I think a big issue is that there is nothing new under the sun here. You guys are using Die Hard and Raiders as examples with great villains. But there's not a whole lot to distinguish Hans Gruber or Belloq from a lot of contemporary villains honestly. Really good actors? Reasonably interesting, and 2-dimensional (if not fully 3-dimensional)? We get those nowadays. So there are two issues that do set those films apart. First, there is the question earlier of whether or not the villains are in great movies which is an important point. These comic movies are all variations on a theme, and the filmmakers and producers are risk averse. So, beyond your rare Dark Knight type film, they're not going to achieve greatness by design. Greatness requires risk which can mean lower ticket sales. Star Wars is the best example of what happens when filmmaking happens by committee, appealing to nostalgia. Money out the rear, but with a strong ceiling on what it can achieve critically.
Secondly, those films came for most of us in our childhoods. And they were somewhat new and different than film villains that came before, though even there it was an intersection of character, actor, quality of film, and genre of film. Amazing villains exist in films like Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Double Indemnity, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, etc. But those weren't from our collective childhoods, and weren't part of the fantasy/adventure type films we have been bombarded with from the '80s on.
So, I don't disagree with the arguments that we don't get great villains. But I would go a step further and say that the great villains we all love aren't always that great. And also, we don't get much great anything from comic movies.
Secondly, those films came for most of us in our childhoods. And they were somewhat new and different than film villains that came before, though even there it was an intersection of character, actor, quality of film, and genre of film. Amazing villains exist in films like Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Double Indemnity, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, etc. But those weren't from our collective childhoods, and weren't part of the fantasy/adventure type films we have been bombarded with from the '80s on.
So, I don't disagree with the arguments that we don't get great villains. But I would go a step further and say that the great villains we all love aren't always that great. And also, we don't get much great anything from comic movies.
