Whatever happened to Star Wars villains? Back in my day, villains carried the show as much as the heroes. We had Darth Maul, Count Dooku, General Grievous, Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine in the movies, Thrawn and the revived Emperor in the early EU, Exar-Kun and Naga Sadow in Tales of the Jedi, Jerec, Desann, Tavion, and Alora in the Jedi Knight games, and Darths Revan and Malak in KOTOR. Each villain was as iconic, if not even moreso, than the heroes, and they were practically the stars of the show. A good villain can sell the story just as well, if not even better than, the heroes of the story. Bastila was cool; this sexy young Jedi with a fiery temper, a skintight jumpsuit, and a powerful ability that can turn the tide of the battle. Darth Revan was even cooler; a Sith Lord who turned half the Republic military against itself, who crushed the strongest version of the Mandalorians as if they were mere pawns in a chessboard, and who managed to harness some kind of ancient technology to materialize a massive fleet out of nothing, not to mention establishing an academy that specialized in hunting Jedi.
Nowadays, we have that incompetent buffoon Kylo Ren, that joke of a general named Hux, that nobody named Snoke, discount Thrawn who loses to kiddie Scooby-Doo antics, Team Rocket Inquisitors who get beaten down a lot, and the best we get is Moff Gus Fring with a platoon of Battle Android Troopers masquerading as Dark Troopers? (Which incidentally, makes him more akin to a Cobra villain from GI Joe than most SW villains, especially since he's got very limited resources compared to Imperial Remnant Warlords.)
To me, effective lead villains come in two flavors. The seasoned, calm villain who lets the budding darkness they emanate fill the room and show the world how serious they are, as exemplified by Darth Vader:
And the crazy-ass mofo who's unhinged as fuck, who can end up shooting or beating people up at random, and who makes people wet their panties just being near them, like G1 Galvatron:
The new villains are neither of these. They emanate little fear, their enemies don't fear them, and when they go nuts, they come off more like spoiled children than psychopathic maniacs. No wonder people don't fear them as much and see them more like a joke. Villains were half the fun in Star Wars, and yet, the new villains are so poorly-made it's hilarious. And all High Republic has to offer as villains are plants (seriously, someone can just eradicate them by lighting a match) as well as bandits with a hierarchy ladder similar to the one used by the Sith. Can they be any more bland?
What a joke.
