Okay, so this blog post has a ton of spoilers. So if you haven’t seen a single superhero movie since Blade came out, then don’t read this blog.
Hah.
Anywho, since Blade came out back in 1998, there have been a total of 25 actual superhero movies. There have been numerous more comic-based movies, but I’m only counting the actual superhero ones here.
Want a list? Erm. Okay. In no particular order; Blade, Blade 2, Blade Trinity, Spider-man, Spider-man 2, Spider-man 3, X-men, X-2, X-men The Last Stand, Fantastic Four, F4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Daredevil, Wolverine, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Superman Returns, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Thor, Green Lantern, Captain America, X-men First Class, and Ghost Rider. (Note: No I am NOT counting Elektra in this list, so don’t ask.)
I’ve noticed a distressing trend in these movies. In sixteen of the movies, the villains (or some of the villains) die. It is kind of strange that the movie writers and directors have chosen to kill off the villains instead of having them return to wreck havoc later. In fact, I find it incredibly annoying. Let’s take a look at how good some of the movies are that keep their villains.
For instance, the X-men series never killed off its mainstay villain, Magneto. Granted they almost took his powers, but that’s beside the point. In each movie (well, not The Last Stand, but that’s not his fault) he becomes a better character BECAUSE he is still around. In the first movie, he squares off against Professor Xavier and his mutant crew. In the second one, we get an awesome team-up, only for him to do his villain thing and betray everyone. It was grand!
Seeing as that’s a great example of keeping your big villains alive, why would so many choose to have them killed? In the Spider-man movies, we lose great villains such as Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and even Venom because they decide the best way the story can move on is to kill them. Wouldn’t it have been that much better if in the second movie GG came back, with Doc Ock in tow, to cause a mess for Spidey. Heck they could have added Sandman still, and just leave out the Venom crap and it would have been pure awesomeness in a tin can.
Or worse yet, they have the superhero somewhat kill the villain (even when their coda is to not kill). Want an example? Batman Begins. Anyone that tries to justify Batman saying “I’m not going to kill you, but I won’t save you either.” Is okay, and that leaving Ducard to die on an exploding/crashing train is silly. It kind of defeats the purpose of Batman. He. Doesn’t. Kill. If that is his coda, to just ‘let people die,’ then why didn’t he just drop Joker at the end of The Dark Knight instead of stopping the wire from falling? He could have used the same thought process. Instead we get this huge character flaw that doesn’t jibe with the source material.
I think Hollywood is shooting themselves in the foot by killing off the superhero rogues gallery. Sure, we can have reboots and etcetera that bring them back in a “totally new, but totally the same” way. But why bother killing them in the first place? Usually the first couple of stories that these villains appear in the comics aren’t that great. It’s when they are an established presence in the book that provides better reads for the fans. I just hope the next batch of movies that come out decide to not kill off their villains.
Even better, Marvel is using their big villains for different movies. Thor introduced everyone to Loki (and even made him a bit sympathetic, kudos to Kenneth Branagh and the writing team for that movie). If you watched the trailer for The Avengers (and really, with it being the highest viewed trailer on iTunes, who hasn’t?), then you should know that Loki is the big bad for that movie. Now, this probably isn’t going to happen, but what if his army comprised of other Marvel villains we’ve seen in the movies? Oh wait, the movie can’t. Save for The Abomination, all of the others are dead (Well, I’m not entirely sure on Whiplash, it could be that he’s in prison, when Iron Man and War Machine have their explosive high five I can’t say for certain whether the dude lived or not). That’s a shame too. Wouldn’t it have been grand to see Red Skull and the crazed bald-headed Jeff Bridg..er…Stane back to cause problems for the heroes as well? Oh well.
[Note: Yes, Red Skull’s ‘death’ has obvious back-door logic applied to it. He can easily return thanks to the power of the cosmic cu….er….tesseract.]
Why do they kill off the villains? I think it has something to do with the way writers/directors/producers perceive the audience. Apparently, they assume that in order to have a proper resolution, especially when the villains do something incredibly heinous, they need to die. Otherwise, the audience won’t be satisfied.
Want some great examples that prove this wrong?
Granted, Fantastic Four wasn’t that good of a movie, but instead of killing the main villain, they incase him in metal that he can’t escape out of (oh yeah, that worked brilliantly for the next movie).
The Joker does a heckuva lot more damage that Two-Face does in The Dark Knight, yet in the end he is placed in Arkham Asylum instead of dying. Please note that The Dark Knight is the highest grossing superhero movie ever, proving that audiences will enjoy the movie without the main villain dying.
Hopefully, the next batch of movies that start coming out next year will begin to end this trend of the villain dying. I want Lizard to live in Amazing Spider-man, only to see him in the third movie along with the Sinister Six. Oh, and I want Bane to live too.
