If you Google famous bad guy lines, you’ll find there’s a lot of blog posts out there devoted to cataloguing some of the coolest ones. Not surprising, since bad guys often have some of the most memorable lines of dialogue, especially in movies. However, there are plenty of bad guy lines out there that are really not all that good: cheesy ones, cringe-inducing ones and occasionally downright meaningless ones. This post catalogues a few bad guy lines that I personally love to hate.
Just to be clear, this isn’t a list of bad movies or bad characters (though it does feature more than its share of bad movies and bad characters). This is a list of lame lines of dialogue delivered by villains, irrespective of how good or bad the rest of the film was; lines that were probably meant to sound cool and sinister but failed to produce quite the right effect.
I’ve probably missed loads out, so please, feel free to comment below with any others you can think of that make you want to scrape your ears off with a fork every time you hear them.
So, without further ado…
Be careful not to choke on your aspirations, Director.
Darth Vader in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Darth Vader is, of course, one of the most famous and widely loved villains of all time. He may even be the most popular villain of all time, and justifiably so. He’s my favourite too. He’s also got plenty of other genuinely cool bad guys lines in his back catalogue. There aren’t many characters who could pull off ‘we can rule the galaxy as father and son’ or ‘I am your father’ with quite the same flare Darth Vader does.
Nevertheless, this particular line is a disappointment. In this scene, Vader force chokes a dude, which is usually enough in and of itself to get the fans excited. Maybe it’ll be like that scene in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope where he force chokes Motti and delivers the immortal line: ‘I find your lack of faith disturbing’.
But no, not in Rogue One. In Rogue One, we get a James Bond style pun about choking on aspirations.
Heck, it’s not even a very good pun.
Speaking of James Bond:
Global warming: it’s a terrible thing.
– Gustav Graves in Die Another Day (2002)
Yeah, Gustav, but not as terrible as that bad guy line.
The James Bond franchise has, of course, given us loads of memorable villains with really cool bad guy lines. Lines like: ‘Look after Mr. Bond. See that some harm comes to him’ (Drax in Moonraker) and of course, ‘No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die’ (Goldfinger in Goldfinger).
Unfortunately, Die Another Day did not live up to its predecessors, not by a long mile. It was a terrible movie, with a terrible bad guy and one of the worst bad guy lines I’ve ever had the misfortune of hearing. I wouldn’t have minded so much if Graves was a concerned environmental campaigner (global warming is a terrible thing) but he’s not. Graves smugly uttered this line after believing he had killed Bond by firing a big ray of solar energy from an orbiting satellite (pul-eez!) which, you know… isn’t the same thing as global warming. The worst part is, the dudes he’s trying to impress with Big Sunshine Space Gun respond respectfully to this cheesy line while he stands there with arms folded, an eyebrow raised and leaning slightly backwards as if he’s the cat’s pyjamas.
Don’t you know who I am? I’m the Juggernaut, b*tch!
Juggernaut in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Even though I knew this quote was very unpopular, I wasn’t actually planning on including it here at first. That was before I learned the story of its origins.
I was aware, of course, that there were an awful lot of memes out there which included this line but I didn’t realise that the memes actually came before the movie. For those memes aren’t based on this (frankly disappointing) movie as I had supposed; no, they are a homage to this little parody video created by My Way Entertainment, which came out four months before The Last Stand (beware: bad language abounds). The movie was actually copying this, presumably because somebody thought it would be funny:
*sigh*
Come to dinner, just the two of us… Or should I say, ‘just the one of us?’
Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Star Trek: Nemesis is widely berated as one of the most disappointing films in the entire franchise, and I’m inclined to agree. This line, however, stands out as one which makes me shiver every time I hear Shinzon utter it.
And by that I mean it makes me shiver the same way I shiver if I accidentally rub my hands together when still they’re wrinkly from being in the bath, or perhaps the way I shiver whenever my fork accidentally scrapes against my plate with a high pitched shriek. It really hurts to listen to. Shinzon had already dropped about a billion subtle-as-a-brick hints to Picard that he is Picard’s clone, and this final ‘dramatic’ gambit only needed a ‘DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUN!‘ and the moment would’ve been complete.
Allow me to break the ice. My name is Freeze. Learn it well, for it’s the chilling sound of your doom.
Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin (1997)
The moment I started to write this post, I knew Mr. Freeze was going to be in it somewhere but I didn’t know exactly which quote of his I was going to use. If you’ve not seen Batman and Robin, do yourself a favour and watch it if it’s ever on Netflix again and you’ll see why I was struggling (I can’t justify asking you to buy the DVD, but remember: piracy is stealing, no matter how bad the movie is).
EVERY line this bad guy utters is a really lame ice/cold related pun. He doesn’t deliver a single cool line (boom boom!). Most of them don’t even make much sense. I (ice-)picked this particular one because it feels like the most honest (but still failed) attempt he makes to deliver a genuinely GOOD bad guy line (I’m quite certain the rest were deliberately bad). It also gives you an overall flavour of what the rest of them are like, because they’re all in much the same vein. I’m not even sure this one is the worst.
Sindel in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Need I say more? You knew she was coming the moment you saw the title of this blog and you were right. Sindel’s first, ‘dramatic’ opening line in the sequel to Mortal Kombat will go down in history as one of the most cringe-inducing lame-o bad guy lines ever uttered on the big screen.
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