A few thoughts on the bad guys

I've been checking out reviews--professional and otherwise--of recent superhero epic flicks, and, to be honest, they have not been good. While most of the critics had their own issues, there was one common denominator that ran through all of the reviews I saw.

The bad guy. What the hell did he want? What was he trying to do?

It's like this--you get a team of superheroes together, or you have a situation that's so desperate you put a team of super-villains together, you had better spend some time convincing your audience that your antagonist has both a huge, sinister plan that makes some kind of sense, and is capable of pulling it off.

The bad guy wants to destroy the world? Why? Doesn't he have to live here, too?

The bad guy wants to rule the world? What does that mean? Does he want everyone to pay taxes to him? Does he want to be able to order everyone around? Does he want to have absolute control over each and every person on the planet? Again, why?

Because he's evil doesn't count as a motive. Even if he is evil--and I cringe when I hear characters defined in that way--even if he's crazy, he still has a reason for doing what he does. There's something, real or imagined, in it for him.

I'm willing to forgive the recent Ghostbusters film for having this issue because it's a comedy, and I enjoyed the cast so much I was willing to cut them some slack on this aspect of the story. However, for an action adventure movie it's kind of hard to overlook.

Not that I don't understand. Coming up with a convincing, scary bad guy is really difficult. I'm having that issue myself with a project--I need an incredibly powerful antagonist who had dark designs on humanity. And it has to be a global threat, not one aimed at just a certain person or persons. And he has to have a reason for doing what he's planning to do, and that's the hard one--there just aren't all that many motives out there for doing something like threatening all of humanity. Individual humans, yes, but as a species? No. Unfortunately, my protagonist wouldn't be interested in anything less. Damn her.

But you know something? You come up with a truly bad-ass villain, with a dark and global but viable plan, and with an understandable motive, and you got a story, baby! Most of the movie will write itself.

That's the basic problem, I think. Most of these films coming out now start with the heroes, and, let's face it, there just ain't all that many villains out there that Superman couldn't handle. You need to start with the guy Superman is going to be facing off against, and make him someone that Superman could possibly lose to. Make it so that Superman is required to deal with it. Or Batman. Or whomever.

Anyway, I hope all that makes sense.