How To Do a Villain Origin Story

it's the things we love most that destroy us the most recent Hunger Games movie The Ballad of song birds and snakes is now out and the number one movie in the world directed by Francis Lawrence who did the rest of the Hunger Games films from Catching Fire onwards and is an adaptation from the novel of the same name written by Suzanne Collins story centers around a young 18-year-old the pre-present snow and his experiences before becoming the tyrannical villain we know him to be in The Hunger Games franchise wearing red to represent the blood that is on President Snow's hands throughout this film so the blood of a certain part of my body that fills whenever I see him on the screen this is a villain origin story essentially and this is a prime example of how you are supposed to do a villain origin story and I'm here to explain why there been a recent Trend where movies try to humanize their villains that almost depletes the whole purpose of their origin story they try to make these villains almost the heroes of their own origin story and either forget to explore the reason behind these characters becoming a villain or minimize the plotline altogether this is where the ballot of song birds and snakes propels itself against the competition against the rest and this is a prime example of how you do a villain origin story when it comes down to it I realize that there are three main factors that have been distinguished Within These villain origin films that can be done either brilliantly or sloppy number one sympathy what these filmmakers fail to realize is there's a difference between sympathy and understanding and they go to to forward with the sympathy card instead of understanding for some reason they want to really hammer in the sympathy card for these villains and apparently that's just the only way that you can gain an interest in these villains and have understanding with them and their backgrounds and their origin story but that's simply not true it's one tactic that I personally find super lazy and cheap because instead of finding different ways to make your villain understandable to have your audience root for them without having to ham in sympathy they just go for the sympathy card they go for the easiest thing that they can think of which is getting the audience to side with them and say oh poor person oh my gosh look at how much they had to go through you don't have to do that to have people understand your characters especially when it comes to villains a great example is Disney's 2021 Cruella are you ready she's the prime target of bullying in her school and is seen as the outcast she then is kicked out of school with her single mother they have to move she gets murdered in front of her eyes which Corella thinks is her own fault she becomes an orphan at a young age she then aspires to be a famous fashion designer and ends up working for the power hungry [ __ ] who killed her mother in the first [Music] place they just they just Disney out here like do you guys get it do you do you get we're on her side right right you want you want to root for her right the one that ends up killing dogs in the future but but look at how much you went through right right President Snow starts out as a normal guy who has one problem and it's just getting his family into a better richer place and that's it they're in this I guess grungy apartment but they're not dying tigis his sister cousin cousin she's chilling she's making him some designs out of some brat cloth apparently it's just his ambition he just has more ambition for them to get out of a poorish lifestyle you know it's nothing insanely serious they do go through his backstory that you know the dad died the him and the cousin are orphans but it doesn't feel too hacked on because they don't in the movie at least they don't talk about it too too much this is more just to Showcase their background and where they came from but not necessarily to to pay sympathy I can see how you can have some sympathy for them because of this but it's more so just their situation and not so much oh my gosh like look at look at these poor people look at how much they suffered but then after this that's as little of an inkling to sympathy as you get for this guy and that's it which is fantastic he's a good looking guy they make a point of it throughout the movie that he has his looks and charm to him which I'm happy they did make that point because I'm like this man this man is too fine he's one of the tops in his class if not the top I could be wrong top of his class or one of the tops in his class his classmates treat him normally they don't really they make kind of some snide remarks but it's you know just [ __ ] comments it's not like he's being bullied or anything if anything the person that's being bullied in their class is s Janus once they start talking most to Janus like look at that guy he's over there and snow himself is like I'm not friends with that guy I don't know this guy s genus who Hanging Tree who they give you that background to understand his motivation and his motivation throughout the film is to win that prize money so that that can propel them out of that dinky apartment I guess apparently in the books I will say for the books sake from what I've learned in the books he is always a self-serving self-interest person everything he does is calculated for himself and himself only all of this to say as a villain origin story you don't you don't got to pull out so much sympathy card for someone you know to make them compelling he was still an interesting person to look at from the start I was still invested not just because he's a good looking gu it makes you respect him in the sense that okay I see his determination I see how much he wants to get out of his situation so I I respect it but then how far are you willing to go and it just it's so compelling and so much better writing than just oh my God the poor guy is getting Bulet other movies should start learning how to do this number two the other villain this is probably one of the most annoying parts of any villain origin story is having the other villain present in the story meaning the person who is the more evil than the original evil we're focusing on there is another person that is opposing the original person we are focused on the person that's eventually supposed to be really evil in their origin story there's another one that's more evil than them which is confusing to me but again Hunger Games ends up having this this in a very smart very well- written clever way I have to praise Suzanne Collins on because she's the one that wrote this so I'm just in awe that she managed to do this I just I love I love her I love her we have the antagonist of Dr G brilliantly played by Biola Davis from the moment from the gecko we know there's something wrong with this lady but we're not too sure what we know she's a bit unhinged but we're not too sure what's what's up with her there's an of mystery surrounding her throughout the film and again I just so appreciate that because it's not it's not known entirely what her motivations and intentions are until further along the lines of the film early on she's shown to doing some cruel things um one test that she does is throw coro's work in a pit full of snakes and asks his classmate to retrieve it as she's the one who claims to have written in the paper she tries to retrieve it fails gets bitten by the snake it is unclear whether she survived the snake bite or not I think in the book correct me again if I'm wrong this could be Miss mixed up but in the book she comes back in the movie she doesn't come back and it's is presumed dead either way Wicked right just does her own little test to see who's the liar and who's the one responsible for all of these creative ideas for The Hunger Games just it's brilliant she's shown out the film talking to Coro explaining to him her ideas and that she also wants to make the games grander and wants to keep them going as well so she is very malicious but again not just this insanely evil person who's just shooting people left and right and just killing people and just totally oppose Coro as well she's actually shown to being on the side of Coro as a villain in coro's own film in President Snow's own film she exceeds because not only does she respect him she also manipulates him in her own way she also has a plan for him herself she is one of the driving forces which pushes him into becoming the cruel malicious president that he ends up being so in the film it's shown Coro is the one that asks to be sent to District 12 so he can see Lucy gay again however in the novel and forgive me if I'm wrong because I just Googled this so I could be wrong in the novel apparently it was Dr G's plan to have him sent out to District 12 so that he can see the vicious nature of the world himself and understand why they have the Hunger Games so that twist is just so smart it's so clever and oh instead of having a hammy villain that's just opposing him and pushes him into becoming a villain because he wants to take down a greater evil that he ends up being the evil himself they they just had a greater evil understand him and nudge him understand how to manipulate him into becoming his full fledged power hungry self I love it I love it number three the Swift now this is kind of hard to explain because and I have heard mix back in force with this section of The Hunger Games Film a lot of people felt like this was rushed a lot of people felt that Coro turning his evil self was rushed I personally don't think so and apparently the book fans don't think so either because in the books they understood his mindset and in the books it's clear from day one that he is a very self serving person in that regard at least the books are clear with that I did feel in the movie I didn't think it was as rushed for multiple reasons when it comes to the switch of when in these origin stories these villains become a villain um it's next to non-existent for the Disney again I do realize that these are considered retellings at least Maleficent is K not too sure I also looked into the marketing of this film and it did seem like Disney was marketing this that she was going to turn evil and this was her evil villain origin story I mean Corella doesn't make the switch Corella as far as her switch goes it's knocking over some cereal that's as much as her switch goes but the switch from when the protagonist becomes the anti teist is just as important if not the most important because that is the pivotal moment that makes them become the person that we know them to be the villain that we know them to be so getting this part right is absolutely critical and crucial and you have to have your audience feeling something in this moment or else it's just meaningless or else the whole point of your story is botch and for the latest Hunger Games movie I do appreciate the switch although I may be in the minority with this they go through with giving him an actual villain AR ends up killing three people and is fighting with his inner self whether to run away with the love of his life be with Lucy gray and just forget everything or going back to the capital and becoming a more powerful figure to society I don't know again when people think he fully made the switch I'm assuming cuz by the very end of the film like maybe the last 5 to 10 minutes of the film that's when we see him with the coat and the new hairstyle we can assume he's become more like the president snow that we know in the future but I actually felt that it was enough enough Le enough enough fleshed out that I believed him becoming who he was by the end of the movie I did reason being because early on we don't really see him doing many kind acts and when he does it's in his own self-interest with Lucy gray we can assume he does have a soft spot for her for sure but everything he does still is in his own self-interest when he gives her things to win the game it can be seen as for her but it's also for him because that gives him more of a shot to win that prize money and when he Sav sanus in the arena he was literally forced to he wasn't going to do do that on his own he's not really shown to be too much of a kind person at the beginning of the film he's he's Kinder than he is at by the end of the film but he's not you know the most morally right person they also do a good job showing like inklings of him loving power and starting to get power hungry for example when he does kill that boy in the arena then tells tigis it felt powerful instead of saying I feel horrible about it I feel regret about it he he chooses to say it felt powerful so there there already was inklings as soon as he said that I was like oh okay so he already is kind of you know feeling that feeling that taste for power once he becomes a peacekeeper kills mayor's daughter essentially kills s Janus by outing him it just it just felt kind of natural to me because again even though he claimed that they were friends although he claimed that he was like a brother and you do see that relationship at the beginning you also get a sense maybe he isn't as close to this guy as he pretends to be maybe maybe he's he is just pretending again out of his own self-interest because sanus is a person of high status with parents of high status so it makes sense for him to be close to someone like this let me know in the books if they explore his thought towards sanis more but that's that's what I got from the movie is that he did care for him like as much as he wanted to but at the end of the day himself comes first it just started to escalate more and more and more into him diving deeper and deeper into the snow that we know him to be in the future which I thought was fantastic Tipping Point being Lucy gray and then realizing that she's probably going to Spill the Beans and he has no other option again self-interest it makes sense with what we've been established goes back to the capital totally hardened totally understanding the ways of the world the viciousness of the world and having a clear mindset on why we have the Hunger Games and pleasing Dr Gaul with his answer it just it just makes sense to me they did a good job I think they did a good job with his switch by the end of the film I they really did and it's more than just a heartbroken boy from a two-month relationship okay okay girlies more than just an incel broken boy okay so there you have it uh let me know your thoughts on all of this I think Hunger Games The Ballad of song BR and snakes did a fabulous job of fleshing out a villain origin story and is the prime example of a villain origin story Done Right name anything else that you would suggest for a villain origin story story Done Right name your favorite villain origin story I can understand if it's Joker or something um I personally have never seen Star Wars which is something I have to do but I heard the whole downfall of Anakin and that whole Darth Vader plot line was was done really well let me know your thoughts on the most recent Hunger Games The Ballad of sers and snakes I personally loved it if you couldn't tell thank you guys so much for watching until next time my beautiful freaks [Music]

Channel: FilmFreakBecky

Views: 19,455

Keywords: president snow, the ballad of songbirds and snakes, the hunger games, movie review, movie discussion, spoiler review, spoiler discussion, coriolanus snow, president snow essay, president snow deep dive, president snow clip, explained, ending explained, review, villain essay, villain origin story essay, disney villains, disney remakes, cruella 2021, disney villain origin stories, maleficent, villain remakes, villain movies, rachel zegler

Id: S8O1IM-MQI0

Length: 18min 35sec (1115 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 02 2023