Bad guys are cooler?

[Darth Wong]

Yeah but he did get the Iorn Cross for essentially running through message trenches not getting shot, luck really.

Agreed; it's technically combat, but it's not as if he charged an enemy machine-gun nest or anything.

What do y'all think of Feild Marshall Erwin Rommel?

Most people think he was pretty cool, even though he was a Nazi. Tactical wizardry and all; falls in-line with the way "coolness" is doled out for fictional characters.

[Andrew J.]

Good guys are generally lame, unless they wear dark sunglasses (Blade, Neo, etc.).

[Pablo Sanchez]

Yeah but he did get the Iorn Cross for essentially running through message trenches not getting shot, luck really.

They used field telephones for that, except during bombardments which cut the lines (at which point they might send runners out into the firestorm)

Hitler didn't stay in the trench all the time. If he did, he would never have been wounded. He had to deliver messages everywhere on the battlefield, often under concentrated small arms fire. It was an incredibly dangerous job, with a casualty rate matched only by flamethrower troops. And Hitler volunteered repeatedly for it.

[seanrobertson]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that bad guys are generally much cooler in most sci-fi shows and movies. Conversely, good guys are often dorks.

In SW, we have the various Darths, who are generally the coolest dudes in whatever film they appear in. Opposite them, we have the Jedi, and Luke Skywalker, who may not necessarily qualify as full-blown dorks, but certainly show signs of dorkdom.

In Transformers, we have Megatron, Galvatron, Devastator, Unicron, Soundwave, Shockwave, and a generally ultra-cool roster of bad guys. On the good guys' side, we have ... Optimus. He's pretty cool. But the rest of his pack has a distinct tendency toward dorkiness.

In Star Trek, we had the Klingons in TOS, before they became good (at which point they became dorks). We had the Borg in TNG, before they allied themselves with Voyager (at which point they became dorks). On the good guys' side, we have Janeway, Sisko, Picard, and Wesley Crusher. Ugh ... the only cool good guy in Trek is Kirk.

In Galactica, the Cylons had shiny armour and that cool SoundWave voice, along with the red cycloptic eye. The Colonials had ... 70s hair.

Is there some unwritten law that good guys must be dorkier than bad guys? Or am I off-track here?

No, you're not, my lord : )

Bad guys are always cooler in my mind.

Cobra Commander was far cooler than Duke, Adm. Flagg, or Gen. Hawk in
GI Joe. So was Serpentor, for that matter, though he suffered the same
fate as Galvatron did (superior to the former leader, but almost totally
insane).

Adm. Piett is cooler than Adm. Ackbar. Vader and Palpatine are cooler
than Mon Mothma and Luke.

I'd only disagree in that I really liked Picard. He *was* a dilettante,
to be sure...even his surrogate father, the old man in "The Chase,"
said as much. But I really, really came to love the character.

Bad guys don't have to play by the same rules as good guys do.
They do the things we all sometimes wish we could do. For them,
everything is quite straightforward, simple; they only know ambition,
only wish to improve themselves. It's plain geeky to have to look after
civilians, humans (or "organics" in general in TFs), yadda yadda.

Sean
Analyst http://www.babtech-onthe.net/

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Rommel was not a Nazi. He tried to assassinate Hitler. A lot of the generals and sea captains weren't Nazis. But that is not to say they were right in actually staying in the military and serving the Nazis. They should have resigned or retired, unless they had plans for intentionally fucking up the Nazis, which I don't think they did. Virtually all of the SS were sadistic fucks. And why do you say Satan is cool? Assume he was real, and did tempt Adam into eating the apple and all of that. HE SCREWED OVER HUMANITY. Had he not tempted Adam into eating that damned apple, then all future generations would have been in paradise, still clean, pure, and innocent. And why would Satan go against a God in the beginning? What did God do to Lucifer that was so wrong? Not give him absolute power over the universe? Well what would have happened if he did? What is so cool about Satan? He always screws over humanity. Whatever happens to people from an angry God is always because Satan tempts humanity into doing the wrong things. That is like accusing the police for locking up people that are tempted into doing crimes. The world was backward, degenerative, corrupt, sick whenever there was an angry God. No one respected God and He showed them He wouldn't tolerate it by sending all of the people that were deceived by Satan to Hell. And Satan was sitting in Hell laughing his sick, twisted ass off the whole time. He hated a God that gave him infinite love. But, according to you, he's fictional. And why aren't people like Hitler and Stalin and the rest cool? Because they actually exist and did all of the horrible things to people in reality. THAT is what sets apart them from fictional characters. So in a way, people like fictional villains because they have never done anything to people that are real. But then why not fictional heros? Or am I wrong and you actually like the fact villains have done wrong things to people in their fictional universes? OR, do you like basically anyone in fictional universes that look, sound, and say "cool" things? Such that Darth Vader was actually a Light Side Jedi that fought the Empire, but he still had the James Earl Jones voice, red lightsaber, breathing noises, armor, and Force powers?

[TrailerParkJawa]

For the most party bad guys ARE cooler. Good guys usually seem to come from modest, conservative upbringings.

Bad guys can get away with good stuff. Think Luke or Superman would ever cop a feel on a girl with a hot body? No, but bad guys would.



When I went down to LA to watch the re-edited THX version of Star Wars I was surprised at how many people booed at Luke when he whined about going into town to buy power converters.

I wondered if it was a sign of changing times. Do you think that we like bad guys more today than 20 years ago?

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Just to give some info on Rommel:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Hollow/5406/Rommel.html
He wasn't a Nazi.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

OR is your rant way to long?

And if God is a super duper omnipotent being, he wouldn't have to get pissed at humanitys mistakes. He could go over to Satin and give him what for, and go over to Adam and say "Hey man, no problem, not your fault, aint gonna hold it against ya."

And a minor nitpick, humanity screwedness didn't hinge on that stupid apple. There was no apple to be more precise. Its actually a little more complicated, so they made teh apple to give the common bumpkins of the tiem an of what happened, and it stuck ever since.

Some horrible things you'll learn in church before you move out and never show again.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Yes, the thing I don't understand is why people are so anti-Luke. Back in 1977, EVERYONE loved Luke. Every male that wore costumes was either Luke or Solo. And the overwhelming majority of them wore Luke costumes. He was "da man" back then. Everyone's hero of SW was Luke.

Now, today, people accuse him of being a whiner. Whiner? Why? He only whines in like, one scene. The power converters. And the other times he protested was against Han Solo. But that was only before he rescued Leia. It seems as though post-Leia, he becames less of a whiner, and more of a fighter. And even before that, he was pretty good at shooting up Stormtroopers.

And no one ever realizes wtf this kid has been through. His aunt and uncle were slaughtered by Stormtroopers. He had to see those dead Jawas. His only mentor was killed by the one he believed murdered his father. After Ben, he had absolutely no guidance from anyone besides "use the Force, Luke" and such. His best friend also died from Vader, the man he believed murdered his father and for sure murdered Obi-Wan Kenobi.

So why do people call this 18 year-old a whiner when he went through all of that, and still kept on fighting? I bet the majority of high school kids today would break down, crawl into a corner, and cry their eyes out. Did you ever see him shed a tear in ANH? He was crushed emotionally, but he still had the physical and mental strength to carry on.

What high school kid would actually be crazy enough to throw a grapple onto a pipe and swing across a bottomless pit, all the while carrying another person and taking the risk of getting blasted? He did this without thinking about it twice. Sure he had encouragement from his friends, but how could that be enough to get him to fight in the war? He did what he did because he was a strong person.

And then he had to suffer all of the other shit in TESB. He got beat up by a WAMPA and was fighting the next day. Not to mention he managed to get himself out of the cave and sliced off the wampa's arm. He witnessed his tail gunner get crushed by an AT-AT, and still had the guts to attach himself to it, cut it open, throw a land mine into it, and then let himself fall to the ground at the risk of the thing crushing him to death. And you call this guy a whiny wimp? He's one tough bastard.

Then, he goes after his friends on Bespin. He keeps going to save his friends, even after Leia tells him it's a trap! And he isn't even afraid of Darth Vader until he gets his hand chopped off. When he has a lightsaber right next to his throat, just a few centimeters away, in the hands of Darth Vader, one of the most feared men in the galaxy, that could kill him in less than a milisecond, what does he do? He smacks it away! And even then, he has enough guts to throw himself down into another bottomless pit just so that he doesn't turn over to the Dark Side and become like Darth Vader. And this is after he learns his father is Darth Vader. This is when probably millions of questions are racing through his mind. He then hangs off of a weather vane, over yet another bottomless pit.

In RotJ, he saves Han and everyone else. He goes into the place unarmed, only with the Force. He then overcomes a Rancor with a bone and a rock, even without the Force. He then spends the night in that slimy hellhole of a prison. When he's about to be executed, he jumps off of a plank, grabs his lightsaber, and cleans the place out of Jabba's scum. He jumps over the Great Pit of Carkoon (spelling?) with the Sarlacc in it, and rescues Leia. He manages to evade Boba Fett, the best bounty hunter in the galaxy.

He swings over with Leia on a rope that appears out of nowhere over the Pit of Carkoon again. He then risks being blown up by the exploding sail barge to rescue droids. DROIDS. After all of this, he witnesses the death of Yoda. Now, he has absolutely zero Jedi alive for him to learn from or team up with, unlike all other Jedi from the prequels (Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Anakin, the Jedi Council, etc.). He is the only Jedi left for now, still against the Empire and two Sith Lords. And yet he still refuses to stop. Sure there is the occasional ghost Ben popping up to tell him some stuff, but it's nothing like having another Jedi with him in a lightsaber fight.

He then proceeds to volunteer as one of the members of a crazy infiltration mission on Endor. He jumped off of Leia's speeder bike going who-knows how fast, throws off the scout, and goes after the others. He then throws himself off of the bike, and goes up against the scout still on the speeder bike with his lightsaber. Then, after all of the other stuff happens on Endor, he turns himself in to the Empire just to meet up with the Emperor and Vader.

He has the courage not to give in to the Dark Side. Then, he gets electrocuted like no one else had before, and still lived through it. He still has enough strength to drag his father out of the throne room, drag him to a shuttle, and pilot the shuttle out of the Death Star that was falling apart around him. And he's a whiner? That is like saying one of the 18 year-old soldiers of the WWII 82nd Airborne was a whiner.

Kids today go to college and high school. In the 1940's kids stormed the beaches of Normandy, raised the flag at Iwo Jima, shot down Jap Zeros in their P-40's, and got hit by Tigers in their rinky-dink Shermans. And not to mention all of those not in the U.S. military, and all of those kids in other wars, in other places, and in other times. I bet to them Luke would have been a great guy to have in their combat units.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

It doesn't hurt to believe in God even if you're sure He doesn't exist. What is the difference if you believe in Him or not? At least if you believe in Him, you sorta have restraint. You think about what you do and are basically civilized and moral. So in the long run, it benefits rather than harms people.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

IRG, you do notneed to give us a synopsis of the OT, we've all seen em a hundred times. It would've saved my eyes the strain if you had wrapped it up quick: "Luke did a lotta heroic stuff in the movies that woulda broke a normal person, and youare callinghima whiner!?" you know, maybe more detail, but you get the point.

In any event, it doesn't matter all of the physical (gettingbeat up by a wampa, getting his hand cut off) and mental (having everyone of his family members, friends, and mentors be killed/evil) strains he went through, because no matter what anyone says Darth Vader iscooler. Deal with it. I hardly feel sorry for Luke, Vader, the denizens of Alderaan ect. And do ya wanna know why? Cause its a fargin moviefor goodness sake. You're not supposed to cry and feel emotional, your supposed to go ohhhh ahhhh and laugh as you watch the stromies get beat up by teddy bears.

Face it IRG, at least in a fictional setting bad guys are cooler. They get the cool lines, the toys, the evil voices (JEJ's or a British acent mostly), the evil plots to take over the world/universe. What do the good guys do? Sneak in and muck everything up. Accept for a few very cool good guys (ie-Han, Kirk, Bond ect.) bad guys are just the best! LONG LIVE EVIL DUDES! ARGH!

[/rant] Phew....

[IRG CommandoJoe]

I'm just proving Luke is a whiner like everyone labels him.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

ISN'T! ISN'T a whiner.

[Darth Wong]

It doesn't hurt to believe in God even if you're sure He doesn't exist. What is the difference if you believe in Him or not?

Depends on what kind of God you think he is. The Old Testament God is a horrible creature to believe in.

At least if you believe in Him, you sorta have restraint. You think about what you do and are basically civilized and moral. So in the long run, it benefits rather than harms people.

Really! If you believe in God, you are "civilized and moral"? Interesting claim of a causal relationship. Please explain how you fit Hitler (who believed in God, contrary to persistent bullshit historical revisionism) and the crusaders and the inquisitioners into this scheme.

Please don't bring this "faith equals morality" bullshit into this. Belief in God does not make you a better, more civilized, or more moral person.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Whatever, just do what you perceive to be morally right, and you're fine. I can't win this debate, as I can't really change someone's morality or solid beliefs, so just forget it.

[Enforcer Talen]

course, acting out the rules he gave you might.

and bad guys are cooler.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

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At least if you believe in Him, you sorta have restraint. You think about what you do and are basically civilized and moral. So in the long run, it benefits rather than harms people.
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I know this is somewhat off-topic but....

You DON'T have to believe in God to have restraint and moral. You DON'T have to believe in God to do kind things to other people. I have an atheist friend back in the college, and he is as civilized and moral as any other people I've met.

Besides, I don't think religion as the SINGLE DRIVE for the people to be "civilized and moral". Have you ever heard of HUMANITY?

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Back to the topic, I guess. Here's more examples of cool-looking good guys (or good guys' things):

-The Avatar from Ultima VI game box cover

-Duke Nukem

-Chmmr Avatar starship from Star Control 2 (IMHO, with three ZapSats around, it is the coolest looking starship in the entire Star Control universe)

-Colonial Viper starfighter

Sadly, they're not many of them. Mostly the bad guys (or bad guys things) are lot cooler than good ones. Examples: Magneto & Doctor Doom, Imperial Star Destroyer, Romulan Warbird, Destro (of GI Joe), TIE Interceptor, Manchi's Vulture-Class light cruiser (from ye olde Space Rouge computer game. It didn't look good in the game itself but it did in the manual), Kilrathi's Dalthi fighter, etc, etc. Heck, even Shredder is WAY cooler than those four Ninja Turtles combined.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Good guys are generally lame, unless they wear dark sunglasses (Blade, Neo, etc.).

You may add Duke Nukem

[IRG CommandoJoe]

How about the Rebels?

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Rebels? When did they wear dark sunglasses?

[Enforcer Talen]

question, tho; matrix, are the agents or are the terrorists the cooler types?

[Darth Wong]

You know, to go back a few posts and make another note about God and Satan, it occurs to me that God was portrayed on the movie screen by George Burns in "Oh God", while Satan was portrayed by Al Pacino in "Devil's Advocate".

Do I need to even bother explaining how Al Pacino's coolness blots out George Burns like a nuclear fireball obliterating a birthday sparkler?

PS. To answer your query, "The Matrix" is an anomaly. Every goddamned character is cool. The movie carries itself like a self-conscious, preening teenager.

[Tsyroc]

You know, to go back a few posts and make another note about God and Satan, it occurs to me that God was portrayed on the movie screen by George Burns in "Oh God", while Satan was portrayed by Al Pacino in "Devil's Advocate".

Do I need to even bother explaining how Al Pacino's coolness blots out George Burns like a nuclear fireball obliterating a birthday sparkler?

PS. To answer your query, "The Matrix" is an anomaly. Every goddamned character is cool. The movie carries itself like a self-conscious, preening teenager.

Didn't George Burns also play the Devil in "Oh God, You Devil"?

Still Pacino is cooler plus his version brought up some questions about God instead of just being evil. I'd also add Gabriel Burn as the Man (ie The Devil) in "End of Days" he was cool too.

Hmmm, I just thought of an interesting quandry. Arnold Schwartzenegger as the Terminator. Which one was cooler, the villian from the first movie or the "father figure" from the second movie?

Another cool villian is nearly all of the various villans Christopher Lee has played over the years. Dracula, Scaramunga, Saruman, Darth Tyranus and many more.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Rebels? When did they wear dark sunglasses?

When they flip down their blast visors or goggles.