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Which movie villain had the most clever and airtight scheme?
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00:00Every now and again, the antagonist of a story will devise a scheme that's actually really clever.
00:05Even if it doesn't work, the amount of effort the evildoer puts into it is impressive.
00:09Now, their actions may be deplorable, but you have to tip your hat to how well thought out some of
00:14these ideas actually are.
00:16So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with smartest villain plans in movies.
00:22Syndrome's Omnidroid in The Incredibles
00:25In The Incredibles, Syndrome plots to launch his destructive robot, the Omnidroid, onto a heavily populated city.
00:32After he swoops in to destroy it, it's assumed that society will perceive him as a superhero.
00:37In most comic-themed stories, the villain has some sort of doomsday device which the hero ultimately destroys after exploiting
00:43an obvious weakness.
00:45However, Syndrome is fully aware of this.
00:47He's been obsessed with superheroes since childhood and knows how resourceful they are at uncovering weaknesses in weapons and doomsday
00:54machines.
00:54In fact, Syndrome used this fact to his advantage.
00:58For years, he hired superheroes under the guise of a mysterious benefactor and asked them to destroy the Omnidroid, which
01:04had supposedly gone rogue on an island.
01:07If the superhero emerged triumphant, Syndrome rebuilt the robot so it was immune to the way it was defeated.
01:12If the Omnidroid won, then that was one less superhero for Syndrome to worry about.
01:16By the time the insidious supervillain believed he had killed every superhero on Earth, only then did he release the
01:23Omnidroid on the public, which by this point was nearly invincible.
01:26Although Syndrome was beaten by a baby, it was still a masterfully orchestrated stratagem, hiding in plain sight in more
01:33ways than one in Inside Man.
01:36Inside Man opens with a criminal called Dalton Russell claiming he pulled off the perfect bank robbery.
01:42Now, every facet of Russell's plan is meticulously thought out.
01:45Forcing the hostages in the bank to dress the same way as the robbers so the police can't tell them
01:50apart is genius.
01:51He also sends recordings of Albanian chatter through the police radio waves, so the detective on the case will waste
01:57hours to translate and decipher the messages, unaware it has absolutely nothing to do with the robbery.
02:02But the masterstroke is the finale. Once the police have the bank surrounded, it looks like Russell is done.
02:07Instead of trying to escape, Russell takes a bag of priceless diamonds and seals himself inside the supply room behind
02:13a fake wall.
02:14One week later, he exits through the fake wall and walks out the front door.
02:17What makes Russell's success all the more satisfying is the fact that he bumps into the detective just before he
02:23leaves the bank.
02:24That detective was in the presence of the man he was assigned to arrest, and he just let him walk
02:28out, oblivious of his true identity.
02:34In Goldfinger, James Bond learns that a German tycoon called Oric Goldfinger aims to break into Fort Knox.
02:40Assuming that he plans to steal the vault's gold, Bond confronts the maniacal mogul and explains that his scheme won't
02:46work.
02:47Because there is nearly 13,000 tons of gold in the facility, there's no way Goldfinger could steal it all
02:52before the army intervened.
02:53But Goldfinger isn't going to steal the gold. He's going to irradiate it.
02:57His plan is to set off a dirty bomb in Fort Knox, making billions of dollars' worth of gold inert
03:03for half a century.
03:04This would cause Goldfinger's own gold to skyrocket while the economy collapses.
03:08Even though most Bond villain plans are fantastical, this one is theoretically possible.
03:13In fact, an economist for the World Bank stated that Goldfinger's scheme is pretty solid.
03:18What's really interesting is that Goldfinger was intending to steal the gold in the novel and the original script.
03:24When the filmmakers realised the logistics of such a crime would be impossible, they altered Goldfinger's plan to make it
03:30more realistic.
03:31Frankenstein switches bodies in Revenge of Frankenstein.
03:35Throughout the Hammer series of Frankenstein, the authorities are constantly pursuing the titular scientist to put a stop to his
03:41barbaric and ungodly experiments.
03:43Because his ability to reanimate the dead is disregarded as pseudoscience, each film in the franchise revolves around Victor Frankenstein,
03:51trying to recreate his most famous experiment to prove his naysayers wrong.
03:55After living for over three years under the unsubtle pseudonym of Dr. Stein, Frankenstein is exposed and viciously attacked by
04:01the locals.
04:02When the police come to arrest him, they learn the deranged doctor has died from his injuries.
04:06After inspecting his body, they confirm that Victor Frankenstein is finally dead.
04:11Or so it seems.
04:13Before he perished, Frankenstein had his assistant transfer his brain into a new body,
04:17which was then reanimated with the same technology that brought his original monster to life.
04:22Now that the authorities have closed the case on Frankenstein, the mad scientist is free from all persecution,
04:27allowing him to live freely in his new form.
04:30He's also satisfied that he evaded the authorities by performing the exact same experiment that all of society condemned him
04:36for.
04:37Palpatine's Order 66 in Star Wars Episode 3, Revenge of the Sith.
04:42As a galactic senator, Sheev Palpatine cultivated the persona of a politician with his people's best interests at heart.
04:49Little did anyone know that he was secretly reviving the Sith under the persona of Darth Sidious.
04:54As he claimed more and more political power, he performed atrocities behind the shadows,
04:58including putting hits on Queen Amidala, having Qui-Gon killed,
05:02and commissioning the construction of a moon-sized battle station.
05:05The reason why Palpatine's plan worked so well was because he knew when to act,
05:09and more importantly, when not to.
05:11When he was promoted to Supreme Chancellor, he didn't expose his true intentions.
05:15Even after he assembled a clone army, he didn't attack anyone publicly.
05:19Only after he turned Anakin to the dark side did he execute Order 66,
05:24forcing the clone troopers to instinctively hunt and wipe out all the Jedi.
05:27By the time Obi-Wan and Yoda learned Palpatine was the mastermind behind the Sith return,
05:32it was too late.
05:33He had too much power politically and physically.
05:36The Jedi were gone.
05:37It may have taken Palpatine years to initiate his plan fully,
05:41but it allowed him to rule the galaxy for decades.
05:44Sauron's failsafe in The Lord of the Rings
05:47Most villains' downfall stems from the fact that they overestimate themselves.
05:51Even though criminal masterminds like Kingpin and the Joker are defeated time and time again,
05:56they always assume their next crime spree will succeed.
05:58They rarely consider the possibility that they are destined to fail.
06:02But one person who didn't suffer from this trope was the antagonist of The Lord of the Rings, Sauron.
06:07Because he led the largest army in Middle-earth and harbored The One Ring,
06:11the ruler of Mordor was the strongest being in existence.
06:14Despite his vast power, though,
06:16Sauron wasn't arrogant enough to believe his plans could not end with failure.
06:20In the event of his death,
06:21the Dark Lord placed a failsafe on The One Ring so his soul would transfer to it.
06:25Despite the fact the ring could be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom where it was forged,
06:30Sauron poured his dark magic into it so the wielder would be compelled to protect it under any circumstances.
06:36Even after his body was destroyed,
06:38this backup plan allowed Sauron to cheat death for 2,500 years.
06:43Thanos wins in Avengers Infinity War
06:46Before the release of Avengers Infinity War,
06:48many cinema goers unfamiliar with Thanos were worried that the Mad Titan would prove a disappointment.
06:54What does he even do?
06:55He's just sat in a chair for years.
06:56Why doesn't he get the Infinity Stones himself if he wants them so badly?
07:00But when the film was released,
07:01it was clear that Thanos' inaction was because he was waiting for the perfect moment to obtain the Cosmic Gems.
07:07After he knew where all but one of them were,
07:09he still couldn't make a move since the Space Stone was heavily guarded in Asgard.
07:13But the instant Asgard was destroyed,
07:16he tracked the Power Stone first, knowing it would allow him to overpower anyone.
07:20He then located the Asgardian ship that housed the Space Stone
07:23and used its properties to teleport around the universe,
07:26allowing him to easily retrieve the others.
07:28Even though he had been preparing this plan for years,
07:31he attained all six stones in days
07:34and successfully wiped out half of all life in the universe with their power.
07:38The Avengers may have reversed his actions,
07:40but the ending of Infinity War proved to be the most humiliating defeat
07:44Earth's mightiest heroes had ever received.
07:47Ozymandias' pre-emptive strike in Watchmen.
07:50Since the dawn of storytelling,
07:52antagonists have had a habit of monologuing their diabolical scheme in astounding detail,
07:57either to another character, the audience, or even their arch-nemesis.
08:01The Ancient Greeks did it.
08:02Shakespeare characters did it.
08:04Heck, Bond villains explain their master plan to their mortal enemy
08:07with charts, models, and video footage.
08:09But no one monologues more than supervillains.
08:12It's regarded sacrilegious for a comic book baddie
08:14not to lay out their intentions in graphic detail.
08:17But the big bad of Watchmen, Ozymandias,
08:19did away with this time-honored tradition.
08:21After Night Owl and Rorschach learn their former comrade
08:24intends to kill millions to save billions,
08:27Ozymandias explains he will blow up key cities across the globe
08:30using Dr. Manhattan's radiation signature,
08:33framing Manhattan in the process.
08:35Because Manhattan's power is perceived as godlike,
08:38all nations would be forced to put their differences aside
08:40and ally against their common enemy.
08:42When the heroes threaten to expose him,
08:44Ozymandias points out that he initiated his plan minutes before they arrived.
08:48He then turns on the monitor,
08:49showing he's already triggered the Manhattan explosions,
08:52killing 15 million people.
08:54Even though the closing shot hints that Ozymandias will be implicated,
08:57the heroes still fail to stop him.
08:59Simon's plan would have worked in Die Hard with a Vengeance.
09:04In Die Hard with a Vengeance,
09:05Simon Gruber threatens to blow up a school in New York
09:08unless John McClane plays a cat-and-mouse game with him.
09:11Meanwhile, the FBI and the police force are desperately trying to locate
09:14which school harbors the explosive.
09:16What they don't realize is that Simon has sent them off on a wild goose chase
09:20while he breaks into the Federal Reserve Bank,
09:22which contains more wealth than any vault on Earth.
09:25Disguising his men as subway car repair workers,
09:28Simon breaks into the Reserve through an aqueduct
09:30and hauls out $140 billion worth of gold in 14 dump trucks.
09:35After scripting this scene,
09:36the writer Jonathan Hensley was contacted by the FBI
09:39and asked how he knew the Reserve's vault was beside a subway spur
09:43and could be accessed through an aqueduct tunnel.
09:45Hensley reassured the Bureau that he wasn't a criminal,
09:48but the agent he spoke to said someone could actually pull this off.
09:51He even had a meeting with other agents to strengthen the Reserve's security.
09:55That's right, the FBI thought that this plan was so foolproof
09:58that they thought the writer may have been a terrorist
10:01and had to update the vault's safeguards.
10:03Richmond Valentine Manipulated Everyone
10:05Kingsman the Secret Service
10:08Kingsman the Secret Service is an off-the-wall,
10:11for lack of a better term, crazy movie
10:13that takes full advantage of eccentric and bombastic visuals and action sequences.
10:18As such, it needed an equally eccentric and bombastic villain,
10:22which it got in the form of Samuel L. Jackson's Richmond Valentine.
10:26As a multi-billionaire with the ultimate goal of culling the world's population,
10:30leaving only the elite and wealthy,
10:33Richmond utilised his resources immaculately well.
10:36Not only was his seemingly limitless pot of money put to good use,
10:40so were his reputation and his connections.
10:43Valentine preyed on those he wanted to rid the world of
10:46by appealing to what they needed and wanted most,
10:49essentially unlimited data that wouldn't cost them a penny.
10:52This was master manipulation,
10:54and through his sim cards put the entire world within range of the signal he led off
10:59that set them all to slaughtering each other.
11:01Jackson's character brought onto his side powerful people,
11:05including the President of the United States,
11:07Swedish Royalty, and the Head of Kingsmen.
11:10Had it not been for the suspicion and sleight of hand of Eggsy,
11:13Arthur would have killed the one remaining threat to Valentine's scheme,
11:17and it would have gone off without a hitch.
11:19Even with what remained of the Kingsmen ultimately bringing him down,
11:23this villain still managed to successfully set off the impulse
11:26that must have seen an immeasurable amount of people killed.
11:30Frank Costello made himself untouchable,
11:33The Departed.
11:34Sometimes, the genius of a villain doesn't necessarily come through
11:37in their actions or their schemes.
11:39In the case of The Departed's Frank Costello,
11:42it was the infrastructure of defence he built around himself to ensure his own protection.
11:47Costello was involved in some pretty heinous things,
11:50and naturally became a high-priority target of the Massachusetts State Police.
11:54So what better way to stay ahead of the curve than to have someone on the inside?
11:58Instead of buying someone already on the force,
12:01Frank took a young Colin Sullivan under his wing
12:04and sent him to the academy for the sole purpose of being his mole.
12:08Sullivan rose through the ranks and was able to misdirect investigations from within,
12:11tip his boss off about would-be career-ending sting operations
12:15and give him a layer of protection that saved him and his operation on more than one occasion.
12:20Aside from Sullivan,
12:22Costello also protected himself with the smart move of becoming a protected FBI informant,
12:27trading information for even more grace from the feds.
12:31All movie gangsters have a shelf life and are eventually stopped,
12:34but Costello's intelligence and contingency plans
12:37allowed him to operate and enjoy the life a lot longer than most.
12:41Who knows how long he would have gone on unbothered had Sullivan not found out he was an informant
12:46and killed him for it.
12:47Bane and Talia al Ghul took over Gotham City, The Dark Knight Rises
12:52In Batman Begins,
12:54Ra's al Ghul unsuccessfully fought to bring Gotham City his own warped version of liberation and justice.
13:00He was stopped in his tracks by Batman, who tore down the League of Shadows,
13:03but in The Dark Knight Rises, Tom Hardy's Bane looked to fulfil his former master's destiny.
13:09The plan was simple yet effective.
13:11He got rid of the Batman,
13:13he trapped every GCPD cop underneath the city,
13:16he created a huge nuclear bomb and murdered the only man capable of disarming it,
13:21and forced the army to keep everyone inside the city by threatening to blow it up if even one person
13:26escaped.
13:27Bane even destroyed both Harvey Dent's character and the ideals that came with it with the truth about his villainous
13:33turn.
13:33The prisoners of Blackgate Prison were freed and Gotham fell under martial law,
13:38and under the control of the likes of Bane, the Scarecrow, and the rest of the criminal underworld.
13:42Things would have stayed this way if it wasn't for the miraculous and frankly unbelievable recovery of Bruce Wayne,
13:48and the ease with which he managed to return to his home under complete lockdown.
13:53Of course, Bane was working under Ra's al Ghul's daughter, Talia,
13:56who in her role as Miranda Tate,
13:58managed to convince Bruce to build the fusion reactor that would eventually become the bomb way in advance.
14:04This was the perfect plan to bring all of Gotham completely to its knees,
14:08had they not underestimated the power and resilience of the Dark Knight himself, of course.
14:13Cole Williams earned some retirement money.
14:1621
14:17In 2008, 21 released recounting the true story of a group of MIT students who counted cards in Vegas.
14:24After taking the casinos on the strip for unthinkable amounts of cash,
14:28Jim Sturgis' Ben Campbell was caught by pit boss Cole Williams,
14:33who beat him to a pulp before making him an offer.
14:36He would allow Ben one more night of gambling in his casino.
14:39He would even let him keep the winnings,
14:41so long as team leader Professor Rosa was brought into his grasp.
14:45Williams didn't care about Ben.
14:47He held a long-time grudge against Rosa,
14:49who had taken his casino for seven figures when he was at his father's funeral,
14:53and in doing so, cost him his job.
14:55The plan was executed perfectly,
14:57as Ben and his team made a profit of $640,000,
15:01while Rosa fell into the hands of Williams as agreed.
15:04When the time came, however,
15:06Cole went back on his word and demanded that Ben hand over the chips.
15:09Just to be certain, he made sure he was taken seriously with just a glance at his gun.
15:14The ruthless pit boss took the money and went from the brink of being forced out of a soon-to
15:18-be
15:18obsolete profession with no pension to speak of,
15:21to living the high life sunning himself by the pool.
15:24Some villains find success with intricate plans,
15:27while the genius here was in its simplicity.
15:29Let Ben rob the casino blind,
15:30then intimidate him into handing the money over without so much as lifting a finger.
15:34Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
15:36Zemo destroyed the Avengers' Captain America Civil War
15:39The Avengers made for themselves no shortage of enemies since first teaming up to fight off
15:45Loki's invasion in 2012.
15:47One of which was the incredibly calculated and utterly ruthless Helmut Zemo,
15:51who swore to destroy Earth's mightiest heroes.
15:54After seeing his entire family killed in Sokovia,
15:57something for which he blamed Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man and co,
16:01and watching these so-called heroes go home and celebrate victory,
16:05Zemo crafted a plan to bring down the team.
16:07For this, however, he had to think smarter than just about every other MCU villain before him.
16:12Zemo was intelligent and self-aware enough to know that he couldn't beat the Avengers in a fistfight.
16:17Stronger beings than he had tried and lost.
16:20Instead, he sought to plant the seed so that the team crumbled from within,
16:24something that worked to devastating effect.
16:26Utilising what he knew of HYDRA and centring around the fact that Bucky Barnes had killed Tony Stark's parents,
16:33he manipulated Cap and Iron Man until they were quite literally at each other's throats.
16:38A lot can be said about the intricacies of Zemo's plan,
16:41sometimes bordering on the ludicrous and relying too much on what he arguably couldn't control,
16:46but he brought the Avengers to their knees just as he had promised.
16:50John Doe knew exactly what Mills would do.
16:53Seven
16:54There is some fierce competition, but you could argue that Seven is up there as the best work to come
16:59from acclaimed director David Fincher.
17:01It is a thriller from start to finish,
17:03but the genius of the whole thing hinges on the final moments as John Doe's ultimate plan comes to fruition.
17:10Throughout the film, the killer targeted unconnected victims based on the seven deadly sins.
17:15With five bodies down, there was just envy and wrath left on the list,
17:19which is where the true nature of his masterpiece was revealed.
17:22It was at this point he brought Brad Pitt's Detective Mills into proceedings.
17:26John Doe committed arguably the most heinous and vile murder of them all
17:30by decapitating Mills' innocent wife, Tracy, and presenting her head to the detective in a box.
17:36He knew exactly how Pitt's character would react, and in doing so, solidified his posthumous victory.
17:42In a blind fit of rage, Mills gunned down John.
17:45The villain knew exactly what would happen and sacrificed himself for the sake of his work,
17:49becoming the victim of wrath to conclude his masterpiece.
17:53He truly was ahead of the curve for the entire story,
17:56and used everything he learned about his adversaries to lure them into a scenario
18:00from which they couldn't possibly have won.
18:03Jigsaw's first game, Saw.
18:05There are plenty of villains who have manipulated the people around them like pieces on a chessboard,
18:10but in Saw, the Jigsaw killer was different.
18:13He didn't just move the pieces, he created the entire game and made it so that there would only ever
18:18be one winner.
18:19Prior to kidnapping Lawrence and Adam, and pitting them against each other with horrifying instructions and brutal mind games,
18:26John Kramer dished out his brand of hideously ironic punishments,
18:30and did so while eluding capture by the police.
18:33He even created contingency plans so that if anyone did come sniffing around, as Tap and Sing did,
18:39he could lead them right into getting their head blown off their shoulders.
18:43Jigsaw was described as thinking through every possible angle,
18:46and he was always multiple steps ahead.
18:48He tracked both Lawrence and Adam, forced them into doing exactly what he wanted,
18:53and he even found a way to experience it all first-hand by posing as a corpse between his two
18:58shackled victims.
18:59Arguably, the smartest part of Jigsaw's plan was the fact that he kept himself clean
19:04and manipulated others into doing the killing for him.
19:07He himself didn't kill a single person in the 2004 outing.
19:11Whether he wanted Lawrence to kill Adam or Zep to kill Lawrence's family if Adam remained alive,
19:16ultimately, they had no choice but to obey.
19:19Even if he wanted his victim to do something so unthinkable as to saw off their own foot,
19:24they would eventually have to do it.
19:2612 Moving Parts – Murder on the Orient Express
19:29Originally published way back in 1934, Murder on the Orient Express is a classic,
19:35and arguably one of the most famous murder mysteries of all time.
19:38A fitting introduction to Kenneth Branagh's take on the legendary Hercule Poirot in 2017.
19:44The retelling of the story featured a genuinely stellar ensemble cast,
19:48all of which came together to murder Johnny Depp's Edward Ratchet upon the famous train.
19:53The logistics of getting all 12 killers in the same place required a certain genius in and of itself,
19:58but the act of the murder was on another level.
20:01The plan anchored on 12 stab wounds from 12 separate people,
20:05with each forming part of an alibi that would clear not only themselves,
20:09but also others in the party.
20:11The spanner thrown in the works by the train being stopped could have derailed the entire plan,
20:15but for some equally genius improvisation and misdirection to keep Poirot off the scent,
20:21like a carefully placed knife in the back to create the illusion of a single killer still on the loose.
20:25Ultimately, the murderers on the Orient Express were brought down by mere coincidence
20:29and the back luck of being on the same train as the self-proclaimed greatest detective in the world.
20:35No one but Hercule Poirot could have pieced together this mystery
20:38and found that the guilty party was not one, but 12 killers.
20:42Mysterio died a hero, Spider-Man far from home.
20:46Villains in the MCU have been fuelled by different motivations throughout the years,
20:50from the want for power or revenge to perceived justice and the so-called correction of the universe.
20:56In Spider-Man Far From Home, Quentin Beck was different, however,
21:01as he wanted to become the world's greatest hero in a world without Tony Stark.
21:05Whether or not he was actually a hero didn't matter.
21:08It was about how he was perceived by the world,
21:11so he used his BARF technology to produce the illusion of believable Avengers-level threats,
21:17before posing as a saviour from another dimension and dispatching them,
21:21earning the love of the adoring public.
21:23So good were Beck's illusions that he tricked Peter Parker
21:27into giving him access to every single one of Tony Stark's protocols.
21:30This was the genius of his plan, and even when Spider-Man seemingly defeated him,
21:35Mysterio still had one ace up his sleeve,
21:38that meant that he would die with everyone still believing that he was the next Iron Man.
21:42His fail-safe in the event of being defeated by Spider-Man?
21:46Something as simple as doctoring some footage,
21:48painting Spidey as a murderer, and revealing poor Peter's identity.
21:52Even now, much of the public of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
21:55believes that Mysterio was the greatest hero they had,
21:58which is exactly what Quentin Beck wanted.
22:00Like Zemo, he won.
22:02Kaiser Soze stayed hidden, the usual suspects.
22:05You could argue that the best villains, or at the very least the smartest villains,
22:10are the ones who are never caught.
22:11In the case of the usual suspects, Kaiser Soze went to great lengths to ensure that he remained
22:16elusive, even when he was actually brought into police custody.
22:20The name of Kaiser Soze became something of a myth in both the criminal underworld
22:25and the circles of law enforcement, but no one could ever claim to know who he was.
22:30This was the first step of brilliance.
22:32Soze always kept a middleman between himself and anyone he worked with.
22:36Often people were working in his employ and didn't even realise it,
22:39making it impossible for him to be implicated.
22:42This middleman, a lawyer by the name of Kobayashi, if Soze himself was to be believed,
22:48ensured that none of the untrustworthy characters he worked with could ever bring him down.
22:53He was untouchable.
22:55Even when he did find himself in police custody,
22:58he had the presence of mind to spin a tale of lies that saw him walk right out of the
23:02door.
23:03The man under the guise of Verbal Kint strung along Special Agent Kuyan during an interrogation
23:08with a story pulled out of thin air,
23:10with a little inspiration from the bulletin board in the office
23:13selling the ghost story of Soze while earning his own freedom.
23:17Kuyan may have eventually suspected the truth,
23:19but by that time, it was far too late.
23:22Verbal Kint was gone, as was his limp.
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