Vote for your favourite Sci-Fi Villian.
(an individual, not a race)
Nominees are:
1) Hal
2) Agent Smith
3) The Borg queen
4) Empress of the Racnoss (Dr Who)
5) Cassandra “moisturise me”
6) Ming the merciless
7) Dr. Zachary Smith
8) Emperor Palpatine
9) The Hood (Thunderbirds)
a trifle confused…
Favorite (love to hate?)
Least Favorite (flat-out detest)
or Favorite Villain
with whom you most Identify yourself
Ogmog said:
a trifle confused…Favorite (love to hate?)
Least Favorite (flat-out detest)or Favorite Villain
with whom you most Identify yourself
A & B
HAL was the least offensive
as he was merely following orders
he was ordered to lie and he did.
Agent Smith because I identify with some of his PoV:
He compares humanity to a virus; a disease organism that uncontrollably replicates
and inevitably destroys its environment, only to move on to another and repeat the process.
Ogmog said:
Ogmog said:
a trifle confused…Favorite (love to hate?)
Least Favorite (flat-out detest)or Favorite Villain
with whom you most Identify yourself
A & B
HAL was the least offensive
as he was merely following orders
he was ordered to lie and he did.Agent Smith because I identify with some of his PoV:
He compares humanity to a virus; a disease organism that uncontrollably replicates
and inevitably destroys its environment, only to move on to another and repeat the process.
amended: HAL’s inability to lie:
“While HAL’s motivations are ambiguous in the film, the novel explains that the computer is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately, and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. (This withholding is considered essential after the findings of a fictional 1989 psychological experiment, Project BARSOOM, where humans were made to believe that there had been alien contact. In every person tested, a deep-seated xenophobia was revealed, which was unknowingly replicated in HAL’s constructed personality. Mission Control did not want the crew of Discovery to have their thinking compromised by the knowledge that alien contact was already real.) With the crew dead, HAL reasons, he would not need to lie to them.
Thanos gets my vote as he killed-off literally half the population of the universe.
Spiny Norman said:
Thanos gets my vote as he killed-off literally half the population of the universe.
The Borg Queen.
Barbarella.
Can we stretch it to include other genre?
such as
Fantasy:
Sauron
or
Politicks:
The Orange Sphincter
My votes would be just about the order in the original post.
1) Hal
2) Agent Smith
3) The Borg queen
4) Empress of the Racnoss (Dr Who)
5) Cassandra “moisturise me”
6) Ming the merciless
7) Dr. Zachary Smith
8) Emperor Palpatine
9) The Hood (Thunderbirds)
Ogmog said:
a trifle confused…Favorite (love to hate?)
Least Favorite (flat-out detest)or Favorite Villain
with whom you most Identify yourself
Yes, all of those. For mollwollfumble, the ambiguity of the question is always deliberate, ans is inserted to promote discussion.
For me, favourite villian the is one who is best acted.
One nice enough enough to identify with, but not too humorous.
I see votes for Hal, Agent Smith and Borg Queen.
Did you find Thanos to be well acted? I haven’t watched Infinity War.
“Hal” is interesting. Full name Hal 9000. Everybody of my vintage knows who Hal is even though appearing in just one film way back in 1968. It’s a great Sci-Fi villain if not the best, but isn’t a name that automatically springs to mind when the word “villain” is used. Including Hal among a list of villians almost counts as overcoming the “obviousness virus” from transition. Not obvious until mentioned, but obvious in retrospect.
There are so many good villians in fields outside Sci-Fi, such as fantasy, that I had to narrow the field. But note your Sauron.
PS. Your “Orange Sphincter” pales into insignificance beside the villain that is “Hoover Hoover”, or Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Théoneste Bagosora.
Actually, when I was propted to name my 1st Apple computer
I chose to call it “HAL” to remind myself that one needed to
address it prior to initiating a command (Double Clicking)
…and True, butt He’s the sphincter du jour
duh, prompted
but I actually had to Google the rest
since I hadn’t been into sci-fi since I walked from
Clarke to Asimov to Vonnegutt with all the “DUNE” books
sandwiched somewhere between before jumping into sword & sorcery
Is this Sci-Fi or Fantasy, Sci-Fantasy or simply fabulous villians?
mollwollfumble said:
My votes would be just about the order in the original post.
PS. Your “Orange Sphincter” pales into insignificance beside the villain that is “Hoover Hoover”, or Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Théoneste Bagosora.
check out the link Above DDump’s image
and you’ll see what put that burr under my saddle;Rachel Maddow has a real genius for ferreting out hidden facts.
Ogmog said:
mollwollfumble said:
My votes would be just about the order in the original post.
PS. Your “Orange Sphincter” pales into insignificance beside the villain that is “Hoover Hoover”, or Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Théoneste Bagosora.
check out the link Above DDump’s image
and you’ll see what put that burr under my saddle;Rachel Maddow has a real genius for ferreting out hidden facts.
Most of us want to forget that Trump ever existed. We already know more about him than TMI allows?
roughbarked said:
Is this Sci-Fi or Fantasy, Sci-Fantasy or simply fabulous villians?
Oh, if you want fabulous villains, it’s difficult to go past Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart in the UK (original) House of Cards.
mollwollfumble said:
Rachel Maddow has a real genius for ferreting out hidden facts.
There was once a Washington journalist named Isidor Stone (I.F. Stone, died 1989) who was feared by politicians of all stripes.
He was a rather dumpy Jewish man who wore spectacles, but they could hide nothing from him, and he would ask questions that made them squirm and sweat.
His secret was to read all of the documents, every page of them, and extract the things that the authors thought were safely buried in the mountain of words. It’s all right there in the documents.
“I sought in political reporting what Galsworthy in another context had called “the significant trifle” — the bit of dialogue, the overlooked fact, the buried observation which illuminated the realities of the situation.“ — I. F. Stone
I expect that Rachel Maddow and/or her researchers do much the same.
Andrew Wakefield.
buffy said:
roughbarked said:
Is this Sci-Fi or Fantasy, Sci-Fantasy or simply fabulous villians?
Oh, if you want fabulous villains, it’s difficult to go past Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart in the UK (original) House of Cards.
✅
captain_spalding said:
mollwollfumble said:
Rachel Maddow has a real genius for ferreting out hidden facts.
There was once a Washington journalist named Isidor Stone (I.F. Stone, died 1989) who was feared by politicians of all stripes.
He was a rather dumpy Jewish man who wore spectacles, but they could hide nothing from him, and he would ask questions that made them squirm and sweat.
His secret was to read all of the documents, every page of them, and extract the things that the authors thought were safely buried in the mountain of words. It’s all right there in the documents.
“I sought in political reporting what Galsworthy in another context had called “the significant trifle” — the bit of dialogue, the overlooked fact, the buried observation which illuminated the realities of the situation.“ — I. F. Stone
I expect that Rachel Maddow and/or her researchers do much the same.
duh,
scholar
Ogmog said:
captain_spalding said:mollwollfumble said:
Rachel Maddow has a real genius for ferreting out hidden facts.
There was once a Washington journalist named Isidor Stone (I.F. Stone, died 1989) who was feared by politicians of all stripes.
He was a rather dumpy Jewish man who wore spectacles, but they could hide nothing from him, and he would ask questions that made them squirm and sweat.
His secret was to read all of the documents, every page of them, and extract the things that the authors thought were safely buried in the mountain of words. It’s all right there in the documents.
“I sought in political reporting what Galsworthy in another context had called “the significant trifle” — the bit of dialogue, the overlooked fact, the buried observation which illuminated the realities of the situation.“ — I. F. Stone
I expect that Rachel Maddow and/or her researchers do much the same.
…and Rachel Maddow
is a gawky Jewish lesbian Oxford Schooled Rhodes School
…but who’s counting?
Quite possibly she’s an I.F Stone fan, too.
Just seen the OP, I didn’t realise we had a list.
The only ones I know are HAL and Zachary Smith, and since HAL is not a lot of fun, Zack gets my vote.
I LOVE Gary Oldman! :D
also the best Dracula EVER!
buffy said:
roughbarked said:
Is this Sci-Fi or Fantasy, Sci-Fantasy or simply fabulous villians?
Oh, if you want fabulous villains, it’s difficult to go past Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart in the UK (original) House of Cards.
Don’t know it. Any more info?
I’m glad, and pleasantly surprised that nobody called me out for listing the best Dr Who villains as
Empress of the Racnoss, and Cassandra “moisutise me”
rather than
Davros, and the Master
we wouldn’t call them our favourite but surely the Corruption Coalition have done a good job of being villains that made SCIENCE out like fiction
SCIENCE said:
we wouldn’t call them our favourite but surely the Corruption Coalition have done a good job of being villains that made SCIENCE out like fiction
nah. I disagree.
party_pants said:
SCIENCE said:
we wouldn’t call them our favourite but surely the Corruption Coalition have done a good job of being villains that made SCIENCE out like fiction
nah. I disagree.
we could be convinced to favorite[sic] them
furious said:
Cute, isn’t he.
> House of Cards is a 1990 British political thriller television serial in four episodes, set after the end of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was televised by the BBC from 18 November to 9 December 1990, to critical and popular acclaim. The story tells the manipulative and sudden rise to power of the machiavellian Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, Francis Urquhart. Urquhart, on the party’s classical extreme right, is frustrated over his lack of promotion in the wake of Thatcher’s resignation and the moderate government that succeeds it. Thus, he plots a extremely calculated and meticulous plan to bring down the Prime Minister and replace him, in vein of Shakespeare’s Richard III (which he often quotes). During this drawn-out, ruthless coup, his life is complicated by his relationship with young female reporter Mattie Storin, whom he uses to leak sensitive information in confidence. The question of whether the serial’s ending is a tragedy (in vein of plays such as Macbeth) is left to the viewer. Andrew Davies adapted the story from the 1989 novel of the same name by Michael Dobbs, a former chief of staff at Conservative Party headquarters.
So, a much more realistic than the American adaption, then.
He sounds to be a stronger villain than Sir Humphrey Appleby, who is two humorous to be a favourite.
mollwollfumble said:
furious said:
Cute, isn’t he.
> House of Cards is a 1990 British political thriller television serial in four episodes, set after the end of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was televised by the BBC from 18 November to 9 December 1990, to critical and popular acclaim. The story tells the manipulative and sudden rise to power of the machiavellian Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, Francis Urquhart. Urquhart, on the party’s classical extreme right, is frustrated over his lack of promotion in the wake of Thatcher’s resignation and the moderate government that succeeds it. Thus, he plots a extremely calculated and meticulous plan to bring down the Prime Minister and replace him, in vein of Shakespeare’s Richard III (which he often quotes). During this drawn-out, ruthless coup, his life is complicated by his relationship with young female reporter Mattie Storin, whom he uses to leak sensitive information in confidence. The question of whether the serial’s ending is a tragedy (in vein of plays such as Macbeth) is left to the viewer. Andrew Davies adapted the story from the 1989 novel of the same name by Michael Dobbs, a former chief of staff at Conservative Party headquarters.
So, a much more realistic than the American adaption, then.
He sounds to be a stronger villain than Sir Humphrey Appleby, who is two humorous to be a favourite.
Francis Urquhart is deeply evil. And Ian Richardson portrays the part brilliantly.
buffy said:
mollwollfumble said:
furious said:
Cute, isn’t he.
> House of Cards is a 1990 British political thriller television serial in four episodes, set after the end of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was televised by the BBC from 18 November to 9 December 1990, to critical and popular acclaim. The story tells the manipulative and sudden rise to power of the machiavellian Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, Francis Urquhart. Urquhart, on the party’s classical extreme right, is frustrated over his lack of promotion in the wake of Thatcher’s resignation and the moderate government that succeeds it. Thus, he plots a extremely calculated and meticulous plan to bring down the Prime Minister and replace him, in vein of Shakespeare’s Richard III (which he often quotes). During this drawn-out, ruthless coup, his life is complicated by his relationship with young female reporter Mattie Storin, whom he uses to leak sensitive information in confidence. The question of whether the serial’s ending is a tragedy (in vein of plays such as Macbeth) is left to the viewer. Andrew Davies adapted the story from the 1989 novel of the same name by Michael Dobbs, a former chief of staff at Conservative Party headquarters.
So, a much more realistic than the American adaption, then.
He sounds to be a stronger villain than Sir Humphrey Appleby, who is two humorous to be a favourite.
Francis Urquhart is deeply evil. And Ian Richardson portrays the part brilliantly.
See if this link works.
https://youtu.be/hQPkvKhU4tA
buffy said:
mollwollfumble said:
furious said:
Cute, isn’t he.
> House of Cards is a 1990 British political thriller television serial in four episodes, set after the end of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was televised by the BBC from 18 November to 9 December 1990, to critical and popular acclaim. The story tells the manipulative and sudden rise to power of the machiavellian Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, Francis Urquhart. Urquhart, on the party’s classical extreme right, is frustrated over his lack of promotion in the wake of Thatcher’s resignation and the moderate government that succeeds it. Thus, he plots a extremely calculated and meticulous plan to bring down the Prime Minister and replace him, in vein of Shakespeare’s Richard III (which he often quotes). During this drawn-out, ruthless coup, his life is complicated by his relationship with young female reporter Mattie Storin, whom he uses to leak sensitive information in confidence. The question of whether the serial’s ending is a tragedy (in vein of plays such as Macbeth) is left to the viewer. Andrew Davies adapted the story from the 1989 novel of the same name by Michael Dobbs, a former chief of staff at Conservative Party headquarters.
So, a much more realistic than the American adaption, then.
He sounds to be a stronger villain than Sir Humphrey Appleby, who is two humorous to be a favourite.
Francis Urquhart is deeply evil. And Ian Richardson portrays the part brilliantly.
Woodie said:
buffy said:
mollwollfumble said:Cute, isn’t he.
> House of Cards is a 1990 British political thriller television serial in four episodes, set after the end of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was televised by the BBC from 18 November to 9 December 1990, to critical and popular acclaim. The story tells the manipulative and sudden rise to power of the machiavellian Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, Francis Urquhart. Urquhart, on the party’s classical extreme right, is frustrated over his lack of promotion in the wake of Thatcher’s resignation and the moderate government that succeeds it. Thus, he plots a extremely calculated and meticulous plan to bring down the Prime Minister and replace him, in vein of Shakespeare’s Richard III (which he often quotes). During this drawn-out, ruthless coup, his life is complicated by his relationship with young female reporter Mattie Storin, whom he uses to leak sensitive information in confidence. The question of whether the serial’s ending is a tragedy (in vein of plays such as Macbeth) is left to the viewer. Andrew Davies adapted the story from the 1989 novel of the same name by Michael Dobbs, a former chief of staff at Conservative Party headquarters.
So, a much more realistic than the American adaption, then.
He sounds to be a stronger villain than Sir Humphrey Appleby, who is two humorous to be a favourite.
Francis Urquhart is deeply evil. And Ian Richardson portrays the part brilliantly.
You may very well think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.
Exactly – it’s gone into our family vernacular.
And here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJFiByfiRTA
buffy said:
Woodie said:
buffy said:Francis Urquhart is deeply evil. And Ian Richardson portrays the part brilliantly.
You may very well think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.Exactly – it’s gone into our family vernacular.
And here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJFiByfiRTA
Who is that girl? is she Bob from one of the Blackadder episodes?
Peak Warming Man said:
buffy said:
Woodie said:You may very well think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.
Exactly – it’s gone into our family vernacular.
And here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJFiByfiRTA
Who is that girl? is she Bob from one of the Blackadder episodes?
Susannah Harker. I know her also from the BBC Pride and Prejudice where she played Jane.
You might like also to see the pure evil in “Call me Daddy” from House of Cards. You don’t get the full context from this very short clip, but Francis is telling Mattie (Susannah Harker) to call him daddy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz76_ZwF96E
buffy said:
Peak Warming Man said:
buffy said:Exactly – it’s gone into our family vernacular.
And here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJFiByfiRTA
Who is that girl? is she Bob from one of the Blackadder episodes?
Susannah Harker. I know her also from the BBC Pride and Prejudice where she played Jane.
You might like also to see the pure evil in “Call me Daddy” from House of Cards. You don’t get the full context from this very short clip, but Francis is telling Mattie (Susannah Harker) to call him daddy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz76_ZwF96E
Ta, looks like she was never out of work.
