Watering Down Bad Guys?

[Darth Atlantis]

I'm not sure where to put this thread but this does have alot to do with Star Trek so here it goes. This rant has been along time coming, especially cause I'm an enormous sci-fi fan. I'm tired of watered down villains, main guys, whatever. And maybe there is no way around this but from stargate atlantis to star trek voyager its like writers take the time to come up with a great enemy then decide to make them into bitches to our heroes. I guess I feel that truly GREAT, ALL POWERFUL, villains should be used sparingly or at least if our heroes triumph over them a price has to be bad somehow. For Example, In "Q'Who" The Enterprise is only saved by Q and in "Best of Both Worlds" the borg cube is only stopped after they crush a federation fleet. I find that far more entertaining then doing essentially what voyager did to both Species 8472 and the Borg. Now in B5 the Shadows and the Vorlons were pretty much all-powerful throughout the entire show, the only person that could stop them was themselves. So what do you guys think about main villains, super species, etc etc.

 

[shavedape]

I tend to take the other approach, meaning that I find many "heroes" are usually watered down, attenuated and weak. I can't stand it when someone tells the good guy not to kill the bad guy because then the hero will be no better than the bad guy. That's such a crock of shit. There's a difference between right and wrong, black and white, good and bad and killing that which is evil doesn't make one bad. That's just dumb. I'm so sick of hearing that shit.

Of course an adversary should be a worthy one and should be a challenge to defeat, but in the end they should be defeated. Another thing I can't stand are enemies that never die, they just keep coming back and back and back and back and back... That kind of shit dilutes the good guy's standing in my eyes. So there ya have it.

 

[Joelist]

Trek did have both issues - watering down the villains and down powering the heroes (often illogically). Examples include having the same Enterprise E that stands toe to toe with a Borg cube be in serious trouble against the Son'a (despite it being clear the Son'a were nowhere near the tech level of the Borg).

On the good side, the ST 2009 film avoided both pitfalls. The enemy was not watered down (Nero may have had a grievance with Spock but his reaction was pure blind hate and vengeance) nor powered down (the Enterprise was no match for the Narada). The heroes lived up to being heroes as well, even to the point of Kirk offering quarter to Nero when his ship was being sucked into the black hole.