I feel like the main reason why King Candy/Turbo works so well is due to the fact that the twist behind it isn't that the good guy was evil all along, but rather The identity of a villan is the main twist of the character and the fact that King Candy was a jerk from the very start and right at the very end, so he has more than enough time for being the villan

The Hans one came so out of left field. It felt like a last minute twist shoe horned in. Like I genuinely thought he cared for her.

What's genius about Rourke's character is that he isn't really a twist villain. When Milo meets with him and the crew, he has this puffed up vision of science, discovery, and fun adventure. He assumes the best in everyone and we warm up to the crew as Milo finally starts to befriend them. But even when they become friends, it doesn't change that Milo doesn't really know them. Rourke and the crew already have a previous history of camaraderie and stealing: They were ALWAYS going to try and steal the Heart of Atlantis. It's not that they are twist villains. They were ALWAYS villains, but Milo just never caught on.

Let me guess why they worked: 1. There are clues to them being a villain, so when they ultimately betray our heroes it doesn't feel like it came out of nowhere and the movie creators didn't lie to the audience. cough Hans cough 2. They actually have the time to be the villain. Instead of getting reviled and defeated in 5 minutes. 3. They are consistent so the character before and after the twist doesn't feel like completely different people. 4. The twist actually being surprising would be nice. The villain is defeated but we still have a half hour of a movie to go. I wonder who can be the true villain. Could it be the only other character with any dialogue?

I think King Candy worked so well for several reasons 1. We always kinda knew he was up to something, unless he managed to fool you like he fooled Ralph for a short moment, but we didn't really get it confirmed he was evil until later on in the movie. 2. He has layers of twists. First he's racist against glitches, then he's actually just trying to protect her, but actually he lied and he's the whole reason Vanellope is a glitch, then he's Turbo, then we find out Vanellope was the original ruler so he took over the game from her. 3. His design doesn't fit in with the other racers when you actually look at them

The weird thing is, Hans could've worked. He shows genuine care and concern for the townspeople of Arendelle. He's shown doing his part to keep the peace and calm down the turmoil while Anna is away. He sees firsthand several times just what Elsa is capable of. Have Hans fall for the same paranoia that the others do. That he legitimately grows to believe that Elsa is a threat to the people of her home, and that the only way to save Arendelle is to kill Elsa. Combined with the realization that Anna would never let them do that to her sister, he makes the wrong decision. Out of fear, he decides that to save Arendelle, he has to let Anna, who he truly does love, freeze and Elsa die so that he can protect the nation from its own princesses. He shows the full extent of what fearmongering and paranoia can do to people, and his compromised judgment leads him to abandon the girl he genuinely fell in love with to a terrible fate. It's a powerful lesson to Elsa that making drastic, rash decisions out of fear is dangerous and hurts others. It would play very well into the theme of Elsa being frightened of her own potential, and for an even more powerful moment when Anna sacrifices everything to save her sister from Hans. It validates the seemingly genuinely friendly and caring persona he carries throughout 3/4 of the movie, it validates his efforts to honor Anna's request to protect her home while she's gone, and it gives the movie a "villain" without making it some stupid twist of "awktually i was the evils the whole time huehue". He becomes the antagonist out of circumstance and fear, not because he showed up with evil intent from the start. All they had to do to make a "twist" villain work was just pay attention to the themes they were putting across in the writing and, you know, actually make use of them.

Personally, Belleweather could've worked, simply by showing small acts of silent defiance; glaring hatred at the Mayor, before returning to her 'sunny personality' to the main characters, who hired her simply for a vote, and still treats her like dirt and leaves all the work to her! Small things that tell the audience there's SOMETHING wrong with her, but they never did! Even evidence of sheep hoofprints would've worked. Not made sense at first, but it would've worked! ^^

"Cool motive, Still Murder" i think is a great rule of thumb in this era lately of fandom completely pushing for irredeemable villains. Lately people forget you can totally make a villain's *situation* sympathetic (even in a selfish way you'd never admit to in public) while still making the *execution* of whatever choices they made to fix those things completely distasteful and needing to be stopped.

Silver works not only as a sympathetic/twist villain, but as a completely morally grey character - and I really can't think of any other Disney character as grey as Silver (let me know if you can think of one!). It goes without saying that Silver is an all-around lovable villain, but the film doesn't go all the way to claim that he has a heart of gold. It actually leaves Silver's morality cleverly ambiguous. Throughout the film, he doesn't do anything unforgivably evil - but only because the plot doesn't let him. As a result, there are several scenes where you don't know what Silver would have done. Would he actually have pulled the trigger on Amelia and Delbert, if Jim had refused him the map? (While he most certainly loves Jim, there's no indication that he cares about anyone else.) What would he have done if Flint's ship hadn't tipped over before he could reach Jim in the finale? He was approaching him pretty menacingly, and you don't know just how blinded he was by his greed in that moment (if the book is anything to go by, it would have been looking very grim for Jim). At the same time, you're free to assume that Silver's bark is worse than his bite, and he wouldn't have overstepped the line even if the plot had let him. In terms of morality, he's completely unfathomable. I honestly wish Disney would experiment with its villains more - there's a whole world between the irredeemable monster and the flimsy misunderstood bad boy with a heart of gold. Silver is the perfect example. Sympathetic villains don't have to be toothless and tame from the beginning in order to be available for a redemption arc (Silver revels in his villainy from start to finish, except when it comes to Jim), and nor does a sympathetic villain require a sob story to explain their character (for all you know, Silver is a pirate because he damn well loves it, and that's all you need). Your sympathetic villain doesn't have to be a tortured soul. He can just be an all-around nice person with a great sense of humour. Who just happens to be a swashbuckler.

Every time twist villains get brought up I think of a thousand different ways Hans could have been done better. Like for example, what if he kisses Anna but that doesn’t break the curse, they realize that they can’t be in love because they’ve known each other for two days, but he still really cares about her so decides to try and save her by killing Elsa, and THAT’S how he goes villain without fundamentally changing into a completely different character. Maybe he reluctantly teams up with the Duke to try and save the girl, y’know. Idk, all this goes to show once again how amazing Treasure Planet and Atlantis are. Silver is still my all time favorite Disney villain.

I had always thought of two better ways they could have taken Hans: 1. Hans is not a twist villain and actually wanted to save Anna, but the realization is that their love is actually only at a very superficial level (which was already hinted at pretty well in their duet song together) and so a kiss failed, and they would need to find something else to cure her. It would also fit better with that part of the movie's messaging/theme of "you can't marry someone you only just met" and eventually Anna could've found out she has better chemistry with Kristoff anyway. 2. Hans is a twist villain and only joined the mission to bring back Elsa so that he could deliberately sabotage it. Attempt to have Elsa killed in her ice palace and either have it framed as an "accident" or convince the rest of the kingdom that she had truly become a monster and couldn't be stopped, and Anna would be crowned as queen instead. By this point the audience at least knows that Hans is the villain(whether or not it takes time for the rest of the characters to catch on) and had enough time to do villainish things, and it still fits in with Hans' motive of having his own kingdom regardless of any means possible. Though of course his plans inevitably fail, Elsa survives somehow and Hans is caught and dealt with. Though seriously, Disney could have pretty much done anything with just some effort and it probably would've been better.

King Candy/Turbo's reveal was so good because up till his reveal, even when you THINK you already know he's the villain, his *reasoning* for doing the 'villainous' actions he does (forbid Vanollepe from racing, etc) actually MAKES SENSE when he explains it to Ralph; If she races, the game glitches on the player and the game gets unplugged, killing the game and herself. And yet even when he shows his true colors of how evil he is, he gives another whiplash by revealing he was Turbo the whole time that used coding to hide himself in plain sight. ON TOP OF THAT, once you think he'd dead eaten by the cybug, he comes back in a 'final boss level' face off in his own virus form, which was animated so creepily and flawless, toying with Ralph and Vanollepe's lives that just showed off just how merciless and evil he really is.

I just want to point out, it wasn't Disney who came up with the twist for Long John Silver, it was RL Stevenson - that's exactly how he's written in the original Treasure Island, he's an ambiguous villain who you can never decide is completely good or completely bad.

It's so refreshing seeing someone acknowledging that twist villains aren't inherently bad, and can be done in interesting ways.

I would argue that Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a twist villain, in a way. Though we are shown he is cruel towards Toons who break the law or annoy him (Dipping the toon shoe, smacking his weasel henchmen around, siccing said weasels on Eddie when he intervenes in the case), we don't know that he is a Toon, and the Toon that killed Teddy Valiant, Eddie's brother. There are small hints of his true identity in the movie if you pay close attention to Christopher Lloyd's exaggerated movements on-screen (and he NEVER blinks), and the time he backs away from spilled Dip when Eddie saved Roger in the bar fight scene, the time Lt. Santino mentions that Doom spread a bunch of Simoleans around Toontown and brought about the election (lining up with Eddie's story to Roger later about how his brother died while pursuing a Toon who stole "a zillion Simoleans") and possibly some other moments. By re-watching it, you'll notice hints about Doom's identity as a Toon you may not have noticed the first time. From the moment Doom is revealed to be a Toon, and the Toon who murdered Eddie's brother, everything clicks. And his performance is terrifying. Next to Turbo, Clayton, and John Silver, Judge Doom is another one of my favorite twist villains. You know he's someone you don't want to mess with, but you don't know just how dangerous he *really* is until the reveal. I miss when Disney knew how to make twist villains work, and when they weren't afraid to take risks. Clayton's death was probably one of the darkest Disney Villain deaths next to Ursula's.

Treasure planet will forever be my top film from Disney. A grey character like silver demonstrates that Disney can have a sympathetic villain and turn them into better person, unlike the writing for modern villains of Disney justifying their wrongs like namari. Even though his technological aspect fixated him to focus on the treasure, he was willing to let go of everything he’s worked for to save Jim and become more humane. Him using his crew to kill off the captain and the rest isn’t redeemable and nor does he justify it, he did what he must to reach his goal and only changed after building his bond with Jim to the point his humanity won in the end.

I see Atlantis and Treasure Planet in the thumbnail I click. In all seriousness though I think the decline of twist villains is just a symptom of Disney losing faith in their villains in general, like it was the next step in their plan to get rid of villains altogether. First they did twist villain pretty well, then they did these villains badly then they made the villain be generational trauma. I'm not saying that classic Disney villains are the way to go for every story out there, different stories require different villains, some stories can only be told with generational trauma and some only with a complete monster for a villain, but Disney seems really resistant to create classic villains even if it's detrimental to the story. I know it's been talked about to death (heh) but Puss in Boots The Last Wish managed to juggle three different types of villain in the story perfectly, so Disney really has no excuse.

There's that one scene where Kristoff was interrogating Anna about Hans to see if it was true love, but I feel like that should have been done earlier in the movie and done by Hans. I would say to put that scene while they were asking Elsa to get married. Have them ask, then Elsa interrogates Hans about Anna and how much he loves her. There, Hans would say the most on the surface facts about her that was brought up in "Love is an open door" and the most vague things that makes him sound like he really does not know anything about her, but wants to marry her. Elsa then could object, saying that he doesn't know anything about her and Anna could refute by saying Elsa doesn't know anything about her either. Since Hans knows some stuff, she feels like he knows her and that they really are in love, showing something that some people use to manipulate others who felt isolated. I feel like this could've prepared for more about Hans' motivation, make us empathize with Anna more, and make it not a waste of a villain. Then, while Anna was away, spend more time with Hans taking care of the people. Show him taking up the leader role, feeling like he is actually a prince. We know that he is the last in line for his family, so he never felt like he was a leader, he was never fit to be king. Now, he is needed to fill in that role for being King since both of the royal family left is off on the journey. Show him gaining an ego, the realization that he is currently the highest power of the kingdom currently and make that motivate his character to make him be more of a villain. It's still a twist villain because Anna doesn't know this happened, she still thinks that Hans loves her, so when the eventual reveal happens, it's more heartbreaking for her. Also, it reasons out why the other people in the court decided why he is the one to listen to after he declares Anna "dead" because he has proven to be a leader that they can follow. But hey, that's just me.

I don't think Silver was a villain per se. Like Severus Snape, he's too complex to categorize. We know he's not a hero, because he's a criminal who robs and plunders but he's not a villain either, because he's kind and merciful. However, it's suggested that Silver was never a true pirate, but simply obsessed with treasure to the point where he operates outside the law. And his bloodthirst is only a facade to keep the pirates from killing him. His redemption stems primarily from seeing himself in Jim, a delinquent who needs guidance. Bonding with him made him see where his obsession has led him and he can't bear seeing Jim making the same mistake. Which sets up his epiphany where he sees that there are some things worth more than an entire planet of gold and jewels.

Treasure Planet is so goddamn underrated and it had an enormous effect on me and my taste in fiction. It's always good to see people talk about it.

I feel like we need to clarify the difference between a villain who _is a twist_ and a villain who _contains_ a twist. The difference between "Woah, Hans is the bad guy??" And "Woah, King Candy is the bad guy but that was kind of obvious but WOAH HE'S ALSO TURBO???"

John Silver to me will always be the most human, most real antagonist in a Disney movie. He shows how someone who is villainous is not always evil by nature. Sure he did alot of bad things in his life. But in the end... he gave up his lifelong dream to save a boy he hadn't known long. Who he had bonded with, and who had even attacked and injured him. Silver went from dirty sailor, to inspiring father figure, to villain, and finally to the reformed father that Jim never really had. All in the span of one movie, and it never really felt rushed despite the time constraints of the movie. I think alot of it working is that Silver is always presented as good at heart, despite the bad things he does. Despite being a tough pirate captain... he finds a soft spot for a troubled boy. Taking Jim under his wing in the beginning to keep him out of the way, and earnestly coming to bond with and feel like a father to him. Teaching him some discipline, life skills. Not to mention that when Scroop makes Jim feel like he messed up so bad he got someone killed and relapsed into feeling worthless and letting his anger build up.... Silver showed some true, human, compassion. He inspired Jim and turned all those bottled up emotions into tears... and despite the look he knew it would give him.. he embraced Jim. Some words from other movies I think fit John " He may have been your father boy, but he wasnt your daddy" and " You are bad guy, but you not bad guy"

One of the things I recall especially well about watching Frozen when I was younger was how my dad brought our attention to Hans' bravery and selflessness saying that he is like a real fairy tale hero with how he helps the townsfolk and volunteers to go out on a potentially deadly mission in his own...and rewatching all of these scenes I agree with my father completely. He had no real set up as a twist villain

The thing about Callaghan/Yokai imo is that he actually had the potential to be a pretty good twist villain. For starters, they should have foreshadowed it more; sure we got the portal footage the kids found, but even some subtle gestures could’ve gone a long way. He seemed antagonistic towards Krei but they could’ve subtly focused on that just a bit more-maybe implied that he was up to something before the building started on fire. Have Hiro run into him alone after the presentation and confrontation with Krei and he seems a little off, maybe? Like he’s contemplating something tough? And then the infamous “that was his mistake” scene… I think they’d have done better showing that he was actually upset. Show that he killed one of his favorite students and he regrets it; have him react to Hiro telling him that Tadashi went to save him not by immediately snapping back, but with actual shock for a moment. Like the thought never crossed his mind, and then a hint of guilt that he not only killed an innocent but one who cared enough about him to go in to save him. They could have then played his response as some desperate attempt to justify getting Tadashi caught in the crossfire to himself. Convince himself that he couldn’t have predicted that; there’s nothing he could have changed about it (because denial is easier than confronting the fact that this whole revenge plot is mad) Following that they could’ve gone further by showing us that he’s now slipping into a sort of sunk cost fallacy-he’s gotten people killed for this already, he can’t turn back now! That moment of hesitation he had when Krei was trying to talk him down would have hit so much harder if he’d already shown pause over the damage he’s done This wouldn’t have made him the best twist villain ever-not by a long shot-but it would’ve made it work better and made him seem more authentic, I think

Disney: Villains needs to be reliable nowadays. Dreamworks: So anyway, in this movie, Death is a cheating bastard who wants to kill the hero out of spite, also the other main villain just want absolute power because he was slightly wronged as a child and decided to become the fattest bastard the world as ever known. And he fucking enjoys it.

There seems to be three qualities that every decent twist villain seems to possess at least one of: 1) A thematically fulfilling emotional arc from spending so much time with the protagonists. (Ex: Treasure Planet) 2) The satisfying recontextualization of a piece of info that also explains the villain's motivation. (Ex: Wreck-It Ralph) 3) An effective critique of the real-world inspiration behind the story's genre conventions. Peeling back the romanticization to show an unpleasant reality (Ex: Atlantis)

I think it’s safe to say that Frozen kicked off the cons00mer era of Disney, where they get maximum return for minimal effort

8:20 Yeah! The Duke of Weaselton from Frozen was a suspect being the villain of Frozen because he wanted to kill Elsa because of her dangerous ice powers. But in the end, he really didn't do anything wrong

"Sometimes you give up a few things... Chasing a dream" This quote from Silver in "Treasure Planet" always sticks with me. When he says it, he is directly referencing his cyborg implants. There's a kind of ambiguity about it as well- did he get those parts because of catastrophic injury or because he felt willingly that he needed to sacrifice his own body? As the story progresses you realize the quote refers to more than his implants. He's talking about surrendering any noble part of him that he used to be for the sake of his raw ambition. This informs the internal battle he has over how to treat Jim, at first keeping him at arms length and being cold, but succumbing to the fact that Jim represents the person he used to be, and he doesn't want to be responsible for making Jim into the kind of man he became. Eventually he gives up everything he had sacrificed for because he saw a chance to set things right with Jim.

I’m a bit surprised you didn’t include nor mentioned Bowler Hat Guy (Michael "Goob" Yagoobian) from Meet The Robinsons in the video. I’d say his backstory and him being a future version of Goob who didn’t let go of the past after loosing the Winning catch, was a well done twist and I say he’s one of Disney’s best Twist Villains alongside King Candy. I also forgot to mention about DOR-15 (Doris) the Robot Bowler Hat, cause when you first saw "her" we thought she was the smart intelligent robot Sidekick to Bowler Hat Guy, until in the final act, DOR-15 was the true evil mastermind.

True. I do like the twist villains that work. The bad and forced twist villains make movies worse.

What I like about Silver is that they didn't try to hide the twist. We knew from the start that he was a traitor, but the interesting part was Jim finding out about it and confronting him.

The best part about King Candy to me is not his twist, but his voice actor. Alan Tudyk is just the *perfect* King Candy voice, and does an excellent job going from goofy to sinister. But yes, King Candy's twist is really well done and one of the best ones in my opinion.

Thats why i love Moana, because the twist is that there never was a villain. Turned the concept on its head!

i actually attended a lecture a few years ago by Randy Haycock, the lead animator for Clayton in Tarzan. He was joking because it was a great white hunter stereotype with a pencil mustache and the loudest gun in the story; does that really count as a twist villain? To that end, he decided to just have fun with animating him. If you're wondering why he looks plain NUTS half of his frames, that's why.

It's crazy to think that Disney is crappy with their twist villains in recent times, yet in the past they had twist villains that worked wonderfully. You can easily tell the difference between the villains from the early 2000s and the modern twist villains (except King Candy because he was a well written villain). And it makes you wonder why Disney from the Modern era are so bad at making their villains while they had either some characters that SHOULD have been villains, or why even leave those villains in the last minutes of the films? While looking at the villains from the early 2000s, they had a lot of character in them, they are goals that are clear, we are given hints of them being evil or bad, and we get to see some of the villains become something that fits the theme or suits them. Like Clayton becoming a savage and Rourke becoming the crystal that he was after. While characters like Han and Screenslaver having motives that are dumb and make no sense to their character. I'm not sure if this comment makes sense or if anyone has already made a comment like this. But I was just wanting to share my own opinion about twist villains.

Years ago when I first watched Atlantis, Rourke's evil twist legitimately shocked me. Most villains at that time were fairly obvious from the get go, but Rourke? The man was a kind caring leader who respected and valued his team, and out of nowhere becomes a cold monster because of how little he thinks of the Atlanteans and Milo's attachment to them. He also accurately sums up how this is just archaeology, at the end of the day. "Return every artifact, and you're left with an empty building." And his demise was even more shocking. I was not prepared for the horrific way he died by the Crystal's power.

As a Treasure Planet fan i was overjoyed for you to talk about silver, but yeah the twist is he starting to care for jim, you get the vibe of a boy who never had a dad, and a man who started to love someone other than him, and you see how hard it is for both of them when the twist happens

The reason simplified: They were built up.

Waternoose is made better by the fact that he's *only* do it to save the company - not because he has a personal vendetta against anyone. You can see that in the scene where he talks to Randall and says "Because of you, I had to banish my top scarer!" in an annoyed tone. Sully was literally the cash cow of the company. He knows that and is just damn near praying Randall's invention works. But when you compare that to Callahan from Big Hero 6, he lets Tadashi die by destroying the building for no reason, doesn't give a shit about it (even though he was the prize student), and makes some dumbass convoluted plan to use the microbots to get back at the big company guy for an accident said company guy felt empathetic for - he didn't want to strand or kill the daughter, but it just happened by accident partially due to him rushing the safety check. i haven't seen either film in years so i'm sure i'm missing some points, but it's a good contrast between the old and new types of disney villains.

The Hans twist wasn’t seen from a mile away by me… but, rather, by my mom. She spent her youth reading all the cheesy dollar store romance novels my aunt bought, and she said that his whole premise was a very common villain setup in those kinds of stories.

I am a simple girl. I see Silver- I click. But yeah Silver is a twist bc during their growth and character development you start to forget/hope that he’s not the villain. The same way Jim does. And so when he does ACTUALLY betray Jim and (unknowingly) in front of him, we feel the same hurt as Jim.

I think the reason why Rourke works so well as a twist villain is the fact that initially, you don't think there is going to be a villain at all. The first half of the movie is entirely obstacle based with major threats in the sub, fireflies, and everything else. There were other avenues available that could have led to a huge climax without the reveal that he was evil. As for Silver, I think the big fact that makes that twist work is the fact that he is heavily hinted at being the villain as soon as you meet him. You know the bad guy is a cyborg, and there were no other cyborgs around. The twist isn't really that he is the villain, it's that you don't want anything bad to happen to the villain after you meet him.

"That was his mistake!" Best villain quote in Disney history🤣 It definitely deserved an academy award over The Lego Movie.🤣

Tangled is my favorite Disney film of all time. It is already so perfect but I often think about how different it would be if the story was told more through the eyes of Rapunzel. It always seemed strange they had Eugene narrate at the beginning and not come in as a narrator till the end. It seemed kind of unnecessary. Whereas if it was told through Rapunzels eyes, we would believe we were in some strange kingdom full of danger, we would have more trust in Gothel and less in Eugene. It would make Eugene work harder to earn trust and make him more likable in the long run. Gothel would be innocent and motherly. Until things start unraveling as the climax unfolds. Scenes like when rapunzel sees the portrait in the kingdom, hears of the lost princess, and thinks of the lights having a connection to her birthday always lacked the shock value because within the first few minutes we already have all the answers. However, the way the scenes are written it is as if we don’t know. The POV changes too much. The scene where Rapunzel exposes Gothel is so strong and I think it would be even more shocking if the audience was also hearing this for the first time. In any great reveal scene outside of Disney a twist scene answers the unanswered questions and makes all the small details have meaning. It’s already a great film but the true darkness in the final act could really shine if done this way.

Funny enough, I didn’t totally understand why people disliked modern villains. I agreed they weren’t as strong as they count be but I still didn’t totally disagree to the twist side….. until now, you’ve reminded me three of my favorite Disney villains… No modern Disney villain has given me chills like King Candy did when he first: revealed himself as turbo, and two: had a “boss level”. Seeing the Cybug transformation gave me goosebumps. No other villain had done that until we got De la Cruz.. Now, I entirely understand where Disney is failing as their villians

I think that the best way to delineate between a good twist villain and a bad twist villain... is that a GOOD Twist villain, all the pieces are given to the audience well before they "turn." The betrayal is just that missing piece that clarifies all the other clues. A bad twist villain would lack that context. A bad twist villain is, ironically, a surprise.

I am going to say that Gaston is another twist villain, especially if you skip the introduction of the movie. We see that he is high-handed and arrogant, but we really do not see his true villainy until later. In fact we are introduced to him with people everywhere singing his praise and women swooning over him. No one is surprised at his eventual villainy, but he is in a certain light a sympathetic character until he decides to lock away Maurice.

I honestly don't know if I'd even call King Candy a twist villain, because unlike most of the others, the fact that he's the villain is not the twist in itself. We already know from his very first scene that he's an arrogant, attention hungry prick who'll do underhanded and unethical things to stop Ralph and Vanellope from taking away his power, so even when he doesn't seem like an outright villain, he's very clearly the antagonist from the start. The _actual_ twist - that he's really Turbo - doesn't change this fact, but it adds a ton and depth and context to the character and his actions, while also making him a much more direct parallel to Ralph. It's the same with the Wolf in _Puss In Boots: The Last Wish_ . We know from his very first scene that he's a ruthless hunter who wants Puss dead, and Puss is already desperately trying to get away from him. The character's goal and personality remains exactly the same after we learn that he's actually Death, we just have the explanation for _why_ he's doing it while also cementing the film's message about life and mortality. These twists don't abruptly change the characters or their roles in the story, but they add tons of layers and deeper meanings to the point where if you watch the films again, you'll see them and these villains in a completely different light than you did the first time.

I think the king candy ending up being Turbo thing worked the best in my opinion

I will always love John Silver as a character and Treasure Planet as a movie. I'm sad it doesn't as much love as it should, it is such a good movie with good characters who have complicated relationships with each other.

It's always nice to see Turbo getting some recognition, thanks, great analysis, straight to the point and well explained.

You made so many good points in this. I do agree about Clayton except instead of CHANGING him, the jungle just EXPOSED who he always was. This idea that polite and refined society often leads and enables the most horrendous of us to hide their natures. Out in the wild, there is nothing for you to hide behind, you end up having to be brutally honest. Rourke is amazing because ya, we could always tell something was off about him and Helga. It was the turn of the others that got me so hard the first time. Ya you understood they were in for money but none of them came across as willing to hurt people to do so. So, seeing them initially willing to not just hurt but cause a full genocide hits you really hard. Silver is perfect but I'd phrase him more as a kind of twist hero? Like if you know the book or just pay attention you can tell he's one of the bad guys from the jump. The twist in my eyes is when he starts bonding with Jim and seeing that slowly change him, with the big 'twist moment' to me being him getting upset over the sabotage during the black hole. Even the others call him out on it and you see it in his face that he's kind of shocked himself too. I liked seeing him constantly questioning his actions after that point, building up to the final culmination of letting the treasure go for Jim. Sad thing is, a lot of these modern twist villains could work SO much better with some relatively minor changes to the narrative that don't involve rewriting the entire thing. I get frustrated cuz I can see the moments where they could build the twist up better and I just end up wondering why they seem to just ignore all the clear signs that it isn't gonna work the way they want without these changes.

I actually liked bellwether, but the hints with her was THAT she was being helpful, and the fact that Lionheart was trying to keep the predators from hurting anyone was standing in her way of making them look like a threat.

I like how Clayton sees himself as refined and sharp yet he's constantly shooting everything. He shot at the sound of Tarzan faster than a gunslinger and tried to shot Tarzan the first time he appeared. And he got excited at hunting Tarzan saying he needed a challenge cause the gorillas were to easy. But he only beat one by shooting it and as soon as his gun is destroyed the completely flips out. I love how even as Tarzan smashed the gun and it's completely in pieces and falling, he's still for some reason reaching out for it. The Atlantis villain Lyle is fun cause everyone's goals are the same the whole journey. The only difference is the twist to them being that the people still exist. Lyle's companion says while looking at him "This changes everything" and he coldly says looking away forward "This changes nothing". He was always straight forward, he's just isolated from empathy and goes further than others. Same as you said with Clayton. The twist isn't that they're evil but that they're the savage they portray others as. Lyle kills, abandon and backstab anyone he wants to just to win, as he said himself "I love it when I win". But John Silver is the best out of all of them cause he isn't a twist villain. We're shown very early that he's the cyborg warned about and the way he commands the crew around. What I love is how he develops over the course of the movie. Threatening anyone in the way of his dreams but recognizing and acknowledging Jim has something special. He still focuses on his goal as shown when he readies a gun and still bosses Jim around to get his map. It's at the climax that he's given the choice. We know Jim is a good kid, we see another development of opening up and being honest about himself. I love John as a villain cause he's also not a villain and the end doesn't simply say water under the bridge. He's still wanted and offer Jim to leave with him and in the end he goes on his own. We just don't know what but I would forgive them a sequel just cause John is such a fun developed character who isn't all good or bad.

I think bellwether would have been a pretty good twist villan if she was written and hinted at better. I think a politician villan that seems like they're helping when really thier on the other side for their own benefit is a really great concept fitting really well with Zootopia. I already like Zootopia but if bellwether was a better villan id like it a lot more.

Treasure Planet is an all around underrated classic. Unfortunately, Disney didn’t promote the movie like they should have. I love watching the arcs both Jim and Silver go through throughout the movie. Jim gets that father figure he never had and Silver learns some morals, setting up a possible redemption arc for him IF Disney had promoted the movie and it became successful enough to warrant a sequel. At the end of the movie, Jim got into the Space Academy so it was highly logical that they'd cross paths again

The other diffrence I noticed between old school and new twist villain, is that said villains were not antagonists until it turned out that they and protagonist have opposite goal, and only because that they are revealed as a villain, while the new villain are like "I was good, but now i have 180° and i am bad muahaha"

When Hans was revealed as the villain of Frozen, I legit just sat up and was like "Wait what?" because he showed no inclination about being a villain. He showed interest in Anna and even smiled at her in the beginning, the only thing you'd pick up on is when he says he's 13th in line for the throne, but again that seems like a throwaway. That whole scene where he reveals his motives to Anna was narrative whiplash. If you wanted to become King of Arrendale, why save Elsa in the castle? Why not just kill her while she's unconscious? You know she's dangerous, and people won't stop you. For all they know, her powers might subside when she dies and restore Summer back to Arrendale. And when Anna reveals that she has to kiss him, he could just do what he did in canon and let her freeze, except now Elsa is dead so no one would be in his way. He was presented as a good guy and turned into a villain at the last second and it made no sense. It still annoys me to this day. It's even worse in Kingdom Hearts 3 when you can tell that, narratively, Elsa was supposed to be the main villain but they just throw Hans in there with no background, no explanation of who he is, he's just there. Further proof that Disney always meddles with things and ends up making them that much worse. Case in point, modern Disney remakes. In Big Hero 6, it was the same, the villain reveal just came out of nowhere, and it was more blatant in Zootopia with Belleweather, like as soon as I saw her, I was like "how much you wanna bet she's the villain?" and I was proven correct. Left field last second twist villains are just narratively incoherent, there's no pay off if you have no set up. It just takes me out of the movie.

TBH I think Han's works as a villain bc he's realistic. People like him exist and they're good at hiding their intentions and what they have planned until they think they have it completely in their control. Small things can be caught before that's a bit strange when you don't think of it as a Disney story but an actual thing happening in real life: he love bombs her, rushes their relationship, does his best to act like the good guy (especially publicly) and has a sickly sweet/perfect vibe about him when EVERYONE else had at least one flaw. His character wasn't fleshed out bc the person he is, doesn't exist in that world and is in fact very 2 dimensional. I've been around, and was in for two years an, abusive relationships my whole life and when it came to be that he was a villain I wasn't surprised bc he made me suspicious.

While I do agree with you by and large, I think Zootopia actually nailed its villainous reveal. The movie wasn’t an action flick, but a detective one. While we only get the twist at the end for mayor Bellwether, her motivations are slowly unveiled alongside clues and the general themes of the story. Her motivations are very closely tied to her actions/crimes, and we see our pair of detectives slowly uncover all the rot and biases within their beloved city. We see how both the prejudice against predators and the fear of herbivores effect various people in differing ways. And all of these clues and themes come together to point at the person with motive, ability and opportunity to pull off such a big scheme: the mayor’s aide, recently promoted to mayor. Heck, Judy being supported by Bellwether fits right in with all of her motivations, she just didn’t understand that Judy wanted to live with the predators (instead of merely dealing with the system where they are in charge like Bellwether). Bellwether actually wanted Judy as an ally and confidant, hence why her going overly menacing at the reveal hit harder. But you are right, if Zootopia weren’t a detective movie, the last minute reveal of the villain would have been a terrible twist. Thankfully it was a proper detective movie where the clues properly foreshadowed what he villain

Really great video! I definitely agree with all the older twist villains working so well. I think part of the reason that modern Disney twist villains are very poorly written is because of how big Disney as a company has gotten, they own so many franchises, and have split up all their best writers among to many different projects, causing the writing of everything as a whole fall from every franchise they own.

A twist villain works best when they are a twist to the other characters instead of trying to be a twist to the audience.

Rourkes biggest crime was what he did to mommy helga

My take on how these twist villains were able to work is that their villainy didn't feel like an on/off switch, but more like a tool that they might use depending on the situation. Your money-making scheme is getting waylaid by someone getting the hots for a native? Ditch the dead weight and bring out the weapons, we've got looting to do. Some nosy outsider is disrupting your plans to take control? Get on their good side to make it easier to remove them when they're a threat, or even get them to help you instead.

Silver is definitely more like a twist-hero than a twist-villain. We knew he was the villain from the veey beginning but he grew close to Jim over the journey and in the end he helped him and let go of his most desired: the treasure.

Well Disney can make great villains again in series. Belos is the best villain since Frollo and they can make them relateable like in Amphibia and these also had twist but they have a twist surrounding the villain and not that it is a twist that they are the villain. Sorry for my bad english i am German

I'm sorry but Bellweather from Zootopia was done really well however the biggest problem with her is that *they were too subtle about her connections and hints.* In some scenes when Bellweather is working on her computer to help Judy, you can see some sticky notes with hints of her connection to Doug (related to the big bad thing happening in the film) it's just very, very subtle with the way they show her having these clues in open sight but don't bring attention to it.

Dude, waiting for the main characters to realize who the villain is can be so engaging. Season 1 of the show Invincible had me on the edge of my seat for this!

Turbo one probably my fav, they used him as historical context only for him to become the main baddie in the final act

Well sowed values and motives are the necessity of a good twist villain. The clues are necessary to build towards how dark these characters really are, while also keeping in continuity and believability of a character turning

Silver is the goat, fav Disney character

A good twist villain is like a good mystery, we get enough clues and character to make it so we can believe they are the villain, without it being obvious from the start. It works even better if the clues can work for another character as a suspect, so when we get the reveal, it feels obvious on hindsight and makes watching other times even more fun seeing the breadcrumbs we missed.

King Candy was already the main antagonist for Vanellope’s narrative, but then the twist was that he was actually Turbo, Ralph’s narrative foil (another video game character who was discontent with his home game and jumped games for selfish reasons). But whereas Turbo was the hero in his game but then became the villain, Ralph was the bad guy who learned he can be heroic in his own way.

This video got me thinking…has there ever been a twist hero done by disney, the only one I can think of are the crew from Atlantis

I would argue that Hans is a far deeper character than most people credit, and many people miss the undercurrents because they're far more subtle in his case. Hans is the youngest of thirteen sons - even to his own family, he's little more than a nuisance; if he's lucky, his parents might marry him off to an equally-obscure princess in some distant land and simply forget he ever existed. Though he initially set his sights on courting Elsa, he recognized Anna's quite literally falling into his lap for the serendipitous blessing it was. When Elsa ran away and Anna chased after her, leaving Hans in charge of the kingdom, he could easily have usurped the throne right then and there - it would easily be days before Anna returned (if ever), and the Duke of Weselton could have readily convinced the kingdom that Anna was as 'cursed' as her sister. Yet Hans loyally supported Anna in her stead and even dressed down the Duke for his aspersions. But then Anna returned, her hair turning white and heart freezing due to the blast she received from Elsa. As a prince (however far down the line), he was most certainly well-versed in the lore of True Love's Kiss... But even Elsa had said that his relationship with Anna couldn't possibly be true love; Anna had chased Elsa shortly after and Hans hadn't seen her since. What would have happened if he had kissed her, particularly if it had failed to save Anna? So what does he do? Risk discovering that their love wasn't true enough - on either of their parts - or try to cushion the pain by *convincing himself* that he never really felt anything for her?

Treasure island was my favorite childhood movie I watched it almost once a week as a child and still have the movie to this day so to see it come up was something really happy for me, because he is the villain but at the same time grew to be a father as well and it is undeniably one the best portrayals of how just because someone is cruel in some ways doesn't mean it extends to all parts of who they are.

This was an excellent reminder and really helps to better appreciate these good examples of twist villians and what good storytelling telling can do with them.

One thing I never understood about Hans is… why tf would you leave Anna to die? She’s like you’re guaranteed entry to the throne, marry her and you’re golden. I think that scene would have been more impactful if he did try to kiss Anna to save her so he could marry her and take the throne, but it didn’t work. Then as Anna realises he never actually loved her he starts his monologue, having now resolved to plan B; leave the kingdom leaderless and then establish himself there through aid and garnering the public’s support. And of course, he will have no issue revealing all this in a lengthy monologue as he’s convinced Anna will die.

I actually LIKED Hans as a twist villian. He is every bit as sheltered and frustrated by the strictures of royal life as Anna, and when the 2 of them fall in love at first sight like 2 virgins on X- tacy and when they decide they want to get married, I truly believe he is every bit as invested as Anna. At this point in the story, the most villianous thought in Hans mind is how advantageous marrying Queen Elsa's little sister would be, and the worst that would have happened is he'd have turned into an entitled douchebag once the honeymoon was over. Then Elsa says no to the wedding and almost immediately afterward is revealed as a terrifyingly powerful ice witch who freezes Arandel and flees off into the night. Anna then does a dumb thing: She leaves Hans in charge of running Arendel while she goes in search of Elsa, leaving Hans the de facto King of Arandel. Im sure he just couldn't WAIT to give that up, especially when Anna returns with a blonde Magic Mike XXX himbo in tow ....Forget "twist villiany", what else was he going to do?

The best twist villains have an arc that makes perfect sense before they reveal as villains and *PERFECT* sense when you know they the twist.

King Candy being Turbo was considered the last "twist" villain to be good. The rest you can see from space.

Love how no one mentioned the first terrible twist villain that came way before the beginning of Disney's dive into CGI madness, Rico from Home on the Range. Dude's barely in the film, what we do get of his character isn't very much, he's built up to be this major deal in the film and then he's forgotten about until the very end, and the dude was pretty obvious to begin with due to how shady he acted with little screentime he had, his motivation is very weak (money? haven't seen that done before) and we really didn't need him to turn heel anyway, we already had Slim, the Willie brothers and Wesley. Yeah I know ragging on Home on the Range is old news but I thought I might as well add the pillar that started the s****y twist villain trend before it even began. And no using the excuse that it doesn't matter because Home of the Range is s**t anyways is not a good reason to not question things or to straight up forget about the movie altogether, the movie still exists in the Disney verse whether they like to acknowledge it or not. Say what you want about the movie but it still deserves recognition due to it being the last hand - drawn animated movie before Princess and the Frog movie came out.

Honestly, one of the best twist villains of DreamWorks was Johaan, from the RTTE HTTYD show. We knew that character since the first show, he was always that fun, comic relief idiot, but when he was revealed to be a villain it was a shock. Not even the audience could've predicted that. He and Krogan working for Drago and manipulating both Viggo and Hiccup was done so GOOd. Viggo's redemption and character development might have been rushed, but it was pretty good, sad that they decided to kill him off.

I love Silver so much, hes one of my favourite villains of all time.

For twist villians to work well, it doesn't matter if the audience can mostly figure out what's going before the reveal, all that matters is the gut punch within the narrative, both from the twist itself, and all the little moments before hand where you can see the villian laying foundations, getting ideas, adapting to manipulate others, foreshadowing through a bit of seemly insignificant banter. Some of my favourite twist villians of all time in fiction are from Babylon 5. That show is a gold mine of well written twist villians if I ever did see one.

No offence but I don't think John Silver was that much of a surprise as a twist villain if you notice him in the beginning through the window when the house went on fire. You could clearly see his eye and shadow of a mechanical arm. However I'm not saying that he's a bad character, I love his development and the movie 🤩

I think the failure of Incredibles 2 is that the main character, Mrs. Incredible, didn't have an arc. Mr. Incredible had clear growth in the first film and went from bottom to overinflated ego to failure to growth as a character. In the second movie Mrs. Incredible was just awesome the whole time and was never shown to learn anything or grow from her experience and become a better wife or mother or hero. Rae and other heroines have had this same treatment in modern Disney and the results speak for themselves.

The theme I'm sensing here is that instead of making a character the surprise billing, make your villain more obvious but still give them some kind of twist.

Treasure planet was peak childhood to me. That year so much good stuff happened in my life

It's also obvious that John Silver was the bad guy because Treasure Planet is just Treasure Island in space. It's not even apologetic about it.

What I get from most of these is that (Using Hans as example) 1.- The reason feels unconvincing or downright pitiful (wtf prince, you still get to be royalty even without being a king, have pride in that jeez…) 2.- The villain before and after the twist feel like two separate characters (you could per say… make hans into twins and put these two characteristics in these and it would work differently, but overall convey the same message) 3.-THE EXECUTION JUST DOESN’T DO JUSTICE And again, the plot of “character a” has some sort of power and “character b” makes allies (friends, lovers, etc etc etc.) of “character a” only to get said power has been down a couple of times, but that doesn’t excuse that much onto making the effort in these. It’s like they slap you with it instead of hitting you with the anticipation first I like to make the comparison to animation and one of it’s principles, the anticipation one to be more precise, for an action to have or to make it look like it has more of an impact it has to have an anticipation of said movements and I go to my final point with these 4.- The little details matters I get that it’s a little boring having just one goal for a story, because it would make it pretty boring, but these just feel like an extra they thought at the moment they were about to release it and just slapped it as a bonus instead of properly introducing and properly building upon it. Some of these little details can be pretty unnoticeable by the majority, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be that hidden, some things like gestures, ways of talking, idioms and stuff like that, make it so that Hans doesn’t look like he’s a 100% on the idea of marrying Anna by making him look bothered when he’s not being seen by anyone, or have some of his gestures give that message like idk, making him have a slightly more positive look on his face whenever he’s talking about the crown, the king’s position, and have him have a more calm but stoic and bored face whenever marriage comes into talk Idk that much about movies but I feel like a lot just falls on one or multiple of these examples and many more a little bit too hard. But that’s just my opinion…

A thumbnail with my two favorite movies of all time! This is a must watch! Atlantis and Treasure Planet are two movies centered around a treasure, and they are the two movies that marked me the most in my life and I tressure them deeply. Really liked the video man!

I think Silver works because they show why his Bond with Jim is so important to both and it’s like an emotional gut punch to show someone so important to Jim, the Main Character, would do something as such.

Ok. Bellwether makes perfect sense. Did you somehow miss that she was shit on by the mayor from her first appearance, emotionally and mentally abused? And she helped the main characters only when it helped expose the mayor's attempt to disappear the victims. Had Judy not figured out the night howlers later Bellwether would have gotten away with it. She is more insidious because she only helped them because, well because Judy was a prey animal, but because her investigation helped her pin it on the Mayor. It's genius. And I felt it was a good twist.

You know it's so funny because those infamous 3 could have been fixed with a few extra shots where we should be able to see their face. Like let's just imagine a scene where Hans before proposing shows his back to Anna, but is facing us the viewers. Make him have a suspicious facial expression before he turns and returns to his acting towards Anna, he proposes and voila. You now know he is up to something. Anna is not aware so to her he is a twist villain, but viewers are on edge and waiting for when he strikes (anticipatory suspense) Or not even that, when he was dunked with the boat, make him have an annoyed expression rather than a love-struck. You could argue that everyone would be annoyed by a dunking, but later on when he approaches Anna it can be up in the air 50/50 if he is genuine or playing a part.

Top 3 reasons why they worked and what every twist villain needs to not be crap imo 1: Their motivation is understandable and doesn't come out of nowhere 2: They are given enough time that we can get to know them as characters 3: They don't become a completely different character after the reveal 3 being the most important Silver worked because even after the mutiny it's clear everything we saw of him up until then was still there, he maintained the same personality and clearly still cared for Jim Hans failed because we only saw him being the almost too good to be true prince with little to no indication as to his intentions and his character did a complete 180 at the end

"Let's watch her DIE together shall we" The parents in the theatres: 👁👄👁

Well, Long John was the villain in Treasure Island, so…

I'm going to go against the grain and say I liked Hans as a twist villain. If you listen to his conversations with Anna, the clues are there. He mentions he has several older brothers who disrespected him growing up. He wants power and respect. Being the youngest of so many brothers would mean that he wouldn't inherit the throne or a large allowance. Further, pay attention to his face during "Love is an Open Door", when he and Anna are sliding down the hall in their socks and duck behind a door to avoid being seen. Hans initially looks at Anna with a disgusted expression until she looks at him, then he neutralizes his face. By assuming a leadership role while Anna and Elsa were away, he established trust among the peasants and politicians, so when he lied about Anna's death, he would go unquestioned.