: Re: Films where the antagonist appears relatively late Usually the antagonist is introduced as early as possible. However, are there films where the antagonist appears rather late? The earlier parts

@Berumen699

Vote Up Vote Down

Frozen is a recent one that comes to mind, though I don't know how well it qualifies, as the antagonist is introduce pretty early on, but the fact that he has any antagonistic motivations is very very subtly hinted at such that the only reveal clue requires extensive musical composition knowledge, catching two blink and you miss it moments one of which is more body language than dialog. A third song contains a hidden meaning clue to the antagonist, but it really can't be seen unless you know the big spoiler.

I would also point to the Fifth Element, in which the antagonist is revealed to the audience early in, however the entire conflict of the film is resolved with neither the hero nor the antagonist ever being in the same room with each other over the course of the film. This may be a joke on an early role of Bruce Willias (the hero) and his most famous role in Die Hard. The scene where Willis' character meets Hans Gruber and Gruber pretends to be a hostage, not a hostage taker, was written after the production staff realized that the two characters would not meet until the climax and Alan Rickman could affect a really good American Accent.

Many television shows with serialized stories that span the course of a season can better hold the villains off for some time. Buff the Vampire Slayer's third season antagonist was first mentioned early in season 2 (the third episode). He was not revealed to the audience until the fifth episode of Season 3 and never met Buffy until the 19th episode of that season (the third season had 22 total episodes for point of reference). Similarly, the villain of Season 2 was introduced in the very first episode of the show. But season 7's First Evil antagonist is the winner for sheer delay. The character was first introduced in the 10 episode of season 3 in what was typically considered a one off villain episode than anything story specific at the time.

This is easy to pull in this format as TV can allow for the big bad villain to assign minions to vex the heroes for a long period before the stakes are raised. This is evident in the Post-Zordon Power Rangers seasons, which are self contained teams of one season. The main antagonist usually has a slew of monsters that can build up to his main scheme, and the starting leader might be ousted by a bigger badder villain over the run (Power Rangers Mystic Force had 3 different leaders of the villains before the real big bad appeared).

(0)

Login to post a comment!