10 Most Disappointing Villains In Movie History

1. Darth Vader - Star Wars: Episode I - III

The whole point of the Star Wars prequels actually existing in the first place was as a way to show movie-goers how, in detail, Anakin Skywalker went from a plucky young kid living on a rock to the "more machine now than man" super-icon that is Darth Vader, Sith Lord and all-round galatic sadist. That is the story of Episodes I-III. So not only did George Lucas up the telling of that story in its entirety, he firstly cast the annoying kid from Jingle All The Way as bite-size Anakin, an then a horrifically misjudged unknown douche to replace him.

That's to say, how did it go so freakin' wrong here? There's likely no point getting into it all over again, because my doctor told me that's the only way for the headaches to go away, but there's no denying that Vader: The Early Years failed to live up to anything that fans might've conjured up in their heads. To be fair, even if you'd conjured up an image of Darth Vader backflipping over a planet as a kid you'd have a better-realised story on your hands. Everything about the way that Lucas opted to reveal the world's most famous villain's backstory was wrong.

Look, I know it was going to be tough for Lucas to tell this story, given the scope and the pressure and the legacy, but there's no use pretending it wasn't disappointing, and that he made Vader into one of the least cool characters ever conceived, as opposed to what he should have been, which was totally and utterly badass in every single way. Nope: Least cool. Think about that. It's almost as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Like this article? Why not check out the most disappointing heroes in movie history next?