So is Disney Just Never Gonna Have a Real Villain Again?

Schaff likes villains, remember when Disney did?

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[localscissors]

“Death is the personification of Puss’s anxieties.”

YES. Yes. That’s how you make any villain freaking great. You take everything one character stands for, their weakness, flaws, fears, and then make the villain those things.

[peacefulinvasion]

I feel like disney needs to understand not every movie needs a villain, but some movies need one.

[toasterbonanza]

Amazing how the Shrek franchise went from clapping back at Disney by incoprorating gross-out humor, innuendos, and pop culture references, to clapping back at Disney by including 3 compelling villains in 1 movie.

[daniellewilliams]

Tbh I also love how puss never defeated death, just postponed it. He accepted his fate that was sure to come at some point and death came to respect him and let him enjoy his last life. Disney could learn from having a undefeated but retreating and compelling villain

[cuentaoficialmentesinnombr]

Fun fact: The wolf was the character with the least screentime and yet, he stole the entire audience

[devinhallsworth]

Cruella de Vil was literally just a upper class lady in a really expensive fur coat with a really nice car. Yet she still had such raw emotion and pure livid rage in her being that she's more intimidating to see on screen than a lot of comic book villains that can destroy planets. Just rewatch that chase scene from 101 dalmations and bask in how well they animated her pure rage.

[aryandairshad]

I was initially taken aback by the fact that Jack Horner was a stereotypical one-dimensional villain. But then it hit me. He doesn't NEED to have some sad backstory or a twist reveal, Jack Horner is evil and he LIKES it. A lot of humor comes from just how much he enjoys being a villain.

[SonicBahasa]

This video makes me think about how Coco had both generational trauma and a well-executed twist villain who was responsible for the family's generational trauma.

[snailthelostcow]

You know, I like the fact that Puss was unable to beat death. And it's not like he's as fearless as he was with 9 lives, he simply faced his fear which is why death immediately lost interest. Puss even breathed a sigh of relief when death let him go, showing that he still had his fear of death despite the bravado. He was glad that he's alive.

[ThatBluDude]

I think Disney has the same problem a lot of studios have nowadays. They'll take criticism at face value and try to remedy it with band aid solutions.

They heard "We don't like the villain!" with Frozen, Big Hero 6, and Zootopia, and said "They must not like villains AT ALL anymore!" and opted to remove them rather than FIX them.

[sammythecat]

This is why i will forever praise The Hunchback of Notre Dame as a movie. It has a nuanced protagonist who is so fucked up from constant abuse that he struggles to do the right thing, and it has one of the nastiest, most monstrous, most downright irredeemable villains ever. Frollo is a hideously awful person. And his awfulness makes him a FANTASTIC villain. After he quite literally sings a song about how his disgusting thoughts were the fault of someone else (yikes), watching him get defeated by the one he systematically abused for years is so satisfying. Quasimodo wouldn’t have such a strong arc to his character without having such a horrific abuser in his life. Could you imagine if disney tried to tell this story without Frollo? It would be so empty.

[skirdus]

big jack horner is such a good example of how to have a villain that's both extremely irredeemable and extremely entertaining

[showmepotatosalad]

It's crazy to me how Puss In Boots, of all things, came out of freaking nowhere and was so damn good it's making us question other franchises/animation studios. Big W for DreamWorks

Edit: How does a positive comment on DreamWorks accomplishment devolve into a political argument? :(

[lukeredinger]

Big jack horner's lines of "you wouldn't shoot a puppy, would you jack?" "Yeah, in the face, why" and also "its adorable how you think that would work. Don't you know I'm dead inside?". Really nailed home what his character is trying to be. No redeamability, no twist, just a simply and delightfully unhinged villain. That, along with the animation style, in-depth characters and compelling story really make the movie stand out. And, of course, death is the coolest charater in recent movies by a landslide

Edit: big jack horners lines

[roastingnerd]

villains arent just bad guys, they're plot devices that enhances the protagonists journey and development.

[luluzin]

I think Mother Gothel is the most "recent" example of a good villain in Disney movies who isn't a twist (keep in mind that Tangled released in 2011). She is shown to be evil from the start, she is extremely manipulative, AND the plot really only exists because of her kidnapping Rapunzel.

[OstianOwl]

I find it so ironic that Disney as a company won't hesitate to capitalize off of their legacy villains by slapping them on any shirt, board game, scented candle or whatever they can get their branding on but Disney as an animation studio seems terrified of creating a new villain in the same vein as those same ones that seem to populate every Hot Topic or BoxLunch.

[maxxpowerd]

What I liked most about DEATH in Puss In Boots 2 is how he was acting chiefly out of a personal vendetta. Most of the time, the Grim Reaper is portrayed as either sympathetic or emotionally distant to those he (or she) comes to collect. So, it was an interesting change of pace to see this Death come after Puss just to make him pay for eight lives of mockery.

[Blackmongoose]

It's hillarious that Puss in Boots 2 has more good villains than the entire last 10 years of disney AND pixar films combined.

[kjdee]

Jack Horner and Death were a breath of fresh air in the animation industry. One was an irredeemable psychopath. The other was a terrifying force of nature.