Quick Big Mi6 Main Villain Ranking Game

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  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    Posts: 1,664
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    No, I disagree, @ProfJoeButcher. For example, you're talking about what we may or may not have seen in previous Bond films. Evidently in the pre-Craig model that makes zero sense. Each Bond film stands on its own. This was Brosnan's first, and a soft reboot as it were. We can easily accept a Bond who went on missions with another 00 before. There doesn't have to be a template for that in any of the previous films. Establishing a history with Trevalyan can be this movie's thing. I've never thought of Brosnan's Bond as a direct continuation of Moore's or Dalton's anyway.

    The accent and lines? They were never a problem for me. Lines in a Bond film can be extremely over the top, I agree. And Bean is producing that artificially hyper-polished "cinema English". I don't think it's cringeworthy.

    I don't have the requisite knowledge to judge the accent, and I think Sean Bean is fine in the role. Decent fight too.

    I know that there's not much continuity between pre-Craig films, but I just think this soft reboot is a bit much, and it's immediately abandoned in the next Brosnan film. I mean, after 16 films of portraying Bond's work one way, they changed it for Goldeneye, and then went back to the traditional model. It just seems weird to have most of the dialogue be meta commentary on the James Bond we know, but have James Bond not actually be that guy. I feel it should be one or the other, but Goldeneye likes to have things both ways.

    It's like how you can have your villain be about the same age as Bond in 1995, OR you can have him be born in the 1940s. Goldeneye for some reason insists on both.

    You can make the villain's big gimmick that he's a former 00 who knows all about Bond and what makes him tick OR you can have the villain be more inept than usual at finding ways to kill Bond. Goldeneye for some reason insists on both.
  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 6,758
    Another well-known actor pops up for our next reveal, at number 8:

    CHRISTOPHER WALKEN
    as Max Zorin
    in A VIEW TO A KILL

    tumblr_nkbchovBzV1qkcj94o1_1280.jpg

    Two silver and one bronze medal for Mad Max, as well as two 5th places, two 6th places, three 7th places, three 8th places, two 9th places and one 10th.

    Only one bottom 5 was noted: a single 23rd place.

    A total of 156 points were awarded to Max Zorin.

    Christopher Walken is the third best-ranked American actor on this list.

    P.S.: I forgot to mention previously that Sean Bean is the third best-ranked British actor on this list.
  • peterpeter Toronto
    edited October 2021 Posts: 8,250
    Love Zorin/Walken-- he's my number 8.
  • I had him at 17. I like Walken in the role, I just feel like he isn’t given a whole lot of exciting material to work with. He’s at his best when he really gets to relish being evil.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Had him some spots lower, but I really like him. Getting Walken was a huge deal in the mid 80s.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,448
    Zorin is a character whose popularity has subsisted on Walken's cool and charming personality. But I must admit that I've never liked him as much as many seem to.

    As a villain, he simply fails. He just cannot be secretive about anything. Main Strike will kill tons of people, yet Zorin is so confident he'll emerge victoriously that he's even going to witness the catastrophe from up close in his personal flagship carrying his name in big, bold letters for all of San Francisco to see. He'll have a private investigator killed in public and in broad daylight AND personally offer the assassin, his well-known henchwoman, a ride back home in one of the least inconspicuous modes of transportation in Paris. He kills Tibbet and tries to kill Bond while MI6 knows that both are at Zorin's. He turns his former allies with the KGB into his enemies. He sets city hall on fire and creates a ton of industrial activity right where the big mayhem is about to start. In other words, this villain wants to be caught, before or after the fact. He's broadcasting his villainous activities in the most obvious ways imaginable! The British, the Americans and the Russians will chase him down rather than buying his microchips. The biggest clue of all: this man, who should be operating in the shadows, will ostentatiously cheat at horse racing, practically inviting MI6 (who should be worrying about industrial espionage rather than about horse racing) to come over and investigate. He'll also screw over his most loyal partner-in-crime, May-Day, before Main Strike has happened! Why throw away his biggest asset? Does he start every chess game by offering up his queen? Can you be even more clumsy? If there was a school for supervillains, Zorin would still be there, trying to pass the first level.

    @Mathis1 complained about Sean Bean's accent in GE. Allow me then to complain about Zorin's ridiculously theatrical facial 'ticks' and his annoying smiles, grunts, lip-pursing and upper-body movements when May-Day finds Bond in her bed. ;-) "Hm" - lip pursing - now pretend to speak without making a sound - now look at floor - now act like you're willing to go with it - give us another grunt, "hm" - look back at floor - walk away. What is this? Woody Allen sleepwalking?

    And finally, that name. Now, it's an OS, but what was Zorin back then? A random collection of letters? No, a five-year old's idea of a "speshul" name. (There's also Scarpine... because he has a scar? Wow, how clever.) Fleming did it right. This is wrong. Poor judgement on behalf of the story-writers and an insult to us all. Call planet Zorg and tell them that Prince Zorin, son of King Zax, was spotted on Earth.

    Walken is overall satisfying in this film. The man's only working with the poor material he was dealt. But his performance alone, bar the silly ticks, cannot make this character any better. I'm sorry.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,370
    Zorin is #3 for me, I'm glad he made it this far for a film that's usually on the lower end of everyone's rankings. Walken is having a blast here, so megalomaniacal, twisted, inherently evil and corrupt, and deliciously chews the scenery in every scene he's in. He's quick to explode in violence or shouting when things aren't going his way or he chooses to reassert his dominance but he isn't lost in his ability to laugh, smirk, grin or chuckle his way through a line that rubs him the wrong way or the delightful execution of so many of his workers. He's one of my favorites in the series, clearly, and I always love AVTAK as a whole.
  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    Posts: 1,664
    He was my number seven, just ahead of Hugo Drax. I thought he'd be WAY ahead of Drax on the big list though. This is interesting.
  • Posts: 6,727
    I had Max Zorin at 7. Wonderful villain. Regarding what DarthDimi says, the difference here is thats the way Walken speaks, and his tics and mannerisms are what make him stand out. Beans fake Noel Coward impression just comes across as silly and makes him him less of a threat.
    Zorin though, appears quite deranged, his manic laugh, machine gunning those workmen, and as Birdleson states, that great death scene, cackling as he falls to his death!
  • Posts: 2,400
    Birdleson wrote: »
    For me, I insist that he is laughing at the way Mortner is yelling "Max!". It sounds so absurd that even his own demise must take the back seat for his attention.

    Oh, Jesus. Mortner. One of the worst characters in the entire series.
  • Posts: 2,400
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I think he is indispensable! Like a computer.

    I frequently forget about him when I start AVTAK and then he shows up and I feel like someone shat in my food, and then I forget about him again until he shows back up in that damned blimp. He flat out ruins the film for me. Cackling as he fumbles around the dynamite til it explodes. Ridiculous!
  • Posts: 6,682
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Call planet Zorg and tell them that Prince Zorin, son of King Zax, was spotted on Earth.

    Haha, top notch!

    Wasn't Prince Zorin the character that Timothy Dalton played in Flash Gordon? ;)
  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    Posts: 1,664
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I think he is indispensable! Like a computer.

    :))
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    edited October 2021 Posts: 23,448
    Mortner is another cartoon in this film. As if 'Scarpine' (the man with the scar... so he's called SCARpine and ooh, he must be soo dangerous) wasn't enough, now we get the monocle-wearing evil old doctor with the German accent! (And his name is 'Mortner', like the French word "mort", which means death, another oh-so scary man.)

    How the hell they managed to get Jenny flexed in here on a May day no less, while Paris had lost its favourite aubergine, is beyond me.

    I mean, come on! Whoever is responsible for these names (Maibaum? Wilson?), I love them dearly for all their Bond work, but they had clearly hung up the cape while working on this one. Everything in this movie is disjointed or CR67 level parody or just kiddie logic. The villain spends the entire film telling the world "I'm the guy you're after; it's me-me-ME!", and our favourite top spy continues to investigate, just to be sure... I guess.

    I get why Dalton was insistent on returning to Fleming for TLD.
    Mathis1 wrote: »
    the difference here is thats the way Walken speaks, and his tics and mannerisms are what make him stand out. Beans fake Noel Coward impression just comes across as silly and makes him him less of a threat.
    Zorin though, appears quite deranged, his manic laugh, machine gunning those workmen, and as Birdleson states, that great death scene, cackling as he falls to his death!

    It comes down to taste then. I don't mind Bean's cranked-up-to-eleven theatricality, but if Walken has to stand out via such a ludicrous behaviour, I'm not interested. As with salt, a little Zorin goes a long way, but too much kills all the fun. And yes, Zorin is quite deranged and maniacal. His death scene is pretty awesome, I'll give you that. But at that point in the film, I'm blaming the great James Bond for having spent most of the film in a linear sequence of dull inquiries into low-stakes horse race cheating, seawater pumping and poor employment ethics at San Francisco city hall. If the microchip leak happened the minute Zorin took over the business, then, as with Drax, all arrows point in his direction. Five film minutes later, Bond sees Zorin drive away with May-Day, who had killed Aubergine. What more proof does MI6 need? I know what we need, though, which is a little bit more Craig: "Do you want a clean kill or send a message?" From here on, leave the horses to the police, let the KGB worry about their pet double-agent, never mind San Francisco, just take Zorin out, clean and simple. Dismantle his entire organisation. What's at stake for the British is the microchip leak. Close it while you can. Especially with Freddy Grey projecting doomsday scenarios in which the Russians can control British computers.

    It has been submitted to us that Casino Royale is a weird labyrinthian adventure in which Bond takes illogical turns while the story makes strange decisions. The question as to why Bond "doesn't just so-and-so to get it over with" has been raised frequently. Well, now I submit to you that AVTAK suffers from much worse. Bond, apparently, can only conjecture while Zorin is publicly villaining across the globe. Bond must then dig deeper, but goes digging in mostly irrelevant places. He does pick up clues, which send him on a protracted investigation, but he could have just popped one into Zorin's head and be done with it, especially after Paris. The problem is that this script demands that Bond behaves like a dog that first has to cover the entire house sniffing in every corner before finally finding the bone that was always in its basket to start with. Otherwise, there'd be no film. Luckily, a Bond film is much more than just the plot, and I can still be greatly entertained by other elements, such as music, photography, sets, stunts, acting, ... But the villain, Zorin, is not one of those elements, I'm sorry to say. I find Zorin ridiculously overpraised. Walken is an awesome actor, but he couldn't fix that dreadful Max Shreck character in Batman Returns, and neither can he fix the generic cartoon villain Max Zorin in AVTAK. (If they'd given him that fright wig from Batman Returns, I might have gotten the joke in AVTAK better. ;-) )
  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 6,758
    It only seems appropriate I’m announcing our number (00)7 the day of my first viewing of NTTD:

    CHRISTOPHER LEE
    as Francisco Scaramanga
    in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN

    THE%2BMAN%2BWITH%2BTHE%2BGOLDEN%2BGUN%2B%25281974%2529%2Blobby%2Bcard%2B4.jpg

    Another villain that many consider to outshine the movie he appears in. Sir Christopher Lee’s titular baddie received one gold medal, two silvers and one bronze medal.

    Scaramanga also received two 4th places, one 5th place, three 6th places, five 7th places and one 10th place.

    His lowest score was a single 16th spot. That’s the highest lowest placement of them all.

    Francisco Scaramanga obtained 166 points in total.

    Christopher Lee ended as the second highest Brit on this list.
  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    Posts: 1,664
    I cannot believe how well Drax is doing. :))

    I had Scaramanga at 14. He's absolutely fine. A warmer-than-usual Christopher Lee is fun to have around, but he doesn't seem to have any sinister plot really at all. If the script had had a little more time in the oven, he might be top tier for me.
  • Posts: 2,400
    I had him at 14. He's the saving grace of what is otherwise just one of the Trilogy of Turds of the series (DAF, TMWTGG and DAD), and we don't get enough of him. The entire film should have been about what its final 20 minutes or so are, and unfortunately Scaramanga suffers as a character due to it.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,370
    Scaramanga is 14th for me, as well, what're the odds? Christopher Lee is larger than life and he's quite the solid villain, though could've used a lot more to work with and maybe another big scene or two involving an assassination.
  • Posts: 6,682
    I would have loved a longer knife fight!
    I ranked him at #15. I would maybe rank him even a bit better in a later ranking.
    I'm a big fan of the whole Kananga/Big reveal and the 50/50 chance afterwards right up to the end where he loses his temper and is shouting at Solitaire.
    Kananga, Samedi and Tee Hee are great trio.
    So sad that there isn't any iconic henchman in the Craig era (and it looks like this won't change next week?)

    Edit: Forgot about Hinx. The train fight is awesome andxeasily better than the one against Tee Hee but the latter one is still much better over the whole movie.

    Your mentioning Tee Hee reminded me of another plus for Kananga: he leads what is easily the greatest group of henchmen ever. I mean Tee-Hee, Baron Samedi, Whisper, Adam, come on.
    A little late but I'm in full agreement. Really fantastic lineup of bad guys for this film. I'd also add the cab driver to that list.

    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Five film minutes later, Bond sees Zorin drive away with May-Day, who had killed Aubergine. What more proof does MI6 need?
    I agree that AVTAK's script has some structural problems. That said, I've always thought Bond didn't get to see the face of the man driving the boat.

    GoldenGun wrote: »
    THE%2BMAN%2BWITH%2BTHE%2BGOLDEN%2BGUN%2B%25281974%2529%2Blobby%2Bcard%2B4.jpg
    Lovely artwork.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,448
    Scaramanga is another example for me of a good actor having to work with questionable material in a not-so-good film, the other one being Walken. But Lee holds up well. The Hammer icon is charming and well-placed in this modest '70s adults-will-get-the-joke Bond flick. I do, however, wish they'd had cast him in a more challenging film far more relying on dramatic moments (e.g. OHMSS). His elephant speech is almost out-of-touch with this amusing playing-things-for-laughs film, and yet, Lee nails it. If I allow myself to fall into a very obvious meta-trap, I'd suggest Richardo Montalban for Scaramanga in this film, and a younger Lee as a Draculian Blofeld in '69, or an ageing Lee as a more menacing General Koskov in '87.

    Fun fact: Lee was cast as a South-American revolutionary called Miguel in the unfortunate 1979 Reb Brown Captain America TV film 'Captain America II: Death Too Soon'. Apparently, this very British actor could easily pass for a more exotic type, despite his lack of the proper complexion. Scaramanga is not so dissimilar after all. But that was always the power of Lee: he could play every type. Hell, they made him Chinese in 'The Terror of the Tongs' and the 'Fu Manchu' films, Russian in 'Rasputin the Mad Monk', and more. In that sense, Lee could have played a lot of Bond villains, from DN onwards.
  • I hat him at #6. Lee is so good in the role and fits effortlessly as a sinister yet polite villain, bringing a level of menace and grandeur without feeling out of place in a very silly movie. I wish we could have gotten him in a version of TMWTGG that was more dramatic and serious, but I do have a soft spot for the film regardless.
  • edited October 2021 Posts: 6,727
    I also had Scaramanga at 6!
    Christopher Lee is great in the part, and looks fantastic in that white suit ( I had a little lead figure of him for ages, but it went missing on me in a move!) I believe it was Guy Hamilton who encouraged Lee to lighten up in the role, so who knows, we may have got a more serious depiction with a differnt Director?
    The novel has always been a favourite of mine, and agree with most it would have more intriguing if we didnt get the McGuffin subplot!
    Have always wondered though, what original choice Jack Palance would have done with part?
  • R1s1ngs0nR1s1ngs0n France
    Posts: 2,002
    #6 for me.
  • Posts: 6,682
    If I may briefly return to the subject of Zorin, this bit from Saturday Night Live gives an idea on how Sting might have played the role. He shows up at 3:15.

  • peterpeter Toronto
    Posts: 8,250
    Scaramanga was my number 4!
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Birdleson wrote: »
    As much as I dig Lee in this film, I’ve always wished we’d gotten Jack Palance, who the role was originally offered to; he’s almost the embodiment of the Scaramanga from the novel. I have five of the six still remaining.

    I have four remaining and agree about Palance. I had Scaramanga at 12. A good position.
  • GoldenGunGoldenGun Per ora e per il momento che verrà
    Posts: 6,758
    Right, time to get back to this baby. As we come close to our top 5, first let’s discuss number 6:

    MICHAEL LONSDALE
    as Hugo Drax
    in MOONRAKER

    tumblr_nk3zc5BMXA1qkcj94o1_1280.jpg

    Having both the French as well as the British nationality, Lonsdale is both the best-rated Frenchman, as well as the best-ranked Brit on this list.

    Drax received two silver medals, two 4th places, one 5th place, one 7th, one 8th and five 10th places.

    No bottom 5’s for MR’s baddie. There was a single 22nd place though.

    Hugo Drax obtained 170 points in total.
  • ProfJoeButcherProfJoeButcher Bless your heart
    Posts: 1,664
    Surely, this is the greatest shock of this round? He was my number 8, and I thought I was going a little high....
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,448
    I'm a tad surprised that Drax made it this far in the first place. I myself like many aspects of MR, but I know that those opinions are rarely the popular ones. On top of that, Lonsdale gives a good performance, but surely not a "great" performance. So I was indeed surprised. Still, I'm pleased for the man.
  • R1s1ngs0nR1s1ngs0n France
    edited October 2021 Posts: 2,002
    He’s in 10th place for me but in retrospect, even I am surprised I put everyone’s favorite space nazi this high on my list.
    I guess it’s mostly due to his delicious delivery of some of the franchise’s wittiest lines uttered by a villain.
    Aside from that, he’s actually pretty average.
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