10 Movie Heroes Who Turned Evil In The Sequel

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You either die a hero, or...

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00:00Harvey Dent said it best, you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself

00:05become the villain.

00:06Movies are full not only of villains who go through their own redemption arc and wind

00:10up as heroes, but also the exact opposite.

00:14Heroes who make Dent's words ring true by Breaking Bad and taking a complete 180 U-turn

00:20on their good guy stance in a sequel.

00:23I'm Ewan, this is WhatCulture, and here are 10 Movies Where The Hero Turns Evil In The

00:27Sequel.

00:28Number 10, Bucky Barnes, Captain America, The Winter Soldier.

00:33Best friends back in 1940s Brooklyn, Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers were inseparable and were

00:40with each other till the end of the line, even after one had been captured, had his mind completely

00:45corrupted and was sent back into the world to kill the other.

00:49As a member of the Howling Commandos, Bucky was a war hero, one of Captain America's greatest

00:54allies.

00:55As the Winter Soldier, however, he was one of the most ruthless and successful assassins

01:00the world had ever seen.

01:02So elusive and so impeccably skilled in what he did, that most of the intelligence community

01:07didn't even believe he existed.

01:10Bucky ultimately came good again, but that initial reveal didn't lose any of its shock

01:14value and it made the transition from the page to screen.

01:17Number 9, John Connor, Terminator Genisys.

01:21For four previous movies, John Connor was the hero of the Terminator franchise and his

01:26life needed to be protected.

01:28The fifth film in the franchise, however, followed a different timeline in which he was caught

01:33by Skynet.

01:35The villainous AI, personified in this case by a barely there Matt Smith, essentially

01:40killed John Connor's conscience and took over his body, sending humanity's greatest

01:46hero back in time as a T-3000.

01:47What better way to stop those meddling heroes from getting in the way of an evil plan than

01:53by literally sending the best of them back as an enemy?

01:56Thanks to Genisys underperforming both critically and commercially, Dark Fate followed several

02:01years later and in killing John Connor, essentially retconned anything that happened in Rise of the

02:06Machines, Salvation or Genisys.

02:09Still, 2014 had that brief window where humanity's greatest hero became its strongest adversary.

02:16A moment I need blissfully terminating.

02:19Number 8, President Coin, The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2.

02:24When the districts rebelled against President Snow's rule over them from the capital, it

02:28was Katniss Eberdeen that was the initial spark.

02:32She shared the night lock with Peter preventing Snow from having his Hunger Games winner and she

02:37fought as the Mockingjay, the focal point of the whole rebellion, to bring an end to Snow's

02:42regime.

02:43That's not to say that she did it alone though, or even that she was in charge.

02:47There were teams of people around her to help, from Haymitch to Prim, Gale and more, and

02:51of course in Mockingjay Part 1 there was Alma Coyne, who acted as General of the Rebellion.

02:58Without Coyne there would have arguably been no District 13, and the revolt would have been

03:02crushed before it even started.

03:04Under her leadership, the revolution was successful and capital finally fell, where she would then

03:09take the role of President from Snow in Part 2.

03:12Her first act, punish the capital by forcing their children to compete in a Hunger Games

03:17of their own.

03:18So she learned absolutely nothing and in just one conversation proved herself to be no

03:22better than Snow.

03:23Number 7, Cobra, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Caesar led the apes' fight against human

03:29oppression in the excellent rebooted Planet of the Apes films.

03:32And next to him all the way was Cobra, who didn't cheer when the abused ape was able

03:37to drop his tormentor from the Golden Gate Bridge at the end of the first movie.

03:42Flash forward 10 years later though, and while Caesar was happy to live alongside humans so

03:46long as they didn't bother and you know, torture all the apes, Cobra's hatred still

03:50raged.

03:51He wanted every human to die, and this disagreement in ideology ultimately drove the two brothers

03:58in arms apart.

04:00Not only did Cobra manipulate the other apes, he appeared to kill Caesar, using the leader's

04:05death to bring about a bloody war with the humans.

04:08He became a ruthless leader who was followed out of fear more so than respect and loyalty,

04:14and as a direct result of his actions, killed many, many apes.

04:18Ironically, Cobra claimed that Caesar loved humans more than apes, and yet he was the one

04:24who outright murdered his own kind in some kind of power display.

04:28Number 6, Thorin Oakenshield, The Hobbit, The Battle of the Five Armies

04:33One of the biggest downgrades of the Hobbit trilogy was going from Aragorn to Thorin Oakenshield,

04:39who just wasn't all that compelling to follow.

04:42Thorin's struggles as a protagonist were compounded further by his more villainous

04:47turn in the final entry in the trilogy.

04:49Once Thorin and company took Erebor back from Smaug, and after the people of Laketown paid

04:53the price for the dragon's disturbance, the new king under the mountain grew greedy.

04:58He coveted the Arkenstone, and with that came a certain kind of paranoia, and something

05:04of a sickness too.

05:05He became just as protective of his gold as the dragon before him.

05:09He had struck a bargain with Bard too, and he owed the people of Laketown fair recompense.

05:14But instead of paying what was rightfully owed, Thorin locked himself in the mountain

05:19and gave himself one more enemy on the battlefield in the lead up to his ultimate death.

05:25Number 5, Jean Grey, X- The Last Stand.

05:29Okay, so putting it out there, X2 X-Men United is still one of the better combat movies we've

05:35gotten, and it ended on a bittersweet note with the seeming death of Jean Grey, who sacrificed

05:40herself to protect the X-Men as they made their getaway from Alkali Lake.

05:44We then got a glimpse of the phoenix rising from the lake at the end of the movie, promising

05:49one of the most iconic X-Men storylines would be explored in the sequel, the Dark Phoenix

05:54Saga.

05:55And explored it did, but really amazingly, in X- The Last Stand, which saw Famke Janssen's

06:02Omega level mutant being taken over by the dark side of her personality and joining up

06:07with Magneto.

06:08She smoked Cyclops and Professor X along the way to a final confrontation with Wolverine,

06:13who then reluctantly kills her to prevent the phoenix from harming anyone else.

06:174.

06:18Letty – Fast and Furious 6

06:202009's Fast and Furious is arguably the most forgettable entry in the series, but

06:26it is important for a few key reasons.

06:29Mainly as it saw the return of Vin Diesel to the franchise for the first time since the

06:33debut entry, but also because it placed Paul Walker's Bryan firmly in the Toretto family

06:38and all the Corona-sipping barbecues that entails.

06:42More dramatically though, Fast and Furious also killed off Michelle Rodriguez's Letty,

06:46Dom's wife.

06:47Letty dies in an explosion after tracking Braga, leading Bryan and Dom to rekindle their unlikely

06:53friendship and avenger.

06:54Letty stayed dead for Fast 5, but was mysteriously resurrected as an amnesiac mercenary in Furious

07:006 after an ending tease in the previous film.

07:03The new villain of the sequel, Owen Shaw, played by Luke Evans, had taken in Letty after

07:08she survived the explosion from Fast and Furious, using her talents as part of his anti-familia

07:13team.

07:14Letty eventually breaks out of her funk and gets back with Dom, who then also went briefly

07:19evil in F8.

07:213.

07:22Optimus Prime – Transformers The Last Knight

07:25The absolute madness that is Transformers The Last Knight gifted us with lots of great

07:30stuff.

07:31Cogman, prestigious actor Anthony Hopkins getting absolutely obliterated by a giant robot.

07:38Optimus being in World War 2, and it also led to a surprise flipping of roles for Optimus

07:42Prime.

07:43After the ending of Age of Extinction, Prime travels to Cybertron and encounters Quintessa,

07:49who transforms him into evil Optimus, aka Nemesis Prime.

07:53Bumblebee ends up coming to blows with his former Autobot commander, only for Prime to

07:58get the upper hand and nearly kill him.

08:00Bumblebee then manages to speak to Optimus in his original, non-radio voice, which snaps

08:05him out of the brainwashing and turns him into the lovable Autobot we all know and love.

08:112.

08:12Wanda Maximoff – Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

08:15Technically, Wanda Maximoff's introduction to the MCU was as a villain after being recruited

08:21by Ultron, but she soon switched sides to the Avengers.

08:25You could have made the argument that Wanda was the villain of WandaVision, as she imprisoned

08:29countless people within her ex just to live out her fantasy to avoid dealing with her

08:33grief, but when the Hex came down and she was forced to say goodbye to Vision, again,

08:39and the children she manifested, that's when she truly began to manipulate and utilize

08:43her powers as the Scarlet Witch.

08:45Wanda's villainous turn in the Multiverse of Madness was one-fueled by grief and loss,

08:50and the fact that she would do absolutely anything to be with the children she knew existed in

08:54another universe.

08:55The Scarlet Witch seemed to have been shown the error of her ways by America Chavez, so

08:59if she does return, there's currently no telling on whose side she'll actually be.

09:051.

09:06Anakin Skywalker – Star Wars Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

09:10There was one story that the Star Wars prequels were produced to tell, and that was the

09:15transition of Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader.

09:18Forget Jar Jar, actually don't forget Jar Jar, I love him sincerely, the Jedi Council,

09:23and even Obi-Wan Kenobi, this was literally the story of a hero's turn to evil.

09:28In the original Star Wars trilogy, Darth Vader immediately announced himself as a villain

09:32for the ages, but there was so much more hidden underneath the mask.

09:36Hints and breadcrumbs were dropped for a new trilogy of movies to pick up on two decades

09:41later.

09:42There were several moments throughout Revenge of the Sith that you could accredit the exact

09:45moment Anakin began his spiral towards the dark side, but even in the face of the prequel

09:50trilogy's criticisms, they were all put to screen incredibly well.

09:54And those were 10 movie heroes who turned evil in the sequel.

09:57How do you feel about these villainous turns?

09:59Love them?

10:00Loathe them?

10:01Shout out your thoughts down in the comment section below, and don't forget to drop the

10:04video a like if you enjoyed it, and subscribe if you're new.

10:07Either way, I've been Ewan, you've been watching WarCulture, and I will hopefully see

10:11you next time as a villain.

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