History VillainDecay / Film

* Franchise/HannibalLecter was a genuinely horrible character in the original two novels by Thomas Harris, however, by HannibalRising Lecter was a [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds]] with a full set of [[FreudianExcuse Freudian excuses]] to explain for his deranged behavior, plus he only killed AssholeVictims by then.

* Aliens in the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' series. [[Film/{{Alien}} The first installment]] was a horror film in space, with a single, nearly invincible alien stalking and killing the helpless crew of a spaceship, with numerous rape parallels. However, the sequel ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' was an action film, where a swarm of xenomorphs overwhelm a squad of space marines by virtue of sheer numbers. Since then, xenomorphs have increasingly been depicted as cannon fodder. The merchandise has further stripped the Alien of its mystique and creepy sexual undertones. The ''Franchise/AlienVsPredator'' series further decayed the villainy by focusing on kaiju-style monster battles. Pop culture has also participated in the decay with increasingly parodic tie-in marketing in the form of plush, Lego, superdeformed, etc.

* In the first ''Film/JurassicPark'' movie, the T-Rex is an unstoppable monster, who can't be fought and only run from. He takes on the other villains of the piece in the final scene and kills them with ease. His face is the symbol of the franchise. In [[Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark the second film]], more of the same, only with a much higher body count. [[Film/JurassicParkIII Third film]]? Hit by TheWorfEffect: Killed unceremoniously by a dinosaur most dinosaur experts say would make for a very boring battle where nobody can win[[note]]Or as ScienceMarchesOn, ridiculously one-sided depending on whether it took place on land or in the water, rather like staging a battle between a bear and a shark.[[/note]], even being replaced on the franchise symbol. Villain decay indeed. In [[Film/JurassicWorld the fourth film]], [[spoiler:Rexy (the same one from the first film) and a raptor tag-team the new hybrid ''Indominus rex'', with some help from a Mosasaurus. As a callback to the third film, when Rexy shows up, she smashes through the skeleton model of a Spinosaurus, the same dino who killed another ''T. rex'' in the third film]].

* The classic movie monsters ({{Dracula}}, Film/{{Frankenstein|1931}}, {{Wolfman}}, TheMummy) were the subject of comedies (usually with Creator/AbbottAndCostello) by the late 40's, early 50's.

* The classic movie monsters ({{Dracula}}, Film/{{Frankenstein|1931}}, {{Wolfman}}, TheMummy) were the subject of comedies (usually with AbbottAndCostello) by the late 40's, early 50's.

* In the first ''Film/JurassicPark'' movie, the T-Rex is an unstoppable monster, who can't be fought and only run from. He takes on the other villains of the piece in the final scene and kills them with ease. His face is the symbol of the franchise. In [[Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark the second film]], more of the same, only with a much higher body count. [[Film/JurassicParkIII Third film]]? Hit by TheWorfEffect: Killed unceremoniously by a dinosaur most dinosaur experts say would make for a very boring battle where nobody can win, even being replaced on the franchise symbol. Villain decay indeed. In [[Film/JurassicWorld the fourth film]], [[spoiler:Rexy (the same one from the first film) and a raptor tag-team the new hybrid ''Indominus rex'', with some help from a Mosasaurus. As a callback to the third film, when Rexy shows up, she smashes through the skeleton model of a Spinosaurus, the same dino who killed another ''T. rex'' in the third film]].

* Scar from ''Disney/TheLionKing'' suffers this, badly. He starts out as an MagnificentBastard that manipulates everybody and actually achieves his goal by [[TheStarscream usurping the throne]]. And after that he degrades into a whiny oaf and a [[TheCaligula terrible leader]]. Though it's justified in that while he was a good ''manipulator'', he just wasn't good leader material.

* In ''Film/MonstersVsAliens'', the first HumongousMecha Gallaxhar sends to Earth ends up shrugging off anything the US Army can throw at it and proceeds to waste half of San Francisco before being brought down by the monsters (and the Golden Gate Bridge). Near the end of the film, when Gallaxhar orders his ''army'' of identical robots to stop [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever Ginormica]], they all end up crashing into one another and collapsing like dominoes.

* In the first ''Film/JurassicPark'' movie, the T-Rex is an unstoppable monster, who can't be fought and only run from. He takes on the other villains of the piece in the final scene and kills them with ease. His face is the symbol of the franchise. In [[Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark the second film]], more of the same, only with a much higher body count. [[Film/JurassicParkIII Third film]]? Hit by TheWorfEffect: Killed unceremoniously by a dinosaur most dinosaur experts say would make for a very boring battle where nobody can win, even being replaced on the franchise symbol. Villain decay indeed.

* In the first ''Film/JurassicPark'' movie, the T-Rex is an unstoppable monster, who can't be fought and only run from. He takes on the other villains of the piece in the final scene and kills them with ease. His face is the symbol of the franchise. In [[Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark the second film]], more of the same, only with a much higher body count. [[Film/JurassicParkIII Third film]]? Hit by TheWorfEffect: Killed unceremoniously by a dinosaur most dinosaur experts say would make for a very boring battle where nobody can win (T. rex, in a case of CripplingOverspecialization, has jaws that, while powerful, cannot cause any damage whatsoever to anything larger than itself: ''Spinosaurus'' is big enough, powerful enough and deadly enough to survive the encounter, but also has CripplingOverspecialization that makes it ridiculously slow on land), even being replaced on the franchise symbol. Villain decay indeed.

* In the first ''Film/JurassicPark'' movie, the T-Rex is an unstoppable monster, who can't be fought and only run from. He takes on the other villains of the piece in the final scene and kills them with ease. His face is the symbol of the franchise. In [[Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark the second film]], more of the same, only with a much higher body count. [[Film/JurassicParkIII Third film]]? Hit by TheWorfEffect: Killed unceremoniously by a dinosaur most dinosaur experts say he should have been able to take apart with ease, even being replaced on the franchise symbol. Villain decay indeed.

* General Grievous in ''Franchise/StarWars''. Viewers' first look at Grievous occurs during ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'', in which the cyborg took on six Jedi at once [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXQx_QLY8XM and completely destroyed them]] without much effort, [[EstablishingCharacterMoment establishing him]] as an unstoppable killing machine. However, the series' production team developed the character independently from the films' team. For Grievous's live-action appearance, Lucas wrote him as a significantly lower threat. The live-action Obi-wan faces a significantly weaker Grievous and dispatches him fairly quickly all by himself. The second season of the animated series attempts to {{justif|iedTrope}}y the discrepancy by revealing more of Grievous's evasive nature and showing how he received the injuries he displays in the live-action film.

* Carface, the BigBad of ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'', was legitimately menacing in the original film (it was his henchmen who were [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain incompetent jokes]]). The scene where he and his gang threaten Itchy at Charlie's Club may indeed be [[NightmareFuel/AllDogsGoToHeaven Nightmare Fuel]] for some. However, in ''All Dogs Go to Heaven 2'', he loses several IQ points, and becomes the idiot henchman. The VillainSong, 'It Feels So Good to Be Bad', sung by Satan to Carface, seems to be about reversing Villain Decay and going in the complete opposite direction, but nothing ever comes of it. Carface never really regains the menacing quality he had in the first film, and ends up being sent to FireAndBrimstoneHell because he made a really stupid DealWithTheDevil. While this plot point seems to be retconned in the series, he seems to only get worse, ending up playing a Scrooge archetype in "An All Dogs Christmas Carol". This was a chain-smoking, [[EvilSoundsDeep gravel-voiced,]] ManipulativeBastard BadBoss that waits until Charlie's wasted and [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill rolls a car into Charlie that if he didn't die from the impact would drown,]] took everything Charlie had, manipulated an orphan for gambling tips, beat Itchy with a gang of Mooks within an inch of his life then almost killed Charlie ''again'' until he himself was eaten by King Gator. Essentially '''if you're a Creator/DonBluth villain in a sequelized franchise, prepare to be decayed.''' The only way out of that is to never appear in the sequels at all, which many Bluth villains do not.

** As a matter of fact, the opening of ''Film/FreddyVsJason'' reminds the viewers that despite the bad jokes, Freddy Krueger is a man who murders little children for ''fun''.

* The classic movie monsters ({{Dracula}}, {{Frankenstein}}, {{Wolfman}}, TheMummy) were the subject of comedies (usually with AbbottAndCostello) by the late 40's, early 50's.

* Scar feom ''Disney/TheLionKing'' suffers this, badly. He starts out as an MagnificentBastard that manipulates everybody and actually achieves his goal by [[TheStarscream usurping the throne]]. And after that he degrades into a whiny oaf and a [[TheCaligula terrible leader]].

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** Megatron is the menacing SealedEvilInACan BigBad of the first movie, destroying whole cities and causing the only on-screen casualty of the movie. By the sequel, he's just TheDragon to the ''real'' BigBad, The Fallen, and more or less just argues with Starscream for the second half of the movie. In ''Dark of the Moon'', he's injured for the entirety of the film, doesn't get a single kill, and [[spoiler:gets defeated along with the Bigger Bad in a matter of seconds]].

* Admiral Zhao from ''Film/TheLastAirbender'' is a case of ''adapational'' decay. In ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', Zhao is shown as a DangerouslyGenreSavvy FourStarBadass despite being a SmugSnake. In TLA, he has none of those menacing qualities and is a pure SmugSnake, needlessly antagonistic towards everybody (including [[BullyingADragon General Iroh]]) and seemingly desperately in over his head in his war plans (the scene where he [[spoiler: kills the Moon Spirit]], he seems more desperate than determined.)