I'm not gonna lie, just watching the High Evolutionary from the safety of my theater seat still felt like I was trapped in a room with an abusive uncle. He made me afraid and uncomfortable in ways very few villains have over the years. I think the High Evolutionary is specifically inspired by the authoritarian villains we saw in the 60s and 70s, like Nurse Ratchet or the government officials in "A Clockwork Orange". The kind of villains that just set off you fight or flight reflexes even from the safety of being outside your TV set or the silver screen.
I remember when I watched the movie, I cried when I saw Rocket’s friends die, him being sad and the High Evolutionary just…there. My sadness turned into anger, I really wanted to see him die, and even more since Rocket is my favorite guardian.
Wasn't killmonger just going to kill most of wakanda then commit genocides throughout the world because his dad lost the trial to be king and was exiled to a third world country (USA)
@@thisguy9733 uh no. He wanted their tech to to fight for and aid the black community AND revenge for his dad. T'challa even admitted killmomger was right. Edit- his dad was killed trying to attack Zuri in revenge for being a double agent he never challenged for the throne
Like he really hates rocket because he knows rocket is smarter than him and it just fucks him up like “how dare you think you were more” just really shows his delusion like he really never thought that something he created could want to be anything more than
Further irony in that it was his extra attention to Rocket early on that developed that ability. Its shown early on that he was mentoring Rocket more than most of his creations at least that was my take on it.
He created something possibly smarter than him, and is upset that he mighe have perfected something else before he made himself perfect That's where I think his anger is coming from. "I can't make myself perfect, even though I made something closer to perfect than I am"
@@Jasmin_Pepelko And what I love about his narcissism is that he doesn't realize that he is unconsciously sabotaging his own pursuit He becomes genuinely enraged At something that solve any problem that he couldn't when ironically that is exactly what he should be striving for he is after all seemingly trying to create perfection and perfection should be always better than what is it's Interesting that he's just so so absorbed and doesn't really think things through on a philosophical level that he doesn't realize that of course perfect beings would be able to outfink him He himself should recognize even with narcissism that he doesn't know every answer
The worst part is his admission that this is just one of many worlds he's destroyed in his quest for "perfection", making him a perpetrator of genocide on a truly vast scale.
As someone else pointed out, even Gamora, the literal daughter of Thanos (and NOT the same Gamora who went through everything with the Guardians up until Infinity War), was horrified by how callous the HE was. Thanos may have been spiteful at times, but it didn't seem like he committed genocide on a whim or for fun, he was principled, and his reasons were in the interest of survival of all life (to the extent that some people IRL actually think he had a point). The HE wiped planets out JUST because they didn't match his own personal standards, and he didn't feel a shred of sympathy for them, only disgust.
The High Evolutionary is that kid who built a good Lego car, but it wasn't what he envision and breaks it down and does it again and again until it what it's in his mind. And it's never perfect. So he always makes the same mistakes.
The big reason he evokes such a deep and emotional connection with the viewer is because he resembles something both horrifying and familiar. He is not some alien with a lofty goal or a greedy shrew that hides his misdeeds as long as possible, threats that often feel far away and fantastical. He is a narcissist that leaves it all out on display for everyone to see with no shame and what he does is not much different from what many experience for themselves in real life. People like him are real, he represents the type of monster we all know and often fear and hate. The actor did an amazing job making this feel as personal as it did, I would bet that this was immensely satisfying for everyone who has had this kind of person in their life.
Oh definitely!!! You can relate him to the most extreme fanatic in a room where everyone has the same value, but are uncomfortable with the one with the more extreme view and especially the one who looks to increase the standard.
High Evolutionary: "You thought you could escape me?! NO! You think you have some worth in and of yourself without me?! NO! YOU ARE AN ABOMINATION! NOTHING MORE THAN A STEP ON MY PATH, YOU FREAKISH LITTLE MONSTER! HOW DARE YOU THINK YOU ARE MORE, 8... 9... P... 1... 3?!!" Rocket: "The name's Rocket. Rocket Raccoon"
In a deleted scene that I kind of wish that James Gunn left in the film, it showed the High Evolutionary being imprisoned on Knowhere and him attempting to staple his face back together. I am glad that Marvel kept him alive and essentially still the same flat character, because it'll be so interesting to see how the High Evolutionary could interact with Mister Sinister in the MCU's X-Men.
@@christiandauz3742Yes, but most of the MCU villains are dead. 90% of the time, the villains die in the movie they get introduced in. Having one or two villains being alive and maybe even reoccurring wouldn’t hurt the MCU at all.
@@christiandauz3742most of the villains who are alive rarely reappear like Hammer or Abomination (not counting the she hulk show) besides i say tbey should keep giving some recurring villains so tbey can put them in the raft
There is a reason why people thought High Evolutionary would make a better main arc villain that Kang. They guy had resources, A grudge, and could easily make an army to invade earth our of petty revenge. Also in one movie he left a bigger impact on the audience than every prior villain before him in the new phases.
I'd still say He Who Remains left more than enough of an impact. The problem is that introducing an enemy of that magnitude with the promise of his death heralding something even worse doesn't really work out when said promised destruction is followed up by his next variant getting beaten by socialist ants.
It also really didn't help That Kang Was set up in a tv show instead of a movie And then in his movie debut What is seemingly one of if not his strongest variant one that apparently entire council feared and hated Was killed by ant man And nothing that was shown really set up anything that that was that intriguing he also had a huge problem in that nothing really set him up as being the next Thano sure he's talked about his being strong and that his Variants are dangerous but that's Just talk And numbers aren't really a good way to create a threatening hype it would have always been three main variants and then just an army of individuals who would be no different than any other army seen in an Avengers movie And lastly he just didn't have anything that was tying the story together to lead to him thanos had the Infinity Stones which well being relatively repetitive plot mcguffins did a very good job continuing to build up Thados even when he's not even shown in the move because with each stone scene it's setting in a piece that is going to have to be in play for Infinity War We knew when we see dr strained with the time stone That Infinity War is going to involve Thanos going after strange Same with vision And the guardians of the galaxy were certain to become involved in the chasing after either the power stone or the reality stone but with the conqueror narratively he doesn't have anything That's building up To a movie to movie if he's not directly mentioned or directly featured then he has no impact nothing is being put in place no puzzle is being put together no pieces on the chess board are being moved dr strange in the multiverse of madness thor love and Thunder and so on are doing nothing towards moving towards the Conqueror so while I am still overall disappointed that he was removed as much as I like Dr Doom has even less setting him up as the next villain And I would have preferred such a Grandiose and important villain being given his own phase of the movies to build up to him instead of just being thrown in as a replacement for the Conqueror
@@yami122 They did start setting him up, we just didn't get to the point where it would have become more evident. The incursions were essentially set up by Loki, shown in Strange and would have likely been tied to Kang by the end. Same goes for the Ten Rings presumably being intended to have to do with Kang. You also very much can use reputation and words to build up the hype for a villain. Loki did so marvelously. It really boils down to Ant-Man immediately making a joke out of him in his first appereance.
@@goji253 Yup the Loki variant (He Who Remains) had the potential and was the most fascinating version of Kang. An infintely old man with the power of God who has been driven virtually insane by his loneliness and all the atrocities he's had to commit, yet continues to do them because he feels its the only option. Doesn't even bother to try and appear threatening or intimidating when we meet him because he just doesn't care anymore. Yet in Ant-Man we just got a regular guy without much clear motivation who was defeated way too easily. Don't even get me started on the post credit scene either.....
I remember when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was released and immediately after it was there were numerous debates on Twitter about how the High Evolutionary was a variant of Kang and that he's just a better antagonist overall. While I agreed with the statement that High Evolutionary is a better antagonist than Kang, I never understood why people wanted him to be a variant of Kang when their goals were just completely different.
Fans wanted the High Evolutionary to be a Variant of Kang because he seemed to be exactly what Marvel wanted Kang to be (a black male villain who was extremely smart, extremely powerful, kind of crazy, and utterly terrifying)
10:10 I remember when I watched the movie, part of the way through I was looking at his face and thought "wait, that's a mask. He doesn't have that in flashbacks, why does he have that?" Then later still I realized where the flashbacks were going and that it was going to be Rocket who fucked up his face. Such a good reveal, underneath the mask he looks so gruesome and disfigured, but you don't feel a single ounce of sympathy because he deserves nothing less.
What further adds to the depravity of the High Evolutionary’s destruction of 2nd Earth is how disgusted and shocked Gamora is. Like the literal daughter of Thanos - a villain who routinely killed half the populations of entire planets - was just so horrified by wanton and unnecessary lack of value in life. Really highlighted the HE ‘s true monstrousness.
Agreed Thanos for all his horribleness never just outright nuke the place and killed everything and his violence was always to try to serve some higher purpose while the high evolutionaries violences pointless there's no reason to purge Planets that are perfect he could just leave them and let them do what they want
Thanos at least appeared remorseful for wiping half of a population, or at least seemed to understand the ethical weight of his actions and considered the people he killed people. The HE has no such care for anything other than himself.
Thanos wanted to help everyone, and that’s what makes him so much more than just some genocidal nazi-like character. Now, his way of helping ruined an indescribable amount of organisms, but he wanted to help the entire universe. He could have chosen an easier way that he didn’t believe in, or had done it for a horrible reason, but he didn’t. That’s what makes The High Evolutionary SO much more shocking, especially to Gamora. She cannot comprehend the insanity of what he is doing, because it doesn’t make sense. He took the easy and horrible way over a path he believes is right, no matter what. He is just plain evil, and it’s very disturbing. The only amount of sympathy you can give is the ability to be lazy and angry, but it’s in no way the sort of sympathy you like. It’s the sympathy that makes you awfully uncomfortable and squeamish.
Floor reminded me a lot of my kiddos. It was all I could do not to scream in the theater when they died. I knew it had to happen but in the moment it blindsided me, and I spent the next few minutes with my head between my knees trying to stay quiet. Had to rush home and hug them after, and I had nightmares for a few days.
High Evolutionary was a better villan built up to than Kang and I haven't felt as terrified of a Marvel villan since Thanos and Winter Solider. High Evolutionary gets my Marvel Hall of Fame villan award
@@MarvNARKI get it dude, the comics deserve respect, but they are very clearly talking about the movie’s version because that is what’s being discussed here. Plus characters get reinterpreted all the time, it sucks when it happens to somebody you like and the new direction isn’t for you but it happens. Screaming into the void of TH-cam comments won’t do anything.
@@mateokirstine9782 I don’t have anything to add on your comment, but I have to say good job. You managed to create a good place to talk and addressed and considered their point. If all of TH-cam was like this, then we would have a significantly better platform
Re: Obadiah Stane Headcanon: I think Stane was secretly a HYDRA agent. Consider, HYDRA kills Howard Stark, as seen in Civil War, and grooms his genius son Tony Stark into being a weapons designer and manufacturer who doesn’t care what his weapons are used for, merely trusting that they will end up in the right hands. Stane is their plant, he takes over the company from Howard after his death and basically acts as a godfather to Tony, turning him into an unwitting asset for HYDRA’s ongoing plan to enable their new world order by continuing to drive conflict around the world until people submit to their institutions. But Stane gets greedy, and jealous of Tony always hogging the limelight. So he puts a hit on Tony, without the consent or knowledge of his HYDRA superiors. This is beginning of the end for him. Tony doesn’t die, and in fact he returns from his captivity under the Ten Rings a changed man, determined to see that his company never sells another weapon again. All the while, he’s holed up in his garage with a new source of infinite clean energy doing god knows what. HYDRA is nervous, their asset is wildly out of control, and shortly after getting reports of an “Iron Man’ blowing up terrorists on the other side of the world, they’ve just heard via Agent Coulson that Stane orchestrated the assassination attempt. Now they’re pissed off, so HYDRA stops covering for Stane and lets SHIELD follow up on Pepper Potts’ claims and arrest him, only for a mech fight to break out. Think back to when Stane had Stark paralyzed and pulled out his arc reactor. His big villain speech, one of the things he says is that the Arc Reactor will put the balance of power back in the right hands. “Our hands,” exact words. I don’t think he’s talking about him and Tony, if Obie were any bolder, he’d have thrown in a “Hail Hydra” at the end of that statement. Maybe it is just a headcanon, but it fits way too well to simply ignore.
If there's a common theme between all three main GoTG villains, it's obsession with a singular, twisted goal. Ronan is obsessed with destroying Xander, even when he's standing ON the planet and will be killed himself. Ego is obsessed with replacing the universe with himself because he thinks he's more impressive than it. The High Evolutionary is obsessed with making the perfect life form, no matter how many "failures" he has to kill in the process.
This guy just casually has a higher kill count than anything this side of Thanos. And it's not towards some noble goal. It's not even some act of anger. He does it dismissively. He does it with all the passion I dedicate to cleaning out my inbox.
When Peter (star lord) told the High Evolutionary about him seeing a squid sell crack to kids, it was the sickest burn… but probably also the nail for that planet since it showed the imperfection he needed to self destruct it. Man had an ego to rival… Ego.
God I loved the High Evolutionary, a villain that was bad just to be bad was such a breath of fresh air. I love a villain that’s written so well and acted so well to the point where I genuinely hate the character
And honestly he felt more threatening and interesting of a villain Then all of the appearances of Kang ever did the story kept trying to tell us what a monster Kang Is and what a horrific threat he is but he dies in both of his appearances and he's not even that hard to kill And raw numbers are not enough to create a threat for an audience especially since audience knows that when it comes dying to deal with 100,000 of a powerful being that the narrative will arbitrarily weaken them so that everyone is taking out dozens with every swing and shot So I find it interesting that the villain of a Guardians of the Galaxy will be definitely one of the 2 wackiest marble franchise film wise had a villain that did everything better than the villain they were trying to set up as the next Thanos
"You didn't want things perfect. You just hated things the way they are." A simple deconstruction of the High Evolutionary's true desires. He may hide behind a vision of a perfect society, but his true motivation comes from the distain of life as is and how it doesn't meet his standards. There are a lot of real world people that have this same problem, and my hope is that they see this and realize that the problem is with themselves, not the world around them.
Yeah, and Rocket doesn’t just beat up the High Evolutionary, he fully outwits him. For the H.E., this is much worse. The very thing that begins his downward spiral is the moment when Rocket, at a glance, figures out the solution to his “rage protein” problem with the Counter Earth residents. In that moment, Rocket essentially proves himself to be the H.E.’s greatest success, because what else can you call it when your creation outsmarts you? But the H.E. can’t see that, can’t appreciate it. As far as he’s concerned, Rocket and his friends are the scraps, the rough sketches he uses to plan out more advanced experiments, and to get his jollies on I guess. The H.E. is only explaining his experiment to Rocket because he likes to talk, loves the sound of his own voice. He wasn’t looking for advice, the High Evolutionary was basically just thinking out loud and showing off. The last thing he anticipated was to have his Frankenstein raccoon thing correct him mid-monologue, and it just breaks him, pulls the rug right out from under his entire self image. This is clearly a man with a fragile sense of self worth, something he is constantly trying to compensate for with his obscene experiments, and considering those experiments create entire races and worlds that worship him as a god, we can extrapolate exactly how astonishingly fragile his ego must be in relation. From his point of view, this rotten pile of stapled meat can’t be better than him, it just can’t. That’s not allowed. So when he kills Lyla in the middle of their escape, he’s showing off again, proving his superiority through violence. And it costs him his face. Cut to the present, he’s had probably decades to stew over this. The High Evolutionary is walking around with a skin mask and a suit wired with a gravity manipulation engine, which he delights in wielding against anyone who even gets sassy with him all throughout the movie. And when he finally gets a chance to use it against Rocket, immediately launching into his manifesto of superiority, no doubt practiced in the mirror every morning since he escaped, Rocket just flips a switch, drops to the ground, and shoot him point blank. The High Evolutionary hasn’t seen Rocket for a minute and he’s already been outsmarted again and knocked on his ass by a leftover experiment, and before he even has time to process that, the Guardians are spilling in out of nowhere (from Knowhere), knocking him around the room like a pinball until he drops. Yeah, that was satisfying.
He wanted perfection but he didn't want anything he created to be better than him, otherwise he's no longer their God. Rocket outgrew him, he didn't need the high evolutionary because he was better than him and like you said, Rocket was the scraps left behind from his experiments so for him to be the creation that's better than anything else he's ever made and smarter than him to boot that's too much for his ego to handle. How can something 'imperfect' be superior? It goes against his entire philosophy.
really liked this video, it felt a bit more personal due to the simple fact of the villain that's being discussed. i probably didn't give the high evolutionary or guardians 3 much of a chance when i first watched it due to the circumstances in which i first did but upon a rewatch and having some time to properly think about the movie i realized just how good of a movie and villain it truly had been. i genuinly think the guardians trilogy is some of the best the mcu has to offer now and videos like this just help show it.
The High Evolutionary definitely showed why he's beyond a monster. We all hated him and how he had no value for life beyond his mad experiments. Only thing i didn't like was how they had him annihilate his whole staff but then gets destroyed in a few seconds by the Guardians. It could've been a cool fight sequence but was disappointed.
If I had a fraction of his and 'god's' power I would NEVER be that awful I also prefer Quality over Quantity Better to have just one Amazing, Moral Kid or Apprentice than a dozen manchilds like Trump
I agree I wished for a longer fight too, but the way the guardians took him out, with speed and precision was probably the best way to stop him. They pressured him into a corner, gave him no time to react or use his powers because he could've easily killed them all if he did what he did to his employees. So Gunn probably wanted to get rid of that plot hole of "oh he was able to take out a whole room of people with just a simple thought" to one last cool action sequence of our favorite heroes kicking the absolute crap of this monster
@@Quantu04The High Evolutionary's main power was gravity/force push. Rocket prior to being incapacitated built shoes that allowed the wearer to walk on any surface, in any direction. Rocket had the counter to THE's main power and that positioned the Guardians to a decisive victory. It also showcases the power of cooperation and teamwork after THE alienated all of his remaining forces due to his unrelenting narcissism.
@@otterfire4712 yeah that's all true too, to top it off, when THE saw rocket use his boots, it stunned him. Not only was he surprised but he was once again outsmarted by his own creation, and we all saw how he reacted the first time rocket outsmarted him. Between being constantly beaten by people he calls inferior, the mutiny of his employees, and the destruction of his exploding ship; THE was probably already losing his mind, imagine how he felt being outplayed by his creation once more before being defeated
Not every villain defeat has to be a result of some long boss fight. The development of his vulnerability was depicted well enough throughout the movie.
My favourite thing about him is that it feels they committed to him. When he does truly hate-able things. When he blows up counter-earth, people actually die, he personally kills Laela and has floor and teeth killed. They have the balls to show what his face actually looks like.
there's unused scene bonus in Blu-ray of High Evolutionary is in Knowhere (little detail Drax actually carry him before explosion), but now he is scared and inside laser cage, jailed by Rocket, a full circle.
Ego the Living Planet was also evil, but he has some remorse. Even when he codly told Peter that he gave his mother cancer, he says that he truly loved her, that he almost abanded his mission just to be with her and that it broke his "heart to put that tumor in her head." Yeah no, the High Evoutionary is just Pure Evil who care only for his progress.
One of the best parts for me is that not only is it personal but it’s specifically not threatening anyone. He’s a “creator” he wants to make things but he never threatens to destroy the world or universe like most other threats which gives us a grounding for the entire story.
Tbh I don’t think the High evolutionary is “pure evil” even though he’s as close as you can possibly get. He still WANTS to believe he’s a benevolent savior like Thanos did before Endgame, but when pressed hard enough his repressed Malevolence comes out in full force, because his ego can’t handle it anymore. The mask makes you worse the more you wear it. I personally like to call it TRUE evil.
5:50 the abuse of walking on eggshells like that is awful. My heart goes out to anyone else who suffered from this. Theres a lot of "high evolutionary" types out there
My guy, fantastic video. You really hit the nail on the head. You articulated why it was so uncomfortable whenever the high evolutionary was on screen. Makes for an unforgettable antagonist. Seeing Rocket overcoming his abuser was so cathartic.
I think that it's an incredible achievement to write a character like the High Evolutionary because they still managed to pack a lot of nuance into his behavior without trying to give him a sympathetic backstory or add more redeeming characteristics to his behavior. He is still evil through and through but you do get a good glimpse onto his reasoning when you see him interacting with other characters and also his methodology and experiments.
The High Evolutionary may not be sympathetic or even deep, but he's memorable. He leaves an impact. He's not just a villain to fill the villain spot. He's a villain you love to hate.
I thought they did a pretty apt Narcissist grandiose drunk dad style villain. Self centered villains are often done cartoonishly like they’re given big hair and a mirror and that’s it. Using Rocket to contrast his villainy and his villainy to help us understand rocket as a serious sympathetic character deserves applause.
I really love the first Guardians movie, two and three are good but not that great. Having five guardians, I'm including both Peter and Mantis for Ego while having Gamora and Nebula for Thanos together, have abusive fathers is crazy but realistic. Thanos being a genocidal monster, an abusive father to his children that fail him and showing acts of kindness sometimes just messes you up. Ego being a monster who eats his own children and would eat world's whole is insane. What makes it worse is that he feels love but still chooses power is crazy. Than onto the High Evolutionary, who is a animal abuser, a genocider, a drunk, abusive monster and sees himself as a false God is insane. He is definitely similar to business abusive fathers while having elements of a cult parent as well. Just so crazy. Thanks Ven I love the Guardians
Yo, with how Gunn made the Guardians trilogy, I’m looking forward to the DC stuff. I wanted Snyder to be able to finish out his universe, but I’m happy to have Gunn start his
I love the fact that High Evolutionary is not a sympathetic villain. We get to many of those, nothing wrong with it, but i hate feeling sympathy for someone who is literally destroying if not killing lives live were to understand why they do it. This villain shows there are people who are just evil for their own selfish reasons.
What an amazing breakdown of such a powerful character! I’m new to your channel, but man this made me love this movie even more. I’m also glad that you said truly evil people do exist irl. So many people online try to say that everything’s shades of gray, but sometimes, there really is just evil
There's a bit of a throughline with H.E. and Ego. They both care so little for those they seek to use, but one thing leading me to believe Ego is still the most "evil" antagonist in the MCU thus far is that he killed his own children when he didn't get what he wanted out of them. People kinda forget that mountain of skulls in pt2 were all his dead kids. That's Peter and Mantis' siblings they'll never meet.
I love the Guardian movies cause all the villains got better over time. None out of all 3 of them are sympathetic to a degree of sorts. And I enjoy that.
Everytime the High Evolutionary appear or scream, I felt myself feel so uncomfortable. The more unhinged he got the worse I felt uncomfortable. And I never become uncomfortable in a movie aside from The Blob and Nope
It’s also nice that the villain isn’t the classic Marvel “basically right, but WHAT ABOUT THE METHODS?!?!” Killmonger’s making too many good points, have him choke a woman. Karli seems to justifiable, have her kill some innocent people for no reason.
The bit that shivered me was the insidious bit where baby Rocket is sitting on his knee and the HE grasps his head, he’s still being “kind” at this stage but it’s gross & made my stomach clench 👏👏👏
I found the high evolutionary weirdly relatable, what’s good about truly evil villains is when you tap into characteristics and faces of the character that a normal human could also relate. Maybe it was his perfectionism that moved me, and found myself disgusted at the things I could connect with him, I think that’s the most interesting part about these type of characters, when the part of them that is wrong is the part the audience could also relate to
I’m working on a huge project with the overall theses that “the imperfection of humanity is more beautiful and is better than anything that does or attempts to perfect humanity” I’m absolutely using this for my analysis, fantastic analysis from your end!
He was a horrible villain done right. We really hate this villain because of his horrible acts. He mocked Rocket after he killed his friends. That is pure evil. James Gunn really did a great job.
The problem with constant sympathetic villains is lack of contrast. I think most people can agree with that. But here's the reason why. One of the big reasons why such villains are sympathetic in the first place is the _tragedy_ in their character - both what they experienced, and more importantly here, the fact that resorting to evil was necessary. So, if all we get are sympathetic villains, then we're not being reminded _why_ what they did was evil in the first place. There needs to more emphasis on the _villainy_ being just as wrong as the _reason._ Reasons can be sympathetic, but that doesn't mean that the action is excusable. And that's where simple, brutal villains come into play. They regive that context.
As a diagnosed sociopath who is only able to relate with Homelander, Yeah. He's one of us. He's got his goals. He knows what he stands for. He did it for dumb reasons but god he tried.
@@bradleymarshall5489 Isn't that just plain old Christianity? I've been led to believe that the entire premise of Gnosticism was that the world *couldn't* be fixed. That material life is *inherently* flawed and removed from the spiritual order (ofc, the specifics varied between the sects).This is in direct opposition to what the High Evolutionary takes after: a Demiurge that "creates" life (more like he bastardizes pre-existing life) so he can have something to worship him. Ignorance and vanity are his main traits. The Evolutionary's line about there being no God and thus taking it's place is classic Demiurge behavior.
That’s the thing I liked the most about the Multiverse saga. Kang, the conqueror was evil. Not sympathetic. Not justified. Just a power-hungry dude with some tech and some gumption.
Honestly looking at it they did have the best villains, they were indeed evil. With the MCU itself Loki was just a fool being used, Ultron was technically right as humans are innately evil just with the potential of doing good so he lacked the patience to let such a matter sort itself out, he had no faith of his own, much like Tony. Thanos was afraid for the survival of all life he was just misguided and assumed the resources of life are what was finite another fool. But with the GotG villains, Ronan wanted to dominate and destroy a species for glory. Ego wanted to unify the universe and strip free will from everyone. Lastly the High evolutionary wanted to replace God which is sin incarnate of the devil variety.
a few days ago I watched gotg3 for the third time with a few people who haven´t watched it yet and always when another rocket flashback came in I was as upset about high evolutionary as them
One of the things that bothered me the most about the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom reviews was that they were upset Ganondorf didn’t have any depth and was just bad. He’s the reincarnation of the embodiment of evil, he’s a demon, he doesn’t need to be sympathetic
0:27 in and your prethesis is just inane. Thanos is the villain who thinks he's being complex but is nakedly rationalizing his own desire for total control and despotism. That's why his policies are inconsistent outside of raw narcissistic power-tripping -- he tortures and replaces Nebula for no clearly stated reason other than "competition," his royal guard makes evangelical statements as though he were a religion, and his one-time lapdog Loki speaks on his behalf literally saying that subjugation is the way. The *joke* is that his whole philosophy is from a discredited 19th century thought experience by Malthus. Like, I'm sure you probably have some good thoughts and I get the audience you're shooting for, but I cannot take you seriously if you fumble your intro that hard. Do you think Heath Ledger's Joker and the trolley problem was complex?
My problem with sympathetic villains is that they are unrealistic. The high evolutionary is what real evil looks like: people in positions of power causing immense suffering in pursuit of their sadistic goals.
If pure evil villains like the high evolutionary are like the people born with power, sympathetic villains are like revolutionaries who gain power while fighting for freedom and become corrupt.
For a villain who said, "There is no God." he sure is acting like God, demanding perfection from his creations then destroying them if they fail to meet his high standards. But I guess destroying counter-Earth through a flood would have too on the ose. I'm really sick of non-believers being portrayed as bad people. We're not the ones who did Crusades or Jihads. We didn't ship millions of people in cramped ships or railroad cars to be worked to death. Believers did those things.
If you look at basic history, secular idea kill more people then religious ones ever had. 95 million people died to socialism. Compare that to the 1.7 million who died in the crusades, and 40,000 in the inquisition. Atheist obvious have a bias, saying “religion and because they kill propel, secularism good tho👍”
This is all well and good but the High Evolutionary isn’t an evil character in the comics. Gunn altered the character’s personality so much he may as well have just created an all new one.
I Agree The High Evolutionary is the bested representing of pure Evil villains and modern movies have overused The sympathies Villian troupe and Disney is one of them as they tried to bring back Classic villains in Wish but that failed bad but The gaurdians of the Galaxy triogy has done that very well.
He’s a born psychopath like Palpatine, except nowhere near as rational, self-controlled and self-aware as Palpatine. Palps killed his whole family when he was young. He was always evil at all stages of his life, in contrast to many Sith and Dark Jedi in Star Wars who are psychically damaged people. But as for rationality and self-awareness, eg Palps partly blamed himself for Maul’s failure to defeat Obi-Wan, training Maul to fight too aggressively without any effort to protect himself. He also gave some grudging respect to Obi-Wan for defeating Vader on Mustafar, instead of having a tantrum like the High Evolutionary. Fantastic pure evil villains. I’m also disturbed by the dominance of sympathetic villains in today’s media. Just not enough variety anymore and I think it’s affecting people’s judgment.
Great video. We are at a weird time in cinema where the whole shades of grey sympathetic villain thing is played out and it’s a breath of fresh air to get a straight up bad guy now.
It's not just that he isn't a sympathetic villain, he also isn't treated or presented like a joke. In shit like the Star Wars sequel trilogy or that new Indiana Jones game, they'll take characters that should be thought of as serious threats and have them make silly faces and noises, or make them talk like an awkward teenager. The people who make this stuff don't try to make villains realistic or even hateable, all they do is make them into clowns for their audience to point and laugh at.
The only thing about this iteration of the high evolutionary that annoys me is that he just has a generic accent, rather than a English manchester accent as thats where he's from in the comics, best MCU badguy since infinity war
That's the only thing that annoys you about the MCU take on him? Not the fact this man has the unfortunate news of being portrayed as a full on villain in every single one of his media appearances?
While I agree this was an amazing movie it’s not because of the villain. The high evolutionary isn’t a great villain to me (a good one for sure however). What really pushes the story forward however is not the villain but the characters reaction to the villain, the ptsd that is inflicted and how rocket overcomes that with the help of his new family. The family that he truly bonded with like he did with the other animals that he was kept with. A support system that kept him grounded. The story isn’t about the high evolutionary but rocket raccoon, and his closure with his past. The high evolutionary is a catalytic story element more than he is a villain. Without the high evolutionary and his history with rocket, rockets story would not have the same effect…
I'm not gonna lie, just watching the High Evolutionary from the safety of my theater seat still felt like I was trapped in a room with an abusive uncle. He made me afraid and uncomfortable in ways very few villains have over the years. I think the High Evolutionary is specifically inspired by the authoritarian villains we saw in the 60s and 70s, like Nurse Ratchet or the government officials in "A Clockwork Orange". The kind of villains that just set off you fight or flight reflexes even from the safety of being outside your TV set or the silver screen.
Thank you for not lying.
I just watched a video about the mentioned characters bro 😭😭😭 (Radchet, and The Clockwork orange)
I remember when I watched the movie, I cried when I saw Rocket’s friends die, him being sad and the High Evolutionary just…there. My sadness turned into anger, I really wanted to see him die, and even more since Rocket is my favorite guardian.
He is @@RRSmurf
He's a metaphor for Disney. James is Rocket.
Your right. After so many sympathetic not exactly wrong villains a straight bad guy like the high evolutionary hits harder
*MCU's High Evolutionary
@@MarvNARK 🤓
Wasn't killmonger just going to kill most of wakanda then commit genocides throughout the world because his dad lost the trial to be king and was exiled to a third world country (USA)
@@thisguy9733 uh no. He wanted their tech to to fight for and aid the black community AND revenge for his dad. T'challa even admitted killmomger was right.
Edit- his dad was killed trying to attack Zuri in revenge for being a double agent he never challenged for the throne
@@marqusmedina5983 which black community because he is sounding alot like adolf Hitler did when he said he was going to save the white community
Like he really hates rocket because he knows rocket is smarter than him and it just fucks him up like “how dare you think you were more” just really shows his delusion like he really never thought that something he created could want to be anything more than
It's just not that but he also has pride in his child but only when it comes to what he has done. He sees value in his brain and nothing else.
Further irony in that it was his extra attention to Rocket early on that developed that ability. Its shown early on that he was mentoring Rocket more than most of his creations at least that was my take on it.
ironically, with all his intelligence he can’t fathom the concept of creating something smarter than himself
He created something possibly smarter than him, and is upset that he mighe have perfected something else before he made himself perfect
That's where I think his anger is coming from. "I can't make myself perfect, even though I made something closer to perfect than I am"
@@Jon_EL
Yeah pretty much
The high evolutionary is so self-centered that he doesn't even realize his own imperfections.
In the films
Like so many in real life
@@glitchygear9453 unfortunate but true.
How could a narcissist believe he's anything other than perfect? It's not possible.
@@Jasmin_Pepelko And what I love about his narcissism is that he doesn't realize that he is unconsciously sabotaging his own pursuit
He becomes genuinely enraged At something that solve any problem that he couldn't
when ironically that is exactly what he should be striving for he is after all seemingly trying to create perfection and perfection should be always better than what is
it's Interesting that he's just so so absorbed and doesn't really think things through on a philosophical level that he doesn't realize that of course perfect beings would be able to outfink him He himself should recognize even with narcissism that he doesn't know every answer
The worst part is his admission that this is just one of many worlds he's destroyed in his quest for "perfection", making him a perpetrator of genocide on a truly vast scale.
As someone else pointed out, even Gamora, the literal daughter of Thanos (and NOT the same Gamora who went through everything with the Guardians up until Infinity War), was horrified by how callous the HE was. Thanos may have been spiteful at times, but it didn't seem like he committed genocide on a whim or for fun, he was principled, and his reasons were in the interest of survival of all life (to the extent that some people IRL actually think he had a point). The HE wiped planets out JUST because they didn't match his own personal standards, and he didn't feel a shred of sympathy for them, only disgust.
@@chickensky1121 I agree
The High Evolutionary is that kid who built a good Lego car, but it wasn't what he envision and breaks it down and does it again and again until it what it's in his mind. And it's never perfect. So he always makes the same mistakes.
I hadn't thought of that, but his performance actually fits with that. He's never happy with what he does, always seeking perfection
The big reason he evokes such a deep and emotional connection with the viewer is because he resembles something both horrifying and familiar. He is not some alien with a lofty goal or a greedy shrew that hides his misdeeds as long as possible, threats that often feel far away and fantastical. He is a narcissist that leaves it all out on display for everyone to see with no shame and what he does is not much different from what many experience for themselves in real life. People like him are real, he represents the type of monster we all know and often fear and hate. The actor did an amazing job making this feel as personal as it did, I would bet that this was immensely satisfying for everyone who has had this kind of person in their life.
Oh definitely!!! You can relate him to the most extreme fanatic in a room where everyone has the same value, but are uncomfortable with the one with the more extreme view and especially the one who looks to increase the standard.
High Evolutionary: "You thought you could escape me?! NO! You think you have some worth in and of yourself without me?! NO! YOU ARE AN ABOMINATION! NOTHING MORE THAN A STEP ON MY PATH, YOU FREAKISH LITTLE MONSTER! HOW DARE YOU THINK YOU ARE MORE, 8... 9... P... 1... 3?!!"
Rocket: "The name's Rocket. Rocket Raccoon"
I love how that was his first time admitting he's a raccoon in the MCU. Real subtle character development there
@@glitchygear9453the only thing that would’ve made the scene better is Rocket calling the Evolutionary an abomination back.
Cathartic to the max
@@glitchygear9453
Exactly. It was beautiful
@@lyokianhitchhiker
Some things we can see instead of hear
In a deleted scene that I kind of wish that James Gunn left in the film, it showed the High Evolutionary being imprisoned on Knowhere and him attempting to staple his face back together. I am glad that Marvel kept him alive and essentially still the same flat character, because it'll be so interesting to see how the High Evolutionary could interact with Mister Sinister in the MCU's X-Men.
He should stay dead. MCU has too many villains
@@christiandauz3742Yes, but most of the MCU villains are dead. 90% of the time, the villains die in the movie they get introduced in. Having one or two villains being alive and maybe even reoccurring wouldn’t hurt the MCU at all.
@@christiandauz3742I'm sorry, too many? Not enough breathing, if we had too many villains, then the Thunderbolts cast would have more varied members.
@@christiandauz3742most of the villains who are alive rarely reappear like Hammer or Abomination (not counting the she hulk show) besides i say tbey should keep giving some recurring villains so tbey can put them in the raft
@@riley-dv8eu
Abomination was in Shang Chi too, getting his ass kicked by Wong
There is a reason why people thought High Evolutionary would make a better main arc villain that Kang.
They guy had resources, A grudge, and could easily make an army to invade earth our of petty revenge.
Also in one movie he left a bigger impact on the audience than every prior villain before him in the new phases.
I'd still say He Who Remains left more than enough of an impact. The problem is that introducing an enemy of that magnitude with the promise of his death heralding something even worse doesn't really work out when said promised destruction is followed up by his next variant getting beaten by socialist ants.
It also really didn't help That Kang Was set up in a tv show instead of a movie And then in his movie debut What is seemingly one of if not his strongest variant one that apparently entire council feared and hated
Was killed by ant man And nothing that was shown really set up anything that that was that intriguing
he also had a huge problem in that nothing really set him up as being the next Thano sure he's talked about his being strong and that his Variants are dangerous but that's Just talk And numbers aren't really a good way to create a threatening hype
it would have always been three main variants and then just an army of individuals who would be no different than any other army seen in an Avengers movie
And lastly he just didn't have anything that was tying the story together to lead to him thanos had the Infinity Stones which well being relatively repetitive plot mcguffins did a very good job continuing to build up Thados even when he's not even shown in the move because with each stone scene it's setting in a piece that is going to have to be in play for Infinity War We knew when we see dr strained with the time stone That Infinity War is going to involve Thanos going after strange
Same with vision And the guardians of the galaxy were certain to become involved in the chasing after either the power stone or the reality stone
but with the conqueror narratively he doesn't have anything That's building up To a movie to movie if he's not directly mentioned or directly featured then he has no impact nothing is being put in place no puzzle is being put together no pieces on the chess board are being moved
dr strange in the multiverse of madness thor love and Thunder and so on are doing nothing towards moving towards the Conqueror
so while I am still overall disappointed that he was removed as much as I like Dr Doom has even less setting him up as the next villain And I would have preferred such a Grandiose and important villain being given his own phase of the movies to build up to him instead of just being thrown in as a replacement for the Conqueror
@@yami122 They did start setting him up, we just didn't get to the point where it would have become more evident.
The incursions were essentially set up by Loki, shown in Strange and would have likely been tied to Kang by the end.
Same goes for the Ten Rings presumably being intended to have to do with Kang.
You also very much can use reputation and words to build up the hype for a villain. Loki did so marvelously. It really boils down to Ant-Man immediately making a joke out of him in his first appereance.
@@goji253 Yup the Loki variant (He Who Remains) had the potential and was the most fascinating version of Kang.
An infintely old man with the power of God who has been driven virtually insane by his loneliness and all the atrocities he's had to commit, yet continues to do them because he feels its the only option. Doesn't even bother to try and appear threatening or intimidating when we meet him because he just doesn't care anymore.
Yet in Ant-Man we just got a regular guy without much clear motivation who was defeated way too easily. Don't even get me started on the post credit scene either.....
Guardians 3 was easily the best movie of its phase. He's like a NAZI scientist, total God complex and lack of empathy.
I remember when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was released and immediately after it was there were numerous debates on Twitter about how the High Evolutionary was a variant of Kang and that he's just a better antagonist overall. While I agreed with the statement that High Evolutionary is a better antagonist than Kang, I never understood why people wanted him to be a variant of Kang when their goals were just completely different.
Because they probably wanted Kang to have a direct or indirect influence on everything, like Thanos.
Fans wanted the High Evolutionary to be a Variant of Kang because he seemed to be exactly what Marvel wanted Kang to be (a black male villain who was extremely smart, extremely powerful, kind of crazy, and utterly terrifying)
Because kang sucks and having the high evolutionary replace him as a varient would make the phase 4 movies fun to watch for once
Because they’re both black
10:10 I remember when I watched the movie, part of the way through I was looking at his face and thought "wait, that's a mask. He doesn't have that in flashbacks, why does he have that?"
Then later still I realized where the flashbacks were going and that it was going to be Rocket who fucked up his face. Such a good reveal, underneath the mask he looks so gruesome and disfigured, but you don't feel a single ounce of sympathy because he deserves nothing less.
Oh yeah you're right I had forgotten that he gets his face scratched up by rocket
What further adds to the depravity of the High Evolutionary’s destruction of 2nd Earth is how disgusted and shocked Gamora is. Like the literal daughter of Thanos - a villain who routinely killed half the populations of entire planets - was just so horrified by wanton and unnecessary lack of value in life. Really highlighted the HE ‘s true monstrousness.
Not to mention that was the Gamora that didn't have the character development of ours.
Agreed Thanos for all his horribleness never just outright nuke the place and killed everything and his violence was always to try to serve some higher purpose while the high evolutionaries violences pointless there's no reason to purge Planets that are perfect he could just leave them and let them do what they want
Thanos at least appeared remorseful for wiping half of a population, or at least seemed to understand the ethical weight of his actions and considered the people he killed people. The HE has no such care for anything other than himself.
Thanos wanted to help everyone, and that’s what makes him so much more than just some genocidal nazi-like character. Now, his way of helping ruined an indescribable amount of organisms, but he wanted to help the entire universe.
He could have chosen an easier way that he didn’t believe in, or had done it for a horrible reason, but he didn’t.
That’s what makes The High Evolutionary SO much more shocking, especially to Gamora. She cannot comprehend the insanity of what he is doing, because it doesn’t make sense. He took the easy and horrible way over a path he believes is right, no matter what. He is just plain evil, and it’s very disturbing.
The only amount of sympathy you can give is the ability to be lazy and angry, but it’s in no way the sort of sympathy you like. It’s the sympathy that makes you awfully uncomfortable and squeamish.
Floor reminded me a lot of my kiddos. It was all I could do not to scream in the theater when they died.
I knew it had to happen but in the moment it blindsided me, and I spent the next few minutes with my head between my knees trying to stay quiet. Had to rush home and hug them after, and I had nightmares for a few days.
Similar thought, but with Lylla and my girlfriend
The entire scene was a gut punch.
High Evolutionary was a better villan built up to than Kang and I haven't felt as terrified of a Marvel villan since Thanos and Winter Solider. High Evolutionary gets my Marvel Hall of Fame villan award
Why is it that you people can't seem to be specific in your writing? It's Marvel Cinematic Universe Hall of whatever
@@MarvNARKI get it dude, the comics deserve respect, but they are very clearly talking about the movie’s version because that is what’s being discussed here.
Plus characters get reinterpreted all the time, it sucks when it happens to somebody you like and the new direction isn’t for you but it happens. Screaming into the void of TH-cam comments won’t do anything.
@@mateokirstine9782
I don’t have anything to add on your comment, but I have to say good job. You managed to create a good place to talk and addressed and considered their point.
If all of TH-cam was like this, then we would have a significantly better platform
@@noahsmethers9339 aw thanks!
Re: Obadiah Stane Headcanon: I think Stane was secretly a HYDRA agent.
Consider, HYDRA kills Howard Stark, as seen in Civil War, and grooms his genius son Tony Stark into being a weapons designer and manufacturer who doesn’t care what his weapons are used for, merely trusting that they will end up in the right hands.
Stane is their plant, he takes over the company from Howard after his death and basically acts as a godfather to Tony, turning him into an unwitting asset for HYDRA’s ongoing plan to enable their new world order by continuing to drive conflict around the world until people submit to their institutions.
But Stane gets greedy, and jealous of Tony always hogging the limelight. So he puts a hit on Tony, without the consent or knowledge of his HYDRA superiors. This is beginning of the end for him. Tony doesn’t die, and in fact he returns from his captivity under the Ten Rings a changed man, determined to see that his company never sells another weapon again. All the while, he’s holed up in his garage with a new source of infinite clean energy doing god knows what. HYDRA is nervous, their asset is wildly out of control, and shortly after getting reports of an “Iron Man’ blowing up terrorists on the other side of the world, they’ve just heard via Agent Coulson that Stane orchestrated the assassination attempt. Now they’re pissed off, so HYDRA stops covering for Stane and lets SHIELD follow up on Pepper Potts’ claims and arrest him, only for a mech fight to break out.
Think back to when Stane had Stark paralyzed and pulled out his arc reactor. His big villain speech, one of the things he says is that the Arc Reactor will put the balance of power back in the right hands. “Our hands,” exact words. I don’t think he’s talking about him and Tony, if Obie were any bolder, he’d have thrown in a “Hail Hydra” at the end of that statement.
Maybe it is just a headcanon, but it fits way too well to simply ignore.
Dude, that fucking rocks.
What a perfect way to add to the canon material. It really fits
Dude I actually love that so much! That’s officially in my head canon now thank youuu 🔥🔥
Welp, I’ll just be adding this to my HC library now.
If there's a common theme between all three main GoTG villains, it's obsession with a singular, twisted goal. Ronan is obsessed with destroying Xander, even when he's standing ON the planet and will be killed himself. Ego is obsessed with replacing the universe with himself because he thinks he's more impressive than it. The High Evolutionary is obsessed with making the perfect life form, no matter how many "failures" he has to kill in the process.
This guy just casually has a higher kill count than anything this side of Thanos. And it's not towards some noble goal. It's not even some act of anger. He does it dismissively. He does it with all the passion I dedicate to cleaning out my inbox.
When Peter (star lord) told the High Evolutionary about him seeing a squid sell crack to kids, it was the sickest burn… but probably also the nail for that planet since it showed the imperfection he needed to self destruct it. Man had an ego to rival… Ego.
God I loved the High Evolutionary, a villain that was bad just to be bad was such a breath of fresh air. I love a villain that’s written so well and acted so well to the point where I genuinely hate the character
And honestly he felt more threatening and interesting of a villain Then all of the appearances of Kang ever did
the story kept trying to tell us what a monster Kang Is and what a horrific threat he is but he dies in both of his appearances and he's not even that hard to kill
And raw numbers are not enough to create a threat for an audience especially since audience knows that when it comes dying to deal with 100,000 of a powerful being that the narrative will arbitrarily weaken them so that everyone is taking out dozens with every swing and shot
So I find it interesting that the villain of a Guardians of the Galaxy will be definitely one of the 2 wackiest marble franchise film wise had a villain that did everything better than the villain they were trying to set up as the next Thanos
"You didn't want things perfect. You just hated things the way they are."
A simple deconstruction of the High Evolutionary's true desires. He may hide behind a vision of a perfect society, but his true motivation comes from the distain of life as is and how it doesn't meet his standards. There are a lot of real world people that have this same problem, and my hope is that they see this and realize that the problem is with themselves, not the world around them.
???
Should a woman denied a life-saving abortion for political reasons not resent her society?
Should a person enslaved not wish for freedom?
@@DreamersOfReality huh
it's rarely ever that simple
@@LineOfThy So cherish it when it is.
@@mettatonex7221 and that time is not now
Yeah, and Rocket doesn’t just beat up the High Evolutionary, he fully outwits him. For the H.E., this is much worse.
The very thing that begins his downward spiral is the moment when Rocket, at a glance, figures out the solution to his “rage protein” problem with the Counter Earth residents. In that moment, Rocket essentially proves himself to be the H.E.’s greatest success, because what else can you call it when your creation outsmarts you? But the H.E. can’t see that, can’t appreciate it. As far as he’s concerned, Rocket and his friends are the scraps, the rough sketches he uses to plan out more advanced experiments, and to get his jollies on I guess.
The H.E. is only explaining his experiment to Rocket because he likes to talk, loves the sound of his own voice. He wasn’t looking for advice, the High Evolutionary was basically just thinking out loud and showing off. The last thing he anticipated was to have his Frankenstein raccoon thing correct him mid-monologue, and it just breaks him, pulls the rug right out from under his entire self image. This is clearly a man with a fragile sense of self worth, something he is constantly trying to compensate for with his obscene experiments, and considering those experiments create entire races and worlds that worship him as a god, we can extrapolate exactly how astonishingly fragile his ego must be in relation. From his point of view, this rotten pile of stapled meat can’t be better than him, it just can’t. That’s not allowed. So when he kills Lyla in the middle of their escape, he’s showing off again, proving his superiority through violence. And it costs him his face.
Cut to the present, he’s had probably decades to stew over this. The High Evolutionary is walking around with a skin mask and a suit wired with a gravity manipulation engine, which he delights in wielding against anyone who even gets sassy with him all throughout the movie. And when he finally gets a chance to use it against Rocket, immediately launching into his manifesto of superiority, no doubt practiced in the mirror every morning since he escaped, Rocket just flips a switch, drops to the ground, and shoot him point blank. The High Evolutionary hasn’t seen Rocket for a minute and he’s already been outsmarted again and knocked on his ass by a leftover experiment, and before he even has time to process that, the Guardians are spilling in out of nowhere (from Knowhere), knocking him around the room like a pinball until he drops.
Yeah, that was satisfying.
💯 comment
That's the best comment I've seen on YT in a while.
Goated comment
“this rotten pile of stapled meat”
Ha
He wanted perfection but he didn't want anything he created to be better than him, otherwise he's no longer their God. Rocket outgrew him, he didn't need the high evolutionary because he was better than him and like you said, Rocket was the scraps left behind from his experiments so for him to be the creation that's better than anything else he's ever made and smarter than him to boot that's too much for his ego to handle. How can something 'imperfect' be superior? It goes against his entire philosophy.
really liked this video, it felt a bit more personal due to the simple fact of the villain that's being discussed.
i probably didn't give the high evolutionary or guardians 3 much of a chance when i first watched it due to the circumstances in which i first did but upon a rewatch and having some time to properly think about the movie i realized just how good of a movie and villain it truly had been. i genuinly think the guardians trilogy is some of the best the mcu has to offer now and videos like this just help show it.
Guess you never witness abuse as a kid
It’s the best outside of the Avengers movies IMO. Just quality movie after quality movie that work with the MCU and work on their own
The High Evolutionary definitely showed why he's beyond a monster. We all hated him and how he had no value for life beyond his mad experiments. Only thing i didn't like was how they had him annihilate his whole staff but then gets destroyed in a few seconds by the Guardians. It could've been a cool fight sequence but was disappointed.
If I had a fraction of his and 'god's' power I would NEVER be that awful
I also prefer Quality over Quantity
Better to have just one Amazing, Moral Kid or Apprentice than a dozen manchilds like Trump
I agree I wished for a longer fight too, but the way the guardians took him out, with speed and precision was probably the best way to stop him. They pressured him into a corner, gave him no time to react or use his powers because he could've easily killed them all if he did what he did to his employees. So Gunn probably wanted to get rid of that plot hole of "oh he was able to take out a whole room of people with just a simple thought" to one last cool action sequence of our favorite heroes kicking the absolute crap of this monster
@@Quantu04The High Evolutionary's main power was gravity/force push. Rocket prior to being incapacitated built shoes that allowed the wearer to walk on any surface, in any direction. Rocket had the counter to THE's main power and that positioned the Guardians to a decisive victory.
It also showcases the power of cooperation and teamwork after THE alienated all of his remaining forces due to his unrelenting narcissism.
@@otterfire4712 yeah that's all true too, to top it off, when THE saw rocket use his boots, it stunned him. Not only was he surprised but he was once again outsmarted by his own creation, and we all saw how he reacted the first time rocket outsmarted him.
Between being constantly beaten by people he calls inferior, the mutiny of his employees, and the destruction of his exploding ship; THE was probably already losing his mind, imagine how he felt being outplayed by his creation once more before being defeated
Not every villain defeat has to be a result of some long boss fight. The development of his vulnerability was depicted well enough throughout the movie.
My favourite thing about him is that it feels they committed to him. When he does truly hate-able things. When he blows up counter-earth, people actually die, he personally kills Laela and has floor and teeth killed. They have the balls to show what his face actually looks like.
there's unused scene bonus in Blu-ray of High Evolutionary is in Knowhere (little detail Drax actually carry him before explosion), but now he is scared and inside laser cage, jailed by Rocket, a full circle.
Ego the Living Planet was also evil, but he has some remorse. Even when he codly told Peter that he gave his mother cancer, he says that he truly loved her, that he almost abanded his mission just to be with her and that it broke his "heart to put that tumor in her head."
Yeah no, the High Evoutionary is just Pure Evil who care only for his progress.
One of the best parts for me is that not only is it personal but it’s specifically not threatening anyone. He’s a “creator” he wants to make things but he never threatens to destroy the world or universe like most other threats which gives us a grounding for the entire story.
Tbh I don’t think the High evolutionary is “pure evil” even though he’s as close as you can possibly get. He still WANTS to believe he’s a benevolent savior like Thanos did before Endgame, but when pressed hard enough his repressed Malevolence comes out in full force, because his ego can’t handle it anymore. The mask makes you worse the more you wear it. I personally like to call it TRUE evil.
The key is he may have somewhat good intentions. Every evil person in human history. Had somewhat good intentions.
5:50 the abuse of walking on eggshells like that is awful. My heart goes out to anyone else who suffered from this. Theres a lot of "high evolutionary" types out there
My guy, fantastic video. You really hit the nail on the head. You articulated why it was so uncomfortable whenever the high evolutionary was on screen. Makes for an unforgettable antagonist. Seeing Rocket overcoming his abuser was so cathartic.
I think that it's an incredible achievement to write a character like the High Evolutionary because they still managed to pack a lot of nuance into his behavior without trying to give him a sympathetic backstory or add more redeeming characteristics to his behavior. He is still evil through and through but you do get a good glimpse onto his reasoning when you see him interacting with other characters and also his methodology and experiments.
What makes Herbert(his name) so compelling is his Dr. Frankenstein mentality.
The High Evolutionary may not be sympathetic or even deep, but he's memorable. He leaves an impact. He's not just a villain to fill the villain spot. He's a villain you love to hate.
The Guardians villains like ronen,ego, and the high evolutionary are so pure evil and they couldn't care less but power and way more evil than thanos
killgrave from Jessica Jones was another great villian who was purely abusive.
I thought they did a pretty apt Narcissist grandiose drunk dad style villain. Self centered villains are often done cartoonishly like they’re given big hair and a mirror and that’s it. Using Rocket to contrast his villainy and his villainy to help us understand rocket as a serious sympathetic character deserves applause.
I really love the first Guardians movie, two and three are good but not that great.
Having five guardians, I'm including both Peter and Mantis for Ego while having Gamora and Nebula for Thanos together, have abusive fathers is crazy but realistic.
Thanos being a genocidal monster, an abusive father to his children that fail him and showing acts of kindness sometimes just messes you up.
Ego being a monster who eats his own children and would eat world's whole is insane. What makes it worse is that he feels love but still chooses power is crazy.
Than onto the High Evolutionary, who is a animal abuser, a genocider, a drunk, abusive monster and sees himself as a false God is insane. He is definitely similar to business abusive fathers while having elements of a cult parent as well. Just so crazy.
Thanks Ven I love the Guardians
You can add mantis
@@cjayden04-87 yeah I forgot
I need Brainiac to be the big villain of the gunnverse
Yo, with how Gunn made the Guardians trilogy, I’m looking forward to the DC stuff.
I wanted Snyder to be able to finish out his universe, but I’m happy to have Gunn start his
The High Evolutionary wasn’t just evil, he was _vile._ I loved it.
Guardians 3 was so deep and emotional. Such a powerful and dynamic shift for the MCU
I love the fact that High Evolutionary is not a sympathetic villain. We get to many of those, nothing wrong with it, but i hate feeling sympathy for someone who is literally destroying if not killing lives live were to understand why they do it. This villain shows there are people who are just evil for their own selfish reasons.
I cry and get so emotional during each guardians film
What an amazing breakdown of such a powerful character! I’m new to your channel, but man this made me love this movie even more. I’m also glad that you said truly evil people do exist irl. So many people online try to say that everything’s shades of gray, but sometimes, there really is just evil
There's a bit of a throughline with H.E. and Ego. They both care so little for those they seek to use, but one thing leading me to believe Ego is still the most "evil" antagonist in the MCU thus far is that he killed his own children when he didn't get what he wanted out of them. People kinda forget that mountain of skulls in pt2 were all his dead kids. That's Peter and Mantis' siblings they'll never meet.
Thought i'd just say, the new mic is great. Also great analysis, everyone's already said the best I could.
I love the Guardian movies cause all the villains got better over time. None out of all 3 of them are sympathetic to a degree of sorts. And I enjoy that.
Oh, he’s definitely one of the very best scary and intimidating villains The MCU put out. The actor was brilliant.
Everytime the High Evolutionary appear or scream, I felt myself feel so uncomfortable. The more unhinged he got the worse I felt uncomfortable. And I never become uncomfortable in a movie aside from The Blob and Nope
Sounded good mate, well covered video and I look forward to watching more of your stuff.
It’s also nice that the villain isn’t the classic Marvel “basically right, but WHAT ABOUT THE METHODS?!?!”
Killmonger’s making too many good points, have him choke a woman. Karli seems to justifiable, have her kill some innocent people for no reason.
The bit that shivered me was the insidious bit where baby Rocket is sitting on his knee and the HE grasps his head, he’s still being “kind” at this stage but it’s gross & made my stomach clench 👏👏👏
I found the high evolutionary weirdly relatable, what’s good about truly evil villains is when you tap into characteristics and faces of the character that a normal human could also relate. Maybe it was his perfectionism that moved me, and found myself disgusted at the things I could connect with him, I think that’s the most interesting part about these type of characters, when the part of them that is wrong is the part the audience could also relate to
I’m working on a huge project with the overall theses that “the imperfection of humanity is more beautiful and is better than anything that does or attempts to perfect humanity”
I’m absolutely using this for my analysis, fantastic analysis from your end!
He was a horrible villain done right. We really hate this villain because of his horrible acts. He mocked Rocket after he killed his friends. That is pure evil. James Gunn really did a great job.
2:56 oh yea no, you didnt get it right. lol
Wdym
Sound was real good in this video. 👍
Great stuff as well enjoyed this one a lot.
Fun Fact: Besides Infinity War, GoTG vol 1 has the largest number of on screen deaths
Ryan Ayrey from ScreenCrush literally just posted a video about this same topic, great minds think alike I suppose.
That is a really good villian.
The problem with constant sympathetic villains is lack of contrast. I think most people can agree with that.
But here's the reason why. One of the big reasons why such villains are sympathetic in the first place is the _tragedy_ in their character - both what they experienced, and more importantly here, the fact that resorting to evil was necessary.
So, if all we get are sympathetic villains, then we're not being reminded _why_ what they did was evil in the first place. There needs to more emphasis on the _villainy_ being just as wrong as the _reason._ Reasons can be sympathetic, but that doesn't mean that the action is excusable.
And that's where simple, brutal villains come into play. They regive that context.
As a diagnosed sociopath who is only able to relate with Homelander, Yeah. He's one of us. He's got his goals. He knows what he stands for. He did it for dumb reasons but god he tried.
The High Evolutionary was one of the best depictions of Gnosticism I've ever seen
Gnosticism as a whole? Or the Demiurge? If the latter, then yeah, he absolutely is a Demiurge figure and is exactly what the Gnostics would've feared.
@@rabenkonig6251 more Voegelin s diagnosis of Gnosticism in perceiving reality as inherently disordered and in need of fixing
@@rabenkonig6251 more Voegelin’s analysis that Gnostics believe reality is inherently disordered and therefore needs a savior to arise and fix it
@@bradleymarshall5489 Isn't that just plain old Christianity? I've been led to believe that the entire premise of Gnosticism was that the world *couldn't* be fixed. That material life is *inherently* flawed and removed from the spiritual order (ofc, the specifics varied between the sects).This is in direct opposition to what the High Evolutionary takes after: a Demiurge that "creates" life (more like he bastardizes pre-existing life) so he can have something to worship him. Ignorance and vanity are his main traits. The Evolutionary's line about there being no God and thus taking it's place is classic Demiurge behavior.
That’s the thing I liked the most about the Multiverse saga. Kang, the conqueror was evil. Not sympathetic. Not justified. Just a power-hungry dude with some tech and some gumption.
Guardians of the Galaxy is a masterpiece of a trilogy, i will love these movies until i die
Appreciate this. I’ll watch it again with a new perspective.
I thought he was boring, and I do empathize with evil, as good and evil do not formerly exist.
6:44 Listen, the video was great, but did you really have to spoil this gut punch of a scene?
Kinda it was part of my analysis, maybe should have had a spoiler warning tho
I was only rewatching this movie just to see this guy get beat up
Honestly looking at it they did have the best villains, they were indeed evil.
With the MCU itself Loki was just a fool being used, Ultron was technically right as humans are innately evil just with the potential of doing good so he lacked the patience to let such a matter sort itself out, he had no faith of his own, much like Tony.
Thanos was afraid for the survival of all life he was just misguided and assumed the resources of life are what was finite another fool.
But with the GotG villains, Ronan wanted to dominate and destroy a species for glory.
Ego wanted to unify the universe and strip free will from everyone.
Lastly the High evolutionary wanted to replace God which is sin incarnate of the devil variety.
He is the best villain in the MCU due to the very fact that he is genuinely evil, he makes the audience scared and angry. I will die on this hill.
a few days ago I watched gotg3 for the third time with a few people who haven´t watched it yet and always when another rocket flashback came in I was as upset about high evolutionary as them
I didn't finish watching the movie, but I probably should have. This....THING was really something else.
One of the things that bothered me the most about the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom reviews was that they were upset Ganondorf didn’t have any depth and was just bad.
He’s the reincarnation of the embodiment of evil, he’s a demon, he doesn’t need to be sympathetic
Simple but solid vid. Thanks.
0:27 in and your prethesis is just inane. Thanos is the villain who thinks he's being complex but is nakedly rationalizing his own desire for total control and despotism. That's why his policies are inconsistent outside of raw narcissistic power-tripping -- he tortures and replaces Nebula for no clearly stated reason other than "competition," his royal guard makes evangelical statements as though he were a religion, and his one-time lapdog Loki speaks on his behalf literally saying that subjugation is the way. The *joke* is that his whole philosophy is from a discredited 19th century thought experience by Malthus.
Like, I'm sure you probably have some good thoughts and I get the audience you're shooting for, but I cannot take you seriously if you fumble your intro that hard. Do you think Heath Ledger's Joker and the trolley problem was complex?
movie thanos was stupid. he could have used the infinity gauntlet to double the universes resources. instead he killed half of sentient life.
Theirs no intro into the video btw
He is so FUCKING TERRIFYING BRO
Great trilogy movie
I hope you're too illiterate to ever read the books
I think sympathetic villains can be great but villainous villains aren't bad writing
My problem with sympathetic villains is that they are unrealistic. The high evolutionary is what real evil looks like: people in positions of power causing immense suffering in pursuit of their sadistic goals.
If pure evil villains like the high evolutionary are like the people born with power, sympathetic villains are like revolutionaries who gain power while fighting for freedom and become corrupt.
For a villain who said, "There is no God." he sure is acting like God, demanding perfection from his creations then destroying them if they fail to meet his high standards. But I guess destroying counter-Earth through a flood would have too on the ose. I'm really sick of non-believers being portrayed as bad people. We're not the ones who did Crusades or Jihads. We didn't ship millions of people in cramped ships or railroad cars to be worked to death. Believers did those things.
If you look at basic history, secular idea kill more people then religious ones ever had. 95 million people died to socialism. Compare that to the 1.7 million who died in the crusades, and 40,000 in the inquisition. Atheist obvious have a bias, saying “religion and because they kill propel, secularism good tho👍”
Good audio quality
This is all well and good but the High Evolutionary isn’t an evil character in the comics. Gunn altered the character’s personality so much he may as well have just created an all new one.
I Agree The High Evolutionary is the bested representing of pure Evil villains and modern movies have overused The sympathies Villian troupe and Disney is one of them as they tried to bring back Classic villains in Wish but that failed bad but The gaurdians of the Galaxy triogy has done that very well.
Great channel, thanks for the content
He’s a born psychopath like Palpatine, except nowhere near as rational, self-controlled and self-aware as Palpatine. Palps killed his whole family when he was young. He was always evil at all stages of his life, in contrast to many Sith and Dark Jedi in Star Wars who are psychically damaged people. But as for rationality and self-awareness, eg Palps partly blamed himself for Maul’s failure to defeat Obi-Wan, training Maul to fight too aggressively without any effort to protect himself. He also gave some grudging respect to Obi-Wan for defeating Vader on Mustafar, instead of having a tantrum like the High Evolutionary.
Fantastic pure evil villains.
I’m also disturbed by the dominance of sympathetic villains in today’s media. Just not enough variety anymore and I think it’s affecting people’s judgment.
Literally was talking about this with my mom a few months ago
Pure evil exists in our world, and we just wanna see that put down
Great video. We are at a weird time in cinema where the whole shades of grey sympathetic villain thing is played out and it’s a breath of fresh air to get a straight up bad guy now.
David from prometheus is similar
Mic quality is decent. sounds like a good investment.
This is hard to watch going over Rocket’s abuse honestly
New Mic is solid mate
GOTG3 is a GOATED movie. NO…SLEEP…TIL BROOKLYN
Agreed.
It's not just that he isn't a sympathetic villain, he also isn't treated or presented like a joke. In shit like the Star Wars sequel trilogy or that new Indiana Jones game, they'll take characters that should be thought of as serious threats and have them make silly faces and noises, or make them talk like an awkward teenager.
The people who make this stuff don't try to make villains realistic or even hateable, all they do is make them into clowns for their audience to point and laugh at.
The only thing about this iteration of the high evolutionary that annoys me is that he just has a generic accent, rather than a English manchester accent as thats where he's from in the comics, best MCU badguy since infinity war
That's the only thing that annoys you about the MCU take on him? Not the fact this man has the unfortunate news of being portrayed as a full on villain in every single one of his media appearances?
@user-pm6nx1fs2w Why would I care that he's a badguy?
@@AstralLaVistaif you were to do some research on this guy you would figure it out
While I agree this was an amazing movie it’s not because of the villain. The high evolutionary isn’t a great villain to me (a good one for sure however). What really pushes the story forward however is not the villain but the characters reaction to the villain, the ptsd that is inflicted and how rocket overcomes that with the help of his new family. The family that he truly bonded with like he did with the other animals that he was kept with. A support system that kept him grounded.
The story isn’t about the high evolutionary but rocket raccoon, and his closure with his past. The high evolutionary is a catalytic story element more than he is a villain. Without the high evolutionary and his history with rocket, rockets story would not have the same effect…