it annoys me. In good movies, I enjoy it, because it really is a great villain death, no matter how many times it's been done before. It gives you two things: 1, it's a visually spectacular death, 2, the villain gets to consider all the bad life choices he's made for five seconds as the earth rushes up at him, and also gets to ponder again, for the last time, that he Fucked With the Wrong Guy. If a movie is working, and I like it otherwise, I don't mind this cliche at all. If on the other hand a movie kind of sucks, then I do mind this (and I mind them wasting a good death, a cliche that should be saved for better movies). But note the real problem there isn't the cliche per se, it's that the movie kind of sucked all the way through. When a movie is sucking for other reasons, the cliches become obvious, and distracting, and objectionable. A good movie, one that's entertaining and smart, you don't notice the cliches as much, or you don't object to them at least.

371 and in RoboCop, before it was revealed that Ronnie Cox was "the villain," it was still pretty clear he was a DICK, so.

372 Thanks, L.

373

As a rule, I think it's fair to say a movie seems cliched and tired when it's NOTHING but one cliche after another.

One exception.  Kinda rare, I guess.  When the movie is inadvertently funny.  The first one that comes to mind is Ghost Dog with Forest Whitaker.  I swear, that movie is so funny sometimes it's hard to know whether it's meant to be.

374 where can i purchase an iphone

375 "Seti Alpha V"

I am not up on my Trek lore, but should this be spelled Ceti Alpha V? As in the brightest star seen from Earth of the southern constellation of Cetus, the Whale? The star otherwise known as Menkar or Menkab?

376

Say what you want about The Shield, it had villains that fit the specs people have mentioned here. They had the foot-chopping psycho Armenians, and the cartels in the form of Armadillo Quintero, one of the biggest complete monsters ever to grace the television.