Oh well, what else did I have to do?
I'm off today so I guess I might as well suck it up and do this over. ONE MORE TIME.
A I rank the disney villians, please bear in mid that the only one of these movies I've actually watched start to finsih in about ten years is Mulan. My rankings are based on memory, Disney Rides and the general knowledge you absorb working here. If I mess up any major details, sue me.
Very Honorable Mention- Governor Radcliffe- Apparently he IS included in the villian pantheon. For what??? Trying to bring civilization to North America? That he would be included with all the rest of these is a bigger crime than he ever committed.
10- The Evil Queen from Snow White- Basically she's really got it in for her only employee. You know, when you live in a castle its probably not a good idea to run off the only person who will scrub your steps.
9- Meleficient- Basically the same as above, but she can turn into a dragon. Or can a dragon turn into she?
8-Gaston- Ok, he's obnoxious and wants to hunt a monster. Plus he uses a bow and arrow at the end when firearms are clearly availiable.
7- Scar- Well, I guess he did kill his brother to steal the throne. But I never understood why the happy animal kingdom immediately turned into a hell hole once he was king. If thats his special power, huzzah. The best thing about Scar is his "lawyer walk" at the end.
6- Captain Hook- He's got his own pirate ship, so big points for that. Also, it can maybe fly too, I don't remember. He loses some points for getting his ass kicked by kids, but makes them up for being terrefied of a crocodolie with an alarm clock in its stomach. Sheer genius.
5- Jafar- You know what his problem is? He's making it too difficult for himself. With that snake eye twirly thing of his, he ought to be able to take whatever he wants. Why do you need to go through that whole lamp rigamarole? Needless, needless.
4- Stromboli- Normally, a creepy middle aged man who lures young boys to an amusement park and plies them with alcohol is cause for concern. But don't worry, he just wants to turn them into mules to work in his salt mine. Pretty cool.
3- Ursula- She parlayed a simple plan to steal a mermaids voice into becoming ruler of the sea. You gotta admire the cajones it takes to pull off that scheme.
2- Shan Yu- He invaded another country, wiped out its army, slaughtered a village and kidnapped the emperor. Thats more than everyone else on this list COMBINED accomplished. Bonus point for having a cadre of creepy underlings.
1- Judge Claude Frollo- Not only does he have the best villian song, but he has a stated policy of genocide for a whole ethnic group. The evil queen might want to run Snow White into the woods, but Frollo would use her skin to wax his car. Every other evil disney plan looks tame when youre plotting to wipe an entire people off the earth.
Not Listed- The guuy from Tarzan (never saw it, but what was he gonna do? Poach animals? Ooh) Hades (never saw it, but hes already evil incarnate. Thats cheating.) Cruelle Deville (whatever)
Well thats it. Don't hold you breath waiting for any more lists. Unless you have any good suggestions, thats all I wanted to do. Ok, discuss.
posted by Ben @ 5:02 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Ben, this is your father.
Where do I begin? I'll just go down your list and comment as needed. This might take me a few days.
Governor Radcliffe: It's true that all he wanted to do was kill indians, then steal and ravage their land, all in the name of gold. Still, he did say some mean things to Jonathon, and for that I can never forgive him.
The Evil Queen from Snow White: You know, I'm afraid she just wasn't very bright. She wanted to kill Snow White, and yet, with all her "skills" in the black arts all she could come up with was a poison that didn't actually kill. She could have used Drano for Pete's sake! No wonder nobody ever bothered to think up a real name for her. I think she stays at #10.
Malificent (or something like that): I believe that if I had the power to turn myself into an enormous fire-breating dragon, I would not get so close to a puny human adversary that he could poke me with a sword. Fair on offense, dismal on defense. I won't argue with your ranking on this one either.
Gaston: One of the few vilians whose ultimate goal was to have his way with a Disney princess. It seems he was really only answering the call of his base instincts. This may explain his choice of manual weapons over firearms. Clearly his primal urges were in control. I believe that if Gaston were around today, nobody would notice him. He would probably be a St John's student. He's only considered a vilian because of the era he lived in. I'm going to wipe him off the list.
Scar: The only advantage a male lion gets by being king is that he gets to mate with the lionesses. This is a fact that seems to have been lost on Scar until long after he murdered his brother so he could be king. If that's the case, why did he want to be king in the first place? Just to be mean? That does make him a villian. A little misguided maybe, but perhaps that's all part of being a good villian. Still, he loses some points for getting beat up by a lion who ate nothing but bugs all his life. Lt's move him to #8.
Captain Hook: This guy wanted to kill kids and seemingly for no reason at all. I suppose that makes him pretty bad. His crew seemed to adore him. Not all villians had that. Most of them work alone. But with all those blood-thirsty pirates to choose from, why did he pick Mr Smee for a side-kick? In the end, he was knocked around by a crocodile, but who wouldn't be? You know, I never really thought about it before, but Peter Pan cut off Hook's hand and fed it to that crocodile. What the...? Just who is the good guy in this movie? And one more thing. What was Captain Hook's name before he ever needed a hook? Captain Hand? Again, slightly inept, but a solid #6.
I'm going to post this now, so the same thing doesn't happen to me that happened to you. Maybe I'll do the rest yet tonight, I don't know.
Ben, this is your father. I guess I'm ready to try to finish this.
Where were we?
Jafar: I agree with you. Jafar was all about "I want to be the biggest this...Make me the most powerful that...". Cripes! Just conjur up a big screen TV or something and just shut up. Still, Jafar seemed more than happy to kill people just to prop up his own ego. That qualifies him as a not-nice-person. Also, it seems that his plan was to use his power to force Jasmine into having some kind of a relationship with him. I guess that's kind of creepy. Of course, the guy lived all his life with a parrot. I suppose he was just sort of desperate. In spite of all that, #5 seems like a good place for him.
Stroboli: I'm not too sure he actually had anything to do with the whole mules in the salt mine scandal. But, he did at one time kidnap a puppet. ...kidnapped a puppet... If I shoplifted, let's say, a Barbie doll from KMart, would I not be in the same villian class with Stromboli? I think I'm just going to push him off the edge of the list too.
Ursula: Yeah, she really kind of did it all. From enslaving innocent merfolk, to eating little sea creatures alive. She even kicked a dog. And, her death was spectacular. Far more graphic than most. I may actually have to move her up the list. Let me think about it. She did, after all, manage to rule all the earth's oceans, if only for a moment. That's still more than any other villian can claim.
Shan-Yu: Ben, right off the bat, let me give you bonus points for knowing his name. I can never remember it. I have to admit, this guy's pretty mean. He makes jokes about wiping out armies and villages. And, the guy's huge. He's bigger that most NFL offensive linemen. In spite of that, of course, and please don't take this as a sexist remark, he repeatedly gets knocked on his butt by a little girl who a few days before was feeding chickens for a living. By the way, Shan-yu was trying to conquer a country who felt it was just fine to execute a woman for wearing men's clothes. Was he trying to conquer, or liberate. That nagging question is forcing me to switch Shan-Yu with Ursula, and make him #3.
Frollo: It's hard to argue with genocide. Not to mention his practice of throwing babise down wells. We'll leave him at #1.
That leaves just your "Not Listed" villians.
Clayton (Or, as you called him, the guuy from Tarzan): I kind of have a hard time feeling to intimidated by a vilian named Clayton. I don't think they ever said if it was his first or last name. "Oh Clayton, may I call you Clay? Here, let me set your head on fire." I'll just leave him off the list. Besides, he accidently killed himself. You won't winn any points around here for that.
Hades: Really, all he did was mess with other gods and such. Who am I, a mere mortal, to question his comings and goings?
Cruella Deville: I think I left number 7 or 8 open. I have no problem dropping Cruella in there. She did, after all, plan to slaughter 101 puppies in the name of fashion. Besides, it's the first Disney movie that I can remember seeing in a theater. That's got to count for something.
Two other villians that did not make the list: Cinderella's stepmother, or Lady Tremain, or something like that. All she ever did was make Cinderella clean the house. Just because I was never able to force my kids to do housework, doesn't make Lady Tremain a true villian. Sher-Kahn. He was this huge, ferocious tiger that seriously got his striped butt kicked by an eight year old kid in a fair fight. Why do I not have respect for this villian?
That's it. Whew!
Ben,
How about Hopper from Bug's Life, or Randall from Monsters Inc, or the ..... dentist from Finding Nemo, or the .... 8 year old boy from Toy Story, or the toy salesman from Toy Story 2? You know, Pixar makes good movies but they have kind of weak villians. Oh, I know, how about the lady from the Rescuers? She adopted an orphan just to send her down a well to get a jewel. That's pretty nasty. Of course, she was beaten by MICE so she might not be as tough as she likes to think.
For what it's worth I think Ursula is the best Disney Villian. The scene in the movie where she crawls across the boat deck still scares me. But Frollo does have the best song. And Shan-Yu did pop out of the snow after an avalanche. Oh, it's too hard to choose.
Jen
Concerning Shan-Yu, please see my new post.
Clayton, huh? Maybe they were going to call him Chad originally but it sounded too mean.
Yeah, I thought about the Pixar movies, and couldn't remember a single villian. So, yes.
I'm kinda Disneyed out for the nonce.
Oh, concerning villians that want to score with princesses. Yeah, Jafar and Gaston are the only ones I can think of. I guess Frollo kinda did to,(I mean, he wrote a song about it) but the second he was spurned he decided to burn her at the stake. One more reason he's number one with a bullet.
Ok then, concerning ANY characters that want to score with Disney princesses, what about the prince from Snow White, who has to kiss her because she's so beautiful, even though she's dead??????????? I always thought that was so creepy. I know that this is a whole other tangent no one wants to go off on, but someone had to say it.
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