Bad guys need to be portrayed strong (Spoilers)

Hey that Star Wars movie came out! Did everyone watch it yet?! OMFG IT WAS SO AMAZING/GOOD/OK/MEH/BAD/TERRIBLE! Right?

Anways, I'm not here to necessarily complain about the movie. I liked it. But it made me think about some things. Things being the portrayal of antagonist in general.

While I am not an avid movie watcher there is something that irks me when a antagonist is not properly portrayed. Last year we saw that robot thing called Ultron in the Avengers and Kylo Ren in Star Wars that really irked me. No, it's not their personalities. Both of them had a different take on the lead bad guy and both were played just fine. My issue is more on how much of a threat they are to the group of good guys who will eventually beat them.

Let's take Ultron as an example first. He's a robot who has multiple forms of himself. So he's like his own zombie horde. The issue I have with how they presented him was basically just that. He has an army of himself. Not like a group of robots that he put is AI mind into, which you could build them up as the elites of his group. But every single enemy was him. So what's the issue? Well it's just that. Good guys need people to beat up before they get to the final boss. Unfortunately here, it was all Ultron. So by having the Avengers basically beat up all of the Ultrons, none of the Ultrons turn out to be a big threat. I mean sure, there's the "Strength in numbers" thing, but this is a movie. Eventually the bad guys win.

Now I know some of you will be like "Oh but there was that one Ultron that was like a super robot" and I will discuss that in a bit. But when Ultron first showed up and did his speech, he was presented fairly well. He had his motives and was considered a threat. What was the next thing to happen to him? Well the Avengers shot him, he blew up, and more Ultrons showed up for action time. So right away, any danger that Ultron presented was taken away in the very first scene because the Avengers destroyed that robot.

Now one can say "Oh but it was a messed up robot anyways, it could of easily been destroyed." And yeah, your right. But by presenting the main antagonist early on as something the good guys can destroy makes the antagonist look a lot weaker to the viewers.

Now let's look at Kylo Ren. He is an angry emo kid with super powers. Cool. Awesome. And through out the movie, he is more or less considered a threat. The end of the movie though makes it so that
Rey beats him. Somebody who hardly knows how to use the force or a lightsaber beat the antagonist of the movie. But hey, movies need a feel good ending right? Well yeah, but let's think about this longer term.

The issue here is more or less the same as Ultron, but on a longer scale. Of course this is all theoretical at this point but if Kylo Ren shows up in the other movies as the antagonist yet again, then what's the threat? Rey already beat him so we know she can do it again. Oh but this time he's stronger with the force, has a different lightsaber AND has a robot arm. He's more of a threat now right? Well no. Know why? That's right, he was already defeated.

Let's talk about wrestling here for a second. In wrestling, there's something called "The Chase". It's essentially where the good guy faces off against the bad guy and constantly looses until finally the good guy over comes the odds and finally beats the bad guy.

People love the chase. It's one of those "never give up, never surrender" kinda deal and builds up a lot of anticipation to when the good guy finally wins. Of course there's the issue of making the good guy constantly loose too much that the fans don't believe in the good guy any more. It's a fine balance.

So let's once again look at Ultron and Kylo Ren. Both have been beaten and have/will do something to make the audience believe that now they pose as a threat to the protagonists of their respective story lines. In the case of Ultron, he gets better robot armour and no one really knows about Kylo Ren just yet. But let's just say he is presented much stronger in the next movie. The audience then does something like "Oh man maybe now they can beat Mr and Mrs. Star Wars Avenger!" and end up more interested in the next face off. The issue here is yet another Wrestling term called "Backwards booking" where they make the wrong person look stronger to the audience. The good guys are meant to be cheered and bad guys to be booed not the other way around.

The reason is because you follow the story from the protagonist point of view. You feel for them, watch them grow as people and yes, you route for them. By giving Ultron better armour, and Kylo Ren more force power or whatever, it makes almost makes the audience root for the bad guys this way.

Look at Rocky IV for a second. Imagine the story being Apollo beating Ivan Drago then Rocky goes to Russia to fight Drago once again. Would anyone care? No because Drago already lost. To use another wrestling term he has no "Heat". We already saw him loose. So why watch him loose again?

In the case of Ultron, what they could of done was not destroy that old, broken down robot Ultron was in but instead let it escape and put that old robot in a better suite of armour. It puts a connection between Ultron and that robot because not only did that old robot escape the Avengers, but now it's a much more intimidating. Which makes the audience wonder just how they are going to take Ultron down. Of course, not making all the robots Ultron as well would of been a good movie.

In the case of Kylo Ren, he really could of been Darth Maul done right. If Darth Maul stayed around till the end of the first trilogy, he could of been Obi Wan's counterpart. Darth Maul killed Obi Wan's Master and now Obi Wan wants to avenge him. And when the eventual rematch ensues. Hot mamma I wanna see that. Instead, what we got was instant revenge and no character growth for anyone.

Rey didn't have to beat Kylo Ren. Did Luke beat Darth Vader? No, he just forced tricked him. Rey could of lost, somehow escaped, theoretically became stronger in the ways of the force and face off against him again. It builds anticipation for the next time they face off. And the audience continues to cheer for Rey along the way.

Bad guys/gals should pose a threat (or at the very least appear to) to the good guys/gals. Not in every case but in action movies it works best. We know the good guys are going to win but that doesn't mean you can phone in the enemy right from the get go. It's about the struggle to win rather than the way they win in most cases. The stronger you make your enemy, the better the pay off is when you finally beat it.