Villains, many great movies have them. They provide conflict, the battle of good versus evil. They pull us into the story, whether in a book or up on the screen. All one had to do was hear the heavy breathing of Darth Vador and your skin would crawl, and the hair would stand up on the back of your neck. Lord Vador, like a fallen angel, is so bad and so powerful. What will it take to defeat this guy? Can Luke, our hero, do it? We sure hope so.
When I was young, about seven or eight, World War II was still fresh in the minds of most adults. It had only been fifteen years since the dropping of the atomic bomb that ended the war against the evil Japanese Empire, and ushered in the terrifying atomic age. I can remember during the Cuban Missile Crisis, having fallout drills in school. We would huddle in the halls or duck under our desks when an alarm went off, as if that would really help if a bomb were dropped on Norfolk, Virginia. We all knew we lived in the red center of a target for a Soviet ICBM if it came to war. We had fallout shelters all over the place, basements of churches, special rooms in buildings, and some had them in their back yards.
There were many movies and stories about this subject. Doctor Strangelove, Failsafe, both took on the bomb as being evil in itself, that something, a military mistake maybe, could happen, and the whole world could come to war and to a fiery end.
Villains add so much to a story that many times the movie is named after them.
The hero and spy James Bond more than once had to take on an evil megalomaniac who wanted to start a major war and come out on top, become the ruler of the world. First, there was Dr. No a member of SPECTRE, SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion, a spy version of the Evil Empire. Dr. No wanted to destroy the American Space program before it could even begin. Then there was Goldfinger, the man who wanted to corner the gold market by ruining the gold in Fort Knox by detonating an atomic bomb inside Fort Knox. We all know what happened to that guy, who really did make the old saying, “Love of money is at the root of all evil,” look very accurate.
There is a line from the movie, James, who finds himself in a rather dangerous position, asks Goldfinger if he expects him to talk.
Goldfinger answers:
“No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!”
At that moment, we knew that this evil had to be overcome. Somehow, James would pull some kind of gadget out of somewhere and escape death. Good would prevail over evil, and it did. That is no secret, I am sure. In the movies, good almost always overcomes evil; if not at the end of the movie or book, it will in the sequel. The Sith didn’t get their revenge; the Empire struck back, but the Jedi returned and won in the end.
Why are we so fascinated with villains? Sometimes, the more horrible and evil, the bigger the fascination becomes. Syndrome from The Incredibles, (I thought he was truly evil,) Voldemort from the Harry Potter movies, Hannibal the Cannibal, (a movie villain I have no desire to see.) Some villains are not quite that bad, but we still don’t care for them, like Sid in Toy Story. Sid mistreated his toys, tortured them, which upset my daughters very much. What made Sid so bad? How did evil enter his heart?
One particular movie villain that has always gotten to me is It’s A Wonderful Life’s Henry F. Potter, the richest man in Bedford Falls. He was also a thief and a liar. Cruel to the bone. Why? What made him so bad? Just like George Bailey, I have asked that question about Mr. Potter. I have also asked that question about people who are not movie characters, but people whom I have met in a chapter of the story of my life. One murdered a very good friend, and my friend’s lady friend, one cost me my job, and was later murdered himself. Why? Why is there evil in a person?
Thank God there are people willing to take on the evil in this world, or in a single person. Luke does fight Vader, Indiana Jones beats the Nazis, Syndrome is fried by Jack-Jack, Frodo and Sam destroy the Ring (with another villain’s unintended help), and saves Middle Earth. And George takes on Mr. Potter.
Evil overcomes good, but the age old question still remains, Why is there evil? It may be a bad person, a bad country, or a very bad virus. Where does it come from? Why is it here? If God is real why does he allow bad people to be and bad things to happen? Let us try to find out together.
Derrick
