ITT: Great villains in mediocre/bad movies/shows

Honestly, there was a ton of great shit going on with the Nowhere King and he only really got limited by how rushed season 2 had to be. His story is great, his design is great, he actually feels goddamned menacing, the first time he showed up, he almost TPK's the entire cast the moment he decides to actually try, his theme song is great.
Honestly, I know it's a bit overdone at this point, but I think that among the Lich copycats, he is one of the few that properly recaptured the feeling that The Lich had in his early appearances.

The murder suicide always gets me

Meh movie, but this guy was baller

That movie was great, though

Visually these Ice age movies are great but everything else is sub-par. Really disappointed because they could have been great 30 minute movies

The Lich is not a great villain.
His design, his voice actor, his lore and his genuine presence are all outstanding, but is utterly undermined and ruined by him being in Adventure Time.

It sucks because Adventure Time always has these really cool antagonists and then has no idea how to really write them or how to give any good payoff with them. The Lich never actually fights any of the main cast, he doesn't do fucking shit on screen. Its always just implied or built up like he's some giant threat but then fucking folds because the writers had to put a fart joke in somewhere.

Fionna and Cake could of done something with him but was too busy dealing with the Simon/GOLB shit anyway and basically made him a wimp.

That movie was great, though

Each to his own. I found most characters rather dull and the songs not that great
However, Louie and Charlotte were nice and "I'm almost there" was a good song with especially nice animation. The art-deco style was great

To me it feels more like they wrote themselves into a corner with The Lich's vibe and how much he was built up.
They sell a lot of threat and menace with his character, and I think the "Fall" speech is a perfect example of that. He said one word, which wholly disabled the main character, and then proceeded to lose because of ass-pull conveniently placed healing juice.
It feels like any time that he shows up, he SHOULD have won, except the story demands him to lose so they just kind of make something up.
First appearance? Not at full power yet, didn't even really take it seriously. Literally the entire conflict was "if he reaches full power, everyone will die."
Second appearance? Killed the hero who originally defeated him, wore his skin, and WON but his victory got undone by a wish-granting god. And even then, he managed to persist in a universe where the only stipulation was that he "never even existed
Third appearance? Killed said god, proceeded to lose to dues ex healing juice.
Everything after that was just concentrated Jobbing.

I know this discussion has been done to death, but for as lame as the rest of the movie was, Frollo has gotta be one of the best Disney villains ever.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Farmworld Lich was done dirty.

He's a shapeshifting beast in contrast to the human sorcerer form we've come to know him as and he does absolutely nothing cool with these new powers. Hell, he does nothing creepy either. It would have been an awesome way to show what an "Evil Jake" would approach things like shapeshifting into dead people to taunt opponents, expand his body inside people and explode them like Majin Buu, control people by getting inside them and shapeshifting into central nervous system which Jake did admittedly to Finn in Jake Suit, etc.

Not only that but personally I see Crossover has his most anti-climatic and humiliating defeat. Take out by this random canon and actually screaming NOOOOOO right before he gets obliterated? At least the Guardian's blood had some cool animation to it. This was just generic "villain of the week" writing that wouldn't look out of place if the Lich was removed and replaced with some new one-note villain.

I feel like the only really lame part of Hunchback is the gargoyles. Take them out and the movie improves so much

Honestly they scared the shit out of me as a kid and I remember I had trouble watching.
The ballsiest part was when they flat out Jaws'd the turtle to establish them as a lethal threat.
You did not see that a lot in kids movies in the 2000s because parents groups had gained a lot of sway after all the death in 90s Disney but they just gunned for it with those two

So this thread got me to rewatch the movie and it's honestly weird.
The first 20 minutes or so are setting up something genuinely great, the actual threat of the meltdown is really really well established by the vulture's speech even before Cretaceous and Maelstrom show up and you have distinct character arcs set up before they even really get going, but then the quality starts dropping once the possums show up and force way too much levity compared to the more balanced humor vs tension of the beginning.
After that it is mostly only when Scrat or these two are on screen that the quality jumps back up to that of the first 20 minutes.

The first 20 minutes or so are setting up something genuinely great, the actual threat of the meltdown is really really well established by the vulture's speech even before Cretaceous and Maelstrom show up and you have distinct character arcs set up before they even really get going, but then the quality starts dropping once the possums show up and force way too much levity compared to the more balanced humor vs tension of the beginning.

That's the biggest disappointment of these movies, they clearly have the potential to be great

I mean you see it with the Vulture too.
At first he's this slightly comedic yet threatening emblem of the imminent threat of the meltdown, then he's doing synchronized music?
The expanding cast also is extremely apparent even by the second one because the best scenes are between the original trio. Ellie and the possums are.. fine? The possums are too comedic to the point of throwing that balance off at times while Sid, Diego, and Manny all felt like they had their roles

I genuinely do miss Blue Sky, even if every film wasn't great or had obvious faults you could still see a lot of passion and likability....though I'm mainly saying that as someone who really likes the first Rio, likes half of Epic mainly it's main villain and was pleasantly surprised by Spies in Disguise when saw it in cinema's.

You're right, they also don't have any personality either other than being comic relief.

I'm not the biggest fan of Rio (I thought it was decent though), but the villains were also the best part of it as well

Well, well, well! If it isn't the heroic hare of San Francisco Bay!

yeah Nigel is a ton of fun since he's a very classic type of animated film villain even having the song, the theatric personality and yet that lovely balance of genuine menace and comedy. Speaking of Epic I'd apply Mandrake for this thread since he's the best of the film being a fun devious bastard with a cool powerset of rot based magic, an actually healthy dynamic with his son that also adds depth when he gets killed by one of the main heroes which doesn't change his original plan of wiping the forest but also adds an extra element to it with his plans for the plot pod and has a great performance from Christoph Waltz pulling it all together to make for a really genuinely well done villain.....though he shoulda killed the Slug, hated that character.
youtube.com/watch?v=nD26Nc3ddnI

healthy dynamic with his son

It may sound "tumblrish" but I love that kind of villain dynamic. Nothing too mushy but I like villains who care about their friends or family members, Like this scene from Van Hellsing.
youtube.com/watch?v=vqgMhdCg_HY

It's a good way to add depth but also not diminish their actions or villainous personality since it lets them still be cruel and callous to others but also have a humanizing quality
youtube.com/watch?v=5ULfoI6JD_8

The first Ice Age almost did a good job of this, the villains are Sabertooth tigers who want to kill the baby as revenge for the humans killing them for their fur. It's evil but also understandable as a motive

What it really comes down to that amazes me is the whole film feels like what holds it back is a need of a few edits and some scenes swapped out for others.
Watching it as a kid in theaters I was just afraid of Maelstrom and Cretaeous. As an adult, what amazes me is that they're only part of what seems like this massive threat of the flooding in general.
In most kids movies, the big threat is far off and reserved for a climax or dwelling is but the one of biggest strengths of either of the first two Ice Age films is that they set up the threat very early on and let it be an ever present thing for the characters.
Like, a good bit of Maelstrom and Cretaceous's screentime is literally just to continually establish that they're on the move, and it's occurring to me as an adult that those scenes were what really scared me most about them as a kid. That the whole place is becoming less and less safe for our heroes as the movie goes on.

He's a shapeshifting beast in contrast to the human sorcerer form we've come to know him as and he does absolutely nothing cool with these new powers.

It's a typical case of "too powerful to be well-written."

You know, you have a lot of passion and a good understanding of the story and the pacing of these films. Have you ever thought about writing reviews on a blog or a video essay? I think you would be good at it.

I love that kind of thing too. Wish it was more common.

It's just fresh in my head because I literally just rewatched because of this thread.

This cartoon inspired Chris Chan, and that twist threw me for a genuine loop.

I agree. The other characters have quite a lot going for them, even Quasimodo and Phoebus.
And don't forget, Clopin almost hanged the protagonists without a second thought

Nah, the hilarious part is that he uses it as a measure of time

You still have some talent for it and think you'll be good at it (at least better than most dumb reviewers).

What do you mean?