The wondrous therapy (aka brainwashing) organized by the wondrous organization called PETA (that shouldn't exist back then, but Disney loves to ignore such small 'details') turned Cruella de Vil into a true protector of any abused animals!
@@LukeLovesRose Funny enough in the original tale of Sleeping Beauty the Wicked Fairy/Carabosse (named Maleficent in the Disney version) ironically does have genuine reason to be angry and her actions make total sense when taking into account she's a fairy and how fickle and dangerous they can be when slighted. In the oldest recorded version, she was the eighth, eldest fairy who was forgotten and not invited to the party and therefore had no golden case to be gifted like her sisters were which prompts her curse. The Brothers Grimm version makes it ever worse, where instead of forgetting to invite the eldest fairy by mistake it was intentional on the king and queen's part since they already had to give away 12 and didnt want to/couldnt give them a plate as well and didnt want to bother explaining it. So it actually wouldnt have been that hard to spin an interesting interpretation that makes Maleficent more sympathetic/grey, they just didnt really try. Or, rather, they tried too hard and leaned too far into it. They did incorporate those elements from what I remember, yes, but also added in a bunch of other elements to further victimize her and make the king cartoonishly evil.
Jack Horner in Puss in boots 2: "You know, I never had much as a kid. Just loving parents, stability, and a mansion... and a thriving baked goods enterprise for me to inherit. Useless crap like that."
The biggest problem with Disney's ''sympathetic'' villains: - Retroactively trying to make a villain into a misunderstood hero. ''Remember the original villains? Well, now you should feel bad for them and stupid for thinking they were evil in the first place.'' - Even when they're supposed to be likable they still are terrible. They're mean, do terrible things and we are supposed to feel bad for them because they have a sad backstory? Paraphrasing Rocket the Racoon ''Boo hoo! Your mommy is dead? It's not an excuse to be a dick!'' - Speaking of backstories! Modern Disney can't tell a subtle story. The new backstories are so over-the-top tragic and edgy that they unintentionally end up being funny. Cruella's mother being dropped kicked off a cliff by the dalmatians comes to mind. - Also, contrived and stupid. It's really hard to feel sympathy for someone if most of their problems come from their actions and instead of acknowledging it and changing for the better they go ''You destroyed my life!'' and go on a path of revenge. Why is Cruella homeless as a child, shouldn't the police find her and put her in foster care or an orphanage? I guess ''My mother was pushed off a cliff by dogs.'' would make people think she's crazy. Edit: - I forgot to mention how by trying to make villains sympathetic the writers turn ''heroes'' into terrible people. Peter Pan was best friends with Captain Hook but left him alone to wander the seas looking for his mother and when he come back as an adult Peter cut off his hand. I want Hook to kill this little psycho and save the poor children. It reads like those fanfictions about Hook being the lost boy. But even those fanfics are better! - It also takes away from their threatening presence. Scar in the remake is now a pussy (wink wink) who sounds like he's about to cry when killing Mufasa and an incel who can't get over that Sarabi choose Mufasa over him.
@@TheReZisTLust There's nothing wrong with different types of villains but Disney company just can't write them well anymore. It makes me scared for the villain in Wish. I'm worried they're so out of touch they will destroy even the pure evil archetype.
I remember 2 years ago, when Cruella was out in theaters, almost everyone on the Internet was making fun of Cruella’s mother’s death being caused by Dalmatians and making memes out of it. Even I remember joining the band wagon with this joke: There’ll be a film about the Coachman from Pinocchio where we find out the reason why he hates “stupid little boys” and turns them into donkeys to sell for money is because “stupid little boys” killed his father. Someone also made a similar joke with Gaston: We know Gaston’s reason for hating books is because a bookshelf fell and killed his mother. This was just our way of making fun of the ridiculousness of Cruella’s mother being killed by Dalmatians.
People like villains because they represent evil that is always present in the world. We like seeing the battle of good triumphing evil because of the clear threat they present. These ‘sympathetic’ villains are unrealistic because not everyone has good intentions and ironically makes these new movies less relatable to the audience. Good to know other studios are aware of this!👏
tbf, the world isnt black and white. not everything evil or bad is pure evil, and not everything heroic or good is pure goodness. its a mix of everything, sympathetic villains can work but disney just doesnt execute it properly.
I feel like a good sympathetic villain is one that either gets revealed to be rivaling the protagonist, gets shown to be doing it for a greater good that the hero/ audience would want themselves, or is built up as an Ally to the protagonist who slowly grows to feel they can't let the protagonist reach their goal for a humane reason (ie the goal should be all for them, or the goal is not worth what the protagonist is willing to go through in their eyes). The biggest thing about all of them is that rarely should their evil ways be watered down or covered with a blanket, and they should usually be punished for their actions accordingly.
@@natecgames4612 These are more so examples than rules. A sympathetic villian Needs well to make sense, they need to be human first then a villian from that humanity. Frollo did this well, as he's villiany came from his conseus choice to Refuse redemption an ingore his responsibilities, excusing his actions so he doesn't have to face the truth. It a Human Monster convincing itself it's just a man.
@alex cat I actually agree with you on that. Though Frollo was not made to be sympathize. He was made for people to understand why he did what he did, but also still seeing what he did as unforgivable. There are more examples of the other sympathetic villains other then what I said but I genuinely can't think of another example. I'd be glad if you tried to find more though.
@@floof6896Sort of. MOST people aren't black and white. Some are though. Some people try to do good to a ridiculous extend and martyr themselves and some people are so hand wringingly evil that all they are missing in an eye patch and a cat with a rolly chair. Probably not the majority but there definitely are people like that
It's one thing to write a sympathetic villain that's MADE to be sympathetic from the ground up. It's another thing to take a pre-established villain who's known for commiting and/or wanting to commit legitimately heinous actions and contort them into something unrecognizable so the audience can "feel sorry for them". This goes double if the heroes are rewritten to make them look worse. And I think that's the reason why people are so DONE with this trope. Not because it can't work, but because Disney has both oversaturated it and is doing it exceptionally bad. Little wonder why Jack Horner and Death are all the rage nowadays.
Well to be fair Death from Puss in Boot wasn't really entirely a villain but rather an antagonist to Puss due to how the cat disregarded his eight lives thus Death decided to go after the feline himself.
Dracula from Castlevania is an example of a making a villain sympathetic well done (partly because he’s a separate continuity from the games). Dracula is usually evil, acting as an anti-god trying to destroy the world. The animated series has him fall in love with a human woman who is burned alive for being a witch. He wants to destroy the world because it took his love from him. Our heroes acknowledge he has a good reason to hate, but they still will stop him regardless. And he finally gives up and let’s himself be killed when he finally realises that he’s about to kill his own son.
@@cybertramon0012 Never watched Castlevania or played the games, but... Yeah. THAT'S how you make a sympathetic villain out of a pre-established baddie. Can't say the same for live-action Cruella and her dumb "Dalmatians killed my Mom" nonsense.
You can also make the audience feel bad for a villain, but still want to see them burn. I'm trying that with one of mine atm... Give them a sad backstory that makes you go "maybe if things had been different, they could have been a good person", while also hammering home that as they are, they're a serious threat that can't be talked down.
I agree. The voice acting and mocap from talented stuntmen(in addition to the one I know) is superb too. Disney needs to let go of the live action remakes and make original new IPs again.
He has a sympathetic and tragic element, but we aren't explicitly supposed to root for him. He's still evil, and knowing how he became so doesn't justify the terrible things he's done. He's also just cool.
@@insertsomememereferenceher8483 I'd like to believe after the third film, while his heart might have been stabbed, he went back to the sea where he belonged, forever bound to the locker since it still needs an owner.
When Disney made their iconic villains sympathetic it made me loose faith in Disney. As Disney has forgotten about what made their villains compelling, memorable and entertaining to see.
Modern Writers confuse a sympathetic Villain with a more complex Villain. Bringing more complexity to a Villain is just fine as long as the story can hold on to more complexity in general.
Disney doesn't know _how_ to make a villain sympathetic without also making them secretly good deep down. They could never make a character like Mr. Freeze, or Madara Uchiha, or the Phantom of the Opera, because they cannot separate "sympathetic" from "redeemable". Disney can only do the one villain archetype they've always done, mustache-twirling finger-twiddling evil-for-the-sake-of-evil bastard, and anything else is too far outside their comfort zone.
@Darth Daddy I think they have the ability to, they just chose not to out of the fact that more children watch there "products" then adults. Atleast that's what I think they tell themselves
@@darthdaddy3071 shut up. Having a diversity qouta has nothing to do with writing. You're just exposing yourself right then and there. You're the type of person who would blame global warming to people who are black just because they have so much melanin. Lmao.
Speaking of “redeemable” and Mr. Freeze, what comes to my mind is that scene in Batman Beyond when he tells Terry “You’re the only one who cares.” Even Victor knew he was irredeemable in the end. 😢
I think a sympathetic villain has to have 3 things to their character. 1. Have a good reason for what they are doing these evil things (doing bad things for a good cause). 2. Not having them kill people on purpose (it can be an accident), though this could be risky. 3. Have a change of heart or redeem themselves. Now with Disney's Villains like Cruella, Maleficent, and Captain Hook, no, you cannot make them sympathetic. And yet, Disney decided to do that and made more sympathetic villains that no one asked for. And none of them fit my criteria.
I disagree with number two as sympathetic does not always mean good or moral, for example, King from One Piece. He kills many people and commits many crimes, but he was heavily tortured as a kid. His only release was his captain saving him, this made King think that he could change the world leading to him dedicating his life to him. This fits well with, Zoro who was fighting him. Zoro had a similar story where he was on the verge of execution was saved and then swore himself to his captain. In the end you can easily root for either character since either one losing would be heart breaking. Despite that, King is shown killing his own men and being generally cruel to others. So he's blatantly immoral but, is also sympathetic because we can see the reason why he does this it is because he thinks it will help his captain. also sorry if I wrote all this and misinterpreted the original comment.
@@billystorm5347 Well that is fine, I do have to agree that number 2 can be iffy. And I did say that that concept can be risky. I think a villain can have a reason to harm others like that example you explained. I can always change the rules if there are good examples of villains being sympathetic.
I disaagree about Malificent, I think they did a great job with her. First cause she is not the true villain of the movie, she is more like an anti-hero. Second cause she were madr before the remakes boom, and were not intented to be part of the animation version. At least the first movie were. Now, I agree about villains like Gaston, Cruella, Clayton, etc They were created to be, not exactly pure evil, but pure GREED and/or VAINITY. Has nothing that can make those agreedable, and is total ok for them to be jerks cause they are selfish. They are villains, is how they are a lot of times. Disney overused the sympathetic villain formula and the twist villain formula too. What makes it repetitive. Also has a difference between villain and antagonist. The antagonist is only someone who is an obstacle to the protagonist, they don't have to be evil. They can even be more noble. The villain is bad or at least twisted, cause they do bad things.
@@taynahibanez9952 I mean, I do admit that Maleficent was an alright movie. So I can't really say that that was the best choice of character to list. So no argument there. I can agree with that.
I'd also have to disagree, but with both points 2 & 3. A villain can be sympathetic yet irredeemable and still work. The Joker is the first that comes to mind (thanks to recommended thumbnails). It is very understandable why Joker ended up the way he did, but in no way are any iteration of him ever excused for his behavior nor does he change his ways. He's still an incredibly enjoyable evil character. In my opinion, a good sympathetic villain should a) have a good reason to turn out the way they did and b) match the theme of the story they're in. You can write a sympathetic villain who's been backstabbed by an old friend, making them vengeful, but if the story's theme is about growing up, the villain becomes useless. Good sympathetic villains tend to be a reflection of the main character (what the protagonist could become if they let their dark thoughts overtake them).
Disney's fundamental misconception is that they think in order to love a character, we have to like them. We love OG Cruella, Ursula, Scar, Captain Hook etc BECAUSE of their villainy. We don't like them, but we still love to watch them.
I’m sick of the sympathetic villain trope. I want villains who are evil just to be evil. Not every person is going to have a sympathetic backstory for why they commit terrible actions.
Ramses is deeply inside the high cast system he were raised in, and now he is a king with priorities to keep thay system. Moses in the movie were exactly like that and woukd keep being if he didn't have find out he were actually a hebrew. Knowing his origins and be pretty much pressured by the hebrew god is what changed him. Ramses is compeling cause he trully loved moses. He even offered the use the royal privileged way to do things to make Moses not pay for killing an Egyptian. And even so Moses left abd when returned, it was 't for his brother, it was for the hebrew people. Ramses clearly felt JEALOUSY. He is still the villain of the story, but I also sympsthize and understand his side. And Moses understand too. He felt like shit and tried to comfort Ramses after he lost his son over not bowing to a Foreigner god. Like... Is only because of the Nature of the movie that Ramses didn't straight up said "oh fuck you for the audacy to show up!"
I can't wait for the Princess and the Frog remake where Disney tries to portray Dr. Facilier as a sympathetic three-dimensional villain and Tiana as a one-dimensional girl boss.
Forgiveness isn't a bad message, but if you want a villain to be forgiven. They need to *show* they are willing to change and do good. I love a good redemption arc, but it needs to actually be an arc. The villain, needs to choose selflessness over selfishness of their own accord. And they have to do it without the hero's trust. This is why I love Toaru so much, not only do you have the villains who don't get redeemed and die or get imprisoned. But kamachi is also the king of redeemable, and sympathetic villains. One of his main protags starts an antag villain. And we get to see him grow from monster to literal angel. Another of his villains is arguably one of the cruelest and worst ones. Literally pulling the classic, eternal torment trick on the hero. However, not only is her motive understandable. (God lost in a world of her own creation with no way home and no one who'd understand her.) But she also changes, she *chooses* to give up her goal and bring the hero back to his home *knowing* she will be killed. Nothing is wrong with a sympathetic villain. Disney is just bad at them
I hate how Namaari, the villain who caused SO MUCH TROUBLE during the course of the film, does something helpful at the end and NEVER ONCE APOLOGIZES FOR HER ACTIONS THAT SHE DID
I truly need more "tragic" villains that are sympathetic in that you can understand their motivations, but are still villains to the very end and do not wish to be redeemed as they may genuinely believe they're doing nothing wrong. I'd love to see that
That’s basically Kingpin in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. He may be a straightforward irredeemable villain, but I would lie if I said I didn’t feel sorry for what happened to him in the past and understand his motivations and his hatred for Spider-Man. One of the examples of a sympathetic villain that’s still a villain with no chance of redemption.
Gravity Falls was years ago and The Owl House was pretty clearly not what the Disney high table wanted. A lot of their other shows have fallen into the same "Sympathetic Villain" pattern as their films making it pretty clear someone is demanding the nonsense be standard across the company to it's great detriment.
King Candy/Turbo is not really a Twist villain tho, he is a Twist character. By that I mean, during all of the movie we know he is a bad guy, the movie doesn't hide from us that he is the villain, the only thing that it's revealed is his identity
All their villains' tragic backstories were usually parents didn't love them enough. The part I always found funny was up until Cruella, the male villians were shown with the more tragic stories yet were not allowed to be redeemed in contrast to the female counterparts who were shown to do villianous acts but had to be redeemed because the script said so.
I think the theory behind the sympathetic villain is because we want to know their motivations for doing something that clearly isn't good. I think a well done example is in Into the Spiderverse with Kingpin. He's not a good guy, but it seems random for him to want to open a rift between worlds, but you learn it's because he's looking for his deceased family, and he'll do anything to get them back, not a far stretch for him as he already was villainous. His reason is understandable, it is sympathetic in a way, but he's not a misunderstood person who comes across as bad. He's just a bad guy who loved his wife and kid.
The core issue isn't that they are made sympathetic it's that they make them sympathetic and give them the N word pass, Joker the 2nd most popular villain movie gave us a deep dive into how he became a psychopath but at the end of the day he's still the villain that needs to be locked up, Thanos Infinity War made us understand why Thanos did what he did and what he was willing to sacrifice to achieve that goal but he's still a villain that needs to be stopped by the good guys. And Hollywood have an equal problem with their protags, Wanda kept a village hostage where they asked to die yet "no one will know what you sacrificed" - Monica Rambeu excuser of women.
I can't believe they made Iracaberh the queen of hearts sympathetic! She decapitated people for making her mad and her story comes down to my sister lied about me stealing deserts and I hurt my head its her fault.
Well if it makes you feel any better, Iracebeth remains in exile for the rest of her days and can never return to Wonderland since she already crossed one too many lines. But that feeling of forgiveness at least gives her a sense of peace with her sister and likely accept her banishment, if not with everyone she hurt.
This is the reason I like the live-action remake of the Jungle Book, Shere Khan is still a villain, in fact, the filmmakers doubled down on his villany, they made Shere Khan more wicked and dangerous compared to the original character. However, we have to remember Shere Khan was a tiger, similar to Scar, who was also a non-sympathetic villain, plus there is also Jafar and Gaston both of whom have no redemption arcs, I suspect there is villain favouritism, if the writers' like said character, they will retcon them into being sympathetic. Redemption arcs can be written well, but it has to have a purpose to the story's plot, simply writing them into being good all along despite villainous deeds is a cop-out, however, I am rather glad there have been some unredeemed antagonists who get their comeuppance: Bill Cypher and Philip Wittebane a.k.a. Emperor Belos.
I feel like Malificent is an exception though. It was a good movie. I like how instead of the Prince breaking the curse, it was Malificent. You rarely see that kind of love in movies.
What's sad is you can make villains relatable and still increadably villainous. Cruella could have been really good if they didn't push so hard on the dead mom/villain was my parent trope. If they went more of a Devil wears Prada approach, but when she sees she's becoming a fashion monster, she fully commits to the role.
Callaghan is such a great shame, actually. When I first watched Big Hero 6 (which I thought was okay), I actually liked him a lot. His mysterious villain design is fantastic, the way he manipulates the microbots with small flicks of his hand is fantastic. And the moment when he is unmasked as Callaghan, too, is fantastic. He would have made for a fantastic sympathetic villain with a deeply understandable motive ... if only they had done one of two things. Have him reluctant to kill his students, or anyone besides Krei - or track his descent into madness, to show that he is completely out of his mind by the time of the confrontation. That's all it would have taken. God, what a pity.
It’s honestly hilarious to me how most writing gurus and writing tips that I’ve read regarding villains always say “NEVER MAKE A VILLAIN EVIL JUST FOR THE SAKE OF BEING EVIL!!!!11111!!!1! NOBODY WILL LIKE IT AND EVERYONE WILL HATE YOU IF YOU DO THIS BECAUSE YOU’RE A BAD WRITER IF YOU DO THIS BECAUSE IT’S SO CLICHÈ AAAAAAAA-“ And yet here is virtually everyone in this comment section calling for these kind of villains again after the sympathetic ones were oversaturated so badly in modern media.
@@avillianchillinskrillian As someone who's also seen that time and time again, this is more what the aim of that advice is. Clear, understandable motivation. Scar: wants to rule Pride Rock instead of Mufasa Cruella: wants to skin Dalmatians and make the pelts a fur coat Maleficent: wants her curse to be fulfilled and Sleeping Beauty to die They're still bad, they still enjoy being bad, but being bad isn't their motivation. The new Disney villains don't even have clear and understandable motivation, as this channel's videos show, so they lost on both fronts.
@@Kaitou1412Fangirl I wasn't disagreeing with the video. I'm saying most YT videos aren't saying dont make villains evil but just give them clear motivations which the commenter I was responding to was implying.
@@avillianchillinskrillian I wasn't disagreeing with you, but the original comment about villains being evil for evil. I meant to expound on your statement. Sorry if it seemed like I was.
Disney has loss completely their writing skills of how the write a compelling, memorable and evil villain, they keep scrubbing something that they should know better than anyone how to do it. The last time I enjoy a villain in a Disney film was King Candy, and is just sad what they have done with their villains specially on live action.........even Cruella a film that at least for me, I enjoy it (watch it in home to keep my promise of never watch these in theaters), even this drop the ball making Cruella a sympathetic character, one of the most evil badguys in the Disney Rogue and reduce to....Puppy lover or something? She even keep some Dalmatians...wt heck?..............My last hope is WISH, if they not bring a full despicable and entertaining villain, Disney is 100% gone.
Here is my take. What we need are understood villains, people just do things due to personal reason, either reasonable or not. stories letting us know about this reasons should show how it connects and contrasts the hero and why clashing with the hero justifies their action in their head. The sympathetic trope is only annoying because it is all what we see, and it looks so forced.
Could you imagine how disappointed Walt Disney would be in the current state of Disney? I just watched a documentary about his history and that dude was so gifted at collaboration, creating amazing creation's, finding the right people for the right things. They were TRULY DIVERSE, genuinely talented like we rarely see. Dedicated and Passionate towards creating imagination bending works of art and they Really did understand all the aspects and processes that mattered. For what it took to create those works of art. *(I just saw that Ukraine just started creating 2d animation for their military videos and it really reminded me of what I saw Walt do during WW2) I love seeing cartoon styled animated video's being used again. Just how Walt Disney did (out of his own pocket) he believed it was the least he could do for his country and his countrymen who were giving so much to the war to protect our nation and the greater good in the world. (If you think about it. Walt Disney did a lot for pushing advancements in science/creativity. He made understandable information that taught so many people of all ages, and from all sorts of different walks of life, to inform on very important matters and subjects of the time. Things that might seem out of place or difficult now, were completely relative to the current situations everyone was dealing with at that point in time. (The passion Walt gained for science and technology is what sparked his passion for Epcot and learning how to build all these cutting edge devices, city planning concepts, animatronics puppets of Abe Lincoln or the talking/signing birds in the tiki lounge. Plus all the other puppets on all the other interactions around his theme park. I just watched a documentary covering the career of Walt Disney and he really was a amazingly uniquely talented person. Where he himself had a insane drive towards innovation and new ideas BUT what I think his best trait was: That Walt was SO GOOD at interacting with everyone around him and he just had this amazing ability to find the PERFECT person for different jobs, things, roles. To really bring out the best in OTHER people around him. I truly believe that's one of the most important traits in a great leader. If anyone is in a group of people who are set on creating anything. (It's rare when someone comes across with the unique style and approach like Walt Disney had and really all it takes is to watch the coverage documentary that covers all of this uniquely awesome stuff that positively impacted SO MANY PEOPLE in so many ways and places. It didn't matter who you were, the chance that something from the Walt Disney era impacting you in a positive way is nearly 100% a possibility. There really was some of the best attributes of humanity, teamwork, and motivated passionate creativity that occured thru this group of Walt Disney era team members and we all could learn something from them. In some way or another.)
I can't wait to hear about how they "expand" on Ursula's backstory with Triton by making her more "misunderstood" and "sympathetic" in the upcoming garbage remake of TLM. I'll bet they'll give her a sob-story of how Triton was wrong to banish her because she just wanted to help the merfolk after all. 🙄 Christ, that artwork of her in the art-book about to impaled by ARIEL instead of ERIC (ugh) even makes her look sad or scared. So pathetic. I miss when Disney villains didn't NEED to be sympathetic or misunderstood. When they were just flamboyant, manipulative, sadistic, psychotic, and unapologetically evil. That's one of the things I loved about Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, where we had three types of villains opposing the heroes: Jack Horner, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Death. Jack was the classic flamboyant, humorous, sadistic, entertainingly evil villain we've seen in earlier animated Disney films, Goldie and the bears were also humorous and antagonizing but not entirely evil and were eventually redeemed in the end, and Death was the much more serious, threatening, antagonistic force that balanced them out. Give us back the Frollo's, dammit! *Edit 5/31/23:* Yeah, I recognize that it's been a few weeks since the remake first arrived to theaters. I know now that the remake didn't give Ursula the same treatment as Maleficent, Hook, or Cruella, but they still did her dirty by having her give Ariel amnesia, unintentionally making her look unconvinced in her own plan. In the original, Ursula set up Ariel to fail the moment she made the deal. She was so convinced that Eric wouldn't kiss Ariel because she was mute, that she underestimated the mermaid's determination and good looks. It didn't occur to her that Ariel would be that good enough to convince Eric to kiss her without a voice, which was why she resorted to cheating via transforming into Vanessa and brainwashing Eric with Ariel's voice. By giving her plot-convenient amnesia so Ariel can keep forgetting she's supposed to kiss Eric (solely so the stupid creators can hammer home their BS claim that the original "Kiss The Girl" was about "forcing Eric onto Ariel" while conveniently forgetting that nonverbal consent exists), it makes Ursula look less confident in her own plan, it takes away Ariel's own agency as a character because SHE has to be constantly reminded by other characters to kiss Eric, and why doesn't Ursula just give Ariel amnesia anyway to keep her hostage to lure Triton into a trap he can't get himself out of if it's that easy for her? It doesn't make any sense.
@@DavidBContentExtravaganza3967 Ah, okay. But considering what they did to Captain Hook, Maleficent, and Cruella, I'm surprised they didn't give Ursula the same treatment. XD
I like Cruella, I don’t like how she’s portrayed as sympathetic, but I do like what they did with Jasper and Horace, giving them actual layers as characters, tbh THEY deserve their own film
Came here for this comment. Loved the Cruella movie and personally just see it as its own thing with a vauge connection to it's source material. I mean sure if they go for the murdering puppies angle in a sequel I might raise an eyebrow but as it stands it's a setup for a good alternative universe spin off
@@thepascalhoustonIt wasn't a remake, The Director of Cruella said He doesn't want to follow up the Original Cruella, He wants to make his own Cruella.
Studio Ghibli is great with sympathetic or misunderstood villainy in their stories, but Disney can't seem to pull it off. I wonder if it's because Disney is unwilling to let go of it's original formula or if the audience just expects a classic villain from their stories?
Honestly, I think Disney's writers should watch more anime and play some classic JRPGs. There are so many great examples of villains whose backgrounds you can empathize with, whose pain and base wish you can appreciate, but who you still can't call anything but evil, complete with various actions that leave you convinced that the person needs to be stopped at all costs. One particularly popular old RPG had a villain who was originally a hero, whose pain is often palpable to the point that you kind of feel like you're committing an act of mercy when you finally kill him, but despite this you always feel, from start to finish, that he is truly evil. A villain can commit atrocities that leave him completely irredeemable in the eyes of the audience, harbor goals that the audience can't deny must be prevented at all costs, and still have you feeling for him, just a bit. But there's a big difference between that and creating a villain that's actually a misunderstood good guy.
Well said, dude! Loads of great JRPG villains. Sephiroth fits the bill too given all the Jenova stuff. However, I highly doubt these hacks would touch anime or JRPGs as they seem drugged up on Twitter thought, and Twitter freaks don't take kindly to Japanese media.
Yeah when you do sympathic villians you take away what made original villains evil i didn't like Maleficent movie it takes away what made her threatening begin with same Captain Hook and Cruella. Disney seriously lost their touch with their content.
I agree with this video, but I have one small issue: Villains can, in fact, be the protagonists of their stories. There are many examples of this. "Hero/Villain" refers to a character's morality, while "protagonist/antagonist" refers to a character's role in the story. For example, in Death Note, the villain Light Yagami plays the role of the protagonist, while the antihero detective L plays the role of the antagonist. Disney just really, really sucks at making villain protagonists. And, lately, at making villains in general.
Was lookin for this comment. While I rooted for L, Light was simply compelling to watch in action. L himself conceded that Light won their game. Dude was straight up entertaining to watch.
When I was little, Maleficent was my favourite Disney character, i found her fascinating. I also loved Cruela. I hated their actions, and as any sane person would, i rooted for the good guys. But i was FASCINATED by them because of their power, mad determination and amazing charisma. Disney want us now to feel sorry for them.
Zuko is sorta what they are doing. A troubled backstory which leads them to an evil path, then having a moment that allows them to have enough humanity to turn sides at the eventual sequel movie, where they team up with the Hero to fight a unknown threat.
@@TheReZisTLust Only that "Zuko" is not what they're doing at all. Zuko has to go to hell and back to prove he saw the error of his ways and tries to do better before the Gaang accepts him as part of their team. Disney skips this part of self-reflection, taking responsibility for your own actions and trying your best to become better; instead, they give their villains a tragic backstory that evokes sympathy in the hero and is supposed to justify their bad deeds.
Sympathetic villains work best when the story and other characters aren't plain, boring, or vastly different by comparison. "Maleficent" made her an antihero by making Stefan a villain and taking away Phillip and the fairies' heroic moments. They could've given her a sad backstory (ie being alienated for her appearence) and showed how judgemental people are. Aurora, having supernatural beauty and singing skills, could likely be seen as eerily supernatural (perhaps becoming a fairy herself due to the fairies' magic), and the fairies work to make sure she doesn't turn out like Maleficent.
The only sympathetic villain I truly love is Anastasia. She was, after all, just an impressionable girl, and in both sequels she grows as a person. It's better in 3 than in 2, because we get to see her actually learning and changing and growing instead of the BS in Cinderella 2 that's just "oh yeah she was a horrible abusive person but she likes someone now so she's a good person." In "a twist in time" she actually doesn't find love, but rather learns the value of love. She has everything handed to her and chooses not to take it because she values the marriage beyond status, and she no longer feels right taking Cinderella's true love when he doesn't even truly love her.
Sympathetic villains CAN work but making a well known mustache twirling villain into a sympathetic character NEVER works. When people watch a movie like the Lion King, they wanna see an evil delightfully sassy Scar. Not whatever tf that was. They wanna see an evil rejoices in evil Maleficent. It's not hard, if there's an iconic villain like Captain Hook, make him just like he was in the most iconic incarnations. Imagine if I was doing a live action version of A Nightmare Before Christmas and I gave Oogie Boogie a sad back story about how he used to he a jazz musician until Jack broke his instrument. Now Oogie plots his revenge. Also Oogie is a person and not a bag of bugs now lol. Imagine if people who didn't really wanna see this made in the first place saw this. They probably just wanted a recreation of a sentient bag of bugs but they get this instead lmaooooo
A major trope of late is the villain magically being forgiven for all their evil and suddenly the hero and villain are best friends. This should NEVER happen.
It’s not like it’s a bad idea to make some villains as sympathetic. But the reason they don’t work with the older villains is because their menace and evil is why the stakes of those respective movies work. It’s why they’re real threats. It’s why they get their charisma and why we should fear them or at the very least in the case of Hook, enjoy them. But think about it like this. They have made a woman who murders dogs for a living as someone we should feel sorry for. Or a woman who had beef with the king and queen by punishing a newborn as a tragic ex of said king who did nothing to deserve it in the original. Or in the case of Hook, turn him into a former ally of Peter’s and make Peter look worse in comparison, especially since he cut off his hand. Or in the case of Gaston, he’s a traumatized war victim with PTSD. Because essentially what you’re saying is that it doesn’t matter that Gaston stalked Belle and blackmailed her into marrying him by putting her father into an insane asylum on false charges. It wasn’t his fault. He’s just traumatized. I would have been somewhat fine if we just had one villain be sympathetic in a remake. But when you do it over and over, the effect no longer means meaningful but just lazy.
The most ironic thing is that pretty much all of the classic disney villains were sympathetic in some way or another - no matter how evil and terrible they were, there was something likable about them. Forcing villains to be sympathetic (modern disney), also making them less of a villain, just only makes them unlikable characters over all
I'm still waiting for the hunter who killed Bambi's mom to be revealed as a poor guy who had to feed his own family somehow and later regretted his actions and will help adult Bambi to escape the fire.
I have been asking this question for most of their movies as of late. What's wrong with real, scary, evil villains? I loved the 1st maleficent, Cruella was ok but they both had nothing on the OG's. I thought seeing the other side of things was interesting, like we all could be considered villains to someone at some point. But I guess my hope was too high for D- because now we're not allowed dislike anyone because of their trauma. Thanks for the video 🧡🤟🏿
Nah they’d show God being a jerk to Satan and that’s why Satan rebelled against Him. Then Jesus rejects His Father and forgives Satan and the world lives in harmony. Oh, and they’d make Jesus and Satan gay for each other or something 😂
@@papierowyszczur9234 If they *_were_* to go down that route and take up the task of portraying a sympathetic Satan, they'd be adapting John Milton's _Paradise Lost._
Ok, writer here. I think that Disney misunderstands reason with sympathy. You can explain and give a reason behind a villains villainy without sympathizing with them or giving them a redemption arc. You can explain how a villain got to where they are without making them an anti-hero or sympathetic. Backstories can make a villain more complex, yes, but they don't HAVE to make a character less evil or over the top or campy. You can add more depth without zapping away everything that makes a villain FUN. Great video by the way. I couldn't agree more. I miss the old villains so much.
Dracula from Castlevania (the video game not the tepid series) is a sympathetic villian if you know why he became the monster he was. But at the same time he needs to be stopped, to be fought by the Belmonts who have sworn to stop his madness and his son Alucard who does not agree with his reasons why humanity has to die or be enslaved. Dracula is what he is because he choose to be a monster instead of dealing with his loss... and that monster needs to be stopped at all cost.
It's because they pick the wrong kind of villains to make sympathetic that never deserved it in the first place. If it were up to me, I would have placed Randall Boggs and Dawn Bellwether in the sympathetic list more than the others, they deserve to have their stories told, not what we got
The only good type of sympathetic villains are not ones you feel bad for, but those you feel bad when you think of how things could've been different. To quote one of my favorite quote, "They're pitiable in all the ways they failed to be good"
One thing I really hate about Live-Action Remakes isn't just how the Villains are less evil than their animated counterparts, but how they often have something important taken away from them in the story. - Maleficent doesn't transform into a Dragon. - Jafar doesn't turn into a giant snake. - Scar's iconic "Be Prepared" song is shortened to last around 1 minute. - Even though Cruella has an impressive wardrobe of fasion, she doesn't have a desire for a fur coat, wheather or not it's made out of puppies or any other dead animal. These make the Villains lose their edge and miss the point on why we loved them in the original films. I mean what's next, is Dr. Facilier not going to communicate with shadowy demons even though he's The *SHADOW* Man?
For a sympathetic character to work, their actions need to make sense and they need traits that if not redeemable are at least admirable. Pathos, suffering and overcoming tragedy can help, but if they are unlikable then why should we care about what they went through? Making the heroes into jerks is really annoying and it is not a good way to make a sympathetic villain.
I got so pissed off when I heard about what they did with Cruella because in the original, she never targeted the Dalmatians simply because they were Dalmatians, she simply targeted any animals who she thought had pretty coats of fur. When she is first introduced the fur coat she is wearing isnt a Dalmatian coat, showing that Dalmatians werent her only target. The reason why cruella was such a fun antagonist in the original is because she was simply a pure evil maniac who wanted to kill off animals simply because their coats where pretty, then they changed her entirely by making it all "Dalmatians killed my mom" like bro wtf
If anyone wants a good live action remake of Peter Pan: the 2003 ‘Peter pan’ movie by universal is really really good. Made with a lot of love and care and some of the themes that were in this analysis that they said were missing from the Disney one.
It's funny because the majority of villains I like are the complicated/sympathetic/tragic types (whether or not they show it outwardly), just not the Disney ones. They can't even do that right. At the same time I do still miss villains who are evil for the sake of being evil, if they got enough style to make up for it.
@@papierowyszczur9234 Hunter from the Owl House was a Zuko type antagonist that worked and had a really good arc that helped him escape and eventually heal from his traumatic upbringing
@@papierowyszczur9234 oh yeah. They almost axed the shit out of it😡 But let’s just say Dana Terrace and the writers know how to make lemonade from lemons 🍋
@@papierowyszczur9234 Well I say Zuko specifically cause he was a villian at first then had the redemption arc. I didn't use Azula cause her arc sorta is thrown to the side of barn in books that casual fans may not know of like the mother finding Comic.
I really like the first maleficent, the second one was boring. I tried watching cruella but it was sooo boring that i ended up just turning it off like i think halfway, maybe less, so I don't really know what happened in cruella.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I genuinely enjoyed how Cruella and Maleficent did their own creative thing instead of the same old boring 1-to-1 remake of the superior animated film. I never got the impression that these were the "same" villains from the animated universe at all, but completely different characters sharing only the same names. These movies exist in a vacuum *to tell their own stories* which I vastly prefer in comparison to lazily telling the same story, only worse - case in point Lion King 2019. Besides, both Maleficent films featured some pretty violent and unredeemable "classic Disney villain" antagonists. The Baroness from Cruella was also a complete psychopath, so I disagree that these movies took the safe route at all.
You're right, those stories did have a traditional villain. It is not unusual in "....what if...." retellings of fairy tales/myths - and parodies/satires of certain subgenres of speculative fiction - to center around the villain never having truly been a villain. This is often achieved by making the story's original hero the villain, creating a whole new villain, turning a side character/super minor character into the villain, or showing how the villain was always truly good/chaotic neutral but was simply misunderstood/hated by the hero/society. Lewis's Till We Have Faces & Levine's Fairest are literary examples of this practice.
What are your thoughts on Alma as an antagonist? I think she worked pretty well, even not being EVIL. Variety is the spice of life. Disney can have villains of many types. I think we're tired of twist ones and sympathetic cuz we'd got ONLY them a lot of times in a row. If Disney made villains of various types, we wouldn't be that mad at the sympathetic and twist ones. But there's, of course, another problem: the bad writing. If the four twist villains in a row were all well written, again, we would not be that mad. That's why I want to know what do you think of Abuela Alma, the best sympathetic antagonist of recent Disney.
"The best sympatethic antagonist from recent Disney? Abuela Alma? That shitty old lady?"😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂 After this bullsh*t, I only wish to erase female villains/antagonists from history once and for all.
i really hated the whole concept of Cruella's movie. i don't really know what Disney was thinking. when the original 101 Dalmatians animated classic first came out and was popular, i don't think anyone thought "oh hey i want a whole movie on Cruella's backstory and why she wants to skin puppies!!!" there's literally no story to be had. she wants a spotted coat made out of Dalmatian fur, that's it. that's literally it and she went through great lengths to steal a whole bunch of litters to make said coat. in that movie, she even tells Jasper and Horace to "poison them, drown them, bash them in the head, i don't care how you kill the little beasts, just do it!" now remember we're talking about innocent puppies here and she wants them to be brutally killed for a COAT. she even goes as far as to track the puppies down when they escape and chase the truck they're on in the ending which ends with her crashing her car into the ditch. i feel like this was a perfect arc for Cruella and nothing more needed to be explained about her character. i mean, people like Cruella exist all over the world and it's not hard to fathom why she is the way she is. then enters Emma Stone's Cruella. i haven't watched the movie in it's entirety because i legitimately do not care for it, but from what i have seen, it's abominably stupid. Dalmatians didn't deliberately kill her mom, the Baroness did, the dogs were only following her command. sure, Dalmatians could've been a symbol for Cruella, in her mind, for loathing and hatred, so much so that she'd want dog coats made out of them, but that's ridiculous. she even finds out half-way through the movie that the Dalmatians weren't responsible. this movie doesn't even make sense on par with the original's timeline (i'm not sure if this movie is supposed to be a stand-a-lone and NOT tied to the 101 Dalmatians franchise, but if that's the case, WHY DO THEY HAVE CRUELLA, JASPER, HORACE, ANITA, AND ROGER IN ITTTTT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) i feel like this movie could've been perhaps decent if it didnt have original 101 Dalmatians characters, because there's no way in hell that any fan of the animated classic was going to watch this movie and actively root for infamous puppy-napper evil villain Cruella de Vil. it's so stupid. i hate Disney sometimes because this is literally not it.
You know, I was thinking about this whole "Make truly evil villains sympathetic" thing myself, and while watching this, it hit me that there _MIGHT_ be a way that that _could_ work. I'll use Cruella as an example, and let's say for the sake of argument, I'm the creator of my own version of the movie _Cruella_ : We start with a younger Cruella, who is a little girl with a serious mean streak, and genuinely enjoys bullying people and has a strong dislike of animals, but a near paradoxical obsession with how soft their fur is. She loves fur, to the point of obsession, both for the prestige and glamor, and the softness. All throughout her young life, we get scenes of this odd and even unsettling mix of unpleasantness towards people and animals, and obsession with fur and using all the money and power her family has to her own ends. We have a few scenes of her bullying her "schoolmate" a young Anita, and then a few kids get sick of it and finally stand up to her. Cruella tries to play the victim to the teacher, but it doesn't work and she gets yelled at and told that she'll never be loved or be anything of worth if she acts like this. She runs off crying, unable to deal with her first real "wall" against her bullying and selfish behavior. To her surprise though, a boy or girl comes up to her, and asks if she's okay. At first, she thinks to tell them off, but the words about her actions stick with her, and she _thanks them_ instead, and then asks them why they bothered, since she's so mean. The boy/girl tells them that they always thought she was pretty, but scary, but today they heard them crying and wanted to see if she was okay. Touched, at least a little, young Cruella decides to ask if they want to spend time together, and the new friend says yes, and promises they'll help her be a better and happier person. Cruella and this new person become closer throughout school and after graduation, with Cruella becoming kinder towards that person, but struggling with everyone and everything else, despite the other person trying to help them by taking them out to places and teaching them to try and be nice to other people, pet animals without wanting to tear off their fur, and so on. Cruella is genuinely happy, though she still struggles with her desire to shine, to be "above dull normal life" and other such arrogant things that the original Cruella reveled in. Things take a turn for the worse though, when she starts having an "idol" to look up to, let's just call her the Baroness for simplicity's sake, a pinnacle of all the things Cruella's nasty side _wants_ to be, rich, influential, decked out in beautiful outfits (though not furs), and without a kind word to say to anyone, feared and "respected" by all, as well as hated. The movie rolls on, with Cruella's special person noticing the change in Cruella as she starts pushing on to becoming a worse and more powerful person, putting her families money towards buying furs and styling herself up for fancy parties that have not a single bit of warmth or true happiness in them, and they are caught between being glad she's happy and wanting to stop her, and attempts to get her to enjoy _both_ things and maybe tone down the awful stuff fail, and Cruella starts ignoring and pushing them away, even yelling at them, and steadily becomes more the loud, haughty, and nasty Cruella of the original movie. This all comes to a head when a big party happens, and the Baroness _herself_ is there, to Cruella's delight and amazement, and the Baroness takes an interest in her, wanting to "invest in her future" and asking her to move to a much more influential city that has a _marvelous_ fur store right next to the Baroness' own major company building. Cruella _almost_ says yes on the spot, but then thinks of her special person, and goes home to tell them they're moving. The person is shocked and confused, and saddened when Cruella explains, and when it comes down to it, they tell her "I can't go with you, all my other friends are here, and I wouldn't belong in that sort of place..." they get into a fight, and Cruella storms out, while her person tells her that "Do what makes you happy Cruella, I won't stop you..." with tears in their eyes. We end on Cruella sending letters to her special person, telling them all about everything, and how happy she is, and thanking them for "inspiring her to follow my dreams", while clearly being cold and heartless towards everyone. The special person reads them, and at first tries to smile, then breaks down in tears, saying that they failed Cruella. We then cut to Cruella, enjoying herself at a party and wrapped in a new fur, but looking to her side and noticing the absence of her special person, and looking a bit less happy...but forcing that away when someone gets her attention. My point with this idea of _Cruella_ would be to sell the idea of "Evil can be pitiable, for all the good it misses out on" so to speak, where Cruella, and other villains had a chance at _being_ better people, and having love or something else great and kind, but threw it away to chase their evil dreams, but still have a bit of pain at what they tossed aside. It isn't perfect, and I'm not saying it is an idea that Disney would _have_ to make or anything, but if they _had_ to make villains like Cruella, Maleficent, and so on be sympathetic, THIS would be a better way to do it that would be truer to their characters than what they _actually_ did, which was pretty much in my eyes make entirely different characters that do the same things, but make them excusable because the other characters are now assholes or incompetent buffoons so the "villains" do everything instead.
Disney cannot even manage to create a new well written sympathetic villain, let alone update a classic character and make it work in the story. Captain Hook could be redeemed and become an anti hero but modern Disney isn't capable of doing it right, there was barely any build up towards that moment, there was no logic involved in the process, "Captain Hook as anti hero" storyline (making him a neutral character with understandable motivation) should have been the main focus in the story throughout the whole films runtime instead of girl power nonsense. Therefore, the film about Peter Pan should have been a grim prequel (before he met Wendy) that explains how Peter uses children to stay young (similar to how the Pinocchio animation presented the child kidnapping) and how he affected Hooks state of mind but it requires taking risks and being creative, as well as having a clear focus in the story. But Cruella should have never been shown as a hero, she was always a spoiled maniac that hated dogs because she was obsessed with real fur coats, people like Cruella actually exist in real life in USA, China and Russia and no one feels sympathy towards them because they are egocentric monsters
Maleficent, the movie, was vile. The original animated Maleficent is indeed the queen of Disney villains (so fabulous, so stylish, so vindictive), but then Hollywood, in their desperate effort to subvert all traditional values, had to make her.... a victim of the patriarchy? Pure garbage, but it does reflect the sorry, severely damaged state of mind of the people who run that place.
Honestly, the worst example of Disney making sympathetic villains is the burglars in Home Sweet Home Alone. In the original Home Alone films the burglars were just people trying to break into the house and Kevin was defending himself from them. The fact that they had no sympathetic backstory made it fun to see them get their comeuppance. In the new film, they give the burglars a backstory of being a couple just trying to steal a doll to provide for their family. Now that they have sympathetic backstories it takes out all the fun of watching them go through the traps as you feel bad for them instead of wanting to see them get hurt.
to be honest, I seperate Cruella and Malificent from the old disney movies. I think they are fun movies, especially out of the context from their previous films. Plus, those Movies also have new female villains. I like them more than the liv-action remakes which I avoid at all cost.
I could buy it for Maleficent. Despite her name i don't think it's says why she's evil in the first place despite her appearence. But Cruella? I mean, she want to skin alive 100 dalmatian puppies for a fur coat and enjoy the idea. You simply can't make a vilain like that sympathic.
i used to say "does it have a clear antagonist, a villain? Yes? Thats Disney." because in 9 out of 10 times an animated movie with a clear villain used to be by Disney. It kinda does not work anymore haha
Yeah I can get you on Maleficent! It seemed like an interesting idea that they squandered trying so hard to push her into anti-hero territory (You know the female FAIRY that BOASTED she was "the mistress of all evil" the one who AIMMED to murder a girl simply because her parents "slighted her" by not even CONSIDERING giving her in invite and then twisted the one fairy attempt to reverse her kill curse to instead making the girl suffer having her happy ending with her fiancée screwed over by attempting to imprison him on purpose to let him go as an old man while she remained young! Aurora did NOTHING wrong to her. Yet she went that far to hurt her for shit she never did. I mean that movie went HARD on having to character assassinating everyone else to even get her that Anti-Hero status! Like Aurora father (I don't think one goes from commoner servant to KING the way he did. Hell I think there are SERVENTS of the noble class who would be trusted to care for the king LONG before a commoner would get that close to them!) being made the villain when it was VERY clear in the original he loved his daughter that he tried to subvert Maleficent's curse! And good god what they did to the Three Fairies! Making them buffoons and ESPECIALLY stealing Merryweather's moment by never having it happen in the first place with her making the death curse sleep instead. And oh yeah, making Aurora only alive to reach adulthood BECAUSE she stalked her, otherwise the three idiots who are NOT the three fairies I grew up knowing would have gotten her killed in babyhood Something tells me it started out as an interesting POV switch and the writers didn't know when to stop when they started character assassinating to give Maleficent "justification" that they fucked up and too much money was wasted to back out now! As seen with the Little Mermaid Live Action now! The money train has finally ran out of steam, have to wonder how it made it this far. I mean I would give Cinderella live action some credit with Lady Tremaine! But other Cinderella like stories have LONG gone the route Disney went with her character (that she became a Jaded woman who is cruel to Cinderella because she sees the young girl SHE WAS and ill believed her cruel behavior to her was because "it was natural" she was treated the same and now it was her turn! Hell many went as far as to have Tremaine view Cinderella as her daughter more then her ACTUAL daughters because unlike her bio daughters, Cinderella was the most like her and she wanted to steer her into becoming her 2.0! I read a story once about a plot like this, where a MC stepmom arranged to destroy his family because of a grudge between stepmom and his deceased mother. Kept encouraging bad behavior on his part because she wanted to "dye him in her color's" that one would wonder if he was REALLY his mother's child and not "his stepmother's" with how SIMILAR, jaded and petty they both acted! A twisted parody of sorts) but then so much of that movie ruined it that the only interesting thing was her stepmother ACTUALLY willing to let her have her happy ending...but only because she would have benefitted in that route and she wanted Cindy to make a deal with the devil with her that would have tainted it and showed they were "not so different" and to justify the actions SHE took growing up by proving if Cindy was in the same situation, she'd have done them too! Oh well the train was eventually going to derail at some point! Especially once China made clear they weren't going to PRETEND anymore with Disney and Hollywood
We need pure evil characters in order to keep the suspense going and really root for the leading heroes. Disney just wants tragic villains to win dumb awards.
Kinda feels like Disney is going to cause two very terrible ideas to become the norm for kids: 1. People only do evil because the were mistreated or because they have no choice. 2. I can still do evil as long as I think I've been wronged enough by others to justify it.
Not just the villains, they also sympathize with family abuse and toxic friendships. In Coco, Imelda Rivera turned her entire family into a music-hating cult after believing that her husband: Hector abandoned them for his music career. In reality, he was murdered by his supposed best friend: Ernesto de la Cruz when he was planning to return home. They want us to feel sorry for her misfortune. But honestly, we don't because of her delusions and hypocrisy, especially for turning her granddaughter: Elena into an obedient robot so she could keep an eye on her sickin' legacy in check. As for Elena, although she is a loving grandmother to Miguel, but she's the bane to his existence. Since she was horribly brainwashed, Elena refused to listen to music, not even once. She also doesn't take no for an answer by giving Miguel a death glare before handing him a stack of tamales. Geezus, lady ! But the last straw is when she destroyed his homemade guitar without any remorse for what she had done. And worst of all, none of his family members defended him, not even his own parents. Alma Madrigal from Encanto lost her husband during a revolutionary war, but that doesn't justify her enslaving her gifted family and treating Bruno and Mirabel as rejects. And it's also impossible to sympathize with Ming Lee, who had issues with her mother after treating Mei like a puppet. Not only that, she doesn't respect her privacy. She publicly humiliated Mei by showing her drawings to her crush at the convenience store. She falsely accused Mei's friends of using her panda form to make money, even though it was Mei's idea. And she even terrorized the concert in her giant panda form, nearly killing billions of people in the process ! Even TV shows like The Proud Family and Amphibia fell into this category. We're still left wondering why Penny Proud from The Proud Family is still hanging out with her so-called friends (especially Dijonay) who constantly threw her under the bus. Hell, even Suga Mama told Penny that her friends are a bunch of fakers. Special mention to Maya, who will put Lisa Simpson and Brian Griffin to shame for her hypocritical political views. Anne's so-called best friends: Sasha and Marcy are one my main criticism about Amphibia. Before they are the ones who sent Anne and themselves to the titular place, they did horrible things to her. Sasha is a manipulative delinquent whose influences did more harm than good, especially by putting Sprig in danger. And Marcy is a pretty messed up girl who lives in a fantasy world and refuses to face reality. That's why I wasn't pleased with Anne for reunited with those troublemakers in the finale.
@@aidanhever3369 One King Adris is far from generic as we get more of his backstory hes not like Bellweather or Prince Hans who can only be villains for the last 10 mins not to mention him standing up to his dad crown has the same feels as Satan standing up to Saddm And 2 Unlike Djojnay , Sasha and Marcy change the former going on the same villain to good guy route as Vegeta , Discord and Zuko as one episode Sahasa made Anne the leader as she knew shed be better and was genuine , and Marcy your beign way too harsh on her as she was not as bad Sasha was and didnt want to move away its less not facign reality and more like not saying goodbye . At the very least you can say they become more of Anne friends by the end then Penny's friends are to her now
Both 'Maleficent' and 'Cruella' were, I feel, ALMOST good, albeit highly alternate, takes on their respective villains, but they both had moments where they took the wrong path - or rather, they SHOULD have, but didn't, which ruined them as villains. The thing about really in-depth villain backstories, when you get them, is that no one starts out a villain. There's often a moment where the protagonist has a choice: do the right or the wrong thing. They choose 'wrong', and that's what makes them a villain. In the case of the 'Maleficent' film, there's a point where the title character finally just full-on decides to not even pretend to be a villain anymore, and continue on down a heroic path - if, instead, she had veered back towards her quest for revenge, sacrificing her newfound motherly love for the Princess and fully embracing her role as the Mistress of All Evil, that would have made her story a tragedy, which would have added the depth to her character that the film was theoretically teasing - she would have been evil, because she'd knowingly sacrificed her capacity for good, therefore ultimately dooming herself to defeat by it. That would have been compelling and interesting - but it's not what we got. Or in 'Cruella', there's the same thing - a moment where the title character ALMOST fully becomes her villainous original version, but punks out at the last second. This is the point where she shows up in full Dalmatian-spotted regalia, and the Baroness says, in shock 'she made a dress out of my dogs!' If the film had ended there - right THERE - we would have wound up with a Cruella truly worthy of her fiendish predecessor. She's achieved her revenge, she's sunk her rival's career beyond all hope of resurrection, and in the process, she's sacrificed the love and respect of her foster-brothers, her own sense of common decency, and possibly even her sanity. She's changed from the nice young lady she was earlier into a full-on monster, and she doesn't even care. THAT would have been a believable backstory for classic Cruella - instead, the remaining half-hour devotes itself to completely reversing all of that, and going 'no no no, she was a hero all along, you see, and she didn't ACTUALLY make a dress out of dogs - why, that'd be NASTY'. Now, I actually liked both movies, but they were NOT what they were being billed as. They were being billed as 'the never-before seen backstories of Disney's GREATEST VILLAINS, OMG', while they should have been billed as alternate, heroic takes. I can buy the Maleficent from 'Maleficent' and the Cruella from 'Cruella' as A Maleficent and A Cruella, but they are not and never will be THE Maleficent and Cruella, because they do not have the balls to commit to their premises. You can't tell a genuine villain story if you refuse to let your villains become villains.
Because a lot of bad writers don’t understand or care about morality in day-to-day life. That’s why we get bad morals, rushed redemptions of characters that committed atrocities, and bizarrely disconnected motivations that anyone even slightly well adjusted would laugh at. It’s not so much sympathy as the writers wanting kids to relate to the villains so that they’ll be worse people for it, like themselves
I have an unpopular opinion that morally gray villains are very much underrated. My favorite Disney villain is Frollo. The villains of the Disney villains of the Revival Era are generally great. All these villans are underrated. Once I get into it, I get the idea of realism. It is fine to make a villain mean and nasty as long as they resemble real people. Try to get into the motive and actions of the real people. Heck that may be one of the appeals of Frollo. The Witch Craze was a thing in real life. The character of Frollo is very accurate to what real witch hunters were like. In recent times I learned about Kim Jung Un and Pol Pot on TH-cam videos. These are real life people, and they were also extremly cruel to thier own people. It wouldn't be a stretch to call them villains. Maybe monsters like them can give storytellers some leeway. This video has plenty of examples. The one that stood out to me was Cruella Deville. This is a wierd case. I don't watch the live action remakes. They are creatively bankrupt. Unless someone was a critic or if they were really curious, they are not worth the watch. So I only know the origional animated movie of 101 Dalmations. I am not a fan of classic Disney villains. I think they are overrated. However I think Cruella is okay compated to the others. I know about how animal cruelty works in real life. I have seen more than my fair share of PETA videos on TH-cam alone. Cruella is similar to real animal abusers in real life. She only needs a few tweaks to make her realistic and sympathetic. Animal cruelty is usually a matter of animal amorality. Someone can use animals to benefit themslves and other people in some way. Animals are useful for food, fashion, entertainment and reasearch. The amoral approach uses animals without any regard for the welfare of the animal. So they become cruel as a side effect, and they don' t care. In the case of fashion, one doesn't care if it is cruel to kill animals for fur and leather. They don't care if fur farms have cruel and horrendous living conditins for animals. All they care about is using animal products to contribute to fashion. I think Cruella Deville can work well like this. This wouldn't even change her character that much. Cruella would be a famous fashion designer. She is well loved by the fashion fans. She can even be vain and nercissitic. She wants to provide bold new fashion designs to please her clients. There is a charm that is the nice side. The down side is that Cruella has an amoral cruelty to animals. Hmm. Maybe the movie can show Cruella going to a realistly depicted fur farm. That will really bring out the villany. Those places are so screwed up. Cruella could run the fur farm herself or just pick up fur as fashion supplies. Maybe she can even put dalmations in the place. Then it would be a cross between fur fatm and puppy mill. Cruella gains a bold new idea of fashion maje of dalmation fur. Then dog lovers object, like Roger and Perdita. They can be like people that support animal welfare. That would make for a good conflict to carry the story. The video talks about Cruella having a sob story involving dogs. What the heck? That doesn't make sense. I think I like my idea of an amoral fashion designer better.
Take the "sym" out of "sympathetic" and you've perfectly described modern Disney villains.
Maybe it's short for "simple and pathetic"
Loved the scene where Tinker Bell slapped Chris Rock.
You put more thought into that joke than most sympathetic villains nowadays
Good one
Nice
“Dalmatians killed my mom” is still, unironically, one of the dumbest villain motivations I’ve ever heard.
It gives me the "because singing killed my grandma" vibes and continues to be hilarious to me
@@creepyguy9082 "who's Dalmatians were those branch?"
I think I'm weird, I think its cool. The others were dumb to me.
I am dumb so ig my taste is reflected how dumb i am
It does sound horrible
From any character is dumb
Imagine trying to make a unhinged woman who wants to skin puppies “sympathetic” huh girl bye
she also wants to do even worse things with them in the direct to DVD sequel so this technically makes it 10x more difficult to feel sympathy for her
The wondrous therapy (aka brainwashing) organized by the wondrous organization called PETA (that shouldn't exist back then, but Disney loves to ignore such small 'details') turned Cruella de Vil into a true protector of any abused animals!
Exactly. Cruella and Maleficent are both pure evil.
@@LukeLovesRose
Funny enough in the original tale of Sleeping Beauty the Wicked Fairy/Carabosse (named Maleficent in the Disney version) ironically does have genuine reason to be angry and her actions make total sense when taking into account she's a fairy and how fickle and dangerous they can be when slighted.
In the oldest recorded version, she was the eighth, eldest fairy who was forgotten and not invited to the party and therefore had no golden case to be gifted like her sisters were which prompts her curse.
The Brothers Grimm version makes it ever worse, where instead of forgetting to invite the eldest fairy by mistake it was intentional on the king and queen's part since they already had to give away 12 and didnt want to/couldnt give them a plate as well and didnt want to bother explaining it.
So it actually wouldnt have been that hard to spin an interesting interpretation that makes Maleficent more sympathetic/grey, they just didnt really try. Or, rather, they tried too hard and leaned too far into it. They did incorporate those elements from what I remember, yes, but also added in a bunch of other elements to further victimize her and make the king cartoonishly evil.
Seriously. What's next, trying to make Frollo sympathetic? (Though, knowing Disney, I wouldn't put it past them.)
I miss villains who know they're evil, revel in it, and have the audacity to spit on their own tragic backstories.
Azula from Avatar and Big Jack Horner are perfect examples of that
Absolutely. Villain who are competent unafraid and confident in themselves and what they do.
Jack Horner in Puss in boots 2: "You know, I never had much as a kid. Just loving parents, stability, and a mansion... and a thriving baked goods enterprise for me to inherit. Useless crap like that."
“You shouldn’t shoot a dog would you?”
“Yeah in the face, why?”
Like Agatha Harkness from WandaVision? Although, she didn’t even really have a tragic backstory to begin with... (That we know of.)
The biggest problem with Disney's ''sympathetic'' villains:
- Retroactively trying to make a villain into a misunderstood hero. ''Remember the original villains? Well, now you should feel bad for them and stupid for thinking they were evil in the first place.''
- Even when they're supposed to be likable they still are terrible. They're mean, do terrible things and we are supposed to feel bad for them because they have a sad backstory? Paraphrasing Rocket the Racoon ''Boo hoo! Your mommy is dead? It's not an excuse to be a dick!''
- Speaking of backstories! Modern Disney can't tell a subtle story. The new backstories are so over-the-top tragic and edgy that they unintentionally end up being funny. Cruella's mother being dropped kicked off a cliff by the dalmatians comes to mind.
- Also, contrived and stupid. It's really hard to feel sympathy for someone if most of their problems come from their actions and instead of acknowledging it and changing for the better they go ''You destroyed my life!'' and go on a path of revenge. Why is Cruella homeless as a child, shouldn't the police find her and put her in foster care or an orphanage? I guess ''My mother was pushed off a cliff by dogs.'' would make people think she's crazy.
Edit:
- I forgot to mention how by trying to make villains sympathetic the writers turn ''heroes'' into terrible people. Peter Pan was best friends with Captain Hook but left him alone to wander the seas looking for his mother and when he come back as an adult Peter cut off his hand. I want Hook to kill this little psycho and save the poor children. It reads like those fanfictions about Hook being the lost boy. But even those fanfics are better!
- It also takes away from their threatening presence. Scar in the remake is now a pussy (wink wink) who sounds like he's about to cry when killing Mufasa and an incel who can't get over that Sarabi choose Mufasa over him.
Disney wants a Zuko for their villians but don't know we want a (OG) Scar as a enemy.
@@TheReZisTLust There's nothing wrong with different types of villains but Disney company just can't write them well anymore. It makes me scared for the villain in Wish. I'm worried they're so out of touch they will destroy even the pure evil archetype.
I remember 2 years ago, when Cruella was out in theaters, almost everyone on the Internet was making fun of Cruella’s mother’s death being caused by Dalmatians and making memes out of it. Even I remember joining the band wagon with this joke: There’ll be a film about the Coachman from Pinocchio where we find out the reason why he hates “stupid little boys” and turns them into donkeys to sell for money is because “stupid little boys” killed his father.
Someone also made a similar joke with Gaston: We know Gaston’s reason for hating books is because a bookshelf fell and killed his mother.
This was just our way of making fun of the ridiculousness of Cruella’s mother being killed by Dalmatians.
I don't usually read long comments like yours, but this one I did and it was worth it
@@hunterolaughlin Gaston's mother being killed by a bookshelf is a funny one. I saw it on the internet too.
People forget you can have a sympathetic backstory AND STILL BE an irredeemable monster.
Who forgot that? Literally who
@@xxkankala1671 Disney did
@@zalybrainlessgenius503 not really
@@monabohamad2242 shill
@@zalybrainlessgenius503 Hi Zaly! Also, of course you’d understand :D
You know there's evil in a corporation when it makes movies that say "oh, the villain wasn't THAT bad."
Absolutely.
Like with Nintendo
@@quangamershyguyyz7166 I never saw Ganondorf being good or misunderstood
How is it evil
People like villains because they represent evil that is always present in the world. We like seeing the battle of good triumphing evil because of the clear threat they present. These ‘sympathetic’ villains are unrealistic because not everyone has good intentions and ironically makes these new movies less relatable to the audience. Good to know other studios are aware of this!👏
tbf, the world isnt black and white. not everything evil or bad is pure evil, and not everything heroic or good is pure goodness. its a mix of everything, sympathetic villains can work but disney just doesnt execute it properly.
I feel like a good sympathetic villain is one that either gets revealed to be rivaling the protagonist, gets shown to be doing it for a greater good that the hero/ audience would want themselves, or is built up as an Ally to the protagonist who slowly grows to feel they can't let the protagonist reach their goal for a humane reason (ie the goal should be all for them, or the goal is not worth what the protagonist is willing to go through in their eyes). The biggest thing about all of them is that rarely should their evil ways be watered down or covered with a blanket, and they should usually be punished for their actions accordingly.
@@natecgames4612 These are more so examples than rules.
A sympathetic villian Needs well to make sense, they need to be human first then a villian from that humanity.
Frollo did this well, as he's villiany came from his conseus choice to Refuse redemption an ingore his responsibilities, excusing his actions so he doesn't have to face the truth.
It a Human Monster convincing itself it's just a man.
@alex cat I actually agree with you on that. Though Frollo was not made to be sympathize. He was made for people to understand why he did what he did, but also still seeing what he did as unforgivable. There are more examples of the other sympathetic villains other then what I said but I genuinely can't think of another example. I'd be glad if you tried to find more though.
@@floof6896Sort of. MOST people aren't black and white. Some are though. Some people try to do good to a ridiculous extend and martyr themselves and some people are so hand wringingly evil that all they are missing in an eye patch and a cat with a rolly chair. Probably not the majority but there definitely are people like that
It's one thing to write a sympathetic villain that's MADE to be sympathetic from the ground up. It's another thing to take a pre-established villain who's known for commiting and/or wanting to commit legitimately heinous actions and contort them into something unrecognizable so the audience can "feel sorry for them". This goes double if the heroes are rewritten to make them look worse.
And I think that's the reason why people are so DONE with this trope. Not because it can't work, but because Disney has both oversaturated it and is doing it exceptionally bad. Little wonder why Jack Horner and Death are all the rage nowadays.
Well to be fair Death from Puss in Boot wasn't really entirely a villain but rather an antagonist to Puss due to how the cat disregarded his eight lives thus Death decided to go after the feline himself.
It's fine if the whole story is rewriten, like in maleficent. That's another story, separate feom the animated sleeping beauty.
Dracula from Castlevania is an example of a making a villain sympathetic well done (partly because he’s a separate continuity from the games).
Dracula is usually evil, acting as an anti-god trying to destroy the world. The animated series has him fall in love with a human woman who is burned alive for being a witch. He wants to destroy the world because it took his love from him. Our heroes acknowledge he has a good reason to hate, but they still will stop him regardless. And he finally gives up and let’s himself be killed when he finally realises that he’s about to kill his own son.
@@cybertramon0012 Never watched Castlevania or played the games, but... Yeah. THAT'S how you make a sympathetic villain out of a pre-established baddie. Can't say the same for live-action Cruella and her dumb "Dalmatians killed my Mom" nonsense.
You can also make the audience feel bad for a villain, but still want to see them burn.
I'm trying that with one of mine atm...
Give them a sad backstory that makes you go "maybe if things had been different, they could have been a good person", while also hammering home that as they are, they're a serious threat that can't be talked down.
DreamWorks still knows how to make a true villain nowadays.
We get it, you like Puss in Boots the Last Wish! 🙄
Shen Tai lung fairy godmother DEATH 🐺
Illumination also has some good villains in the Despicable Me/Minions franchise and in the Mario Movie.
@@devontejefferson6520 Raiden shogun
@@joshuataylor5992 hell Bowser stole the show in every scene he was in and that final fight scene golden he was both scary and funny
Cruella's backstory of "Dalmatians killed my mother" has major "Singing killed my grandma, okay?" vibes.
Davy Jones was Disney's best sympathetic villain
Cruel and cold like winds on the sea… Will you ever return to me?
I agree. The voice acting and mocap from talented stuntmen(in addition to the one I know) is superb too. Disney needs to let go of the live action remakes and make original new IPs again.
Yeah, he was someone done right, same for Varian and Cassandra from the Tangled series.
He has a sympathetic and tragic element, but we aren't explicitly supposed to root for him. He's still evil, and knowing how he became so doesn't justify the terrible things he's done. He's also just cool.
@@insertsomememereferenceher8483 I'd like to believe after the third film, while his heart might have been stabbed, he went back to the sea where he belonged, forever bound to the locker since it still needs an owner.
When Disney made their iconic villains sympathetic it made me loose faith in Disney. As Disney has forgotten about what made their villains compelling, memorable and entertaining to see.
I don't know why they hire these basic writers in the first place.
If you are capable of losing faith, you should be in some kind of rpg. Lose =/= loose.
@@briamari9035 Because they can't pay the good ones to stay for more than 5 seconds
@@p.jpersian9758 lol
Modern Writers confuse a sympathetic Villain with a more complex Villain. Bringing more complexity to a Villain is just fine as long as the story can hold on to more complexity in general.
Disney doesn't know _how_ to make a villain sympathetic without also making them secretly good deep down. They could never make a character like Mr. Freeze, or Madara Uchiha, or the Phantom of the Opera, because they cannot separate "sympathetic" from "redeemable". Disney can only do the one villain archetype they've always done, mustache-twirling finger-twiddling evil-for-the-sake-of-evil bastard, and anything else is too far outside their comfort zone.
I think the problem is that they lack the ability to make characters with depth or complexity in general, be they hero or villains.
@Darth Daddy I think they have the ability to, they just chose not to out of the fact that more children watch there "products" then adults. Atleast that's what I think they tell themselves
@@p.jpersian9758 Well that and they're more occupied with filling diversity quotas than making good movies
@@darthdaddy3071 shut up. Having a diversity qouta has nothing to do with writing. You're just exposing yourself right then and there. You're the type of person who would blame global warming to people who are black just because they have so much melanin. Lmao.
Speaking of “redeemable” and Mr. Freeze, what comes to my mind is that scene in Batman Beyond when he tells Terry “You’re the only one who cares.” Even Victor knew he was irredeemable in the end. 😢
I think a sympathetic villain has to have 3 things to their character.
1. Have a good reason for what they are doing these evil things (doing bad things for a good cause).
2. Not having them kill people on purpose (it can be an accident), though this could be risky.
3. Have a change of heart or redeem themselves.
Now with Disney's Villains like Cruella, Maleficent, and Captain Hook, no, you cannot make them sympathetic. And yet, Disney decided to do that and made more sympathetic villains that no one asked for. And none of them fit my criteria.
I disagree with number two as sympathetic does not always mean good or moral, for example, King from One Piece. He kills many people and commits many crimes, but he was heavily tortured as a kid. His only release was his captain saving him, this made King think that he could change the world leading to him dedicating his life to him. This fits well with, Zoro who was fighting him. Zoro had a similar story where he was on the verge of execution was saved and then swore himself to his captain. In the end you can easily root for either character since either one losing would be heart breaking. Despite that, King is shown killing his own men and being generally cruel to others. So he's blatantly immoral but, is also sympathetic because we can see the reason why he does this it is because he thinks it will help his captain.
also sorry if I wrote all this and misinterpreted the original comment.
@@billystorm5347 Well that is fine, I do have to agree that number 2 can be iffy. And I did say that that concept can be risky. I think a villain can have a reason to harm others like that example you explained. I can always change the rules if there are good examples of villains being sympathetic.
I disaagree about Malificent, I think they did a great job with her. First cause she is not the true villain of the movie, she is more like an anti-hero. Second cause she were madr before the remakes boom, and were not intented to be part of the animation version. At least the first movie were. Now, I agree about villains like Gaston, Cruella, Clayton, etc They were created to be, not exactly pure evil, but pure GREED and/or VAINITY. Has nothing that can make those agreedable, and is total ok for them to be jerks cause they are selfish. They are villains, is how they are a lot of times. Disney overused the sympathetic villain formula and the twist villain formula too. What makes it repetitive.
Also has a difference between villain and antagonist. The antagonist is only someone who is an obstacle to the protagonist, they don't have to be evil. They can even be more noble. The villain is bad or at least twisted, cause they do bad things.
@@taynahibanez9952
I mean, I do admit that Maleficent was an alright movie. So I can't really say that that was the best choice of character to list. So no argument there. I can agree with that.
I'd also have to disagree, but with both points 2 & 3. A villain can be sympathetic yet irredeemable and still work. The Joker is the first that comes to mind (thanks to recommended thumbnails). It is very understandable why Joker ended up the way he did, but in no way are any iteration of him ever excused for his behavior nor does he change his ways. He's still an incredibly enjoyable evil character.
In my opinion, a good sympathetic villain should a) have a good reason to turn out the way they did and b) match the theme of the story they're in. You can write a sympathetic villain who's been backstabbed by an old friend, making them vengeful, but if the story's theme is about growing up, the villain becomes useless. Good sympathetic villains tend to be a reflection of the main character (what the protagonist could become if they let their dark thoughts overtake them).
Disney's fundamental misconception is that they think in order to love a character, we have to like them. We love OG Cruella, Ursula, Scar, Captain Hook etc BECAUSE of their villainy. We don't like them, but we still love to watch them.
I’m sick of the sympathetic villain trope. I want villains who are evil just to be evil. Not every person is going to have a sympathetic backstory for why they commit terrible actions.
Watch Puss In Boots: The Last Wish. Jack Horner is the villain you want to see.
@@SweetOrangeGirl
I did. Jack Horner was a breath of fresh air 😂
@@professormadhattgaming583 Yes, he was. I thought he was hilarious 😂.
We get it. You like Puss in Boots the Last Wish.🙄
I can see it working better with Randall Boggs and Dawn Bellwether, but not the classic villains
Sympathetic villains can work. Just not when Disney is doing them.
Disney always worked with the back and white morality system. They have no idea of what they're doing.
The only sympathetic villain I am willing to love is Ramsess in the prince of Egypt
Ramses is deeply inside the high cast system he were raised in, and now he is a king with priorities to keep thay system. Moses in the movie were exactly like that and woukd keep being if he didn't have find out he were actually a hebrew. Knowing his origins and be pretty much pressured by the hebrew god is what changed him. Ramses is compeling cause he trully loved moses. He even offered the use the royal privileged way to do things to make Moses not pay for killing an Egyptian. And even so Moses left abd when returned, it was 't for his brother, it was for the hebrew people. Ramses clearly felt JEALOUSY. He is still the villain of the story, but I also sympsthize and understand his side. And Moses understand too. He felt like shit and tried to comfort Ramses after he lost his son over not bowing to a Foreigner god. Like... Is only because of the Nature of the movie that Ramses didn't straight up said "oh fuck you for the audacy to show up!"
I can't wait for the Princess and the Frog remake where Disney tries to portray Dr. Facilier as a sympathetic three-dimensional villain and Tiana as a one-dimensional girl boss.
“Voodoo dolls killed my mom.”
And Prince Naveen is just gonna be useless and pathetic because Disney wanted to say men are stupid
@@brayanargandonaflorentino548 What the hell is Disney's problem with strong male characters?
To be fair, Facilier actually had some hints on his backstory in the original movie
@@tototats16Nah that wouldn’t work. Mainly because her mother is alive in the film and It was her dad who died instead genius 😭🖕🏽. You thought you ate
Forgiveness isn't a bad message, but if you want a villain to be forgiven.
They need to *show* they are willing to change and do good.
I love a good redemption arc, but it needs to actually be an arc. The villain, needs to choose selflessness over selfishness of their own accord. And they have to do it without the hero's trust.
This is why I love Toaru so much, not only do you have the villains who don't get redeemed and die or get imprisoned. But kamachi is also the king of redeemable, and sympathetic villains.
One of his main protags starts an antag villain. And we get to see him grow from monster to literal angel.
Another of his villains is arguably one of the cruelest and worst ones. Literally pulling the classic, eternal torment trick on the hero. However, not only is her motive understandable. (God lost in a world of her own creation with no way home and no one who'd understand her.) But she also changes, she *chooses* to give up her goal and bring the hero back to his home *knowing* she will be killed.
Nothing is wrong with a sympathetic villain.
Disney is just bad at them
I hate how Namaari, the villain who caused SO MUCH TROUBLE during the course of the film, does something helpful at the end and NEVER ONCE APOLOGIZES FOR HER ACTIONS THAT SHE DID
I truly need more "tragic" villains that are sympathetic in that you can understand their motivations, but are still villains to the very end and do not wish to be redeemed as they may genuinely believe they're doing nothing wrong. I'd love to see that
That’s basically Kingpin in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. He may be a straightforward irredeemable villain, but I would lie if I said I didn’t feel sorry for what happened to him in the past and understand his motivations and his hatred for Spider-Man. One of the examples of a sympathetic villain that’s still a villain with no chance of redemption.
Ever watched the Saw movies ? Jigsaw is exactly that villain
Modern Disney movies have terrible villains, but the TVA side doesn't slack: Belos is one of my favorite villains of all time, alongside Bill Cipher
I don’t like the Owl House, but I have to admit Belos was a good villain.
Thank god that lgbt propaganda finally ended
Gravity Falls was years ago and The Owl House was pretty clearly not what the Disney high table wanted. A lot of their other shows have fallen into the same "Sympathetic Villain" pattern as their films making it pretty clear someone is demanding the nonsense be standard across the company to it's great detriment.
@@professormadhattgaming583 Same.
@@George_Fl0yd Indeed.
King Candy/Turbo is not really a Twist villain tho, he is a Twist character.
By that I mean, during all of the movie we know he is a bad guy, the movie doesn't hide from us that he is the villain, the only thing that it's revealed is his identity
@ROSA a better example of what tho? He is a great villaing but there's nothing "twisty" about him, we know he's death the entire movie
Can’t wait for life action Hunchback of Notre Dame remake with sympathetic Frollo
"Misunderstood" bc he was rejected
He is kinda sympathetic in the original novel, but Disney version of Frollo is pure evil.
I think the Once Upon A Time TV Show did better than Disney when giving iconic villains their backstories in live-action version.
All their villains' tragic backstories were usually parents didn't love them enough. The part I always found funny was up until Cruella, the male villians were shown with the more tragic stories yet were not allowed to be redeemed in contrast to the female counterparts who were shown to do villianous acts but had to be redeemed because the script said so.
I think the theory behind the sympathetic villain is because we want to know their motivations for doing something that clearly isn't good. I think a well done example is in Into the Spiderverse with Kingpin. He's not a good guy, but it seems random for him to want to open a rift between worlds, but you learn it's because he's looking for his deceased family, and he'll do anything to get them back, not a far stretch for him as he already was villainous. His reason is understandable, it is sympathetic in a way, but he's not a misunderstood person who comes across as bad. He's just a bad guy who loved his wife and kid.
The core issue isn't that they are made sympathetic it's that they make them sympathetic and give them the N word pass, Joker the 2nd most popular villain movie gave us a deep dive into how he became a psychopath but at the end of the day he's still the villain that needs to be locked up, Thanos Infinity War made us understand why Thanos did what he did and what he was willing to sacrifice to achieve that goal but he's still a villain that needs to be stopped by the good guys.
And Hollywood have an equal problem with their protags, Wanda kept a village hostage where they asked to die yet "no one will know what you sacrificed" - Monica Rambeu excuser of women.
Disney has become the twist villain in its own story.
I can't believe they made Iracaberh the queen of hearts sympathetic! She decapitated people for making her mad and her story comes down to my sister lied about me stealing deserts and I hurt my head its her fault.
Well if it makes you feel any better, Iracebeth remains in exile for the rest of her days and can never return to Wonderland since she already crossed one too many lines. But that feeling of forgiveness at least gives her a sense of peace with her sister and likely accept her banishment, if not with everyone she hurt.
You know it’s so forced and unbelievable that the Nostalgia Critic made fun of it in his review of Alice Through the Looking-glass.
This is the reason I like the live-action remake of the Jungle Book, Shere Khan is still a villain, in fact, the filmmakers doubled down on his villany, they made Shere Khan more wicked and dangerous compared to the original character. However, we have to remember Shere Khan was a tiger, similar to Scar, who was also a non-sympathetic villain, plus there is also Jafar and Gaston both of whom have no redemption arcs, I suspect there is villain favouritism, if the writers' like said character, they will retcon them into being sympathetic. Redemption arcs can be written well, but it has to have a purpose to the story's plot, simply writing them into being good all along despite villainous deeds is a cop-out, however, I am rather glad there have been some unredeemed antagonists who get their comeuppance: Bill Cypher and Philip Wittebane a.k.a. Emperor Belos.
If Stan's memory wasn't really wiped, then Bill isn't really dead either. That's a bunch of shit.
I feel like Malificent is an exception though. It was a good movie. I like how instead of the Prince breaking the curse, it was Malificent. You rarely see that kind of love in movies.
What's sad is you can make villains relatable and still increadably villainous. Cruella could have been really good if they didn't push so hard on the dead mom/villain was my parent trope. If they went more of a Devil wears Prada approach, but when she sees she's becoming a fashion monster, she fully commits to the role.
Ok
Callaghan is such a great shame, actually. When I first watched Big Hero 6 (which I thought was okay), I actually liked him a lot. His mysterious villain design is fantastic, the way he manipulates the microbots with small flicks of his hand is fantastic. And the moment when he is unmasked as Callaghan, too, is fantastic. He would have made for a fantastic sympathetic villain with a deeply understandable motive ... if only they had done one of two things. Have him reluctant to kill his students, or anyone besides Krei - or track his descent into madness, to show that he is completely out of his mind by the time of the confrontation. That's all it would have taken. God, what a pity.
He would have been a lot better if it was shown he still care about his students
It’s honestly hilarious to me how most writing gurus and writing tips that I’ve read regarding villains always say “NEVER MAKE A VILLAIN EVIL JUST FOR THE SAKE OF BEING EVIL!!!!11111!!!1! NOBODY WILL LIKE IT AND EVERYONE WILL HATE YOU IF YOU DO THIS BECAUSE YOU’RE A BAD WRITER IF YOU DO THIS BECAUSE IT’S SO CLICHÈ AAAAAAAA-“
And yet here is virtually everyone in this comment section calling for these kind of villains again after the sympathetic ones were oversaturated so badly in modern media.
There's no contradiction though. They can be evil, just gotta have a reason. It doesn't make them redeemable, just more real.
meh, rules are broken all the time.
@@avillianchillinskrillian As someone who's also seen that time and time again, this is more what the aim of that advice is. Clear, understandable motivation.
Scar: wants to rule Pride Rock instead of Mufasa
Cruella: wants to skin Dalmatians and make the pelts a fur coat
Maleficent: wants her curse to be fulfilled and Sleeping Beauty to die
They're still bad, they still enjoy being bad, but being bad isn't their motivation.
The new Disney villains don't even have clear and understandable motivation, as this channel's videos show, so they lost on both fronts.
@@Kaitou1412Fangirl I wasn't disagreeing with the video. I'm saying most YT videos aren't saying dont make villains evil but just give them clear motivations which the commenter I was responding to was implying.
@@avillianchillinskrillian I wasn't disagreeing with you, but the original comment about villains being evil for evil. I meant to expound on your statement. Sorry if it seemed like I was.
Disney has loss completely their writing skills of how the write a compelling, memorable and evil villain, they keep scrubbing something that they should know better than anyone how to do it. The last time I enjoy a villain in a Disney film was King Candy, and is just sad what they have done with their villains specially on live action.........even Cruella a film that at least for me, I enjoy it (watch it in home to keep my promise of never watch these in theaters), even this drop the ball making Cruella a sympathetic character, one of the most evil badguys in the Disney Rogue and reduce to....Puppy lover or something? She even keep some Dalmatians...wt heck?..............My last hope is WISH, if they not bring a full despicable and entertaining villain, Disney is 100% gone.
Thank you.
Ercole is not a villain, he's just a bully kid. He's like a Nick Jr "villain"
Here is my take. What we need are understood villains, people just do things due to personal reason, either reasonable or not. stories letting us know about this reasons should show how it connects and contrasts the hero and why clashing with the hero justifies their action in their head. The sympathetic trope is only annoying because it is all what we see, and it looks so forced.
Could you imagine how disappointed Walt Disney would be in the current state of Disney? I just watched a documentary about his history and that dude was so gifted at collaboration, creating amazing creation's, finding the right people for the right things. They were TRULY DIVERSE, genuinely talented like we rarely see. Dedicated and Passionate towards creating imagination bending works of art and they Really did understand all the aspects and processes that mattered. For what it took to create those works of art. *(I just saw that Ukraine just started creating 2d animation for their military videos and it really reminded me of what I saw Walt do during WW2)
I love seeing cartoon styled animated video's being used again. Just how Walt Disney did (out of his own pocket) he believed it was the least he could do for his country and his countrymen who were giving so much to the war to protect our nation and the greater good in the world. (If you think about it. Walt Disney did a lot for pushing advancements in science/creativity. He made understandable information that taught so many people of all ages, and from all sorts of different walks of life, to inform on very important matters and subjects of the time. Things that might seem out of place or difficult now, were completely relative to the current situations everyone was dealing with at that point in time. (The passion Walt gained for science and technology is what sparked his passion for Epcot and learning how to build all these cutting edge devices, city planning concepts, animatronics puppets of Abe Lincoln or the talking/signing birds in the tiki lounge. Plus all the other puppets on all the other interactions around his theme park. I just watched a documentary covering the career of Walt Disney and he really was a amazingly uniquely talented person. Where he himself had a insane drive towards innovation and new ideas BUT what I think his best trait was: That Walt was SO GOOD at interacting with everyone around him and he just had this amazing ability to find the PERFECT person for different jobs, things, roles. To really bring out the best in OTHER people around him. I truly believe that's one of the most important traits in a great leader. If anyone is in a group of people who are set on creating anything. (It's rare when someone comes across with the unique style and approach like Walt Disney had and really all it takes is to watch the coverage documentary that covers all of this uniquely awesome stuff that positively impacted SO MANY PEOPLE in so many ways and places. It didn't matter who you were, the chance that something from the Walt Disney era impacting you in a positive way is nearly 100% a possibility. There really was some of the best attributes of humanity, teamwork, and motivated passionate creativity that occured thru this group of Walt Disney era team members and we all could learn something from them. In some way or another.)
I can't wait to hear about how they "expand" on Ursula's backstory with Triton by making her more "misunderstood" and "sympathetic" in the upcoming garbage remake of TLM. I'll bet they'll give her a sob-story of how Triton was wrong to banish her because she just wanted to help the merfolk after all. 🙄 Christ, that artwork of her in the art-book about to impaled by ARIEL instead of ERIC (ugh) even makes her look sad or scared. So pathetic.
I miss when Disney villains didn't NEED to be sympathetic or misunderstood. When they were just flamboyant, manipulative, sadistic, psychotic, and unapologetically evil. That's one of the things I loved about Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, where we had three types of villains opposing the heroes: Jack Horner, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Death. Jack was the classic flamboyant, humorous, sadistic, entertainingly evil villain we've seen in earlier animated Disney films, Goldie and the bears were also humorous and antagonizing but not entirely evil and were eventually redeemed in the end, and Death was the much more serious, threatening, antagonistic force that balanced them out.
Give us back the Frollo's, dammit!
*Edit 5/31/23:* Yeah, I recognize that it's been a few weeks since the remake first arrived to theaters. I know now that the remake didn't give Ursula the same treatment as Maleficent, Hook, or Cruella, but they still did her dirty by having her give Ariel amnesia, unintentionally making her look unconvinced in her own plan. In the original, Ursula set up Ariel to fail the moment she made the deal. She was so convinced that Eric wouldn't kiss Ariel because she was mute, that she underestimated the mermaid's determination and good looks. It didn't occur to her that Ariel would be that good enough to convince Eric to kiss her without a voice, which was why she resorted to cheating via transforming into Vanessa and brainwashing Eric with Ariel's voice. By giving her plot-convenient amnesia so Ariel can keep forgetting she's supposed to kiss Eric (solely so the stupid creators can hammer home their BS claim that the original "Kiss The Girl" was about "forcing Eric onto Ariel" while conveniently forgetting that nonverbal consent exists), it makes Ursula look less confident in her own plan, it takes away Ariel's own agency as a character because SHE has to be constantly reminded by other characters to kiss Eric, and why doesn't Ursula just give Ariel amnesia anyway to keep her hostage to lure Triton into a trap he can't get himself out of if it's that easy for her? It doesn't make any sense.
The remake didn't intended to make Ursula misunderstood" and sympathetic since she mostly is the same as her animated counterpart.
@@DavidBContentExtravaganza3967 Ah, okay. But considering what they did to Captain Hook, Maleficent, and Cruella, I'm surprised they didn't give Ursula the same treatment. XD
I like Cruella, I don’t like how she’s portrayed as sympathetic, but I do like what they did with Jasper and Horace, giving them actual layers as characters, tbh THEY deserve their own film
Came here for this comment. Loved the Cruella movie and personally just see it as its own thing with a vauge connection to it's source material.
I mean sure if they go for the murdering puppies angle in a sequel I might raise an eyebrow but as it stands it's a setup for a good alternative universe spin off
I bet Cruella used to be an original film pitch but disney play itself and turned the story into cruella
@@thepascalhoustonIt wasn't a remake, The Director of Cruella said He doesn't want to follow up the Original Cruella, He wants to make his own Cruella.
I loved Crulla, but for it doesn't have a connection with the original it's like an alternative universe and it's better that way
I love cruella and I always this mind that is just a movie of it’s own and not connected to the original
Studio Ghibli is great with sympathetic or misunderstood villainy in their stories, but Disney can't seem to pull it off. I wonder if it's because Disney is unwilling to let go of it's original formula or if the audience just expects a classic villain from their stories?
The singing killed my grandma reference killed me (9:57)
Honestly, I think Disney's writers should watch more anime and play some classic JRPGs. There are so many great examples of villains whose backgrounds you can empathize with, whose pain and base wish you can appreciate, but who you still can't call anything but evil, complete with various actions that leave you convinced that the person needs to be stopped at all costs. One particularly popular old RPG had a villain who was originally a hero, whose pain is often palpable to the point that you kind of feel like you're committing an act of mercy when you finally kill him, but despite this you always feel, from start to finish, that he is truly evil. A villain can commit atrocities that leave him completely irredeemable in the eyes of the audience, harbor goals that the audience can't deny must be prevented at all costs, and still have you feeling for him, just a bit. But there's a big difference between that and creating a villain that's actually a misunderstood good guy.
Well said, dude! Loads of great JRPG villains. Sephiroth fits the bill too given all the Jenova stuff.
However, I highly doubt these hacks would touch anime or JRPGs as they seem drugged up on Twitter thought, and Twitter freaks don't take kindly to Japanese media.
Besides Kingdom Hearts (that’s also Disney and Square Enix from Japan)
Yeah when you do sympathic villians you take away what made original villains evil i didn't like Maleficent movie it takes away what made her threatening begin with same Captain Hook and Cruella.
Disney seriously lost their touch with their content.
I agree with this video, but I have one small issue: Villains can, in fact, be the protagonists of their stories. There are many examples of this. "Hero/Villain" refers to a character's morality, while "protagonist/antagonist" refers to a character's role in the story. For example, in Death Note, the villain Light Yagami plays the role of the protagonist, while the antihero detective L plays the role of the antagonist. Disney just really, really sucks at making villain protagonists. And, lately, at making villains in general.
Was lookin for this comment. While I rooted for L, Light was simply compelling to watch in action. L himself conceded that Light won their game. Dude was straight up entertaining to watch.
When I was little, Maleficent was my favourite Disney character, i found her fascinating. I also loved Cruela. I hated their actions, and as any sane person would, i rooted for the good guys. But i was FASCINATED by them because of their power, mad determination and amazing charisma.
Disney want us now to feel sorry for them.
If Disney wants to make a sympathetic villain, they need to go watch Avatar the Last Airbender and look at Azula and Zuko.
Zuko is sorta what they are doing. A troubled backstory which leads them to an evil path, then having a moment that allows them to have enough humanity to turn sides at the eventual sequel movie, where they team up with the Hero to fight a unknown threat.
@@TheReZisTLust Only that "Zuko" is not what they're doing at all. Zuko has to go to hell and back to prove he saw the error of his ways and tries to do better before the Gaang accepts him as part of their team. Disney skips this part of self-reflection, taking responsibility for your own actions and trying your best to become better; instead, they give their villains a tragic backstory that evokes sympathy in the hero and is supposed to justify their bad deeds.
Not Disney making Cruella's mom be killed by dogs 😭😭😭
"That's rough buddy" - Prince Zuko
Tbh I sympathise with the original caption hook, man was actually tortured by Peter. But in the fun good vs evil way.
Sympathetic villains work best when the story and other characters aren't plain, boring, or vastly different by comparison. "Maleficent" made her an antihero by making Stefan a villain and taking away Phillip and the fairies' heroic moments. They could've given her a sad backstory (ie being alienated for her appearence) and showed how judgemental people are. Aurora, having supernatural beauty and singing skills, could likely be seen as eerily supernatural (perhaps becoming a fairy herself due to the fairies' magic), and the fairies work to make sure she doesn't turn out like Maleficent.
The only sympathetic villain I truly love is Anastasia. She was, after all, just an impressionable girl, and in both sequels she grows as a person. It's better in 3 than in 2, because we get to see her actually learning and changing and growing instead of the BS in Cinderella 2 that's just "oh yeah she was a horrible abusive person but she likes someone now so she's a good person." In "a twist in time" she actually doesn't find love, but rather learns the value of love. She has everything handed to her and chooses not to take it because she values the marriage beyond status, and she no longer feels right taking Cinderella's true love when he doesn't even truly love her.
Sympathetic villains CAN work but making a well known mustache twirling villain into a sympathetic character NEVER works. When people watch a movie like the Lion King, they wanna see an evil delightfully sassy Scar. Not whatever tf that was. They wanna see an evil rejoices in evil Maleficent. It's not hard, if there's an iconic villain like Captain Hook, make him just like he was in the most iconic incarnations. Imagine if I was doing a live action version of A Nightmare Before Christmas and I gave Oogie Boogie a sad back story about how he used to he a jazz musician until Jack broke his instrument. Now Oogie plots his revenge. Also Oogie is a person and not a bag of bugs now lol. Imagine if people who didn't really wanna see this made in the first place saw this. They probably just wanted a recreation of a sentient bag of bugs but they get this instead lmaooooo
A major trope of late is the villain magically being forgiven for all their evil and suddenly the hero and villain are best friends. This should NEVER happen.
Disney: They keep calling us villains. Lets make all of our movie villains sympathetic. That will show them we aren't bad.
It’s not like it’s a bad idea to make some villains as sympathetic.
But the reason they don’t work with the older villains is because their menace and evil is why the stakes of those respective movies work. It’s why they’re real threats. It’s why they get their charisma and why we should fear them or at the very least in the case of Hook, enjoy them.
But think about it like this. They have made a woman who murders dogs for a living as someone we should feel sorry for. Or a woman who had beef with the king and queen by punishing a newborn as a tragic ex of said king who did nothing to deserve it in the original. Or in the case of Hook, turn him into a former ally of Peter’s and make Peter look worse in comparison, especially since he cut off his hand. Or in the case of Gaston, he’s a traumatized war victim with PTSD. Because essentially what you’re saying is that it doesn’t matter that Gaston stalked Belle and blackmailed her into marrying him by putting her father into an insane asylum on false charges. It wasn’t his fault. He’s just traumatized.
I would have been somewhat fine if we just had one villain be sympathetic in a remake. But when you do it over and over, the effect no longer means meaningful but just lazy.
The most ironic thing is that pretty much all of the classic disney villains were sympathetic in some way or another - no matter how evil and terrible they were, there was something likable about them. Forcing villains to be sympathetic (modern disney), also making them less of a villain, just only makes them unlikable characters over all
Agreed. Because now we dislike them for a whole new reason.
Lets all agree Dr.Doof is the most sympatheic villain Disney had made
"A platypus?"
(Puts on hat)
"Perry the Platypus?!"
I can only hope that Wish’s villain is just evil for evils sake at this point
I'm still waiting for the hunter who killed Bambi's mom to be revealed as a poor guy who had to feed his own family somehow and later regretted his actions and will help adult Bambi to escape the fire.
I have been asking this question for most of their movies as of late. What's wrong with real, scary, evil villains?
I loved the 1st maleficent, Cruella was ok but they both had nothing on the OG's. I thought seeing the other side of things was interesting, like we all could be considered villains to someone at some point. But I guess my hope was too high for D- because now we're not allowed dislike anyone because of their trauma.
Thanks for the video 🧡🤟🏿
If Disney somehow made a live-action film about Bible, they would have Satan be redeemed just by him saying "I'm sorry lol."
Yeah, about that… They greenlit a series about a 19 year old who gets pregnant with the Devil’s child. Sound familiar?
Nah they’d show God being a jerk to Satan and that’s why Satan rebelled against Him. Then Jesus rejects His Father and forgives Satan and the world lives in harmony. Oh, and they’d make Jesus and Satan gay for each other or something 😂
They already cast Bill Cosby as the devil more than 40 years ago.
That is theoretically possible in Catholic canon. The thing is, that it's not possible practically, according to also Catholic canon.
@@papierowyszczur9234
If they *_were_* to go down that route and take up the task of portraying a sympathetic Satan, they'd be adapting John Milton's _Paradise Lost._
Ok, writer here. I think that Disney misunderstands reason with sympathy. You can explain and give a reason behind a villains villainy without sympathizing with them or giving them a redemption arc. You can explain how a villain got to where they are without making them an anti-hero or sympathetic. Backstories can make a villain more complex, yes, but they don't HAVE to make a character less evil or over the top or campy. You can add more depth without zapping away everything that makes a villain FUN.
Great video by the way. I couldn't agree more. I miss the old villains so much.
I agree, and you can actually watch the old Disney movies so you don’t have to miss them
Dracula from Castlevania (the video game not the tepid series) is a sympathetic villian if you know why he became the monster he was.
But at the same time he needs to be stopped, to be fought by the Belmonts who have sworn to stop his madness and his son Alucard who does not agree with his reasons why humanity has to die or be enslaved.
Dracula is what he is because he choose to be a monster instead of dealing with his loss... and that monster needs to be stopped at all cost.
It's because they pick the wrong kind of villains to make sympathetic that never deserved it in the first place. If it were up to me, I would have placed Randall Boggs and Dawn Bellwether in the sympathetic list more than the others, they deserve to have their stories told, not what we got
And then still bash blame whine
@@monabohamad2242 No, they'd be different from what they have been doing with the most evil villains that don't deserve sympathy and never did.
The sympathetic villain trope has been oversaturated.
Big Jack Hoiner got more sympathy from me than Hook, if anything, Hook's backstory made me believe that Peter was the villain all along.
The only good type of sympathetic villains are not ones you feel bad for, but those you feel bad when you think of how things could've been different. To quote one of my favorite quote, "They're pitiable in all the ways they failed to be good"
One thing I really hate about Live-Action Remakes isn't just how the Villains are less evil than their animated counterparts, but how they often have something important taken away from them in the story.
- Maleficent doesn't transform into a Dragon.
- Jafar doesn't turn into a giant snake.
- Scar's iconic "Be Prepared" song is shortened to last around 1 minute.
- Even though Cruella has an impressive wardrobe of fasion, she doesn't have a desire for a fur coat, wheather or not it's made out of puppies or any other dead animal.
These make the Villains lose their edge and miss the point on why we loved them in the original films. I mean what's next, is Dr. Facilier not going to communicate with shadowy demons even though he's The *SHADOW* Man?
For a sympathetic character to work, their actions need to make sense and they need traits that if not redeemable are at least admirable. Pathos, suffering and overcoming tragedy can help, but if they are unlikable then why should we care about what they went through? Making the heroes into jerks is really annoying and it is not a good way to make a sympathetic villain.
I got so pissed off when I heard about what they did with Cruella because in the original, she never targeted the Dalmatians simply because they were Dalmatians, she simply targeted any animals who she thought had pretty coats of fur. When she is first introduced the fur coat she is wearing isnt a Dalmatian coat, showing that Dalmatians werent her only target. The reason why cruella was such a fun antagonist in the original is because she was simply a pure evil maniac who wanted to kill off animals simply because their coats where pretty, then they changed her entirely by making it all "Dalmatians killed my mom" like bro wtf
If anyone wants a good live action remake of Peter Pan: the 2003 ‘Peter pan’ movie by universal is really really good. Made with a lot of love and care and some of the themes that were in this analysis that they said were missing from the Disney one.
It's funny because the majority of villains I like are the complicated/sympathetic/tragic types (whether or not they show it outwardly), just not the Disney ones. They can't even do that right.
At the same time I do still miss villains who are evil for the sake of being evil, if they got enough style to make up for it.
Disney thinks we want Zuko for our villains without realizing we would like more (OG) Scar.
Well, many of us want villains like Zuko (or Azula) but Disney has no idea what makes them work.
@@papierowyszczur9234 Hunter from the Owl House was a Zuko type antagonist that worked and had a really good arc that helped him escape and eventually heal from his traumatic upbringing
@@alibrennan5977 You mean the show that Disney almost axed? Yes, it was done right though. For the most time though, they don't to it right.
@@papierowyszczur9234 oh yeah. They almost axed the shit out of it😡
But let’s just say Dana Terrace and the writers know how to make lemonade from lemons 🍋
@@papierowyszczur9234 Well I say Zuko specifically cause he was a villian at first then had the redemption arc. I didn't use Azula cause her arc sorta is thrown to the side of barn in books that casual fans may not know of like the mother finding Comic.
I really like the first maleficent, the second one was boring. I tried watching cruella but it was sooo boring that i ended up just turning it off like i think halfway, maybe less, so I don't really know what happened in cruella.
Cruella is a good movie
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I genuinely enjoyed how Cruella and Maleficent did their own creative thing instead of the same old boring 1-to-1 remake of the superior animated film. I never got the impression that these were the "same" villains from the animated universe at all, but completely different characters sharing only the same names. These movies exist in a vacuum *to tell their own stories* which I vastly prefer in comparison to lazily telling the same story, only worse - case in point Lion King 2019.
Besides, both Maleficent films featured some pretty violent and unredeemable "classic Disney villain" antagonists. The Baroness from Cruella was also a complete psychopath, so I disagree that these movies took the safe route at all.
You're right, those stories did have a traditional villain. It is not unusual in "....what if...." retellings of fairy tales/myths - and parodies/satires of certain subgenres of speculative fiction - to center around the villain never having truly been a villain. This is often achieved by making the story's original hero the villain, creating a whole new villain, turning a side character/super minor character into the villain, or showing how the villain was always truly good/chaotic neutral but was simply misunderstood/hated by the hero/society. Lewis's Till We Have Faces & Levine's Fairest are literary examples of this practice.
What are your thoughts on Alma as an antagonist? I think she worked pretty well, even not being EVIL. Variety is the spice of life. Disney can have villains of many types. I think we're tired of twist ones and sympathetic cuz we'd got ONLY them a lot of times in a row.
If Disney made villains of various types, we wouldn't be that mad at the sympathetic and twist ones. But there's, of course, another problem: the bad writing. If the four twist villains in a row were all well written, again, we would not be that mad.
That's why I want to know what do you think of Abuela Alma, the best sympathetic antagonist of recent Disney.
"The best sympatethic antagonist from recent Disney? Abuela Alma? That shitty old lady?"😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂
After this bullsh*t, I only wish to erase female villains/antagonists from history once and for all.
i really hated the whole concept of Cruella's movie. i don't really know what Disney was thinking. when the original 101 Dalmatians animated classic first came out and was popular, i don't think anyone thought "oh hey i want a whole movie on Cruella's backstory and why she wants to skin puppies!!!" there's literally no story to be had. she wants a spotted coat made out of Dalmatian fur, that's it. that's literally it and she went through great lengths to steal a whole bunch of litters to make said coat. in that movie, she even tells Jasper and Horace to "poison them, drown them, bash them in the head, i don't care how you kill the little beasts, just do it!" now remember we're talking about innocent puppies here and she wants them to be brutally killed for a COAT. she even goes as far as to track the puppies down when they escape and chase the truck they're on in the ending which ends with her crashing her car into the ditch. i feel like this was a perfect arc for Cruella and nothing more needed to be explained about her character. i mean, people like Cruella exist all over the world and it's not hard to fathom why she is the way she is. then enters Emma Stone's Cruella. i haven't watched the movie in it's entirety because i legitimately do not care for it, but from what i have seen, it's abominably stupid. Dalmatians didn't deliberately kill her mom, the Baroness did, the dogs were only following her command. sure, Dalmatians could've been a symbol for Cruella, in her mind, for loathing and hatred, so much so that she'd want dog coats made out of them, but that's ridiculous. she even finds out half-way through the movie that the Dalmatians weren't responsible. this movie doesn't even make sense on par with the original's timeline (i'm not sure if this movie is supposed to be a stand-a-lone and NOT tied to the 101 Dalmatians franchise, but if that's the case, WHY DO THEY HAVE CRUELLA, JASPER, HORACE, ANITA, AND ROGER IN ITTTTT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) i feel like this movie could've been perhaps decent if it didnt have original 101 Dalmatians characters, because there's no way in hell that any fan of the animated classic was going to watch this movie and actively root for infamous puppy-napper evil villain Cruella de Vil. it's so stupid. i hate Disney sometimes because this is literally not it.
You know, I was thinking about this whole "Make truly evil villains sympathetic" thing myself, and while watching this, it hit me that there _MIGHT_ be a way that that _could_ work.
I'll use Cruella as an example, and let's say for the sake of argument, I'm the creator of my own version of the movie _Cruella_ : We start with a younger Cruella, who is a little girl with a serious mean streak, and genuinely enjoys bullying people and has a strong dislike of animals, but a near paradoxical obsession with how soft their fur is. She loves fur, to the point of obsession, both for the prestige and glamor, and the softness. All throughout her young life, we get scenes of this odd and even unsettling mix of unpleasantness towards people and animals, and obsession with fur and using all the money and power her family has to her own ends. We have a few scenes of her bullying her "schoolmate" a young Anita, and then a few kids get sick of it and finally stand up to her. Cruella tries to play the victim to the teacher, but it doesn't work and she gets yelled at and told that she'll never be loved or be anything of worth if she acts like this. She runs off crying, unable to deal with her first real "wall" against her bullying and selfish behavior. To her surprise though, a boy or girl comes up to her, and asks if she's okay. At first, she thinks to tell them off, but the words about her actions stick with her, and she _thanks them_ instead, and then asks them why they bothered, since she's so mean. The boy/girl tells them that they always thought she was pretty, but scary, but today they heard them crying and wanted to see if she was okay. Touched, at least a little, young Cruella decides to ask if they want to spend time together, and the new friend says yes, and promises they'll help her be a better and happier person.
Cruella and this new person become closer throughout school and after graduation, with Cruella becoming kinder towards that person, but struggling with everyone and everything else, despite the other person trying to help them by taking them out to places and teaching them to try and be nice to other people, pet animals without wanting to tear off their fur, and so on. Cruella is genuinely happy, though she still struggles with her desire to shine, to be "above dull normal life" and other such arrogant things that the original Cruella reveled in. Things take a turn for the worse though, when she starts having an "idol" to look up to, let's just call her the Baroness for simplicity's sake, a pinnacle of all the things Cruella's nasty side _wants_ to be, rich, influential, decked out in beautiful outfits (though not furs), and without a kind word to say to anyone, feared and "respected" by all, as well as hated.
The movie rolls on, with Cruella's special person noticing the change in Cruella as she starts pushing on to becoming a worse and more powerful person, putting her families money towards buying furs and styling herself up for fancy parties that have not a single bit of warmth or true happiness in them, and they are caught between being glad she's happy and wanting to stop her, and attempts to get her to enjoy _both_ things and maybe tone down the awful stuff fail, and Cruella starts ignoring and pushing them away, even yelling at them, and steadily becomes more the loud, haughty, and nasty Cruella of the original movie.
This all comes to a head when a big party happens, and the Baroness _herself_ is there, to Cruella's delight and amazement, and the Baroness takes an interest in her, wanting to "invest in her future" and asking her to move to a much more influential city that has a _marvelous_ fur store right next to the Baroness' own major company building. Cruella _almost_ says yes on the spot, but then thinks of her special person, and goes home to tell them they're moving. The person is shocked and confused, and saddened when Cruella explains, and when it comes down to it, they tell her "I can't go with you, all my other friends are here, and I wouldn't belong in that sort of place..." they get into a fight, and Cruella storms out, while her person tells her that "Do what makes you happy Cruella, I won't stop you..." with tears in their eyes.
We end on Cruella sending letters to her special person, telling them all about everything, and how happy she is, and thanking them for "inspiring her to follow my dreams", while clearly being cold and heartless towards everyone. The special person reads them, and at first tries to smile, then breaks down in tears, saying that they failed Cruella. We then cut to Cruella, enjoying herself at a party and wrapped in a new fur, but looking to her side and noticing the absence of her special person, and looking a bit less happy...but forcing that away when someone gets her attention.
My point with this idea of _Cruella_ would be to sell the idea of "Evil can be pitiable, for all the good it misses out on" so to speak, where Cruella, and other villains had a chance at _being_ better people, and having love or something else great and kind, but threw it away to chase their evil dreams, but still have a bit of pain at what they tossed aside.
It isn't perfect, and I'm not saying it is an idea that Disney would _have_ to make or anything, but if they _had_ to make villains like Cruella, Maleficent, and so on be sympathetic, THIS would be a better way to do it that would be truer to their characters than what they _actually_ did, which was pretty much in my eyes make entirely different characters that do the same things, but make them excusable because the other characters are now assholes or incompetent buffoons so the "villains" do everything instead.
Disney cannot even manage to create a new well written sympathetic villain, let alone update a classic character and make it work in the story. Captain Hook could be redeemed and become an anti hero but modern Disney isn't capable of doing it right, there was barely any build up towards that moment, there was no logic involved in the process, "Captain Hook as anti hero" storyline (making him a neutral character with understandable motivation) should have been the main focus in the story throughout the whole films runtime instead of girl power nonsense. Therefore, the film about Peter Pan should have been a grim prequel (before he met Wendy) that explains how Peter uses children to stay young (similar to how the Pinocchio animation presented the child kidnapping) and how he affected Hooks state of mind but it requires taking risks and being creative, as well as having a clear focus in the story. But Cruella should have never been shown as a hero, she was always a spoiled maniac that hated dogs because she was obsessed with real fur coats, people like Cruella actually exist in real life in USA, China and Russia and no one feels sympathy towards them because they are egocentric monsters
Maleficent, the movie, was vile. The original animated Maleficent is indeed the queen of Disney villains (so fabulous, so stylish, so vindictive), but then Hollywood, in their desperate effort to subvert all traditional values, had to make her.... a victim of the patriarchy? Pure garbage, but it does reflect the sorry, severely damaged state of mind of the people who run that place.
Honestly, the worst example of Disney making sympathetic villains is the burglars in Home Sweet Home Alone. In the original Home Alone films the burglars were just people trying to break into the house and Kevin was defending himself from them. The fact that they had no sympathetic backstory made it fun to see them get their comeuppance. In the new film, they give the burglars a backstory of being a couple just trying to steal a doll to provide for their family. Now that they have sympathetic backstories it takes out all the fun of watching them go through the traps as you feel bad for them instead of wanting to see them get hurt.
"Cruella" is a good movie if you just ignore the original movie and consider it an alternate universe.
While I agree that making Maleficent sympathetic doesn’t make much sense, you can’t deny that Angelina Jolie totally nailed that performance.
Yeah but she isn't the maleficent everyone knows
Next up: Why Frollo wasn't actaully that bad and we should give him a redemption arc.
He's just "misunderstood" bc he was rejected obviously
to be honest, I seperate Cruella and Malificent from the old disney movies. I think they are fun movies, especially out of the context from their previous films. Plus, those Movies also have new female villains.
I like them more than the liv-action remakes which I avoid at all cost.
Nowadays villains are heros because everyone is warped.
I could buy it for Maleficent. Despite her name i don't think it's says why she's evil in the first place despite her appearence.
But Cruella? I mean, she want to skin alive 100 dalmatian puppies for a fur coat and enjoy the idea. You simply can't make a vilain like that sympathic.
Thank you! Thank you for putting into words how I’ve felt about the current deplorable state of Disney villains over the past few years!
I cant wait for the live action little mermaid for Ursula to reveal she's only evil to pay for her kitten heart surgery
i used to say "does it have a clear antagonist, a villain? Yes? Thats Disney." because in 9 out of 10 times an animated movie with a clear villain used to be by Disney. It kinda does not work anymore haha
Yeah I can get you on Maleficent! It seemed like an interesting idea that they squandered trying so hard to push her into anti-hero territory (You know the female FAIRY that BOASTED she was "the mistress of all evil" the one who AIMMED to murder a girl simply because her parents "slighted her" by not even CONSIDERING giving her in invite and then twisted the one fairy attempt to reverse her kill curse to instead making the girl suffer having her happy ending with her fiancée screwed over by attempting to imprison him on purpose to let him go as an old man while she remained young! Aurora did NOTHING wrong to her. Yet she went that far to hurt her for shit she never did.
I mean that movie went HARD on having to character assassinating everyone else to even get her that Anti-Hero status! Like Aurora father (I don't think one goes from commoner servant to KING the way he did. Hell I think there are SERVENTS of the noble class who would be trusted to care for the king LONG before a commoner would get that close to them!) being made the villain when it was VERY clear in the original he loved his daughter that he tried to subvert Maleficent's curse! And good god what they did to the Three Fairies! Making them buffoons and ESPECIALLY stealing Merryweather's moment by never having it happen in the first place with her making the death curse sleep instead. And oh yeah, making Aurora only alive to reach adulthood BECAUSE she stalked her, otherwise the three idiots who are NOT the three fairies I grew up knowing would have gotten her killed in babyhood
Something tells me it started out as an interesting POV switch and the writers didn't know when to stop when they started character assassinating to give Maleficent "justification" that they fucked up and too much money was wasted to back out now! As seen with the Little Mermaid Live Action now! The money train has finally ran out of steam, have to wonder how it made it this far. I mean I would give Cinderella live action some credit with Lady Tremaine! But other Cinderella like stories have LONG gone the route Disney went with her character (that she became a Jaded woman who is cruel to Cinderella because she sees the young girl SHE WAS and ill believed her cruel behavior to her was because "it was natural" she was treated the same and now it was her turn! Hell many went as far as to have Tremaine view Cinderella as her daughter more then her ACTUAL daughters because unlike her bio daughters, Cinderella was the most like her and she wanted to steer her into becoming her 2.0! I read a story once about a plot like this, where a MC stepmom arranged to destroy his family because of a grudge between stepmom and his deceased mother. Kept encouraging bad behavior on his part because she wanted to "dye him in her color's" that one would wonder if he was REALLY his mother's child and not "his stepmother's" with how SIMILAR, jaded and petty they both acted! A twisted parody of sorts) but then so much of that movie ruined it that the only interesting thing was her stepmother ACTUALLY willing to let her have her happy ending...but only because she would have benefitted in that route and she wanted Cindy to make a deal with the devil with her that would have tainted it and showed they were "not so different" and to justify the actions SHE took growing up by proving if Cindy was in the same situation, she'd have done them too!
Oh well the train was eventually going to derail at some point! Especially once China made clear they weren't going to PRETEND anymore with Disney and Hollywood
We need pure evil characters in order to keep the suspense going and really root for the leading heroes. Disney just wants tragic villains to win dumb awards.
The catholic god is a great pure evil character.
Kinda feels like Disney is going to cause two very terrible ideas to become the norm for kids:
1. People only do evil because the were mistreated or because they have no choice.
2. I can still do evil as long as I think I've been wronged enough by others to justify it.
Not the Singing Killed My Grandma reference😂
Not just the villains, they also sympathize with family abuse and toxic friendships.
In Coco, Imelda Rivera turned her entire family into a music-hating cult after believing that her husband: Hector abandoned them for his music career. In reality, he was murdered by his supposed best friend: Ernesto de la Cruz when he was planning to return home. They want us to feel sorry for her misfortune. But honestly, we don't because of her delusions and hypocrisy, especially for turning her granddaughter: Elena into an obedient robot so she could keep an eye on her sickin' legacy in check. As for Elena, although she is a loving grandmother to Miguel, but she's the bane to his existence. Since she was horribly brainwashed, Elena refused to listen to music, not even once. She also doesn't take no for an answer by giving Miguel a death glare before handing him a stack of tamales. Geezus, lady ! But the last straw is when she destroyed his homemade guitar without any remorse for what she had done. And worst of all, none of his family members defended him, not even his own parents.
Alma Madrigal from Encanto lost her husband during a revolutionary war, but that doesn't justify her enslaving her gifted family and treating Bruno and Mirabel as rejects.
And it's also impossible to sympathize with Ming Lee, who had issues with her mother after treating Mei like a puppet. Not only that, she doesn't respect her privacy. She publicly humiliated Mei by showing her drawings to her crush at the convenience store. She falsely accused Mei's friends of using her panda form to make money, even though it was Mei's idea. And she even terrorized the concert in her giant panda form, nearly killing billions of people in the process !
Even TV shows like The Proud Family and Amphibia fell into this category.
We're still left wondering why Penny Proud from The Proud Family is still hanging out with her so-called friends (especially Dijonay) who constantly threw her under the bus. Hell, even Suga Mama told Penny that her friends are a bunch of fakers. Special mention to Maya, who will put Lisa Simpson and Brian Griffin to shame for her hypocritical political views.
Anne's so-called best friends: Sasha and Marcy are one my main criticism about Amphibia. Before they are the ones who sent Anne and themselves to the titular place, they did horrible things to her. Sasha is a manipulative delinquent whose influences did more harm than good, especially by putting Sprig in danger. And Marcy is a pretty messed up girl who lives in a fantasy world and refuses to face reality. That's why I wasn't pleased with Anne for reunited with those troublemakers in the finale.
Your absolutely right
What about King Andrias?
@@georgeray1906 What about him ? He's just another generic twist villain.
@@aidanhever3369 One King Adris is far from generic as we get more of his backstory hes not like Bellweather or Prince Hans who can only be villains for the last 10 mins not to mention him standing up to his dad crown has the same feels as Satan standing up to Saddm
And 2 Unlike Djojnay , Sasha and Marcy change the former going on the same villain to good guy route as Vegeta , Discord and Zuko as one episode Sahasa made Anne the leader as she knew shed be better and was genuine , and Marcy your beign way too harsh on her as she was not as bad Sasha was and didnt want to move away its less not facign reality and more like not saying goodbye . At the very least you can say they become more of Anne friends by the end then Penny's friends are to her now
Both 'Maleficent' and 'Cruella' were, I feel, ALMOST good, albeit highly alternate, takes on their respective villains, but they both had moments where they took the wrong path - or rather, they SHOULD have, but didn't, which ruined them as villains.
The thing about really in-depth villain backstories, when you get them, is that no one starts out a villain. There's often a moment where the protagonist has a choice: do the right or the wrong thing. They choose 'wrong', and that's what makes them a villain. In the case of the 'Maleficent' film, there's a point where the title character finally just full-on decides to not even pretend to be a villain anymore, and continue on down a heroic path - if, instead, she had veered back towards her quest for revenge, sacrificing her newfound motherly love for the Princess and fully embracing her role as the Mistress of All Evil, that would have made her story a tragedy, which would have added the depth to her character that the film was theoretically teasing - she would have been evil, because she'd knowingly sacrificed her capacity for good, therefore ultimately dooming herself to defeat by it. That would have been compelling and interesting - but it's not what we got.
Or in 'Cruella', there's the same thing - a moment where the title character ALMOST fully becomes her villainous original version, but punks out at the last second. This is the point where she shows up in full Dalmatian-spotted regalia, and the Baroness says, in shock 'she made a dress out of my dogs!' If the film had ended there - right THERE - we would have wound up with a Cruella truly worthy of her fiendish predecessor. She's achieved her revenge, she's sunk her rival's career beyond all hope of resurrection, and in the process, she's sacrificed the love and respect of her foster-brothers, her own sense of common decency, and possibly even her sanity. She's changed from the nice young lady she was earlier into a full-on monster, and she doesn't even care. THAT would have been a believable backstory for classic Cruella - instead, the remaining half-hour devotes itself to completely reversing all of that, and going 'no no no, she was a hero all along, you see, and she didn't ACTUALLY make a dress out of dogs - why, that'd be NASTY'.
Now, I actually liked both movies, but they were NOT what they were being billed as. They were being billed as 'the never-before seen backstories of Disney's GREATEST VILLAINS, OMG', while they should have been billed as alternate, heroic takes. I can buy the Maleficent from 'Maleficent' and the Cruella from 'Cruella' as A Maleficent and A Cruella, but they are not and never will be THE Maleficent and Cruella, because they do not have the balls to commit to their premises. You can't tell a genuine villain story if you refuse to let your villains become villains.
Because a lot of bad writers don’t understand or care about morality in day-to-day life. That’s why we get bad morals, rushed redemptions of characters that committed atrocities, and bizarrely disconnected motivations that anyone even slightly well adjusted would laugh at. It’s not so much sympathy as the writers wanting kids to relate to the villains so that they’ll be worse people for it, like themselves
I have an unpopular opinion that morally gray villains are very much underrated. My favorite Disney villain is Frollo. The villains of the Disney villains of the Revival Era are generally great. All these villans are underrated. Once I get into it, I get the idea of realism. It is fine to make a villain mean and nasty as long as they resemble real people. Try to get into the motive and actions of the real people. Heck that may be one of the appeals of Frollo. The Witch Craze was a thing in real life. The character of Frollo is very accurate to what real witch hunters were like. In recent times I learned about Kim Jung Un and Pol Pot on TH-cam videos. These are real life people, and they were also extremly cruel to thier own people. It wouldn't be a stretch to call them villains. Maybe monsters like them can give storytellers some leeway.
This video has plenty of examples. The one that stood out to me was Cruella Deville. This is a wierd case. I don't watch the live action remakes. They are creatively bankrupt. Unless someone was a critic or if they were really curious, they are not worth the watch. So I only know the origional animated movie of 101 Dalmations. I am not a fan of classic Disney villains. I think they are overrated. However I think Cruella is okay compated to the others. I know about how animal cruelty works in real life. I have seen more than my fair share of PETA videos on TH-cam alone. Cruella is similar to real animal abusers in real life. She only needs a few tweaks to make her realistic and sympathetic. Animal cruelty is usually a matter of animal amorality. Someone can use animals to benefit themslves and other people in some way. Animals are useful for food, fashion, entertainment and reasearch. The amoral approach uses animals without any regard for the welfare of the animal. So they become cruel as a side effect, and they don' t care. In the case of fashion, one doesn't care if it is cruel to kill animals for fur and leather. They don't care if fur farms have cruel and horrendous living conditins for animals. All they care about is using animal products to contribute to fashion. I think Cruella Deville can work well like this. This wouldn't even change her character that much. Cruella would be a famous fashion designer. She is well loved by the fashion fans. She can even be vain and nercissitic. She wants to provide bold new fashion designs to please her clients. There is a charm that is the nice side. The down side is that Cruella has an amoral cruelty to animals. Hmm. Maybe the movie can show Cruella going to a realistly depicted fur farm. That will really bring out the villany. Those places are so screwed up. Cruella could run the fur farm herself or just pick up fur as fashion supplies. Maybe she can even put dalmations in the place. Then it would be a cross between fur fatm and puppy mill. Cruella gains a bold new idea of fashion maje of dalmation fur. Then dog lovers object, like Roger and Perdita. They can be like people that support animal welfare. That would make for a good conflict to carry the story. The video talks about Cruella having a sob story involving dogs. What the heck? That doesn't make sense. I think I like my idea of an amoral fashion designer better.