Unsung Villains

[Seil]

So we all hear the term 'unsung heroes;' people who do heroic deeds without mention. Never do you hear of unsung villains - though there are probably more villains than heroes out there. But some of the best villains are often unsung. I'm talking about movie/TV monsters here.

Now, we all know about Freddy, Jason, Michael, Leatherface, Chucky, whatever. Those guys are sung. Everyone's singing. Though, the virus from Are You Afraid Of The Dark is one that no one has heard of, and he terrified me as a kid. I was just getting into computers, and I was thinking that I'm going to get taken over by a little silver man.

Then, further on in my youth, but still quite a while ago, there were The Gentlemen from Buffy. I never saw the episode, I was never really into the show, but these guys stuck with me. They're still pretty terrifying, what with the taking out your heart whil you're unable to scream.

Recently, I picked up the box sets of the Doctor Who 2005 series, and I saw the Blink episode. Y'know, the one with the Weeping Angels? Or how about the episode "The Waters Of Mars, with The Flood? Not as scary now that I'm older, but still kind of unsettling.

Anyone have any unsung villains of their own?

[TitoTheHappy]

I have always been very partial towards the alien from "The Thing" I mean the idea that anybody could be this horrible creature and the only way to stop it is to destroy every part of it. Plus it was made back when movies still used props and physical SFX instead of unrealistic CGI creatures.

I definitely agree with you on both The Gentlemen and the Weeping Angels.

[Tev]

Actually the Weeping Angels are getting a fair share of limelight. They even got a second whole episode to themselves last season. I've seen a lot of Weeping Angel merchandise while traveling my convention circuit this year and last.

I mean hell.....Weeping Angel Underwear!

[The Sevenshot Kid]

The dragon in "Dragonslayer." Holy shit. I had nightmares after watching that movie as a kid.

[walkertexasdruid]

I always thought that Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty was an awsome villain, especally when she changes into the black dragon. I was disappointed when they killed her (I've got issues, I know).

The Cigerette Smoking Man in the X-Files was really cool too. I mean he was just an old man, and yet he could project such an aura of manace. I wander if they would resurect him somehow in the next movie.

[Julford Hajime]

People who know the main UC storyline of Gundam, know about Char, but nobody outside the fandom knows my favoritist villain ever.

*Grabs a mini-essay I did on the man before*

SPOILERS, kinda. Most of the stuff in here is easy enough to confer just from the descriptions given in a description of the CCA movie, though a couple details do require watching the original series or Zeta Gundam to know (Though they're not the most important details, to be honest)

Originally Posted by Julford in a "Favorite Bad Guy" thread

Char Aznable, but only in the context of his character development from the original Mobile Suit Gundam, through Zeta Gundam seven years later, and finally in Char's Counterattack.

In the original MSG, he's the son of the founder of Zeon, trying to avenge his father by killing the Zabi family (Whom killed Char's father in a ploy for power). By the time MSG ends, every Zabi has been killed but for a single innocent child who is less than a few years old (Hell, she might only be months old, I forget her exact age). His father avenged and his nation of Zeon defeated, he disappears after the final battle.

In Zeta Gundam, set 7 years later, Char plays the role of leader and mentor for the main character Kamille, and helps Kamille overcome some of his difficulties (Though Char shows that he still has a few of his own demons to exorcize). Together the two help lead the war against both the Titans forces and the Neo-Zeon forces that arrive later on. Near the end of the series, his survival in the war is questioned as his mobile suit is recovered but his body is nowhere to be found.

In Char's Counter-Attack, set another couple years down the line (I want to say it happens two years after Zeta, but I forget >.>), Char has become the leader of his own Neo-Zeon faction, though in a speech he differentiates himself from the past Zeon and Neo-Zeon movements, which he claims to be distorted versions of his fathers' true goals for Zeon. He himself leads a war against the Earth, culminating in a plan to destroy all life on it through a new ice age.

What makes him so dynamic is his fall from grace. In the original MSG, Char was an enemy. Char and Amuro, the main character of MSG, hated each other by the end of the series, due to the losses each had caused to the other. By Zeta Gundam, Amuro and Char are shown to have grown past this, working together at several points in the series against a common enemy. By the end of Zeta Gundam, Char has shown himself to have grown up from his MSG counter-part, buuuuut like I said earlier still has some demons to face, namely his disagreements with pretty much every major political figure in not only his own faction, but the enemy Titans and Neo-Zeon factions as well; at one point he nearly damns the entire war effort because he would otherwise have had to sit back and tolerate a woman he absolutely loathes make a mockery of everything his father once stood for. By the time Char's Counter-Attack comes around, he's decided that humanity is no longer worthy of living on Earth, and must flee to space. He's become so twisted by his hatred, he never realizes that he had finally become everything he'd hated for the last decade of his life.

Quite frankly, THAT'S how you do a villain.

[Lithp]

What are the qualities for being unsung?

The Horned King from the Black Cauldron. He's a terrifying skeletal monstrosity who unleashes an undead army to take over the world. He's hinted at being a very powerful sorcerer & is only actually taken down by a thinly veiled Deus Ex Machina.

Dude had an entire army of viking-like people working for him out of fear, & literally struggled to survive even as his flesh was being ripped from his bones.

Most of all, he sounds cooler than the antagonists from the book series that Disney based the movie off of. At one point, I thought he was supposed to be Satan himself.

Disney could have done so much more with him.

[Specterbane]

Mr. Brisby from season 1 of the Venture Brothers. The man could move nothing but his lips to emote but what he did with his voice and his lines were amazing. I mean come on, he built an empire on the back of a cartoon bee, how many villains can say that?

[Lithp]

Most of the Venture Brothers villains could probably count. The Monarch can be really awesome when he's not being played for laughs. Phantom Limb had that whole hostile takeover & descent into madness thing. And the head bad guy was freaking David Bowie.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Lithp

What are the qualities for being unsung?

The Horned King from the Black Cauldron. He's a terrifying skeletal monstrosity who unleashes an undead army to take over the world. He's hinted at being a very powerful sorcerer & is only actually taken down by a thinly veiled Deus Ex Machina.

Dude had an entire army of viking-like people working for him out of fear, & literally struggled to survive even as his flesh was being ripped from his bones.

Most of all, he sounds cooler than the antagonists from the book series that Disney based the movie off of. At one point, I thought he was supposed to be Satan himself.

Disney could have done so much more with him.

Disney should've made the whole Prydain series instead of jamming together The Book of Three and The Black Cauldron into one movie and changing the ending and leaving out major characters, etc., but that's what they do best (worst) with these movies based on books. Although Arawn is ultimately destroyed in kind of a dumb way anyway, so it's not really a step up from the movie in that aspect. Frankly I always pictured Arawn as looking like the Horned King anyhow, since the copy of the Black Cauldron I had inexplicably used the Disney art from the movie, which barely managed some slight similarities to the novel.

Wait, this is the your thing is awesome topic. Uh, the Black Cauldron movie finally explained what Gurgi looked like.