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Post by pitbulllady on Sept 21, 2013 17:22:41 GMT -5
In terms of MI/MU, I'd say that Randall certainly has the most dedicated fans, people who have stuck by him through thick and thin, from the start, of any of the characters from that franchise, including Mike and Sulley. He certainly has the most fan art and fanfiction dedicated to him, out of all the "Monsters" characters, although most of recent stuff is definitely not my cup of tea. Most of the older stories are far better written.
Let me clarify, though, that there's a big difference between an "antagonist" and a "villain"! Most people don't realize this and use those two terms interchangeably. While nearly all villains are also antagonists, many antagonists are NOT villains, and Randall is a case in point. Few people do realize that there are differences or understand what those differences are. Syndrome was a VILLAIN, plain and simple, and was also an antagonist. Waternoose was another character who was both a villain and an antagonist, but oddly enough, he was not, for the most part, as much an antagonist as Randall was because he had far less direct interaction/opposition with the protagonists, Mike and Sulley, as Randall did, if that makes sense. MU had no villains at all, just two antagonists, Dean Abigale Hardscrabble and Johnny Worthington, neither of whom were evil in the least, and I'd even go so far as to classify SULLEY in MU as an antagonist throughout the first half of the movie. Of the Pixar antagonists, Randall is probably the most popular, although right now Johnny is giving him a run for his money. Time will tell, though, if Johnny can hold onto that spot as well as Randall has, if 12 years from now people are still writing lots of Johnny-centric stories and producing lots of Johnny-centric art. Syndrome is without a doubt Pixar's most popular VILLAIN, though.
pitbulllady
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Post by mintygreen on Sept 23, 2013 21:26:21 GMT -5
I think he is the most popular....although then again I don't really tend to browse the internet much for a lot of the other Pixar characters.
The other Pixar antagonist I like is Hopper....and I don't think he's that popular. A Bug's Life in general doesn't seem to be as popular as many of Pixar's other films. Hopper is way more of a villain than Randall is though too.
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Post by pitbulllady on Sept 23, 2013 21:42:32 GMT -5
I'd classify Hopper as a villain. HE was in charge, the leader of the grasshoppers, and abused even them. He only had the interests of himself and his followers in mind, no one else, and would do whatever it took to get what he wanted. Hopper was just using everyone, from the ants to the other grasshoppers, much as Waternoose was using so many others, from Randall and Fungus to Sulley, to stay in power. It was all about HIM, not "saving the company", which would NOT have "gone under" at all had he done nothing. That's not how publicly-traded corporations work, and he knew it.
pitbulllady
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Post by mintygreen on Sept 23, 2013 21:50:03 GMT -5
I'd classify Hopper as a villain. HE was in charge, the leader of the grasshoppers, and abused even them. He only had the interests of himself and his followers in mind, no one else, and would do whatever it took to get what he wanted. Hopper was just using everyone, from the ants to the other grasshoppers, much as Waternoose was using so many others, from Randall and Fungus to Sulley, to stay in power. It was all about HIM, not "saving the company", which would NOT have "gone under" at all had he done nothing. That's not how publicly-traded corporations work, and he knew it. pitbulllady Yeah, Hopper was pretty bad....which is why I can't really defend him. LOL. It can't really be how he was raised either since Hopper had a brother, Molt, who was actually a pretty friendly nice guy and didn't want to do anything bad really and at the end he was a good guy, joining P.T. Flea's circus. Anyway, this is another thing though....when I like characters that actually seem pretty evil, I don't really try to defend them much. So no one can claim that I just defend Randall because I like him....since I don't try to make excuses for some of these other characters I like, who actually are really bad. |
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Post by mintygreen on Sept 23, 2013 22:14:32 GMT -5
Yeah, Hopper was pretty bad....which is why I can't really defend him. LOL. It can't really be how he was raised either since Hopper had a brother, Molt, who was actually a pretty friendly nice guy and didn't want to do anything bad really and at the end he was a good guy, joining P.T. Flea's circus. Anyway, this is another thing though....when I like characters that actually seem pretty evil, I don't really try to defend them much. So no one can claim that I just defend Randall because I like him....since I don't try to make excuses for some of these other characters I like, who actually are really bad. I agree. At the very least Randall could have the excuse of working under his boss. Unlike Hopper or Syndrome who were COMPLETELY in charge. Also Randall wasn't evil from the start like Hopper was, and he didn't murder people like Syndrome.... (The Scream Extractor thing is debatable, and while he did try to choke Sulley- he didn't kill him, did he? Compared to the other two, Randall is by FAR the lesser....) Compared to those two, I think Randall would have the most plausible chance of redeeming himself... Well I don't think anyone is BORN evil so I don't think Hopper was born evil....so he wasn't evil from the very start if you mean since birth....but he chose that path in life and was in charge. There weren't a lot of negative scenarios affecting his life like there were in Randall's case. |
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Post by pitbulllady on Sept 23, 2013 22:18:17 GMT -5
EVERYTHING that Randall did, including attacking Sulley, was acting on direct orders from Waternoose. As a Psychologist explained, Randall was actually in a mental/emotional flight from reality at that point, in an actual state of psychosis, induced by all the stress and pressure he'd been under. He literally did "snap", and was no more capable of making a rational choice at that point than he was capable of sprouting wings and taking flight. Sleep deprivation makes a person extremely vulnerable to suggestion, much as hypnosis does, actually. When Waternoose orders Randall to kill the witnesses, or at least dispose of them, Randall was in no mental state to even consider reasons why that would be a bad idea. He was simply reacting to what he now perceived to be a threat. MU showed that this is NOT Randall's default at all. Buddy Pine, on the other hand, displayed clear and obvious sociopath symptoms even as a kid, becoming obsessed with an idol, or rather, that image his idol projected, lacking all respect for authority, considering himself superior to everyone else, and having no regards whatsoever for his own or anyone else's safety.
pitbulllady
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Post by mintygreen on Sept 23, 2013 23:17:53 GMT -5
EVERYTHING that Randall did, including attacking Sulley, was acting on direct orders from Waternoose. As a Psychologist explained, Randall was actually in a mental/emotional flight from reality at that point, in an actual state of psychosis, induced by all the stress and pressure he'd been under. He literally did "snap", and was no more capable of making a rational choice at that point than he was capable of sprouting wings and taking flight. Sleep deprivation makes a person extremely vulnerable to suggestion, much as hypnosis does, actually. When Waternoose orders Randall to kill the witnesses, or at least dispose of them, Randall was in no mental state to even consider reasons why that would be a bad idea. He was simply reacting to what he now perceived to be a threat. MU showed that this is NOT Randall's default at all. Buddy Pine, on the other hand, displayed clear and obvious sociopath symptoms even as a kid, becoming obsessed with an idol, or rather, that image his idol projected, lacking all respect for authority, considering himself superior to everyone else, and having no regards whatsoever for his own or anyone else's safety. pitbulllady I agree. I certainly do think Randall finally snapped. The whole thing, starting with MU....is like a slow unraveling.....a slow spinning out of control. Well I don't think anyone is BORN evil so I don't think Hopper was born evil....so he wasn't evil from the very start if you mean since birth....but he chose that path in life and was in charge. There weren't a lot of negative scenarios affecting his life like there were in Randall's case. I dont mean BORN evil! XD But I mean, that there wasnt anything that could've affect Hopper to make him act like he did that probably wouldn''t have affected his brother Molt as well. Unless their mother's death had an impact on Hopper more than it did Molt, but who knows really. Thing is though is that like you said Hopper was completely in control while Randall wasn't. Yeah. It's possible that since Hopper is the older child, he might have had certain pressures placed on him that Molt didn't experience but we don't have any actual evidence of that since they never went into much background on them. It's mostly all a mystery. However, obviously where Hopper is in the movie, he still had a lot more choices to make for himself than someone like Randall. I wish we had seen a flashback of Hopper and Molt's mother. It's actually somewhat weird that we never physically saw any female grasshoppers in that movie. I'm curious about how they would have designed a female one actually, how she would have looked. |
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Post by TheOnePistol on Oct 4, 2013 19:32:57 GMT -5
We was the first antagonist to be featured in two movies by Pixar.
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