8 Movie Villains Whose Punishments Were Far Too Severe

Sometimes a movie villain gets their just desserts.

Who didn't breathe a sigh of relief when The Green Mile's sadistic prison guard Percy Wetmore was carted off to that mental asylum? Who really shed a tear when bidding hasta la vista to the T-1000? And yes, Back to the Future's Biff Tannen deserved to end up in that manure every time.

On other occasions, truly despicable characters managed to get away with murder, both literally and figuratively. The Dursleys got off lightly in the Harry Potter series, for instance, and Nurse Ratched was lucky Jack Nicholson was subdued at the crucial moment.

Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum are the villains who aren't really all that bad, those misunderstood folks who had little control over their destiny, made a few poor calls or simply took things too far.

Characters which fall into this unfortunate category are often punished too severely, and this is rarely anything less than tragic.

Come to think of it, there tends to be a lot of this going around in Disney movies, but the House of Mouse isn't the only guilty party.

From so-called monsters that didn't ask to be created, to guys whose only crime was doing their job overzealously, here are the times when the 'villain' was hard done by.

Old Smeagol is a complex character; a tortured mess of humanity and poisonous corruption.

He didn't have a prayer once the One Ring had gotten its hooks into him, and that's what makes Gollum so tragic.

Sure, he does evil things, like kill his best friend and attempt to feed Frodo to a massive spider, but take the Ring's corruptive influence out of the equation and he's just a mild-mannered fisherman.

Gollum is such an effective character as a dark mirror for Frodo, and the Hobbit is convinced there was still good in him, right until his fiery end.

That does seem to be true as Smeagol, as one point, appeared to have fought off his inner demons and was content to serve his new 'master', until Faramir stuck his oar in.

Considering Smeagol was ultimately a victim of Sauron's evil influence, he did not deserved to be frazzled alive at Mount Doom.

It was all Faramir's fault... Oh, and Sauron's as well.