Do audiences prefer Arc-less villains in movies?

[ironpony]

Well I still think a villain can have a heart and the audience can still hate him/her. Breaking Bad for example, sure Walter White has a heart, by the time the last few episodes rolled around, I just wanted another character to kill him and leave his family widowed, cause I felt he still deserved that for example.

[Mark S.]

Walter White was an anti-hero (perhaps the best ever). He was not the villain.

[ironpony]

I thought Breaking Bad was like Blade Runner in the sense that the protagonist is a villain, like Deckard.

[warhorse78]

Originally Posted by ironpony

Oh okay, I guess I just find the robotic villain kind of boring. In Alien and Jaws, they pop out at certain times, but when it comes to thrillers where the villain drives a lot of the story, I think you want them to have some sort of emotional reasoning, where he/she learns some sort of lesson.

You might be bored with them, but the cold, heartless villain tends to be the most remembered and considered greatest.

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/...ovie-villains/
https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-l...ns-of-all-time

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

Those aren't really villains, though, those are monsters. I think the Snidely Whiplash villain gives the audience a more justified feeling that the violence of the hero is sufficiently validated.

Uh, according to movie lore, Jaw and Aliens are still villains.

[warhorse78]

Originally Posted by ironpony

I thought Breaking Bad was like Blade Runner in the sense that the protagonist is a villain, like Deckard.

I never seen Blade Runner, but with Breaking Bad, I never got that sense he was a villain. Mark S is correct, he's an anti-hero in the same vein that Punisher is.

Now, Dexter is a protagonist that is also the villain.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by ironpony

I thought Breaking Bad was like Blade Runner in the sense that the protagonist is a villain, like Deckard.

Breaking Bad is an origin story for a villain. It's about how a basically decent even bland guy becomes a true monster. And Walt is definitely a monster by the end. But his road to damnation was paved with good intentions, and it is his story that drives the plot. So in that sense, I'd definitely call him more anti-hero than villain.

[ironpony]

Oh okay, I thought he was a villain in the sense that usually it's the villain that drives the plot. The anti-hero is always out to stop a threat. For example, I think Dexter is an anti-hero cause he goes after threats that threaten people's lives.

Or how Dirty Harry and Jack Bauer are anti-heroes cause they are trying to stop threats. But in Breaking Bad, the biggest threat of danger is Walter White. Sure there are other antagonists, such as Tuco, or Gus, or Hank, but they were not threats to Walt until Walt acted first and turned them into threats. So I thought he was the villain in the sense that there was no original threat, and he acted first, as the first threat. All the other characters are just responding to his threats.