Disney Villain Deaths

Disney movies are somewhat notorious for their villain's deaths. The most notable is the death by falling. This has become so known that it is somewhat of a trope. While he was making Return of the King, Peter Jackson made a point of showing that the evil wizard Saruman was already dead or dying before he fell from his tower (and was then impaled on a spike) because he said that he wanted to avoid any semblance of a "Disney Death."

The death by falling is the most common but Disney villain deaths generally fall into two other categories. The second is a form of self-immolation. This is not usually actual suicide but usually a death that comes from the villain exposing themselves to destruction through direct actions of their own. A non-death version of this would be Cruella de Ville who allows the dalmatians to get away when she loses her cool and crashes her car into that of her henchmen.

The third, and probably least common, is to be actually slain by the hero.

To test my observations, I thought I would list the various Disney (and Disney produced) movies I've seen (and a few I haven't) that involve the villain being killed (so no Toy Story) and see how it fit into these categories. If I skip over something, it's probably more to do with that I've not seen it, nor familiar with how the villain is dispatched. Note, this will obviously include spoilers.

1. Brave - Mor'du - A straight #3 style as Queen Elinor (as a bear) kills Mor'du while defending Merida.

2. Wreck-It Ralph - Turbo - Turbo finally dies when his cy-bug programming overrides his natural sense and he flies into the diet cola lava. This would be a good example of death style #2 in that Turbo is killed both by his own hand and through actions he took earlier to increase his power.

3. Tangled - Mother Gothel - Mother Gothel is an interesting mix of all three methods. Flynn did technically kill Mother Gothel by cutting Rapunzel's hair (and he probably knew this would kill her eventually), but it wasn't a direct attack and he almost certainly didn't know how fast the magic would wear off. Likewise, Mother Gothel was already dying when she was knocked out the window. That was mostly a device for the animators to avoid showing her decaying to dust (see Indiana Jones and the Last Cruisade) and thus keep things G-rated. Overall, it's mostly a #2 style as Mother Gothel used this magic to keep her young but left herself exposed to the great weakness that if it ever failed, she would be destroyed.

4. Up - Charles Muntz - Muntz dies in classic Disney style by falling off his Zepplin in the fight with Carl.

5. The Princess and the Frog - Dr. Facilier - This is also a blend of #2 and #3 as it is Tiana's destruction of the ammulet that causes the demons to turn on Dr. Facilier. However, again, this was not a direct attack by Tiana and she had no way of knowing that it would actually kill Dr. Facilier, only break his magic. So the majority lies with style #2 where Dr. Facilier put himself in a dangerous position to have the agents working for him, turn against him and drag him off to Hell.

6. The Incredibles - Syndrome - Syndrome is a strong #2 as after he is thwarted by the Incredibles, he get sucked into his airplane engine (mostly due to his cape) while trying to get away. Granted, things were thrown off by Mr. Incredible knocking the plane out with a thrown car, but Syndrome's death was ultimately due to his indulgence with the cape.


7. Tarzan - Clayton - I've not seen this movie but heard that it's about as gruesome as Disney can get while still keeping the G-rating. At the end of his fight with Tarzan, Clayton gets tangled in some vines and manages to cut himself free except for one that is wrapped around his neck. He then falls and is hung. Apparently, while his actual body is not shown, his shadow is seen dangling above the ground giving no question as to the method of his death. His death is due to a form of falling putting in solid #1 territory but given that he causes his own hanging, he has to get a solid dash of #2 in there as well.

8. The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Judge Frollo - Another movie I've not actually seen. He is knocked off the bell tower at Notre Dame cathedral and into a fire below making him a solid style #1 death.

9. The Lion King - Scar - Scar's death was almost exactly what I had in mind when thinking of style #2 as he is merely knocked down by Simba in the climatic fight. But, in his attempt to weasel out of things, he angers his allies the hyenas who turn on him and tear him to pieces.

10. Beauty and the Beast - Gaston - A classic fall from the top of the castle and into a deep ravine when Belle opts to grab the Beast instead of him as they lose their balance when Gaston has stabbed him in the back.

11. The Rescuers Down Under - Percival McLeach - This was actually a pretty good movie if you could get past the extreme over-the-top live in harmony with nature elements. McLeach was a strong bad guy and ultimately killed when he gets caught in the strong current of the river and swept over a waterfall giving him the standard style #1 death.

12. The Little Mermaid - Ursula - About Prince Eric's only notible feature is that he actually was able to stear a sunken ship and stab Ursula in the gut with it. Granted, it helped that she took the Bondian villain 10 seconds to savor her opportunity to kill Ariel to allow Eric time to get into position, but he still does the job to rate Ursula's death as a type #3.

12. Oliver and Company - Bill Sykes - I've only seen parts of this retelling of Oliver Twist but Sykes death is a standard #2. Sykes is pursuing the good guys in his car and ends up chasing them on the train tracks. The good guys get away just as train comes up the tracks and Sykes and his car are smashed to pieces.

13. The Great Mouse Detective - Ratigan - I read Basil of Baker Street a long time ago but have never seen the movie adaptation. Ratigan (a Moriarty knock-off) is killed when the clock he is standing on chimes and he loses his balance. Given the Sherlock Holmes parallels, this seems rather empty as it should have been a stronger Reichenback Falls ending. Still, it is a standard type #1 death.

14. Sleeping Beauty - Maleficent - This is probably the most well-known of the style #3 deaths. Prince Phillip has an open fight with Maleficent as a dragon and (with the fairies help) plunges his sword into her heart.

15. Peter Pan - Captain Hook - Yes, I know. Hook doesn't actually die. However, that was a differentiation made for comedic effect. In any other adaptation, Hook would have stayed eaten by the crocodile. I would rate his pseudo-death would in the classic type #1 style as he was lunging at Peter Pan and fell off the mast and into the water with the crocodile. That the croc would have killed him rather than the fall is more of semantics as the exposure to death came from the fall.

16. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves - The Queen - The originator of the type #1 Disney fall. The queen was actually in a strong position about to send a boulder down on the dwarves, killing or maiming all of them, when nature steps in and a bolt of lightining knocks her off the cliff. The boulder she was loosening to kill the dwarves then rolls backwards and presumably crushes and semblance of life that might have survived the fall.

So what's our tally? In my count, I have eight instances of a villain falling to his/her death with six instances of self immolation (a couple of those being tied to the falls) and only three instances of being killed directly by the hero. Interestingly, the majority of the fall deaths came from older movies so it would certainly feed into the idea of a trope that Disney themselves became aware of and started to move away from.

Still, Disney should be careful not to fall into the next trope, which would be killing the villain off by indirect means too often, such as was used with Dr. Facilier and Mother Gothel. I know that the villains put themselves into these situations but it seems like a cheap way of having the hero seem to kill the villian without getting their hands dirty. It cheaps the villain (in my opinion) to have them set up for such as easy way of disposing them.

Lightning Over Canada

Cool Pic.

Neptune's New Moon

A 14th moon has been discovered around Neptune. It doesn't have a proper name yet, although I'm sure it will be after a relation to the Roman mythology concerning Neptune. Pretty cool.

Soarin'

There are videos posted elsewhere where you can see the visuals that accompany this music, but unless you are there, the effect will be totally lost. It's better to just enjoy the music for what it is and imagine the ride in your mind.

Samuri Jack

A Japanese style print of a pretty good cartoon

Worms Hilarity

When I was in college, I loved playing Worms: Armageddon. The concept is very simple: you have a team of worms with an amusing array of weapons and you attempt to kill off the members of the other teams you play against. Outside of the basic reducing of health, worms can be killed by knocking them off the playing field or dropped into water (since they have no arms, they do not swim). The many mistakes, bad shots, or impressive shots always led to amusing comments and large volumes of course language.

A few weeks ago I discovered that a gaming group that posts Youtube game walk-through videos, put together a bunch of highlight videos of their late night Worms: Reloaded gaming sessions. It brought back many amusing memories and the comments they made are equally hilarious.

Here is a "best of the best" compliation they made and one of the funniest of the general highlight vidoes, but there are 49 other highlight videos that offer varying levels of amusement:

Saturn Hurricane

The Cassini spacecraft sent back some incredible pictures yesterday of a stationary hurricane up at the north pole of Saturn. The false color image of the storm is blood red and has been nicknamed The Rose.

The eye of this storm is about 1,250 miles in diameter or roughly the distance from Cleveland to Denver. The clouds on the outer bands of the storm are traveling at a speed of about 330 mph. Someone who saw it said that it reminded them of a stargate or some other trans-dimensional portal like you would see in some sci-fi movie. I just thought that it looked really cool.

Deus Meus (My God)

This is a wonderful piece of music. It was written about 800 years ago and is written with the first and fourth lines of every verse in Latin and the second and third lines in Gaelic. One of the best versions I've heard of the song is done by Fionnuala Gill, although she doesn't include all verses.

Latin and Gaelic:

Deus meus adiuva me
Tabhair dom do shearch,a Mhic ghil Dé
Tabhair dom do shearch,a Mhic ghil Dé
Deus meus adiuva me.

In meum cor, ut sanum sit,
Tabhair, a Rí rán, do ghrá go grip;
Tabhair, a Rí rán, do ghrá go grip,
In meum cor, ut sanum sit.

Domine da quod peto a te,
Tabhair dom go dian a ghrian ghlan ghlé,
Tabhair dom go dian a ghrian ghlan ghlé,
Domine da quod peto a te.

Hanc spero rem et quaero quam,
Do shearc dom sonn, do shearc dom thall;
Do shearc dom sonn, do shearc dom thall,
Hanc spero rem et quaero quam.

Tuum amorem, sicut vis,
Tabhair dom go tréan, a déarfad arís;
Tabhair dom go tréan, a déarfad arís,
Tuum amorem, sicut vis.

Quaero, postulo, peto a te,
Mo bheatha i neamh, a mhic dhil Dé;
Mo bheatha i neamh, a mhic dhil Dé,
Quaero, postulo, peto a te.

Domine, Domine, exaudi me,
M’anam bheith lán de d’ghrá, a Dhé,
M’anam bheith lán de d’ghrá, a Dhé,
Domine, Domine exaudi me.

Deus Meus adiuva me

English:

My God, help me
Give me love of thee, O Son of God
Give me love of thee, O Son of God
My God, help me

Into my heart that it may be whole
O glorious King, swiftly bring love of thee
O glorious King, swiftly bring love of thee
Into my heart that it may be whole

Lord, give what I ask of thee
Give, give speedily, O bright and gleaming sun
Give, give speedily, O bright and gleaming sun
Lord, give what I ask of thee

This thing which I hope and seek
Love of thee in this world, love of thee in that
Love of thee in this world, love of thee in that
This thing which I hope and seek

Love thee, as thou wishest
Give me in thy might (I will say it again)
Give me in thy might (I will say it again)
Love thee, as thou wishest

I seek, I beg, I ask of thee
That I be in Heaven, dear Son of God
That I be in Heaven, dear Son of God
I seek, I beg, I ask of thee

My Lord, hear me
May my soul, O God, be full of love for thee
May my soul, O God, be full of love for thee
My Lord, hear me

My God, help me

An Unpleasant Week

This has been a somewhat unpleasant week for the country.

On Monday, there was the (presumed) terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon. Three killed, over 180 injured including multiple amputations.

Late Monday and drifting into Tuesday, letters believed to contain the poison Ricin were found, having been mailed to various elected officials. No casualties occured and a suspect has been brought into custody.

Last night, a fire caused an explosion at a fertilizer plant in the tiny town of West, Texas. At least six people have been confirmed killed with hundreds of injuries and an unknown number of people unaccounted for. Half the town of 2,800 people have been evacuated due to structural damage and toxic chemical release.

This also does not account for the fact that April 19 (Friday) is the anniversary of both the Branch Davidian Waco tragedy and the Oklahoma City bombing and April 20 (Saturday) is the anniversary of the Columbine HS shooting. Those three events seem to be putting people even more on edge than they might actually be in light of what has happened this week.

Of course, I turned 35 and got cake this week and my cousin is getting married this Saturday, so there are happy moments even amidst the tragedy.

French Sag

As just about any woman larger than a B cup or a teenage boy who has looked at an old National Geographic magazine will tell you, this is just another reason why the French are dumb.

I'm Sorry, I Thought You Said Michigan Sucks

Even though the clip is about the Notre Dame-Michigan football game, it still provides opportunity to make fun of Michigan.

Not that they didn't play well. I didn't stay up to watch it, but Michigan was apparently winning for a majority of the game against Louisville, even being up by as many as 12 points at one instance. But Louisville stuck around and won the game, sending the city of Louisville into the typical alcohol soaked riot that we've come to expect following NCAA championships.

I'm very curious to find out how the die-hard Kentucky fans feel about this. I suspect they will be as annoyed as the Ohio St. fans would have been if Michigan had won.

Of course, it would have been nice to actually see the game, but the starting time was just completely foolish. Mrs. X was feeling a little tired and opted to head upstairs just before 9:30. They were on the National Anthem at that point. I wrapped up things downstairs and went up at 10:00 and it was about halfway through the first quarter. Mrs. X checked the score right before we turned out the lights around 10:30 and it was at halftime. To stay up and watch the whole thing would have required us to stay up until nearly midnight and I'm certainly not doing that; especially after staying up until 11:30 the previous night watching Mad Men.

Anyway, props to Louisville and Rick Pitino. Also props to Mrs. X's third bracket as the winner of our little pool.

Another One Bites the Dust?

Unconfirmed news reports swirled yesterday that Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad was shot and possibly killed by a member of his bodyguard. A few hours later, Russian and Israeli news services issued similar reports stating that Assad has been shot and died on the operating table.

If all this is confirmed, it will result in a near de-facto victory for the Syrian rebels and be the latest Arab strongman to be removed. This also means that that the region will continue to destabilize, especially as the various rebel factions start squabbling in their attempts to seize Syrian chemical weapons and then decide what to do with them.

Expect Israel to strengthen their northern border quickly.

Game of Thrones - 1995 ed.

This is pretty funny. Someone put together an opening credits for Game of Thrones in the vein of Hercules and Xena:

Pope Time for Francis

So it appears that I was incorrect, but not by much. I had been thinking that the papal conclave would pick an Italian to be the next pope. Instead they pick an Argentinian who is the son of Italian immegrants. Sort of Italian-Not Italian (mmmm... Procaccini's).

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has taken the papal name of Francis (in honor of Francis of Assisi). The lack of a Peter in either his given name or his papal name will throw the St. Malachy folks for a loop, although they seem to be gloming on pretty hard to the fact that he is of Italian heritage, even if he is not Italian himself.

It is unlikely that Francis will change much of anything other than appearance. In Benedict XVI, the church had the equivalent of an ivory tower egghead; someone who enjoyed theology and debate. Francis has given the impression that he is interested in getting out to the people (a doer rather than a thinker). We shall see if anything comes of that.

At the very least, Francis has a lot of firsts going for him. In addition to the first pope named Francis, he is the first from the western hemisphere and obviously the first from South America. He is also the first Jesiut pope, which should give the anti-Catholic conspiracy folks a field day. Should be fun to watch.

Pope Watch 2013

The countdown to the next pope (Petros Romanos?) will hit the next stage on Tuesday. The College of Cardinals (not Louisville) announced today that the will open the conclave on Tuesday, March 12th.

The general speculation has been that the Vatican wanted to have the new pope crowned by about St. Patrick's Day so that he would have a few days to get accustomed to the office before kicking things in to high gear for the Easter season. Given the amount of time for back room deal making even before the conclave, I think it likely that a new pope will be chosen well within the speculated time frame.

A New Pope

Like everyone else, I was quite surprised to learn on Monday that Pope Benedict XVI was going to resign. He was getting old enough that everyone just expected him to die in office like everyone else.

Naturally that has set off a flurry of speculation about his successor. Quite a number of men are considered in the running and Paddy Power has set odds on just about every member of the College of Cardinals. However, because of the so-called Prophecy of St. Malachy, interest has focused predominently on two men to suceed as Peter the Roman:

The first is Cardinal Tarcisio Pietro Evasio Bertone. He is currently the Vatican Secretary of State and seen as Pope Benedict's right hand man. He also happens to be from the Romano region of Italy, giving him an easy identification as a possible Peter the Roman. However, there are a few things going against him.

First is his age. He just turned 78 and the Vatican has a bit of a habit of replacing a long pope with a short one and a short one with a long one. If Cardinal Bertone were elected, his reign would look to be as short or possibly shorter than Benedict's.

Second, Cardinal Bertone is strongly tied to the policies of Pope Benedict and his elevation would be seen as a continuation of those policies. However, those policies are not particularly popular with the cardinals and much of the leity right now.

Third, Cardinal Bertone has been tied to several controversies in the past few years and his elevation would only increase these levels.

The second man that is getting a lot of Peter the Roman buzz is the current betting favorite, Cardinal Peter Turkson. After the world-wide work that Pope John Paul II did, many in the Catholic Church have expected a non-European pope. If it weren't for his age, Cardinal Francis Arinze would probably have the inside track, but he just turned 80 and I suspect that the Vatican is looking for a man a bit younger than Benedict was when he took office.

Cardinal Turkson fits the bill much better. He is only 64 and seen as a strong leader from Africa. He also has the distict advantage that although he is from Ghana and oversees Churches in that region of Africa, he has held Vatcian office for several years and is well aquainted with Vatican politics. He has been stationed in Rome long enough that people in Ghana refer to him as Peter the Roman as a badge of honor.

There is one other point that Cardinal Turkson fits while others do not: he is dark skinned. I've not been able to find a credible source, but there seems to be a belief that the last pope will have dark skin (the notations usually read "black pope"). This tidbit is not in St. Malachy's prophecy of Peter the Roman when read, but it is credited to him. I suspect that it may have come from a "reading in" of the prophecy rather than any specific wording. Early beliefs probably centered around this pope being evil and then evolved into his having dark skin.

We should find out next month anyway and then we can evaluate everything from there.

Talk Like a Pirate

This is a kindergardner version of a drinking song. I dare you to listen to it once and not find yourself humming or singing part of it at some point later in the day.

Lonely Zombie

There has been an upsurge in Zombie related entertainment (The Walking Dead, World War Z) lately. Why I'm not sure, but monsters seem to go in cycles and vampires have been done in a bit by Twilight.

In that spirit, here's the Lonely Zombie song from the folks at HISHE. They did a shortened version of this song as an end tag on their Resident Evil parody and then expanded the song when it was shown to be so popular. The contrast between the nature of the song and the lyrics is very funny.

Post Super Bowl Thoughts

I would like to pat myself on the back for calling the Super Bowl winner two weeks ago, but I can't really take all the credit. A friend of mine pointed out that when the Ravens beat the Colt, he thought the Ravens had this air about them very much like the Super Bowl XL (2005-6) Steelers, including an incredible dumb luck win over the #1 seed (in 2006 it was the Colts) that should have gone the other way.

Still, it does feel good to be right and the game wasn't half bad either. The first half was entertaining but a little off-putting with the 49'ers failing to punch it in and turning the ball over on a couple of drives. Sports announcers always remind the viewers how no team has ever come back from a defict of more than 10 points to win the Super Bowl and that held up again.

I honestly think the game would have ended up being a total bust if it hadn't been for the power failure. That clearly gave the 49'ers time to rest and regather themselves. I actually missed the third quarter and Mrs. X and I opted to flip over to Downton Abbey about halfway through the power failure. So I didn't see San Francisco's grind back into contention. I rejoined it in time for the kickoff after Baltimore had kicked a field goal to go up 31-23. Much as expected, the Niners went right down the field and got another touchdown, but was not that surprised when the failed on the 2-point conversion.

I figured the next drive would be make or break and I wasn't far off. The Ravens did manage to get close enough for a field goal which did force the Niners to go for a touchdown. As they drove the field, I was honestly expecting San Francisco to score said touchdown and was actually wondering if they had left too much time on the clock as they looked as though they would score before the two-minute warning and Baltimore would only need a field goal to win or tie (echos of New England).

Then came four failures. I think the Niners should have run the ball at least one more time (perhaps on third down) as a means of softening the blitz and perhaps catching the Ravens by surprise. Then there was the controversial non-call on 4th down. The ball would have been near impossible to catch in-bounds so I don't think pass interference was even considered. Holding could have been called, but I think the official kept the flag in his pocket for three reasons.

First, the officials had been allowing a lot of close stuff go. There were several non-calls earlier in the game that often get called. But the officials seem to have made the decision to let things go unless things were blatently obvious.

Second, officials in the playoffs have been notoriously hesitant about throwing flags near the end of the game on critical plays unless it is just too obvious to ignore, especially if they are on some short pass in the end zone.

Third, and I think this is actually the most critical, as much as the defender was fighting and holding on to the reciever, the reciever was hand fighting and trying to push off the defender. Neither man was playing completely clean to where the fault of the other was blatently obvious.

San Francisco fans will grumble and complain but I saw nothing wrong with making a no-call there and nothing inconsistent with it either.

Now, on to the commercials. They were particularly unmemorable this year. Usually, one might say that they were either good or bad or there might be a debate about which ones they liked or didn't. I simply can't remember most of them as they made almost no impression on me.

The only one that comes to my mind that I remember and like was the M&M's "Anything For Love". One, I like M&Ms; two, I like that song; and three, it took us a second, but the primary actress there is the same actress who plays Santana on Glee. I've seen a fair amount of love for Dodge's "Farmer" ad, which I missed. However, most of the love for this ad seems to stem for people's love of Paul Harvey and you have to pay close attention to notice that it's an ad for a Dodge truck.

The consensus worst ad was the Go Daddy ad featuring the Supermodel and the Nerd. If left to simple devices, the ad might have been funny, however, the producers elected to amp up the audio on the kissing to levels I've not even heard in adult films. Even if the Nerd had magically transformed to a Calvin Klien model (which was Mrs. X's favorite ad), the audio would have sickened anyone watching. It was memorable but for all the wrong reasons.

So here's to the end of another football season. Now we'll wait two and a half months until the draft and then four months after that to the start of the 2013 season.

The Harbaugh Bowl

Although I hadn't posted about it, I think I did pretty well in the post-season picks this year. I got all four games right in the first week. I went 2 of 4 in the second week (I picked Denver, New England, San Francisco, and Seattle) and then I got both games right this week.

I was a lot less sold on Baltimore, but after they defeated Denver, a friend of mine told me that that he thought that this Ravens team looks an awful lot like the Steelers team that won Super Bowl XL back in 2006. New England wasn't that good when one looked at them closely and they're much vaunted defense was about as bad as I expected. Baltimore would have won by even more if their recievers had figured out how to catch the ball before the second half. There were a number of dropped passes that the defense had nothing to do with.

On the NFC side, I had a feeling about the 49ers but that feeling was tested early when the Falcons jumped up 17-0. Then you could see the tide turning, much like the Seattle game. The only question was whether or not San Francisco was going to shoot themselves in the foot before they managed to take the lead. But they did and they managed to bleed the Falcons down at the end.

So who has the advantage in the Super Bowl? Going with the '05 Steelers parallel, I would say Baltimore. I think their defense is more consistent (even if it is old) and I think they will hit harder than the 49ers, who still seem like a bit of a finese team (although not as much as the Falcons). I also trust the Baltimore offense and it's deep threat better than I do the scrambling QB for the 49ers.