Analyzing the Surprise Disney Villains (spoilers)

So last journal I asked which of the Disney Revival villains had the best surprise twist to their villainy. I liked your comments and so it’s now time to analyze and see which is objectively the best and an extra look at a villain that I honestly think started this trend and how it actually make sense both from a production standpoint and how it works in the movie. Just so I can make it easier for me to process my thoughts I’m organize the analysis by the surprise and set up, the character themselves, and how it affect the plot as a whole.

Now let’s look at the one who started it all (in the Disney Animated Canon) King Candy/ Turbo from Wreck It Ralph


Comments from people:

- I’d say King Candy since it wasn't inherently obvious but it was still nicely foreshadowed. Plus, it was before we started expecting a surprise villain twist in every Disney movie.

Surprise: At the end of the movie, during the race in the game, Sugar Rush, King Candy has been trying everything in his power to make sure Vanellope van Schweetz doesn't race snaps once he notices that they’re both in the lead. He takes a short cut, crashing his cart onto hers and tries to stop her personally by trying to hit her with his cane. When Vanellope fights back by pulling on the cane she starts glitching which effects King Candy as well until revealing himself to be Turbo.



The surprise isn’t necessarily that he’s revealed to be a villain, but that he was a character that had an effect on the arcade who was presumed to be dead. “Turbo" in the video game world is negative slang for “game jumping” or a character abandoning his or her game. Turbo and his story was infamous enough in the arcade to become a term with specific, connotations of letting the game suffer in order to gain attention.

Characterization: Out of all the villain I have on here King Candy is one with the most personality. He’s wacky, silly, and quite a ham thanks to the voice talent of Alan Tudyk, however it’s mainly a mask to residents of Sugar Rush as with him being shown to ruthless and cunning when it comes to Wreck It Ralph, Vanellope, and others who threaten his ego and power. Speaking of which, his ego was the main driving force in his villainy, with abandoning Turbo Time and taking over another racing game that became popular. Obviously at the time, Turbo didn’t think about what could happen and just jumped first to get back in the spotlight.



Anyways, while taking over a game didn’t work for Turbo the first time, he clearly got smarter by learning to hack the system and making himself a character to fit in with Sugar Rush and wiping out the memories of the populace. This is where one of the more interesting aspects to King Candy comes in how he won. Here’s the thing, he’s clearly thinking about his ego and how he only wanted to be the beloved winner of a racing game. Racing games are his specialty and he has no interest in the other parts of arcade as long as he is the most popular and successful racer in his game. He won, he didn’t want any other power than the one he had with the game. He already won and was happy with his life and that as long as Vanellope didn’t race his position of power and secrets were safe. For the record, Sugar Rush was install in the arcade in 1997 and the movie takes place in 2012. Turbo/King Candy had been doing that for fifteen years.

Additionally, because he wiped the original memories of Sugar Rush and became the king it seems like he enforce isolation. None of the Sugar Rush racers recognized Ralph and he’s one of the oldest residents of the arcade. King Candy was the one to actually say Ralph's name when the donut police got his head unfrosted. Most likely, none of the characters in Sugar Rush had ever left their game or even interacted with other characters when King Candy took over. They aren’t stuck in the game like Vanellope was, they were most likely conditioned to just stay in the game and look down on outsiders of their game.

Being a manipulator is also something King Candy had to grow into from using the Sugar Rush racers to blackmailing Ralph. In the case of the latter, he tried a bribe with Ralph at first with a metal in exchange for keep Vanellope from racing. When that didn’t work and saw that Ralph legitimately cared for Vanellope, King Candy used those feelings with hints of truth that honestly was probably risky with the whole “if she wins the race she’ll be added to the roster” and "not being able to leave the game”. By mentioning the false scenario of how the game will be destroy and her left behind if he was able to convince Ralph. Candy played up how it wasn’t just Vanellope racing, but the lives of many around like many characters going homeless if the game shuts down and how she’d be left to die with game, he acts like he cares about her and that doing this is just as hard for him as it is for Ralph.

Once Candy notices Vanellope racing he drops his act and starts attacking her head on. He reached his breaking point and when Vanellope reveals his true form he comes out as Turbo saying he’s the greatest racer, once more his motive being about his egotistical personality. He doesn’t even care anymore that his cover is blown and at this point wanted Vanellope dead.

When King Candy is eaten by a Cy-bug his desire to be the best racer no longer mattered to him as much a basking in being a leading parasite. He even called himself a virus meaning he was just going to attack and destroy other games in the arcade, but with more awareness than other Cy-bugs which is actually worse. Cy-bugs aren’t sapient creatures according to Calhoun and are parasites whose instinct are to eat, kill, and multiply. King Candy is sapient, he can think and reason and wants to kill because he can. Killing wasn’t just an inconvenience to him anymore, he wanted to kill Ralph, he wanted to watch Vanellope, Felix, and Calhoun die.

Interestingly enough when Felix is talking about Turbo’s backstory he seems to imply that none of the characters from either games made it out of there, including Turbo himself. Now when watching Wreck It Ralph again, characters with their games being taken out of order are left homeless in Game Central Station. The characters from Turbo Time or Road Blasters were not seen or mentioned to have left the game meaning that Turbo left them to die. Turbo had no regard for others even then, so it’s not like it was something he develop while being King Candy.

How it Affects the Plot: This was probably the most well done in many respects with foreshadowing of Turbo and the fact that the audience knew he was a villain from the beginning instead of making him out to be a nice guy and then sudden evil. He was a good foil to Ralph and Vanellope and his descent into how far he’s gone is believable. 

9/10






Comments from people:

- Hans did say that he was the 13th in line for the throne. By the time he does reach the throne in his own kingdom, he'd be old and possibly die, so he had to marry into the throne somewhere else. We don't see his evil intentions when he flirts with Anna, but we look closely and see that he's mirroring her emotions and was playing with her optimistic/naive personality in order to woo her. The song "Love is an Open Door" actually gave a lot of hints for his villainous reveal(e.g-"I've been searching my whole life to find my own place", "We finish each other's-sandwiches-that's what I was gonna say") visually/lyrically to show that all of this was according to his plan. He also uses his 'mirror' to interact with Elsa and the Duke and copy their emotions. When he was giving the stuff to the people, he uses the people's trust to give him power to the throne after Anna left. It's like people use bribery to get other people to vote for them like in a class presidency or something. He knew that Elsa would run away and Anna would go after her and thus his revelation when they're alone made sense. Once both sisters were off, he'd get the throne. Like Anna mentions, he has a frozen heart.

- While Hans to me was predictable. I saw it coming a mile a way. I liked the way they did him. You expect him to be this perfect typical Disney deuroantagonist who falls madly in love with the hero right away. You think he's going to be yet another stereotypical prince. They hid him so well with the 'love song' being the villain song. And then came the reveal, I knew it was still coming - but even I was shocked that Hans could be that cold.

Surprise: Anna has accidentally been cursed by Elsa and is slowly dying as a result with her heart freezing her from the inside out. The cure to the frozen is heart is an act of true love. Anna and friends assume it’s romantic love and the ride back to Arendelle castle to get Hans to kiss her. Hans at this point in the movie was Anna’s loving fiancé and someone she thought she loved and whom reciprocated since he proposed.

Anna and Hans are alone in a room, with both about to kiss each other Hans stops as he reveals that he never loved Anna and was only planning on using either her or Elsa to become king. He leaves a depressed and heartbroken Anna, the fire keeping her alive out and locking the door.



Characterization: Hans is one of the more controversial things regarding Frozen and officially set a trend for the Disney Villain Surprise in the following films. Specifically the character who was nice, kind, and very likable in cases, but later turns out to be evil or blinded by hate. However, while we know what he represents as a trend who is he as a character?

When the audience first meets Hans he’s basically the typically good guy, princely type. He’s nice and polite, if a little on the bland side. He’s made out to be a charming romantic with adorkable qualities that work well with Anna. Even defending Anna and Elsa, when the Duke of Weselton is putting them down like when he claimed Elsa tried to kill him and Hans pointing out that the guy just slipped on ice.

When Anna leaves Hans in charge of Arendelle he’s being a pretty good leader with giving food, shelter, and warmth to the villagers of the kingdom via access to the castle. When Anna’s horse came back, obviously scared and freaking out the first thing Hans does is calm it down like a horse owner should and afterwards decides to lead to go rescue both Anna and Elsa, ordering specifically that no harm came to Elsa. Even when Elsa was attack him and a few others Hans talks her down, stopping her from killing Weselton’s guards and pushes a crossbow aimed at her out of the way.

Granted the action of pushing the crossbow in another direction, specifically to the giant chandelier above Elsa could be interpreted as Hans trying to off her while making it look like he was trying to protect her.

This is where Hans' actions and characterization becomes muddled and argumentative.

People have defended that Hans’ villainy was built up and foreshadowed well upon re-watches while other say they still don’t see and that how he behaves in the movie contradicts his sudden turn. For the sake of being fair to both sides let’s list the things people have said for an against in regards to his action.

First some videos that look into Hans’ twist as something that does or does make sense:





Both have compelling reasons for his characterization as a villain being at odds with previous characterizations. However, let’s try and look into Hans’ character using Dr. Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist:

1. GLIB and SUPERFICIAL CHARM — He’s got that down perfectly with fooling the characters and audience that he is a nice, charming guy. 
2. GRANDIOSE SELF-WORTH — When he’s alone with Anna and revealing himself to only be using her, he does brag at how easy it was to fool her and that of course people will think he’s a hero by killing Elsa.
3. NEED FOR STIMULATION or PRONENESS TO BOREDOM — While we spend a lot of time with him in the movie and while he does a lot of things in a span of two days it never felt as though he was bored. Trying to keep a kingdom under control takes a lot of patience and if he was bored he could’ve executed Duke Weselton for his out burst. Overall, psychopaths get bored easily and often CAN’T perform a job to it’s completion, "Psychopaths often have low self-discipline in carrying tasks through to completion because they get bored easily. They fail to work at the same job for any length of time, for example, or to finish tasks that they consider dull or routine.” If Hans’ plan of being king succeeded he’d probably wouldn’t do well with actual royal commitments in regards to caring for a kingdom of people. Hans wants the royal commitments, he wants the responsibility.
4. PATHOLOGICAL LYING — Yeah, he does that in spades. Such as where as soon as he leaves Anna he immediately plays on the tragic prince whose true love died in his arms as they wed and whose death was the result of the snow queen.
5. CONNING AND MANIPULATIVENESS — Again, this works in Hans’ case.
6. LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT — When Anna was unfrozen Hans seemed more confused than anything and he had no problem telling Anna that he never loved her. So, point for that.
7. SHALLOW AFFECT — This is actually kind of hard to say for Hans as this trait is described as "a limited range or depth of feelings; interpersonal coldness in spite of signs of open gregariousness.” He definitely knows what emotions to fake like happiness, love, and sadness, but I get the feeling he was genuinely angry at Duke Weselton, not for doubt Anna, but doubting Hans’ authority. Psychopaths, in general, CANNOT feel. They clinically cannot feel emotions and surprise not all psychopaths are murderers or abusers. Psychopathy is a psychological diagnosis and they can be normal functioning members of society, they just can’t give a damn. In other words, Hans does feel emotion.
8. CALLOUSNESS and LACK OF EMPATHY — I could arguably say yeah, but that’s only if Hans is alone or if someone was challenging his authority.
9. PARASITIC LIFESTYLE — Considering Hans is a prince who seems to be living well if we look at his clothes, how he acts in public, is a representative for the Southern Isles and is sent off and tries to woo princesses in order to gain a position of absolute power despite his prince status. I think it’s possible that he could be seen as living parasitically. Hans didn’t object when Anna suggests that his brothers live with her and Elsa in their castle. 
10. POOR BEHAVIORAL CONTROLS — Honestly, no. Hans has very good manners and control of his behavior all things considered.
11. PROMISCUOUS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR — This one is kind of hard because the description of this trait is different from the one below about short-term marital relations as the former as mostly just having a lot of affairs and "a history of attempts to sexually coerce others into sexual activity or taking great pride at discussing sexual exploits or conquests.” Obviously Disney can not show or reference sexual activity or abuse of a character. So... yeah I’m going to take this as no.
12. EARLY BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS — Since Hans is a pathological liar he could’ve been lying about what his home life was. As a fact, he does have thirteen older brothers, yet we don’t know if they really ignored him or bullied. Or if they did ignore Hans, was it out of defense? Overall, we don’t know how he acted before age thirteen so I’m putting this trait under no.
13. LACK OF REALISTIC, LONG-TERM GOALS — Oh Hans has the goal of becoming king and he’s taking reasonable measures in easing his way into that idea to the citizens and fellow diplomats of Arendelle. Hans knows that he won’t become king in his own kingdom, but he from probably what his brothers do in terms of forming relations with the common people. So this trait, no because being a ruler IS a long term goal that one has be aware of.
14. IMPULSIVITY — Yeah no. The definition for this trait is “behaviors that are unpremeditated and lack reflection or planning” there was planning on Hans’ part, even if it was written in a way that could be argued against, but I never felt he did things in the spur of the moment unless it was just something where he needed to act quick like when pushing the crossbow to the chandelier.
15. IRRESPONSIBILITY — Even if Hans is faking his personality he still was pretty responsible for Arendelle while the two princesses are away so, yeah he fails this trait as well. Maybe he could be an irresponsible king if his plan succeeded, but since we don’t know what he could’ve done or if his altruistic behavior to the Arendelleans was just a ruse it’s kind of hard to say.
16. FAILURE TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN ACTIONS — Not really this either. Hans was punched off a boat and was sent back to the Southern Isles for his brothers to punish him before the viewer could really get a reaction of how he handled being revealed as a liar, manipulator, and attempted regicide.
17. MANY SHORT-TERM MARITAL RELATIONSHIPS — Okay technically Hans didn’t marry anyone but the main point of this trait is lack of commitment in romantic relationships. Hans said that he was originally going to woo Elsa but since nobody was getting through to her he instead found an easier target in Anna. The fact that he was planning on using one woman and then moved to another woman with the same intention of exploiting her emotion and using her position power.
18. JUVENILE DELINQUENCY — Again, we don’t know what Hans did or might have acted like between ages 13-18 and as such I can’t mark him for this trait. Especially since if he had any sort of criminal activity or mean-spirited reputation in his home land than there’s no way his family would send him as a representative of their kingdom.
19. REVOCATION OF CONDITION RELEASE — We don’t know what went on for Hans when he got back to the Southern Isles, but if we do take Frozen Fever into account than he was punished and is doing his job of shoveling manure. Granted we also don’t know if Hans was basically let off easy or he tried to make it seem like it wasn’t his fault or what he did wasn’t all bad. Once more, I can mark this as a trait for him because we don’t know what he did within the court of his royal family.
20. CRIMINAL VERSATILITY — Attempted murder and regicide, ruling under false pretenses, treason, endangerment of people when Hans and a few guys went to go get Elsa. I think technically they kidnapped Elsa, but it was a group thing on bring her back and at the time they didn’t know she possibly hurt Anna so she could’ve be let go if she stopped the winter.

9/20 making the overall score a 18 out of 40.

The maximum score for psychopaths in a 40 while someone who doesn’t have any psychopathic traits score a 0. A score of 30 or above qualifies a person as being diagnosed psychopathy. Non-psychopathic criminals score around 22.

In short, Hans technically isn’t a psychopath. He’s not a good person but it’s easy to see with how confused the traits get that people are not sure if he’s a villain or not.

However, I like to make this clear I can understand both saying whether his twist was good or not or if he himself is a good villain or not I think overall Hans is interesting an interesting character in the grand scheme of things.

How it Affects the Plot: The reason why this controversial along with how it may or may not work depends on how you viewed the film up to that point and as a whole. Frozen does have flaws, yes. It is overrate and overplayed, but I and many others still consider it a good movie. However, even diehard Frozen fans have debated about Hans’ villain status and whether it makes sense.

I think everyone can agree that the directors and writers could’ve done better or built Hans up as a villain more. A lot of the blame does fall on them as even late in the production, as in within the Frozen’s year of release, the crew was having a lot of last minute things for the movie. The documentary on Frozen revealed that the song sequence “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” was very last minute in whether they were keeping the ALREADY FULLY ANIMATED SCENE in the movie. If you look back at some old clips such as Anna and Kristoff running from Marshmallow and jumping off the cliff, Kristoff was shown tying the rope around Anna and Anna was actually nervous to jump, as oppose to in final film where she completely ready and jumps before Kristoff can say even say “three”. As well the whole “that’s no blizzard, that’s my sister” line Anna said that was never used in the final film.

What I’m getting at is Hans being a villain was most likely one of these last minute (or within the last year of production) changes and as a result does have that feeling of a sudden turn around. As such, when the reveal happens it kind of does distract the plot. The plot doesn’t stop in it’s tracks but it does make the viewer try to think back to Hans’ actions and whether it justifies the his villain status.

Personally Hans’ reveal doesn’t ruin the movie for me, but that might be because I already like the movie and still do like it despite it’s flaws.

6/10










Comments from people:

- While Yokai was more of a tragic case, it's also explained on why he did. He loathed Alister Krei because of what he thought he did to his daughter who went into the portal. Using a facade, he had to think of someway to reinvent himself in order to avenge his daughter such as setting the fire and Hiro's microbots were a perfect defense mechanism and weapon to fake his own death. Once Hiro and his friends figured it out, Yokai was clearly near going to the brink of murdering a child and Krei for revenge had not Hiro showed him that it was wrong to do so and that his daughter was alive, but unconscious. Thus making him, regretful of his actions, caught and arrested. 

- Callaghan - There were three possible choices Yokai could've been. Krei, who had a good reason to take the nanobots, Tadashi - Callaghan killed him, Callaghan - Callaghan's daughter because of Krei's greed. He only did it for his daughter. Out of all the twists we've had lately. He is one of the only people who had redeeming qualities in him at the end of the movie. (did not say Moana because of obvious reason)

Surprise: In the third act of Big Hero 6, the titular team is out to find Yokai, a man who stole Hiro Hamada’s microbots and caused the death of Tadashi Hamada. When they finally find Yokai they try to get his mask off with very little success. When it does come off accidentally Hiro and his friends find that the man they thought stole the microbots wasn’t business man Alister Krei, but their teacher, Professor Robert Callaghan.

The team is shocked by this revelation while Callaghan is ordering Hiro to give him back his mask. Hiro questions how Callaghan survived and why Tadashi didn’t make it Callaghan, in frustration, refers to Tadashi’s attempt at heroism as a mistake. Hiro orders his robot, Baymax, to kill Callaghan. After much evading of Baymax and the intervention of his former students Callaghan grabs the mask and gets away with the microbots and other things in tow.



Characterization: I’m going to be honest here, out of all of the Surprise Disney Villains on here I think Callaghan is the most boring in terms of characterization. This might be due to people having already caught up with the pattern with the previous two but I feel that Callaghan is kind of a dull case of a Tragic Villain. The type of villain who becomes evil because he lost a love one due to someone else’s mistakes. However, his shift to villainy was pretty freaking rushed in all honesty.

Let’s start with from the beginning of the film, Callaghan was a professor at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology and a well-respected scientist with Hiro being starstruck by meeting someone who innovated robotics and how Tadashi cared about him enough to risk his life to rescue the man seemingly trapped in a burning building. Vice versa Callaghan also had a lot of respect and care towards his students and an overall humble guy.

This is what kind of bothers me about Callaghan's turn. Prior to the events of the movie, Callaghan lost his daughter to an experiment gone wrong by Krei Tech, he was furious and traumatized thinking he lost his daughter to Krei which is understandable, but there wasn’t much he could do it seemed like. So years later, despite what happened Callaghan moved on and worked at the school and in some ways was seen as a father figure to his students.

Yet the second that Hiro had shown what his microbots could do and how they could benefit him in the short term, he basically throws his life away.

Callaghan had faked his death, committed arson on a college property, not to mention there people who were still inside, and attempted to kill his students and accidentally killed one of them! He didn’t even feel bad that Tadashi died and called was guy’s attempt at help a mistake. Callaghan an a hour ago in the movie had respect for Tadashi and helped encourage Hiro to join the school! Honestly, Callaghan feels like two different characters. Was any sort of care and respect he had for his students just fake? I can’t say he’s a psychopath because he did this for the love of his daughter.

Additionally, what was Callaghan going to do after destroying Krei’s business and Krei’s life? The others I can at least see having “what happens after” in there plans.

King Candy/Turbo- Destroy Vanellope, keep her away, be the best racer still, take over the entire arcade, etc.
Hans- Become king of Arendelle.
Callaghan- ?????? turning himself in? Suicide?

Callaghan has no endgame if he succeeded! Yet in a weird way, he did kind of win since he did destroy Krei’s recently opened building, just not kill Krei. The destruction of that building probably did put a damp in his finances, and overall pretty big loss.

How it Affects the Plot: Not really much. The problem is more on the character rather than how the movie is written as movie is about Hiro and how he comes to terms with his grief and his brother’s death. Callaghan was a cause, while Yokai was the obstacle. The team was form to help Hiro and find out what Yokai was doing with Hiro's microbots. Additionally, how Callaghan acted was to represent who Hiro might’ve become if others weren’t there to help him through his emotions. Hiro, like Callaghan would've seeked vengeance rather than solace.

The surprise villain was the focus as much as Hiro’s emotional journey and the formation and action of the team.

6/10





- Bellwether's villainy was due to racism and that is caused by one person's view of one person that can lead to their view on other people in that specific area/group. It is possible that like Judy, Bellwether had big dreams and wanted to work among other animals, but due to being bullied by predators specifically their bosses who are nothing but jackasses even though they make a point(e.g. Mayor Lionheart) thus it stemmed in her brain that all predators are bad no matter if they're good or not. So, her villainy was hinted throughout(especially in the office scene), but she puts off a facade which is later set to be revealed by the climax. When we figure this out by the finale, we could understand why she was bad soon afterwards and thus it's understandable on why she was evil in the first place. It's the same thing like how it is in every buddy-comedy/cop movie in how the villain is one right under the cop and the buddy's noses the entire time until the end. 

- I'm going to say this but out of all the Disney Villain surprises, I think, in my personal opinion Bellwether is my favorite of the villains. [...]What made Bellwether really stand out to me is that it showed a different sign of racism that ANYONE could be racist so I like that. I like that they gave that deconstruction of a typical racist villain which is a good thing since I've been seeing a lot of reverse discrimination lately even/especially in the wake of the Elections and Trump being elected, with white people being seen as 'evil', and in some extreme cases, people refusing to help a man escape an abusive relationship or justifying a woman being abusive.

- Bellwether was the best representation of a racist person Disney had made aside from Frollo. She wasn't an evil laughing maniac. Her reasonings were believable. And I clearly didn't see it coming. Plus she fits in well with what's happening this year and last year...

Surprise: In the climax of Zootopia, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde have found the cause for predators becoming savage and more animal-like with their attacking behaviors- Night howler plants being chemically altered into a serum that would be targeted and shot at an animal making them “go savage”. In Judy and Nick’s efforts to escape from the ram creators of serum they also kind of destroyed most of the evidence. Most being that Nick saved at least one pretty crucial piece of evidence, a briefcase containing some already made serum pellet and a dart gun.

Judy and Nick start to take a short cut through a museum but are briefly confronted by Mayor Dawn Bellwether. Asking for the evidence and saying how proud she is of Judy, she suspiciously questions how Bellwether found her and Nick so quickly. At that moment, Judy and Nick piece together that what’s going on right now with Bellwether isn’t very good and that they need to get out of there.

Bellwether and her rams minions give chase to Judy and Nick as she reveals to them that she’s trying to turn predators and prey against each other in order to gain power via fear mongering and use the predators as scapegoats for the problems in the city. 



Characterization: In terms of the whole “nice character turning out to be evil” pattern that Disney had churned out from the previous two villains, Hans and Callaghan, I think Bellwether pulls it the best.

Bellwether is a sheep and in the world of Zootopia she is stereotyped as being meek, quiet, a follower rather than a leader, and overall harmless. Obvious she’s not exactly those things in regards to her nice side and her darker side. Bellwether is the Assistant Mayor of Zootopia, a position of power that to most citizens is influential, second only to that of Mayor Lionheart but she admits that the Assistant Mayor title is mainly her being a glorified secretary. She even states that she was made assistant mayor because Lionheart wanted to get the sheep vote. In other words, she was used for good publicity of how openminded Lionheart is with mammal inclusion program. This makes her out to be easily sympathetic and understandably bitter with how she’s treated by Lionheart those in town hall.

It’s this underlying bitterness and crappy treatment that gives Bellwether a reason to relate to and genuinely like Judy. For most of the movie Bellwether is shown to very nice and polite to Judy who understands in someways what she’s going through, with both even referring to each other as friends. Bellwether was also the one to help Judy keep her job at the police station by having her be assigned to finding Emmet Otterton and letting Judy use Bellwether's access to traffic cams all over the city. Her helpfulness to Judy’s case without question or objection makes her likable.

I think it should also be noted that people with prejudice or are assholes in general aren’t all stupid in the ways of society. It’s not so much to defend them as much as point out that in this day and age and in public most people know how to behave because they know what response they’ll get from the masses. A person at park while walking your dog can be a raging racist at home but knows that doing so in public will get them side-eyed and more often than not thrown out like the ilk they are. The bystander effect will be present, but most decent people will avoid them like the plague. Bellwether is that, she keeps her prejudice to herself only showing it to others who have similar beliefs.

Unlike Hans whose evilness can be seen as coming out of left field, Bellwether really did feel like she was planned and foreshadowed properly when she made her turn with certain clues such as having the phone number of one of her henchmen rams, Doug, in her office and that her henchmen are in the sheep family, a species who relates to her and her cause and of course the motive and bitterness.

When Bellwether’s more evil side is revealed she's rather sadistic and ruthless. She was excited when she shot Nick with what she thought were the Night Howlers and how he was going kill Judy. It’s with absolute glee and confidence that Bellwether calls the Zootopia Police Department about Judy being attacked and how headlines will show of her being fatally injured. It really feels like she is insane, she is someone who wants nothing to stand in her way and takes sick glee the torture of those who oppose her.

How it Affects the Plot: The message of the movie of the movie is the everyone is prejudiced, no one is complete immune to it and it’s what someone does that defines them. All the characters in Zootopia are prejudiced in one way and they make choices on what they’re willing to overcome or give in to their stereotype. Judy followed Nick into the ice cream out of suspicion despite him not really doing anything, she talks down to Nick after the buying the popsicle by saying he’s a “really articulate fella”, and after Judy spoke to the press on predators reverting back to their “savage urges” she attempts to reassure Nick by saying he’s not like “one of them” a “them” being predator saying that he’s an except to the rule which he calls her out on. Nick is a pessimist who gave into his fox stereotype because nobody was going to trust him anyways simply due to his species and we see every time Nick interacts with any animal he’s met with distrust. Clawhauser called Judy cute to which she politely tells him that it’s not a word he should to bunnies and later on with the fear-mongering of predators going savage he’s told that he can’t front desk because of him being a cheetah.

All of these characters have prejudice and were victims of prejudice, but they learn to overcome them because they made the effort and choices to do so. They wanted to be better people and have a better way of life. In Bellwether’s case, she chose to see all predators that deserved to be ostracized and get the shitty treatment she got from her superiors. However, she used the fear of a predator’s existence and how they may just spontaneously lose it and attack when someone least expected. She wanted the majority to fear an entire group. She didn’t want Mayor Lionheart to be caught because he was holding poisoned predators against their will, but to make him, a predator, look like the bad guy. Bellwether becoming the new mayor was an additional gain of power and respect and in some ways hero status along with Judy.

Bellwether is an extreme of a prejudiced person where she rather place one group as a scapegoat in order be in control of the fearful and easily manipulated majority. In this case, a 90-10 ratio for prey and predators. She chose instead of using her position of power for good and to better mammals around her she wanted another group to suffer entirely on the grounds of her own prejudiced. She is probably one of the more realistic Disney Villains and ones that people are more like to come across in the growing hostility.

(I apologize if this last section didn’t feel like it was on topic)

8/10




Surprise: For those who watched the Moana trailers one of the characters shown a lot is Te Ka, the lava monster. People knew Te Ka was going to be one of the obstacles for Moana and Maui on their mission, most already figure she would be the final boss.

The reveal of Te Ka comes as Moana tries to return a beautiful green rock known as the Heart of Te Fiti to the Island of Te Fiti with Maui telling Moana to look for the spiral. Moana climbs to the top of a barren island to get a better sight of Te Fiti only to see it missing. It’s when Moana looks at Te Ka, seeing the spiral on her chest does she realize Te Ka is actually the corrupted form of the Goddess Te Fiti.

Moana orders the ocean to split for both her and Te Ka to meet, Te Ka crawling furiously while Moana walks slowly comforting Te Ka. Moana through her compassion reminds Te Ka of who she really is, restoring the heart and Te Fiti herself.



Characterization: This is kind of hard to talk since Te Fiti/ Te Ka is more of a plot device than a character per se. I’m going to look at Te Fiti at first in regards to her character as a whole and then what she is as Te Ka. Te Fiti, while having less screen time than Te Ka, is portrayed as a benevolent goddess whose purpose is to spread life across the ocean. She’s shown to be very kind and compassionate like Moana herself, but is a little sassy such as giving Maui an unamused look for stealing her heart. Yet again, like Moana, she is very forgiving, probably more than she really should be as she gives Maui a new hook that provides him with his demigod powers after he apologizes.

As Te Ka she’s an angry, cursed creature who is slowly poisoning the world because of Maui. It seems that whenever people have tried to cross the ocean to Te Fiti she tries to destroy them with her lava. However, I think we should look at her rage as when Maui first stole the heart it she formed into the cloud/monster in order to stop him. She was trying to take the heart back from him, but because he escaped from her it’s possible she was stuck in that form. The heart itself was missing for over a thousand years or thousands, most likely she really did forget who she was and what her purpose was. Moana letting her come to her without having to touch the ocean and Moana reminding her of who she is what could have her properly gain her heart back. Moana’s kindness and compassionate reminded her of her own before letting the fear and anger of losing her heart consume her.

How it Affects the Plot: It’s a satisfying conclusion where Te Ka wasn’t really a villain to defeat or destroy, but something that needed to be redeemed. She wasn’t evil from the start but someone who lost herself and needed to be reminded with someone of her own likeness and understanding.

People have noted that Te Fiti looks a lot like Moana in terms of facial features and that’s probably on purpose as both she and Moana are very similar characters in terms of kindness, compassion, sassiness, forgiveness, and having a responsibility that is for the good of the people. They both have the need to search for who they are, what is them and learn that they aren’t define as one thing. 


7/10

I gave her a lower score mainly because I thought there wasn't enough screen time for her to develop, but what she represent to the overall movie is perfect as a plot device.


Now on to the final one who I believe started it all and was reason for all these surprise villains (minus King Candy as his movie came out the very next year in 2012).







Surprise: Near the end of Cars 2, Tow Mater, Finn McMissile, Holley Shiftwell, and the Radiator Springs gang have just defeated the lemons and are trying to figure out how to stop the bomb on Mater. Guido’s drills fail to get the bolts and Mater is running out of time before it explode. The only other way to stop the tick time bomb is to get the guy who activated to deactivate it.

Mater suddenly figures it out and after some convincing of Lightning that can be shortened as “you know this, you can do this, and you need to do it NOW or you go BOOM!” The two fly back to the race using Mater’s glider parachute thing. When they arrive there Mater causes a slight, but understandable panic of having a bomb on him and being near the British elite.

Mater points out that the guy who put this bomb on him and set up this whole plot with the lemons and exploding alternative fuel was Miles Axelrod. With seconds ticking down Mater makes interesting points on Axlerod’s motivation of why he’d do all this. Mater explains how the bolts attached to the bomb on him are also the same hard to find bolts that Mystery Engine ordered from that French blackmarket parts seller. He says that those bolts are used for old British cars, specifically ones who’s engines only use oil. “If there ain’t no oil under ‘em, there ain’t no oil in ‘em. Mater also mentions that he doesn’t leak oil and it was Axlerod, who was next to him at the party in Japan who did and blamed in on him. Axlerod tries to argue saying that electric cars don’t use oil, but Mater says in his “what ifs” that Axlerod is only faking his conversion into alternative fuel/electric car. In the last few seconds before the bomb blows, several cars start to leave save for Lightning, Finn, and Holley. Axlerod pleads for help with no one coming to his aid and Mater cornering him making him unable to escape. At literally the last second he yells “DEACTIVATE” stopping the bomb before it could kill both him and Mater, Mater lifts Axlerod’s trunk to reveal his cruddy, oil-fueled engine, and he’s arrested.



Characterization: Miles Axlerod basically pulled off the whole “nice guy who turns out to be bad” best because he did seem genuinely charming and likable. He was very polite to Mater and Lightning, he acted like he was concern for the risk that Allinol brought to the other racer during the World Grand Prix. Even thanking Lightning and hoping for him to win because he’s using Allinol.

But yet like Hans, that was all a lie. Oh I’m sure he like Lightning before he decided to take Allinol for the final race, but his entire plan hinges on the racers getting injured enough that it would make people turn their back on alternative fuel that Allinol was meant to represent. If Lightning hadn’t decided to use Allinol for the final race than Axlerod wouldn’t really have any desire to kill him.

Interestingly enough, while he is an Evil Oil Baron his motive isn’t really about monetary gain. Oh it’s present, but added wealth is more of an added bonus and paving the way of becoming the most power and respected cars in the world. No, honestly, Axlerod and his cohorts’ motives are leaning more towards revenge. Axlerod and the other lemons are bitter about how they’ve been treated for being the biggest loser cars and so the World Grand Prix and the racers are pawns to be used to be hurt, injured, and humiliated while making alternative fuel like Allinol look dangerous. Watch the crash in Italy, the lemons there were laughing, hooting, howling at the racers getting hurt. That wasn’t monetary gain, that was them enjoying someone of more elite appearance and build getting hurt. Sadism, vengeance.

Honestly Miles is also probably the smartest out of all the Surprise Disney because:

1. He’s super prepared
2. He has back up plans that aren’t out of the realm of impossible intelligence
3. His revealed wasn’t him bragging to the hero.

Let’s look at these piece by piece. Axlerod’s preparedness comes from how he’s hidden. The movie implies that he doesn’t do face-to-face meetings, such as at the lemon party at a casino in Italy where he instead does a live stream, speaking to his cohorts in a disguised voice, while he’s getting some work done in what looks to be another disguise.



Yeah I’m saying that’s a disguise because his color is much darker green rather than a faded teal-ish green.



With that in mind, the disguise would probably be something lightweight enough that someone could work on him without trouble and he could take it off quickly that he’d go face the press right after that crash happened. I know that’s a lot, but I think taking it off and facing the press right after, acting all sad and concern is believable. He’s overall pretty careful and having the right sense of paranoia,  never showing up personally, not to show his whole body when doing live streams, disguise his appearance and his voice, and trusting the right cars where they won’t say his name will-nilly.

However, another thing that makes him prepared and this kind of gives him an advantage over the other Surprise Disney Villains is that he has strength in numbers.






(25 against the four)

Being a lone wolf can only get you so far. Hans and Callaghan did the things they did by themselves. King Candy mostly did his own thing as well, yeah he has Sour Bill, guards, and rules Sugar Rush but it seems like he’s the only one who can competently achieve what he wants. Bellwether only had three or four rams, plus Duke Weaselton. Axlerod has a LOT of guys working for for him, which could be seen as dangerous as someone who could be captured and torture or threaten information out of them like that Sour Bill and Duke Weselton. But they all are pretty damn loyal to Miles and were willing to die for this cause for revenge. The lemon heads were also pretty disappointed and saddened when they thought Axlerod wouldn’t show up and Axlerod greeted them like friends via the live stream. Trust is important in any sort of plan and the fact that Axlerod and his subordinate have a mutual respect for each other says something. It also kind of follows along with Cars 2’s theme of friendship as it’s amazing what you can achieve. However, the lemons in general were brought together by the shared idea of hate and bitterness for other cars treating them like crap.

There’s also Axlerod being able to plan stuff just in case things don’t turn out well. I’ve joked in the past that the villains only planned for as far as Italy and weren’t expecting someone stupid enough to use Allinol after the danger it caused to other racers, but to be fair it almost did and Axlerod took it in stride. Had Lightning actually taken Allinol and not been switched with Fillmore organic fuel, he would’ve been blown up by the camera. Even then Axlerod had enough of a back up plan by using what he knows of both Lightning and Mater. He and the lemons knew Mater cared enough about McQueen that he’d try to warn him about a threat to his life and so putting a bomb on Mater and once he’s close to McQueen, blow them up.

So what would the lemon do with Mater and the bomb had Lightning been blown up by Allinol? Honestly, they’d probably go for killing the Radiator Springs gang in the pits since Mater’s trap was still something that was easy for him to get out of and so killing witnesses like Lightning’s pit crew would be to his benefit.

For the record, these plans aren’t someone’s intelligence doing leaps and bound of implausibility. Based on Axlerod’s wealth, motivation, carefulness, and general charm and likability along the outliers he’d thought of I think these plans and back up plans are reasonable.

Now finally, let’s look at his reveal and why he in the end is the best of the Surprise Disney Villains. While Axlerod’s plan of making alternative fuel look bad failed since McQueen survived with everyone believing he was using Allinol and his subordinates being arrest, he still would gotten away with his crimes of embezzlement, arson, fraud, and conspiracy to commit murder had Mater not know it was him. Yeah think about it, Mater would’ve blown up and Axlerod would’ve gotten away scot-free with probably only a media frenzy and minor charges since no one died due to Allinol. Hell, Axlerod’s voice is imitable that had the bomb not stated his name out loud, he probably could’ve found some excuse that someone else did it.

Additionally Axlerod's reveal didn’t come from his own ego where he thinks he’s already like King Candy, Hans, and Bellwether, nor was he just not giving a damn like Callaghan or reform like Te Fiti. It came out of fearing for his life and being held hostage. Yeah really think about it, Mater did technically hold Miles Axlerod hostage where he back Axlerod into a corner, no one could help him, someone was figuring it out his plan despite trying to make Mater out to be crazy, and in the end Axlerod was screwed either way. If Axlerod deactivated the bomb, he would go to jail. If he didn’t, he would DIE along with Mater. If he let the bomb kill them however I think Lightning, Finn, Holley, and Radiator Springs would’ve gone to jail for some reason or another:




But when Axlerod's plan has totally failed that most that he can keep in coming out of all this is at the very least his life.

Axlerod’s reveal in many ways feels less contrive since he was trying to save his own life rather than let his ego screw it all up.

How it Affects the Plot: I always knew that Miles Axlerod was the starter of the Surprise Disney Villain trend for the Disney Animated Canon, but honestly he does it best and there is more than enough reason for me to think so.

John Lasseter in the commentary of Cars 2 made it pretty clear they knew that they wanted to hide the villain. That the villain would be big oil in growing world of concerning environmentalism with the need to change and such. I believe John Lasseter when he says this as the was enough foreshadowing to the character, but enough some might not know on first view. Lasseter said that he and the writers worked backwards as they knew by the end what the twist was and went back to writing in the specific instances of foreshadowing so it wouldn’t be sudden like.

Speaking of John Lasseter and his involvement with animated projects, there’s also the fact that even since 2007’s Meet the Robinsons, John Lasseter has been an executive producer on all the Disney Revival’s movies. Ones that include:

Wreck It Ralph (2012)
Frozen (2013)
Big Hero 6 (2014)
Zootopia (2016)
Moana (2016)

Keep in mind Cars 2 came out in 2011. I can’t say Cars 2 influence Wreck It Ralph’s Surprise Disney Villain since the latter was released the next year and it’s too much of a stretch and cutting close. I’m pretty sure though that Frozen was still in the of production that it could’ve influenced Hans’ characterization, etc. for the other three. 

I honestly really do like Cars 2, I don’t think it’s a bad movie, and I will defend it, so this analysis could be from a place of bias. However, I understand if others don’t. I’m not going to force you like it but maybe at least have you look at it from a different angle. In this case, one of those angles is that of the villains. To me Miles Axlerod was foreshadowed well enough that it’s not out of nowhere, but still had that surprise. Honestly, I actually Axlerod was the villain before the movie came out because of the soundtrack title.



It’s called Axlerod Exposed and anyone who takes any sort of English course knows that words have a certain connotations to it. In this case, that word was “exposed” which is often used in the negative context. As such when I decided to go on the website of Cars 2 and read Miles Axlerod’s character description I realized that Allinol would be a plot point. I didn’t know the how or the why, especially since Axlerod was barely in the trailers before the film’s release.

Honestly, the fact that I had to research all that when prior to the movie’s release with only titles to work with and character profiles probably says a lot about me and that there was thought and care put into Cars 2.

9/10

Honestly, this analysis was created because I am/was on my Cars 3 hype and I figure if I did something more universal people wouldn’t be too annoyed by me.