** SPOILERS **

Rereading some of Paul's excellent books, I found it interesting
how Rasalom seems to fall into the cliche mold of the Bond
arch-villain in one major way, yet gets away with it because
of Paul's excellent characterization.

WTF you ask?

The James Bond arch-villain always makes one major mistake
in every single movie, and that is, he/she will, at one or more
points in the movie, have Bond completely and utterly at their
mercy, and, instead of simply outright killing Bond with a gun
shot to the head or whatever, said villain will not only gloat
over Bond and spill his/her whole evil plan, but will leave Bond
tied up to die in some wildly imaginative manner in which we
the audience just know he will escape.

And thus we come to Rasalom gloating over the aged Glaeken,
instead of outright killing him (which would be the safe thing
to do, regardless of his "seeming" condition) when he finally
meets him after so many decades, and then leaving
him alive...and Rasalom's gloating over the exhausted form of
Jack down in Florida, and once again showing a complete lack
of foresight as to Jack's capabilities (and this after his realization
in Conspiracies, when first meeting Jack, that Jack had personally
destroyed all the Rakoshi).

One might surely come to the conclusion that Rasalom is the
biggest idiot on the planet, with one HELL of a sub-conscious
death wish.

But Paul covers his bet by making good old Rasalom a being
who feeds off of the intangible emotions of fear and despair,
and the opportunity to feed off of fallen Glaeken and a broken
Jack is just too overpowering a desire for the prince of evil to
ignore.

Mike

** SPOILERS **

The James Bond arch-villain always makes one major mistake
in every single movie, and that is, he/she will, at one or more
points in the movie, have Bond completely and utterly at their
mercy, and, instead of simply outright killing Bond with a gun
shot to the head or whatever, said villain will not only gloat
over Bond and spill his/her whole evil plan, but will leave Bond
tied up to die in some wildly imaginative manner in which we
the audience just know he will escape.


Mike

Parodied excellently in the first (and best) Austin Powers movie.

** SPOILERS **
The James Bond arch-villain always makes one major mistake
in every single movie, and that is, he/she will, at one or more
points in the movie, have Bond completely and utterly at their
mercy, and, instead of simply outright killing Bond with a gun
shot to the head or whatever, said villain will not only gloat
over Bond and spill his/her whole evil plan, but will leave Bond
tied up to die in some wildly imaginative manner in which we
the audience just know he will escape.
Mike

Reminds me of how they used to leave all the OLD Batman tv shows (POW! ZAM!) with Batman tied up and about to die. But you just know he gets out.

As for FPW, he's in good company, doing this. Even Shakespeare's characters had one major flaw, that ultimately led to their down-falls. (Not having read all the AC yet, but crossing my fingers that R gets his butt kicked.)

Stephanie

The James Bond arch-villain always makes one major mistake
in every single movie, and that is, he/she will, at one or more
points in the movie, have Bond completely and utterly at their
mercy, and, instead of simply outright killing Bond with a gun
shot to the head or whatever, said villain will not only gloat
over Bond and spill his/her whole evil plan, but will leave Bond
tied up to die in some wildly imaginative manner in which we
the audience just know he will escape.
Mike

Not just James Bond movies either - you see this in too many movies and books. If the screenwriter / author couldn't figure out how to work the details of the evil plan into the plot itself so they have to make their villian spill the beans at the crucial moment. Duh!

Parodied excellently in the first (and best) Austin Powers movie.

Also (sort of, anyway) parodied in "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly". Tuco (the Ugly) walks up to the baddie threatening Clint Eastwood's character (and spilling the beans) and just shoots him dead. He says, "When it's time to shoot, shoot. Don't talk!"

** SPOILERS **

Rereading some of Paul's excellent books, I found it interesting
how Rasalom seems to fall into the cliche mold of the Bond
arch-villain in one major way, yet gets away with it because
of Paul's excellent characterization.

WTF you ask?

The James Bond arch-villain always makes one major mistake
in every single movie, and that is, he/she will, at one or more
points in the movie, have Bond completely and utterly at their
mercy, and, instead of simply outright killing Bond with a gun
shot to the head or whatever, said villain will not only gloat
over Bond and spill his/her whole evil plan, but will leave Bond
tied up to die in some wildly imaginative manner in which we
the audience just know he will escape.

And thus we come to Rasalom gloating over the aged Glaeken,
instead of outright killing him (which would be the safe thing
to do, regardless of his "seeming" condition) when he finally
meets him after so many decades, and then leaving
him alive...and Rasalom's gloating over the exhausted form of
Jack down in Florida, and once again showing a complete lack
of foresight as to Jack's capabilities (and this after his realization
in Conspiracies, when first meeting Jack, that Jack had personally
destroyed all the Rakoshi).

One might surely come to the conclusion that Rasalom is the
biggest idiot on the planet, with one HELL of a sub-conscious
death wish.

But Paul covers his bet by making good old Rasalom a being
who feeds off of the intangible emotions of fear and despair,
and the opportunity to feed off of fallen Glaeken and a broken
Jack is just too overpowering a desire for the prince of evil to
ignore.

Mike

Rasalom is the exact opposit of Jack. Think about how much effort Rasalom expends in wrecking lifes, (i.e.) Bill, Carol, Lisl, Everett Veiler, Tommy, etc..........Now think about how intricte Jacks fixes are to relieve misery. And although you can't attribute this facete to Jack OR Glaeken, but how often has the hero gloated over how he pieced togther the crime? All in all, I'm starting to think Tuco was the best villan ever.


Ken

The good guys always catch them "monologuing".

** SPOILERS **

Rereading some of Paul's excellent books, I found it interesting
how Rasalom seems to fall into the cliche mold of the Bond
arch-villain in one major way, yet gets away with it because
of Paul's excellent characterization.

WTF you ask?

The James Bond arch-villain always makes one major mistake
in every single movie, and that is, he/she will, at one or more
points in the movie, have Bond completely and utterly at their
mercy, and, instead of simply outright killing Bond with a gun
shot to the head or whatever, said villain will not only gloat
over Bond and spill his/her whole evil plan, but will leave Bond
tied up to die in some wildly imaginative manner in which we
the audience just know he will escape.

And thus we come to Rasalom gloating over the aged Glaeken,
instead of outright killing him (which would be the safe thing
to do, regardless of his "seeming" condition) when he finally
meets him after so many decades, and then leaving
him alive...and Rasalom's gloating over the exhausted form of
Jack down in Florida, and once again showing a complete lack
of foresight as to Jack's capabilities (and this after his realization
in Conspiracies, when first meeting Jack, that Jack had personally
destroyed all the Rakoshi).

One might surely come to the conclusion that Rasalom is the
biggest idiot on the planet, with one HELL of a sub-conscious
death wish.

But Paul covers his bet by making good old Rasalom a being
who feeds off of the intangible emotions of fear and despair,
and the opportunity to feed off of fallen Glaeken and a broken
Jack is just too overpowering a desire for the prince of evil to
ignore.

Mike

The good guys always catch them "monologuing".

I was gonna print the same damn thing two hours ago but for the life of me couldn't figure out how to spell monologuing. Love those Incredibles!

I was gonna print the same damn thing two hours ago but for the life of me couldn't figure out how to spell monologuing. Love those Incredibles!

Me too, it is my favorite from Pixar's formidable line up. Actually those are the movies I should mention in the recidivists thread as I rent them for my kids all the time and I end up watching them all over again, but I own The Incredibles and watch it at least once a month.

The good guys always catch them "monologuing".

Definitely!

However . . . many novels -- as well as movies -- are done in the form of what I'll call "third-person omnicient observer." You can read the baddies thoughts in a novel, but the only way they can show that in a movie is when the villain "confesses."

Ken V.

Also (sort of, anyway) parodied in "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly". Tuco (the Ugly) walks up to the baddie threatening Clint Eastwood's character (and spilling the beans) and just shoots him dead. He says, "When it's time to shoot, shoot. Don't talk!"

YES! I love that part, and when I first saw it (at the theatre, first run--that's how old I am), I thought "yes, plug the bastard"!