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When villains become heroes in the next movie.
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00:00Coming up with a great movie villain is no easy feat, but when the right actor is paired with a
00:05great script, filmmakers can create statuesque antagonists that'll be remembered forevermore.
00:12And so, the temptation to just bring a hit villain back to raise hell all over again in the sequel
00:18kinda speaks for itself, because why not just give the audience more of what they enjoyed the first
00:24time, right? But sometimes, in an attempt to shake things up, they end up nudged into a more heroic
00:30role instead. I'm Ewan, this is War Culture, and here are 10 movie villains who became heroes in the
00:37sequel. Number 10, Hector Barbossa, Pirates of the Caribbean at World's End. The original Pirates of
00:44the Caribbean introduced the deliciously villainous Captain Barbossa, played to perfection by the
00:50great Geoffrey Rush. A conniving schemer determined to break the curse placed upon him and his men,
00:56he becomes a major thorn in the side of Jack Sparrow and company, even if he's ultimately defeated come
01:02the ending. Sequel Dead Man's Chest introduced a worthy antagonist successor in Bill Nighy's Davy
01:09Jones, but the film concluded with one hell of a big twist, the return of Barbossa from the first movie.
01:16More to the point, Barbossa is reintroduced as a quasi-heroic figure, to help guide the assembled
01:22party to save Jack's soul from Davy Jones' locker. And so, in the third film, At World's End,
01:30Barbossa indeed adopts a more heroic adjacent tenor, even if by film's end, he's scarpered with the
01:36Black Pearl in search of the Fountain of Youth. Barbossa's allegiances certainly prove fluid,
01:42shall we say, throughout the rest of the franchise. Though, on the balance of his actions, teaming up
01:47with Jack to take down several mutual enemies, he's absolutely closer to a hero than he is a villain.
01:539. Jaws Moonraker
01:56Roger Moore's third James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, aka His Best One, introduced audiences
02:02to the instantly iconic henchman Jaws, played by Richard Keel, fondly remembered for his hulking frame
02:08and sharp, steely teeth. Though Jaws' boss, Carl Stromberg, played by Kurt Juergens, is killed at the
02:15film's end, Jaws lives on to fight another day and return in the next film, Moonraker. Here,
02:22Jaws is aligned with the evil industrialist Hugo Drax, played by Michael Lonsdale, though undergoes
02:28a change of heart later in the film. The seeds are sown when Jaws, who is presented as far more
02:34of a
02:35comic relief character this time around, falls in love with a petite, bespectacled woman by the name
02:40of Dolly, played by Blanche Rebelec. And so, after learning that neither he nor Dolly will be spared
02:46from Drax's plot to exterminate most of the human race, he's persuaded to help Bond take him out.
02:51The last time we see Jaws, he's made it back to Earth safely with Dolly, and while the pair were
02:58originally going to marry in For Your Eyes Only, this subplot was ultimately cut, along with Jaws'
03:04entire role, in an attempt to rein in some of the silliness of the Moor era.
03:09According to director Louis Gilbert, the decision to change Jaws from a villain into a hero was
03:15motivated by scores of fan mail from young children asking why Jaws had to be a baddie.
03:21Aw, it's really cute. Imagine being a kitten, like, Jaws is your favourite Bond character.
03:26If that was you, let us know down in the comments below. The whole Jaws face turn thing is goofy
03:32as
03:32whole hell, but in a movie as fundamentally ridiculous as Moonraker, it doesn't really feel out of place.
03:40Number 8, Teddy Sanders, Bad Neighbours 2. The quote-unquote villainy of comedy Bad Neighbours
03:47may ultimately be relatively low stakes compared to most movies on this list, but it still counts
03:53all the same. Couple Mac and Kelly, played by Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne respectively, are adjusting
03:59to life with their infant daughter when a hard party in fraternity, daughter Cy Bader, moves in next
04:05door. The frat's hell-raising antics are spearheaded by its president, Teddy Sanders, played by Zac Efron,
04:11who isn't much interested in toning down the mayhem for Mac and Kelly's benefit, resulting
04:16in a war of escalation between the two sides.
04:20The matter is resolved somewhat amicably by the ending, but when Bad Neighbours 2 introduces
04:26the considerably more vicious sorority Kappa New as Mac and Kelly's new neighbours,
04:32Teddy is pulled back into the fold to help take the sorority down.
04:36Though Teddy initially sides with Kappa New and their leader Shelby, played by Chloe Grace
04:41Moretz, he eventually appreciates that they're far more chaotic than he ever was, and so
04:46becomes a force of good to help his former enemies out.
04:50Number 7, Apollo Creed, Rocky III.
04:53While it would obviously be a huge stretch to say that Rocky Balboa's opponent in the first two
04:58Rocky movies is an out-and-out villain, Apollo Creed is in the very least an antagonist who stands
05:04in the way of Rocky's quest for victory.
05:07Also, gotta just take a moment to appreciate Carl Weathers here, this guy is sorely missed
05:13already.
05:14Sly Stallone's Rocky of course defeats Apollo at the end of Rocky II, and when the third film
05:19rolls around, Apollo returns to help train Rocky to take on a powerful new contender in
05:25Club Alang, played by Mr. T in one of the most 80s performances you're ever likely to come
05:32across.
05:32Despite their initial frostiness, Rocky and Apollo develop a bond throughout their training
05:38sessions, enough that they become genuine close friends, a friendship which would have
05:42likely lasted a lifetime had Apollo not been killed by Ivan Drago in Rocky IV.
05:48This is a movie death I'm never getting over.
05:51All the same, Apollo's legacy casts a long heroic shadow over the franchise, which of course
05:57pivoted to follow his son Adonis, played by Michael B. Jordan, in the recent Creed trilogy.
06:036.
06:04Mini-Me
06:04Austin Powers in Goldmember
06:07Vern Troyer's Mini-Me is one of the most iconic characters in the Austin Powers franchise,
06:13introduced in the second film, The Spy Who Shagged Me, as a dwarf clone of the villainous
06:18Dr. Evil, of course played by Mike Myers.
06:21Throughout the film, Dr. Evil's son Scott, Seth Green, grows jealous of the paternal bond his
06:27father develops with his clone.
06:29In sequel Goldmember however, Mini-Me decides to defect from the bad side after Dr. Evil
06:33rejects him in favour of Scott, who has begun to embrace his own evil instincts.
06:39Mini-Me doesn't just team up with Austin and company though, he even flat out dons his
06:44own Mini-Austin uniform for good measure, and it's a great look it must be said.
06:49But that's not all either.
06:51In the ending, Dr. Evil himself also decides to switch sides after learning that Austin is
06:56his brother, with the former nemeses teaming up to stop gold members, again Mike Myers,
07:01a nefarious plot to destroy the world.
07:045.
07:05Leatherface
07:06Texas Chainsaw 3D
07:08Aside from being quite needlessly released in 3D, 2013's direct sequel to the original
07:14Texas Chainsaw Massacre made one especially bold change to the series formula, turning
07:20chainsaw-wielding murderer Leatherface into something of an anti-hero.
07:28Though much of the movie sees Leatherface ripping through anyone with a pulse, as per usual,
07:33in the second half of the story he turns his chainsaw towards the corrupt authorities who
07:38were responsible for his family being murdered decades prior.
07:41Moreover, and sorry to bring this up again horror fans because you'll all know this by now,
07:48Leatherface teams up with protagonist Heather, played by Alexander Daddario,
07:52after it's revealed that they're cousins, allowing him to exact brutal justified revenge
07:58against the cops and save Heather's life in the process.
08:01And yeah, the strange alteration to Leatherface's allegiance didn't exactly go down well with
08:07Texas Chainsaw diehards, who still hear the phrase, do your thing cuz, in their nightmares.
08:14But such is what happens when a franchise gets so blatantly long in the tooth,
08:18the producers will throw any random idea at the wall to see if it sticks.
08:23Unsurprisingly, neither of the Texas Chainsaw movies released since have tried to pull off the
08:28same gambit again.
08:304.
08:31Zed McGlunk
08:32Police Academy 3 Back in Training
08:35Even if you haven't seen the Police Academy movies in many years, or just haven't seen
08:40them at all, you can probably still hear the unmistakably off-kilter vocal stylings of criminal
08:46turned cop Zed McGlunk, played by Bobcat Goldthwait. Zed first appeared in Police Academy 2,
08:53their first assignment, as the primary antagonist, the unhinged leader of the violent gang known as
08:59the Scullions. Zed is arrested in the ending, but because Bobcat Goldthwait's performance in the
09:04role was just so damn loved, he returned for Police Academy 3, back in training,
09:10with a reformed Zed now trying out for the Police Academy.
09:13Granted, villains can make an implausible turn for the heroic far more easily in a silly comedy
09:19that isn't tethered quite so firmly to reality, but it was nevertheless a sort of neat way to
09:24keep Goldthwait in the franchise without simply having him do the same old Zed schtick again.
09:30Better yet, for those who like these movies, we even got a love interest in Police Academy 4,
09:35Citizens on Patrol, because why the hell not?
09:393. Gunnar Jensen – The Expendables 2
09:42Of all his action cohorts from the 80s and 90s, I think Dolph Lundgren can probably lay the biggest
09:48claim to being the most underutilised of the bunch. Seriously, this guy's screen presence is
09:55genuinely magnetic. You'll get that from watching Rocky 4 and Showdown in Little Tokyo,
10:00as well as a lot of the director video work he's done in the years since, but for the most
10:03part,
10:04I don't think anyone really knew what this guy had cooking. It should have been massive. I mean,
10:09he already is physically massive, but you get my meaning. One of the films that kind of exemplifies
10:15this trend is the first Expendables movie. While okay enough as a first attempt at an action legend
10:22Avengers, it definitely didn't make the most of Dolph, who plays a struggling mercenary,
10:27battling drug addiction, called Gunnar. Gunnar sells out his fellow Expendables after he's booted
10:33off the team for extreme violence, working with the big bad of the picture, James Munro, played by Eric
10:39Roberts. Gunnar comes close to killing Sylvester Stallone's Barney Ross and Jet Li Zhang, but is
10:45shot, redeeming himself by giving away the whereabouts of Munro's base of operations after dealing with his
10:51wounds. Thankfully, the Expendables 2 had the common sense to give Dolph a more heroic turn,
10:57placing a greater spotlight on a fully back-in-action Gunnar as he joins Barney and the gang to take
11:02down an evil Jean-Claude Van Damme, appropriately named Villaine, in the script, which is just some
11:08serious George Lucas-ing in the naming department there. This incarnation of Gunnar drew upon Lundgren's
11:14real-life background, including his degrees in chemical engineering, and overall, he just gets way more
11:20time in the spotlight than in the previous movie, and is way better served by being an actual hero.
11:262. The T-800
11:27Terminator 2 Judgment Day James Cameron's The Terminator introduced one of the most
11:32tenaciously terrifying villains in cinema history with the seemingly unstoppable cyborg juggernaut that
11:38was Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800. But for the sequel, Cameron came up with a novel twist. What if he
11:46brought the T-800 back? Not as a killing machine intent on murdering mother to the resistance Sarah
11:51Connor , but rather tasked with protecting her son John from another killer cyborg sent back
11:57through time. Now, this is admittedly a mild cheat in the sense that this isn't the very same T-800
12:04which pursued Sarah in the original movie, it having been crushed in a hydraulic press and all, but for all
12:10intents and purposes, T2 does nevertheless bring the original villain back and switch their allegiance.
12:16The Terminator sent from the future to protect John is another T-800 machine captured by the human
12:22resistance and reprogrammed to protect him. This proved quite the shock to those lucky enough to
12:27catch T2 in cinemas without knowing the twist beforehand, and today it remains arguably the greatest
12:32instance of a character swapping sides in a follow-up.
12:361. Jin Shansao – Ip Man 2
12:40In the biographical martial arts film Ip Man, we meet the highly skilled fighter Jin Shansao,
12:46played by Fan Su Wong, who, while facing tough times, has become the leader of a fierce bandit gang.
12:53He is eventually defeated by the heroic Ip Man, played by Donnie Yen in a fight, who then runs him
12:58out
12:58of the city of Foshan for good measure. That seemed to be all she wrote for the character, but Jin
13:03makes
13:03a surprise reappearance in Ip Man 2 when Ip and his student Wong, played by Huang Xiaoming,
13:09are overwhelmed by a rabble of rival martial arts students. Jin shows up with his gang and helps
13:15rescue Ip and Wong, redeeming himself in the process. Fun fact though, Jin was originally shot
13:21dead by a Japanese colonel in the first Ip Man movie, but the filmmakers ultimately decided to cut his
13:26demise, leaving the door open for him to make his triumphant return in the sequel.
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