Marvel Movie Villains & The Questions of Complexity?

[CJStriker]

There is Little Doubt we are in a Major, Even Golden Age of Marvel Movies from Various Companies!

From Marvel Studios to FOX, Marvel is creating more and more movies with Major Levels of success that many have never seen before and with that creating worlds, stories and characters that are being for the 1st time introduces to the Mass Public as well as the Comic Book Veteran with Amazing Success!

BUT........with every movie there has seemed to be one recurring criticism that seems to pop-up. Whether it is justified in the eyes of many or argued against, it is their:

The Complex of the Marvel Movie Villain and the Lack of their Characters!

For me I have mostly Greatly Enjoyed most of the Marvel Villians, liking the wide variety of them and their various goals and levels of power and how they go about achieving their various goals. But there is NO Denying that many have seen the Marvel Villains as the weakest parts, if not the Weakest-Part of most Marvel Movies.

Just Recently with X-Men: Apocalypse, while their are good debates on how the movie was, it seems most of any negative criticism of the Movie has been directed at the Villain who is in the Title of the Movie Itself, Apocalypse Himself and to a degree his Horsemen too. Lack of character, development, acting, reasoning, you name it, it is their to say Apocalypse and His Horsemen, most of them lacked.

So My Point for this Thread is Simple, to have views expressed on HOW Marvel Needs to or Should Fix these Villian Problems for not just upcoming movies, but really what they COULD have done to make their past movie villains more of a success. From Ultron, to the Dark Elves, to Apocalypse, Ronan, to AIM, to Whiplash, to really ANY of them, What was it Marvel Needed in your opinion to make them Work and How would that have translated in to be more successful in others eyes?

Mostly remember, you have at most over 2 and 1/2 Hours of time in a movie to present these villains with EVERYTHING Else being represented as well! Could that even be done or what their room that was wasted to do so?

OR, are they Mostly OK or Good In your Eyes and Why is that and why the dislike of Marvel Movie Villains is not correct in your eyes?

Mainly I like this to be a good talk to Finally Pan these questions out in the eyes of fans and figure out the Marvel Movie Villain Complexity Questions.

[DurararaFTW]

Apocalypse's degree of complexity was very much not the problem with that movie, hardly every movie villain needs to a Magneto or Kingpin.

[MindofShadow]

It is a screen time thing. The more time you put on the villain, the less time is being spent on the title heroes (who is typcially the person the audience came to see).

The problem is doubled with this franchises as the hero is going to be making the cheddar movie after movie after movie... not the villain. There is a reason some of the best villains have appeared in multiple movies and have had more time spetn on them (loki, magneto, hell the Netflix vilalisn like kingpin and purple man).

Its a screen time issue.

[Of Atlantis]

To me, a villain is as important to the movie as the heroes. Some of the better villains are sympathetic as well as dangerous, but I don't think sympathy is specific to a good villain, rather just character development.

Magneto, Kingpin and Loki were good villains because they were explored, they had story arcs and development as well as being legitimate threats. I think if they explored Apocalypse more, growing up as a mutant and his rise to power maybe, they could've put together a villain that didn't come off as so one-dimensional.

[Vic Vega]

This is not the problem the fans here seem to think it is.

What are the movies that got it right?

Not the Xfilms.

Magneto in the Xfilms gets more developement than nearly all MCU villains but its at the expense of every Xmen who isn't Wolverine(or Mystique since Mystique is apparently a founding Xman now).

Those people who waited decades to see Jubliee on screen or an Angel done correctly, or Cyclops and Storm simply given
something to do got hosed by that franchise yet again.

Because Singer decided that we needed yet another scene of Fassbinder manfully suffering again.

Because two movies of it weren't enough.

I'd rather the movies give the heroes that I came to see some development.

We have Academy Award winners in Marvel movies (Jeff Bridges, Robert Redford) actually taking thier bad guy roles seriously and the fans aren't satisfied.

As a counterpoint rewatch Brando sleepwalk his way thru Superman 1 or Hackman chewing scenery that same film (tho at least Hackman seemed to be legit having fun).

[MindofShadow]

This is not the problem the fans here seem to think it is.

What are the movies that got it right?

Not the Xfilms.

Magneto in the Xfilms gets more developement than nearly all MCU villains but its at the expense of every Xmen who isn't Wolverine(or Mystique since Mystique is apparently a founding Xman now).

Those people who waited decades to see Jubliee on screen or an Angel done correctly, or Cyclops and Storm simply given
something to do got hosed by that franchise yet again.

Because Singer decided that we needed yet another scene of Fassbinder manfully suffering again.

Because two movies of it weren't enough.

I'd rather the movies give the heroes that I came to see some development.

We have Academy Award winners in Marvel movies (Jeff Bridges, Robert Redford) actually taking thier bad guy roles seriously and the fans aren't satisfied.

As a counterpoint rewatch Brando sleepwalk his way thru Superman 1 or Hackman chewing scenery that same film (tho at least Hackman seemed to be legit having fun).

It became an MCU complaint for whatever reason. Maybe it started with Whiplash/Hammer? Because Stane, Ross/Abom, Loki, and Skull were fine.

So, then it became a narrative that just never ended. People keep expecting Ledger Joker to show up somewhere or something. Now every MCU villain is "not enough time! shallow!" no matter what.

[codystarbuck]

Heroic adventure relies on the villain. A good villain makes the hero shine. James bond is best when he faces a Goldfinger, not so much a Mr Big. Holmes has to encounter Moriarty, at some point. Robin Hood only works pitted against schemers like prince John and Guy of Gisbourne. Complexity is in the portrayal and a few key elements that give that villain purpose. Look at Goldfinger; you don't get an elaborate backhistory. You first encounter him as a card cheat, who brutally murders someone who betrayed him. You get a briefing and then the rest is up to the performance of Gert Frobe (and the voice actor dubbing him). The problem is that most comic book villains haven't been well developed; most are just gimmicks. The best are the ones that have grown beyond the gimmick; but that is over successive appearances, usually. I think part of the problem is modern scripting. Hollywood seems to think you need to spend large chunks of a movie on the villain, when a lot of the exposition and character building can be done in a few lines. Look at Raiders of the Lost Ark. When Indy and Belloq first meet up, their history is summed up by Belloq's line about taking anything that Indy finds. That's as far as it goes. We don't need 20 minutes of backstory. It's handled in 1-2 minutes. Then, it's reinforced as they spar throughout the film. Ronald Lacey doesn't have many lines as Todt; he just makes the most of each one. To me, that's the problem; bloated scripts requiring long scenes.