Disney and Pixar films don’t need much introduction. Stories of singing princesses,
adorable teddy bears, cooking rats, dysfunctional families, and even anthropomorphic vehicles have
been entertaining kids–and kids at heart–for generations. Yet in recent years, its reputation
has gone somewhat downhill…and while there are many reasons put on the table for this change in
public opinion, one of the most compelling is the lack of villains in many modern animated movies.
And with the latest release in the studio’s lineup, Elemental, this idea is on the table
once more. The movie is adorable, well-animated, and a fun time overall…but it has one fatal flaw
holding it back–a lack of compelling conflict that clashes with the impressive action and animation.
It seems like it’s been ages since we saw a truly evil villain in a
Disney movie–and really, modern movies in general have been severely lacking in them. I’m
Kifinosi with WickedBinge, and today we’re discussing Modern Animation’s Lack of Villains.
To answer this, we have to start with answering a different question: What makes a great villain?
The answer obviously varies depending on who you ask. Some people prefer a villain with
a sympathetic side, but others prefer more of a pure-evil approach. A perfect example
to discuss both of these at once is my personal favorite Pixar villain, Lotso Huggin’ Bear from
Toy Story 3. Lotso does fall into the category of twist villains, a category which many feel
is particularly overused in modern Pixar films. But he’s one of, if not the best, twist villains
in terms of execution. Lotso is given a tear jerking backstory, having been lost by his owner
and replaced with an identical toy once he finally returns. This heartbreak makes us feel for Lotso,
but even though it’s what twisted his mindset to believe toys were meant to be played with
and eventually thrown out, it doesn’t excuse his cruelty. He uses his influence to keep other toys
underneath him, allowing them to be mistreated by younger children while he himself and his minions
are given considerably nicer treatment from the older children. In the end of the movie,
Lotso is even given a chance at redemption when Andy’s toys team up to get out of the furnace–but
after they trust him to press a button to stop the conveyor belt with the push of a button,
he abandons them, cementing himself as a truly evil villain despite a fleshed-out
sympathetic side. Yet while oftentimes the best villains have both ends of the spectrum,
there’s also a charm to pure, unsympathetic evil. Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre
Dame is a villain who shows no redeeming qualities over the course of the film,
and no shortage of absolutely despicable ones. It makes us sympathize with the heroes all the more,
and makes his ultimate defeat extremely satisfying. It’s ironic that the “man of God”
was defeated by an act of God–he was the furthest thing from a righteous man, and had no right to
be proud of himself. Even outside of the realm of Disney, there are some great villains in animation
who fall into both categories. There’s other movie villains like Kingpin from Into the Spider-Verse,
cartoon villains like Ice King from Adventure Time, and even anime villains like Chrollo
Lucilfer and the Phantom Troupe from Hunter x Hunter, who all blend genuinely evil threats
with sympathetic origin stories and motives. On the other end there are completely unsympathetic
figures of pure evil like Jack Horner from Puss in Boots 2, Mr. Burns from The Simpsons,
and Muzan Kibutsuji from Demon Slayer. Villains often elevate the series they come from to
legendary status, and sometimes people could argue they’re the best parts–heck, we’re wanting
to take a break and go watch Hunchback of Notre Dame now…but we’ll keep the discussion going.
Well, unfortunately, as much as we love discussing memorable villains, we also have to look at the
other end of the spectrum: what makes a villain fall flat? Well, any realm of animation has
underwhelming or downright bad villains, but looking specifically at modern Disney movies,
they can sometimes be far too predictable. This is where we go back to the earlier discussion of
twist villains. A good twist villain is great–we mentioned Lotso earlier, but modern Disney movies
have some pretty good ones like Ernesto de la Crus from Coco, whose connection to
Hector and ultimate villainy was actually pretty surprising–we felt the same sting of betrayal that
Coco did on our first viewing. But for every villain who does this archetype well, there’s
one that just…does it. Hans from Frozen is one example. Frozen is by all means a decent movie,
but Hans is definitely its weakest point. He has a little love song with Anna at the beginning,
then towards the end it’s just like…”oh yeah he’s evil guys. Haha didn’t see THAT coming right?”
But given the low threat level Hans had, and the lack of any considerable character development,
we just…didn’t really care. And that’s sadly an issue with a lot of modern villains. Pure-evil
villains don’t need a major sympathetic side, necessarily, but any villain needs to offer
a threat that’s synonymous with the work’s tone–and for a movie, something you pay good
money to watch on a big screen, an underwhelming villain or conflict can really drag it down.
But we do wanna acknowledge that, as odd as this sounds, not every movie needs a villain. If you
need an example, just look at the cuddliest teddy bear around–no, not you, Lotso, we’re talking
about the one who isn’t a fascist dictator–Winnie the Pooh. He’s a childhood staple beloved by kids
and adults alike. Who doesn’t love Pooh Bear and his adventures? They’re lighthearted and fun,
and while there are conflicts, it’s lighter than what you’d see in movies like The Incredibles. But
that’s perfectly fine. When your movie is just a cute story about stuffed animals in a forest,
your conflict being Winnie the Pooh getting his butt stuck in Rabbit’s doorway is perfectly
reasonable. And why is that? Simply put, it matches the movie’s tone. A lighthearted movie
can get away with a light conflict, as long as it isn’t building up to anything more. This is
equally true in regards to coming-of-age movies like Turning Red and Inside Out, which don’t
really have villains–aside from the general problems of puberty and growing up as a whole.
With that, we have to conclude that what’s more important than a great villain is a Fitting,
Well-Executed Conflict. Sometimes this is a villainous figure like Lotso, Chef Skinner,
Syndrome, Frollo, Ursula, et cetera. Other times, it’s just a general problem that
needs solving–but either way, conflict needs to be there, and executed in a way that fits the movie.
Therein lies the return of Elemental to the discussion. Spoilers, obviously–but
we’re going to be talking about Elemental, comparing it to another Disney movie with
lower-stakes conflict: Encanto. As of writing this script–which, granted, is only a few days
after Elemental came out–you might be surprised to know that reception of Elemental on websites
like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes are rather similar. Audience scores on the latter for Encanto are at
93 percent, which is only 2% above Elemental’s current 91. Of course,
we can’t base our opinions on those of others–but it’s significant that a LOT of fans,
on surface level, seem to like both movies. Yet looking deeper into it, from a critical
standpoint–whether it’s more critical fans or legitimate critics–Elemental was much less
well-received than Encanto. Now, why is that? Well, let’s look at the main conflict of each.
In Encanto, the main conflict revolves around generational trauma. Mirabel is treated as
an outsider in the Madrigal family, receiving less attention and respect,
particularly her Abuela Alma. The movie’s story is relatively simple; a family is
gifted with magic and helps its community with it. Traumatized deeply by the death of her husband,
Alma refuses to let her family fail, putting far too much pressure on them to practically carry
their community. And upgrade that to *literal* carrying for Luisa. At the end of the day,
she’s painted as a sympathetic character, despite the trauma she inflicted on her family,
which could easily work against the movie. However, it fits with the movie’s themes
of redemption. Family outcast Bruno is allowed a place in his family once again,
leading to a redemption of his status–and in the same way, matriarch Alma is offered
redemption of character by lessening the responsibility on her family’s shoulders.
The house’s ultimate destruction before others help rebuild it is a beautiful metaphor for this.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Elemental. Now, remember–this is
the last chance to avoid spoilers. For all the great qualities Elemental has,
its conflict–or lack thereof–brings it down. From the very beginning, Bernie and Cinder’s prejudice
against water people is built up–others harass them, treating them as monsters and diluting
their culture. This would seemingly lead to quite the spat between them, especially Bernie,
and his daughter–and even MORE so her new love interest, Wade, who’s a water person. This would
seemingly paint Bernie as the movie’s antagonist, or at least the vessel of its conflict…but nope.
He interacts with Wade in three scenes, total–one of which is just a comic relief segment,
and the others of which they say less than two words to each other. The conflict between fire
and water people was built up through a few flashbacks, but it never comes to a head–and
that makes the movie feel anticlimactic, even though I found it at least enjoyable.
So, here’s the verdict: as far as the question of whether a good movie is dependent on a good
villain, it really depends on the genre. But in most movies we discussed today, we’d say no. There
are fondly remembered movies without utterly evil villains, like Winnie the Pooh and Inside Out,
as well as movies that aren’t saved by threatening or evil antagonists. Remember The Good Dinosaur?
Yeah, me neither–but it had an evil villain. That said, while a good movie isn’t necessarily
dependent on a good villain, it’s ABSOLUTELY dependent on a good and fitting conflict. Without
a good conflict, a movie can fall apart–going from something potentially fantastic to something
unremarkable. Really, Elemental is what inspired this discussion for us; the movie has well-written
characters and INCREDIBLE animation–seriously, Wade’s movement is downright mesmerizing. But
its lack of conflict makes it, while sweet, very underwhelming–and it’s reasonable to wonder if
this is going to be a recurring theme. Honestly, in my book, Elemental could’ve been one of Pixar’s
best movies if the conflict wasn’t treated as such an unimportant, on-the-side detail.
But before we end this video, we’ve got just one more question to ask: Why does modern animation
lack evil villains–at least compared to previous eras? It seems unapologetically evil villains are
continually harder to come by. We have a few theories–and we want to emphasize that these
are JUST theories coming from our own opinions, so please don’t hesitate to agree or disagree.
One theory we have is that Disney, and other studios, are trying to ride success of movies with
lower stakes conflict. The success of Inside Out despite its lack of any particularly villainous
characters–apart from Joy, who’s simply the embodiment of toxic positivity–may have inspired
them to continue the trend of less pure-evil threats in movies. This might work in some cases,
like Encanto, but when you do away with major conflict as a whole, things become forgettable.
Another thing we’ve noticed is that perhaps there’s A fear of growing stale. Maybe,
in the minds of Disney, pure evil is old news–and audiences will get bored of villains being purely
evil. But honestly? The most memorable and iconic Disney villains are those kinds–however
sympathetic or utterly irredeemable they might be. Branching out from just Disney, think about
evil characters from long-running series. We’ll go with two that just about everyone will recognize:
Plankton from SpongeBob Squarepants, and Stewie Griffin from Family Guy. Earlier
seasons portrayed both of these two as loveable pure-evil characters, always bouncing off of their
respective series’ senses of humor with a twinge of sadism. From Plankton enslaving Bikini Bottom
to Stewie’s schemes to kill his own mother, both were hilarious–and we could laugh both
with and at them. Over the years, they’ve both changed; Plankton is a bit more sympathetic,
caring for his pet Spot and Karen, and Stewie is basically just a walking gay stereotype.
Many people still like both of them–us absolutely included–but the dilution of
their “pure evil” nature could very well be due to a worry over becoming repetitive–but,
ironically, many find the more low-scale conflicts in modern animation to be repetitive as well.
But that’s about all we have to say on the matter. We’d love to see more pure evil villains in Pixar
and Disney’s future films, but ultimately, we just want more conflict. Make us feel stuff again,
darn it–and as for you guys, make us know how you feel in the comments. Thanks for watching!