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Why are Marvel's film villains so hit and miss?

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NotTheGuyYouKill

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The king of all Marvel film villains is this guy:

spiderman2two-620x.jpg


Doc Ock was terrifying, dangerous, tragic, and complex, and they accomplished all this in one film. The closest Marvel has gotten is with Loki, who was excellently done in the first film, then continued to get development in succeeding films. After that, the villains haven't felt as complex. I personally think Ultron came close to being similar to being complex, but didn't reach either character's heights.

Obidiah Stane: asshole and weapons profiteer
Abomination: Asshole soldier
Whiplash: smart Russian asshole (had some development)
Justin Hammer: smarmy asshole
Mandarin: actually a clever twist, but the ultimate villain was just another corporate asshole
Malekith(?): reality destroying asshole
Ronan: religious terrorist asshole
Damian Cross: deranged asshole
Secretary Pearce: traitorous asshole
Red Skull: genocidal asshole

I mean... There's no complexity or sense of pathos with these villains. It's not an issue with the actors but the rather flat writing and surface motivations.

Why haven't the MCU films captured good villain since Doc Ock and Loki?

And don't say "Wait for Thanos"
 
They realized audiences only care about the heroes. Why put depth in a villain when their only goal is to move plot along and be a roadblock to our heroes.
 
You answered your own question.

They don't seem to give them their own time to develop and grow as complex as the heroes. Shit even Loki only went as far until Thor 1. The after that he's just a bad dude after that.
Slayven said:
Complex? Dude woke up started killing people and than decided to nuke the city.
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Well shit, and this guy is the best villain of Marvel (labeled) films.

What does that tell you about the MCU offerings?
 
Puck Beaverton said:
They realized audiences only care about the heroes. Why put depth in a villain when their only goal is to move plot along and be a roadblock to our heroes.
Click to expand...
The only reason people don't care about the villains in Marvel movies is because Marvel has basically done everything to make people not care.
 
Puck Beaverton said:
They realized audiences only care about the heroes. Why put depth in a villain when their only goal is to move plot along and be a roadblock to our heroes.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure Villans are important too.
One of the major complaints I always hear of Marvel movies are their villains being boring or uninteresting. And this is from causal movie people
 
Puck Beaverton said:
They realized audiences only care about the heroes. Why put depth in a villain when their only goal is to move plot along and be a roadblock to our heroes.
Click to expand...

then wonder why their movies are flash in the pan and don't generate cult followings and people modelling themselves after MCU Thor's Loki.

But Heath's Joker....
 
If you only want to use a villain once, why bother wasting screen time developing them? Focus on the heroes instead.

At least, I think that's their logic.
 
Ock didn't really have much in common with his comic counterpart. He was a guy with a great life who went crazy, which, while entertaining, isn't much like the colorful showboaty doofus he is in the comics.
 
I had very high hopes for Ultron. He could've easily, EASILY been the MCU's Joker in terms of sheer goddamn terrifying.

But no, Whedon had to have his quips....
 
Coffee Dog said:
Ock didn't really have much in common with his comic counterpart. He was a guy with a great life who went crazy, which, while entertaining, isn't much like the colorful showboaty doofus he is in the comics.
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It's not like the MCU villains always stick to the source material either.
 
Formulaic writing? Don't they mainly use writers from their internal program? Probably gets you more consistency, but similar weaknesses.

I couldn't get into Ant-Man very much because it felt like I had already seen a lot of it already, especially the villain.
 
It's rather disappointing that Marvel fails in writing for their villains, especially how the Batman Trilogy with Scarcrow, Ras, Two-face, Joker, and Bane are more popular then anything other then Loki( only Joker, maybe Bane being more popular). Even if you don't like some of these, they are still better written then all of Marvel Villans and memorable.

And they've had a lot more movies as well, they may not be as complex as Batman's villains, but they've got the talent to make something great in the big screen. Except there just there for hero to fight something and crack a joke.
 
Marvel is still in the habit of killing off the main antagonist at the end because that's what typically happens in action movies. So the character development focuses on the people who will show up in the next movie.
 
Part of it is the format. I'm a big fan of MCU stuff at the moment, but my biggest criticism is that they're too beholden to the medium of film. I don't necessarily have a solution to it, but it is a problem that they generally have to set up each villain, have them rise to power, then thwart them all within the span of 150 minutes or so.

The better animated series, or the Netflix DareDevil, have much more time to brew a good villain.

They don't get a pass, because characters like Nolan's Joker exist, but maybe that was perfect happenstance.
 
Magneto, Doom, and the Spider villains are out of their hands. Everyone else really is kind of hit or miss.

Sure, you can do a Raimi style top down rework but it's clear that in a franchise like this the heroes are the priority.
 
Marvel just needs the Fantastic Four back so they can use BEST VILLAIN Doctor Doom.

(Don't bother bringing up how badly all the FF movies that already exist have used Doom.)
 
Nyanmaruz said:
Kingpin and Purple Man tho.
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I'm talking about the films.

DecoReturns said:
It's rather disappointing that Marvel fails in writing for their villains, especially how the Batman Trilogy with Scarcrow, Ras, Two-face, Joker, and Bane are more popular then anything other then Loki( only Joker, maybe Bane being more popular). Even if you don't like some of these, they are still better written then all of Marvel Villans and memorable.

And they've had a lot more movies as well, they may not be as complex as Batman's villains, but they've got the talent to make something great in the big screen. Except there just there for hero to fight something and crack a joke.
Click to expand...

Yeah! The villains in the Nolan films were great and well written and they were still all one offs. No Marvel villain has really approached the level of The Joker or Bane in menace, performance, and how well written they were.
 
MCU films spend all of their time developing the heroes, so the antagonists are often just there as foils/third act fight scenes.

People like Loki because he got some development in the Thor films. Stane was fine for what he was (but the Iron Monger suit fight was a bit silly). All of Iron Man's other villains were basically Tony's fault for being an asshole.
 
I actually liked Obidiah Stane.

Puck Beaverton said:
They realized audiences only care about the heroes. Why put depth in a villain when their only goal is to move plot along and be a roadblock to our heroes.
Click to expand...

It's more like why invest in one-and-done characters. You're going to invest in heroes because they're going to carry the franchise. Most of these villains are external threats that have no personal connections to the heroes. The movies just does enough to get them going and that's it.
 
Battersea Power Station said:
Part of it is the format. I'm a big fan of MCU stuff at the moment, but my biggest criticism is that they're too beholden to the medium of film. I don't necessarily have a solution to it, but it is a problem that they generally have to set up each villain, have them rise to power, then thwart them all within the span of 150 minutes or so.

The better animated series, or the Netflix DareDevil, have much more time to brew a good villain.

They don't get a pass, because characters like Nolan's Joker exist, but maybe that was perfect happenstance.
Click to expand...
Not a great excuse, since there have been some really tremendous villains in films of all kinds.
 
A big part of it is that the Marvel movies are really morally binary. Everyhing has to be black and white, and as such the writers just have to make the bad guys "bad" and leave it at that, forgoing any interesting characterization or nuance.

Also, you know, the movies are mostly mediocre anyway.
 
fallengorn said:
It's more like why invest in one-and-done characters. You're going to invest in heroes because they're going to carry the franchise. Most of these villains are external threats that have no personal connections to the heroes.
Click to expand...

If these films are going to continue for the next decade or two, they will need to stop wasting all of their villains.
 
Hit and miss? Marvel Studios movies are all misses except for Loki, who wasn't as much a well done villain so much as they chose a charismatic actor and gave them more screen time than the others (aka multiple movies). They don't care about digging into villains beyond the 2-3 scenes establishing a flimsy motive. That's the formula, it works, audiences accept it and they'll stick with it. I'm not for it, but I understand how it's easier to write a good movie when you can just keep focus on the lead(s). Poor Daniel Bruhl.

I've always wondered why people have clamored for Marvel to get Doom back. Do you really want him put through the formula?
 
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