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Jacob should've been the protagonist of the Fantastic Beasts franchise.
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00:00Now, it goes without saying that a protagonist can make or break a movie, get them right,
00:05and they can bolster an entire franchise basically by themselves. I mean, I'm looking at you,
00:09Tony Stark, over there. But get it wrong, and a potentially lucrative IP can crater
00:13overnight. But sometimes the results are a little less dramatic, though, even as it's clear that
00:19the filmmakers hedged their bets on the wrong character to lead their movie and probably should
00:23have looked elsewhere. And that's what we're covering today. As I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:27and these are the 10 movies that chose the wrong lead character.
00:3210. Cersei, Eternals
00:34Though Marvel's Eternals is certainly an ensemble-led affair, the de facto protagonist is clearly Cersei.
00:41She's an Eternal who possessed the promising ability to manipulate matter, but spends far too much of
00:46her screen time trapped in a love triangle. Now, she's not a bad character, but she's just not a
00:50hugely compelling lead, despite a solid effort from Gemma Chan. Perhaps had more time been spent
00:56developing her complex relationship with humanity, she might have seemed a more fitting protagonist.
01:01Ultimately, the Eternal's line-up contains several more interesting and well-wrought characters.
01:06Perhaps best of all, Fastos, whose unique role in shaping humanity's development through technology
01:11gives him a direct and fascinating tether to the audience.
01:149. Ford Brody, Godzilla
01:17The monsterverse admittedly doesn't have a stellar track record with human characters as it stands,
01:23though the decision to assign Godzilla 2014's protagonist duties to the painfully dull US Navy
01:28officer Ford Brody was an especially egregious mistake. The movie's first act benefited considerably
01:35from the presence of Ford's father, Joe, with the marketing emphasising Bryan Cranston's role in
01:40that film, only for him to be suddenly killed off at the end of Act 1. Even Bryan Cranston himself
01:45has been vocal about his character's death being the wrong call, deeming it an utter waste,
01:49echoing the sentiment from many fans that Joe should have been the movie's lead and his son swapped
01:54into a supporting part. Instead, Ford takes the reins in a movie where Godzilla's screen time is
01:59relatively scant, and without the character generating any sparks of interest at all, the film becomes a pure
02:04drag almost any time that it focuses on him. 8. Sandy, Grease
02:09Now, Sandy is the outright lead of the hit musical Grease, though in more recent years there's been
02:14a fair amount of pushback against her character arc. That what qualifies as her happy ending is
02:19changing herself entirely for the boy in her life, Danny. But aside from that, Sandy is just a bit of
02:24a one-note character, all things considered, especially compared to the leader of the Pink Lady's
02:28Rizzo. Rizzo is a rough-edged character whose arc is considerably more interesting. Yet while
02:33Sandy's decision to drop her pretensions towards properness are rewarded at the film's end,
02:39Rizzo's free-spirited nature is largely shamed throughout the story. But Rizzo is a self-actualised
02:44person from the get-go and doesn't need a boy to get her there. Sure, she's pretty harsh to Sandy,
02:49but it's born more from a frustration with her slavish devotion to propriety, and the film still
02:54does a solid job of revealing Rizzo's more sensitive and vulnerable side. Rizzo isn't as easily defined as
03:00Sandy, but that's part of why she's a far more interesting character and ultimately worthier
03:04of being the role model that young girls could look up to.
03:077. Cole Young β Mortal Kombat 2021
03:10Despite Mortal Kombat being one of the most iconic and recognisable video game franchises in history,
03:16Hollywood still thought that last year's new movie needed an audience insert character
03:20for some unknown reason. And so the movie is led by an entirely original creation,
03:24MMA fighter Cole Young, who is later revealed to be the descendant of Hanzo Hasashi, aka Scorpion.
03:31Now, Louis Tan does a fine enough job with the meagre scraps that he has, but both he and his
03:35family feel like wildly unnecessary additions in a film overflowing with beloved existing characters.
03:42There are several easy potential protagonists among the lot of them, especially Liu Kang and Scorpion,
03:46not to mention Johnny Cage, who doesn't even appear in the film. Pre-release Cage's absence seems so
03:51baffling that many fans, ourselves included, believed that Cole was actually going to become
03:56Johnny Cage by the film's end, but alas, that didn't happen. It's just totally ridiculous that
04:00in 2021, with Hollywood supposedly adapting video games with a degree of respect and reverence,
04:05we're still getting very cynical decisions like this.
04:086. Julie James β I Know What You Did Last Summer
04:12I Know What You Did Last Summer's protagonist is Julie James, a smart, sensible, beautiful young woman,
04:17but ultimately is a rather boring and dead ordinary choice for the slasher flick's final girl.
04:22Now, many fans of the movie believe that there was a far better lead character waiting in the wings,
04:26and that's Julie's good pal Helen. The fact that Helen has her own Wikipedia page,
04:30while Julie doesn't, really says everything that needs to be said about the respective impact
04:34on the audience and general pop culture. Now, at first glance, Helen seems to be a stereotypical
04:40horror movie beauty queen, defined by vapid self-interest and little else. Yet,
04:44there's a surprising depth to Helen that exposes her deep-running vein of emotional vulnerability.
04:50Helen is evidently wracked with guilt over the fatal car accident that she was involved in,
04:54and has a fraught home life to boot. We're compelled to root for Helen to survive,
04:58and so it's such a crushing letdown that she's ultimately killed off at the end of an unforgettable
05:02chase sequence, despite surviving in the novel, no less. Julie's fate was never really in doubt,
05:08which could have made it such a fantastic surprise to kill the prototypical final girl
05:12and have Helen make it to the end instead.
05:155. Raleigh Beckett, Pacific Rim
05:17Now, Charlie Hunman did all that could be done with Pacific Rim's wafer-thin protagonist,
05:23Raleigh Beckett, but the movie really belongs to the infinitely more memorable and appealing
05:27supporting character, Mako Mori. Now, Mako admittedly has a relatively large role in the film,
05:33but there's no denying that she plays second fiddle to Raleigh, who, by comparison,
05:36is a rather uninteresting, charisma-free, generic white guy lead. Perhaps the single most memorable
05:41sequence from the film is the flashback detailing the loss of Mako's parents in a kaiju attack on
05:46Tokyo, resulting in her subsequently being adopted. Between Mako's tragic backstory,
05:51her strong-willed determination, and the admittedly terrific performance, it's really
05:55a no-brainer that she should have led this blockbuster. However, releasing in 2013 as it did,
06:00long before Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel finally convinced crusty Hollywood executives that female-led
06:05tentpoles were viable, the apparently smart, sensible choice was picking the bland,
06:10interchangeable dude. Ironically, with Raleigh not returning for the sequel, 2018's Pacific Rim
06:15Uprising, it would have been the perfect opportunity for Mako to slide into the lead role,
06:20but instead, she returned for a mere fleeting cameo in which her character was inexplicably
06:24killed off. Cool.
06:264. Sam Carpenter β Scream 2022
06:29The recent fifth Scream film did a rock-solid job of introducing audiences to a new cast of likeable
06:35young characters, capable of carrying the franchise forward with or without the original surviving
06:40heroes. Scream's lead character ended up being Sam Carpenter, who is eventually revealed to be the
06:45biological daughter of one of the series' original killers, Billy Loomis. While that is an interesting
06:50idea, to make the series' new lead the descendant of the original villain, who appears to have
06:55inherited their aptitude at bloodletting no less, as a protagonist Sam pales somewhat in comparison
07:00to her sister Tara. Tara becomes an immediate sympathetic character from the film's very first
07:05scene where she unexpectedly survives a run-in with Ghostface. In addition to being a horror film
07:10fan, Tara takes an incredible amount of punishment over the course of the movie, cementing both her
07:15vulnerability and her toughness, ensuring that she feels the most Sidney-like of the new characters.
07:20Furthermore, when comparing the two's acting capabilities, Tara is just simply better,
07:24more deeply felt and persuasive. Both sisters are at least set to return for Scream 6,
07:29though, which begins shooting very soon. 3. Jim Preston β Passengers
07:33Passengers was one of 2016's most hotly anticipated films, the star pairing of Jennifer
07:39Lawrence and Chris Pratt in a big-budget sci-fi romance having box office gravy written all over
07:44it. And yet, it ultimately released to a fairly muted response from critics and audiences alike
07:48due to the rather contentious characterization of protagonist Jim. After being awoken from cryo-sleep
07:5490 years early and spending a year living on his own on a spaceship, Jim decides to wake up a
07:58fellow passenger. The problem is, of course, is that rather than focus on this action as a product
08:03of Jim's unstable loneliness, the script tries to segue it into a genuinely affecting love story
08:08in which a selfish schmuck romances the smoking-hot woman he irreversibly woke up from slumber
08:13against her will. And many critics noted that a big problem of this movie is its point of view,
08:18and that having a story unfold from her perspective rather than Jim's would have positioned the empathy
08:23in a more agreeable way. It still would have faced an uphill struggle to convince audiences that Jim's
08:28act wasn't one of total scumbaggery, even accepting his crushing loneliness, but given that we're firmly
08:33on Aurora's side, having us experience events alongside her would have righted a lot of the script's
08:38inherent tonal issues.
08:402. Newt
08:41Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
08:43Now, it's fair to say that Fantastic Beasts protagonist Newt is a fairly unconventional
08:48lead for a massive blockbuster IP. He's not even remotely charismatic, has a number of bizarre
08:53physical and verbal tics, and actor Eddie Redmayne believes that he's on the autistic spectrum.
08:57There is a bumbling charm to Newt, for sure, but he's simply not nearly as likeable as his good
09:02pal Jacob is, the New York baker who ends up inadvertently joining Newt on his magical adventures.
09:07For one, any time the character is on screen, you get an effortlessly rabble-rousing performance.
09:12But more than that, Jacob is the perfect vessel through which audiences can be introduced to
09:16this corner of the wizarding world. Countless blockbusters have proven the success of using
09:21an audience surrogate character who is as clueless as the viewer, allowing them to organically
09:25experience the world alongside us, and Jacob fits the role like a glove. Though it would be easy for
09:30Jacob to end up being relegated to the comic relief role, his relationship with Queenie and his
09:34passion for baking bring a lot of heart and soul to a series that it is admittedly often lacking in
09:40it. It's probably quite fitting that Newt often feels like a passenger in his own franchise,
09:44almost as if J.K. Rowling realizes that there are more compelling characters elsewhere.
09:48And number one, Rey. Star Wars The Force Awakens.
09:52And so we wrap up with possibly a controversial choice that, that as potential rich as Star Wars'
09:57Rey was, that she shouldn't have led the sequel trilogy as its Luke Skywalker-esque protagonist.
10:03After Rey's solid introduction, she settles into an over-familiar character rhythm,
10:08largely working through the archetypal hero's journey beats that we've seen before with little
10:12in the way of creative variation. And there are two infinitely more interesting choices for the
10:16sequel trilogy's protagonist. Finn, a former stormtrooper, who fans understandably expected
10:21to be the sequel's true hero, and more ambitiously, the villainous Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren is far and away the
10:28most complex and intriguing character of the entire sequel trilogy, and building The Force Awakens
10:32around him would have been an especially bold move. Audiences clearly responded strongly to the
10:38character, in large part due to Adam Driver's superb performance, and several years removed from the
10:42sequels, he's really the only new character who's had much cultural staying power whatsoever.
10:47Granted, Disney would be understandably nervous about making an antagonistic character their lead,
10:51and so Finn would have been a solid second choice. Again, Rey is a fine enough character,
10:56but she's also painfully unadventurous.
10:58And there we go my friends, those were 10 movies that chose the wrong lead actor.
11:01Hope that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the
11:04comments section below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter
11:08at RetroJWithAZero, or you can swing by Liv and Let's Dice, where I do all of my streaming
11:13outside of work, as well as my Warhammer Battle Reports, and it'd be great to see you over there.
11:17But before I go, I just want to say one thing. Even though we detail today a lot about lead
11:21characters who probably weren't in the right roles, you, my friend, are the starring role of
11:25your life, and you deserve all of the love, happiness, and success, all of the good things,
11:29my friend, and do not let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise. You are a massive ledge,
11:33and I want you to go out there and absolutely smash your life goals today. I believe in you.
11:37As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
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