Underwhelming AF Deaths Of Major Villains
One of the greatest joys of many movies, particularly action, is knowing that from the second a film's antagonist shows up, they're going to get got a few acts later. It's a knowing wink that's been established as an expected trope for ages, and we want to see the filmmakers go to their darkest places to satisfy us with an over-the-top-death. And you know what? We usually get them.
Even if it's not a villain in the film, most movies know that if there's an important character on screen and they're going to kick the bucket, the viewer has high expectations. Like the look on Hans Gruber's face as he plummets from Nakatomi Plaza or, hell, even PG-ass Star Wars went and split Darth Maul in half for us. The fact of the matter is, if you're going to make someone die in your movie, you better go all out. However, despite this unspoken code, sometimes a major character's death goes over more like a wet fart than a fitting (see: at the very least decapitation with a side of being eaten by a monster, regardless of film's genre of location) end ...
Boba Fett -We're starting off with one of the worst. Sure, it's probably been retconned to shit in the 60 million pieces of Star Wars fiction since it first occurred, but Boba Fett's original ending was wholly unsatisfying. In one of cinema's worst cases of cool guy dies like a corncob, Han Solo accidentally bumps into Boba's jetpack and sends him into the desert's butthole.
That's it. Only George Lucas could stumble into such a badass character and then fumble so hard at the goal line. His entire cinematic career has been one incredible 99-yard run from the line of scrimmage, just dusting opponents with flashy moves and pure strength, before he gets down to the five and starts hotdogging. Thousands of pounds of plastic merchandise begin raining down on him. As he staggers towards the endzone, a thankless, scorned fanbase rides up behind him and punches the football from his hands. George falls to the turf and looks up for the ball, only to be scorched by a blinding lens flare as J.J. Abrams takes the ball the other way to prepare for the exact same demise. Boba Fett deserved better.
Voldemort - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
There's an old rule in cinema, one that you just don't break. Like Chekov's gun, character arcs, or the undeniable fact that every single Miles Teller character must be the most punchable human imaginable. But there's another one that doesn't get talked about as much: if you have a villain that lasts four thousand movies before dying, the final film has to be dedicated to putting their body through a Rube Goldberg-style death machine where we see them killed, reanimated, then killed again until every scenario under the sun has been tested. Harry Potter didn't go this route with Voldemort. After tormenting Harry for some people's journey through puberty, to college, to the real world's disappointment, they took the deeply unsatisfying disintegration route.
This is catnip for lazy filmmakers. Our villain is so powerful that they don't just die like a person, they break up into a million parts and fade away before our eyes. Nobody wants to see that shit. I guarantee you'd get a standing ovation from the theater if Harry used that wand to summon those little dinosaurs from the opening of that one Jurassic Park movie to nibble on Voldy's johnson for 45 minutes before the big red ogre guy came in and did all of John Cena's moves on Voldemort until Hermione grabbed her wizard grenade launcher and finished the job. Am I very familiar with the Harry Potter universe? No, so this may not be tonally correct. Would it be more satisfying than what they gave us? Absolutely.
T-800 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Unlike the two movies above, this actually comes from a great film. There's no denying that T2 is a cinema classic and is one of the rare examples of a sequel that surpasses the original. I will straight up hit you over the head with a brick if you think that Home Alone 2 isn't better than the original movie. Marv gets electrocuted into a literal skeleton, for god's sake. But anyway, I have to say that I've never been fully in love with how Arnie's T-800 gets it. Sure, in terms of sheer storytelling, it's a great choice. He does what needs to be done and has his heroic, human moment. But there's something that just doesn't do it for me is seeing this unstoppable killing machine turn himself into cyber chili with a whack ass thumbs.
At the very least, let John and Sarah rummage through him for scrap parts to reverse engineer some cool ass shit for the future. He's a damn robot, do that cool thing where you take off their heads, and they kind of look around the room where you're digging around inside of them. Hell, if you are going to stick with the death he's given, don't have him do the thumbs up, the cheesiest sign a hand can do. That's for an excited dad to give his wife, waiting in the car, when he's walking out of the mall with the last pair of Teva's in his size. The T-800 should be throwing up a pair of devil horns or even a shaka that says, hey, I'm going to robot hell riding a wave of lava. Enjoy Earth, brahs.
Do you know what kills the big baddie in Signs? Shitty housekeeping. The big gross chode that tormented an already-tormented family doesn't get flamethrowered. Hell, they don't even use all of the kickass farming equipment around them to take it down. What could have been an alien getting chopped up by a tractor is instead just a bunch of half-finished glasses of water. That's it. Sure, there are a few impotent swings of a baseball bat thrown in there for good measure, but the final moments for this alien come because Mel Gibson runs a gross ass house full of undisciplined kids where you can just leave your shit all over the place.
What's worse than the fact that the alien is literally killed by tap water is that it'll give Gibson's family an excuse to be even bigger slobs in the future. "If I don't leave half-eaten, loose slices DiGiorno pizzas around the place, what's going to happen when the werewolves that are allergic to stuffed crusts come through that door?"
Captain Kirk - Star Trek Generations
You're about to kill off one of the most beloved characters in sci-fi history. You have a blank piece of paper in front of you. You can make them do anything ... SAY ANYTHING as their last words. Does your badass character light up a cig, pull down their pants, and reveal they've actually got a surprise cobra dick and say, "I've always had a cobra dick," before it reaches up and bites their own throat out? I do, and I'm available to write your movie if you'd like. Or instead of that, do you kill off your swashbuckling bad boy space captain by just throwing a few pieces of scrap metal on top of him before making him say, "Oh my"? If you're the people behind Captain Kirk's end in Star Trek Generations, you somehow decide not to give the space captain a rockin' space snake hog. Idiots.
During the scene, even Captain Picard, who's there for Kirk's final words, seems to be like, "that's all?" Both of their performances are in pain like they know they're making a terrible cinematic mistake. If you have a character that people have spent their entire lives rooting for, try to give them a more fitting end than buried in some rubble like the abusive stepdad in a tornado movie meeting his maker.
Scorpion King - The Mummy Returns
The disintegration death returns. This time, at least, preceded by a stab to the stomach, the Rock's horrific CGI creature still goes out without much pop. With his army rushing a bunch of dudes in the desert and somehow unable to topple Brendan Frasier, the least believable action star of that generation, the Scorpion King takes a spear to the chest and just kind of turns into black dust. I mean Christ, look at that thing. It's the Rock's body that's also a huge scorpion's body with crab claws. If your movie has the Rock's body on a huge scorpion's body with crab claws in it, the very first scene you should be writing is the satisfying way you're going to squash the Rock's body on a huge scorpion's body with crab claws and work backward from there.
Instead, you have the Encino Man very weakly defeat the guy who could routinely pin a literal hell zombie (The Undertaker) that's been fused to the body Kia-sized scorpion. Go to hell.
Though, on the upside for this scene, 1:45 contains the greatest delivery in the history of acting.
Obi-Wan - Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
One of the galaxy's greatest warriors has the lamest ever "swordfight" that makes fencing look like the UFC and turns into a pile of fucking robes. He turns into a pile of dirty robes. One of the galaxy's greatest swordsmen dies and becomes laundry. It's the original Goal Line George fumble.
"Hmmm...did he leave his robe?"
Marvel Bad Guys - Nearly Every Marvel Movie
One of the most frustrating aspects of the Marvel Universe is that they have these characters with such diverse, limitless power and rarely ever use it. Think about how most of the fights play out. They're just punching people and maybe doing a bit of flying or some eye lasers or shit, but it never really feels like they're doing what the rest of us would do if we had their abilities. Go absolutely overboard. Because of this, I am always left wanting more when the bad guys in these movies generally get theirs. You'll have something like the Incredible Hulk standing over a dude that's tormented him and his friends for an eternity, but instead of start grabbing every semi-truck around him like they're grapes and stacking them on top of the dude until he bursts, he just flicks some purple orb, and the guy turns into light and explodes or some shit.
If I'm the fellow who can turn into ants or whatever, you better believe I'm going to shrink myself down and crawl into Loki's asshole and run around inside of him and tie organs to other organs and jump up and down on his heart until it stops. Spider-Man literally cums cobwebs and is still more likely to let the Green Goblin kill himself with his own glider than give us a satisfying end like cumming so much spider stuff that he weaves a web between the Empire State Building and the Freedom Tower and launches that dude into space.
Put these powers to use. We've already sat through a four-hour movie and want to see some goddamn spider cum, or we aren't going to leave feeling like we got our money's worth.
Even if it isn't his *official* end, no 5-film villain death scene should be missable due to a mistimed sneeze.
Top image: 20th Century Fox
