Corrupted Character Copies in Live-Action Films.
- David from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant is this for Bishop from Aliens. Both are androids created by Weyland and serve as The Smart Guy for the protagonists who are fascinated by Xenomorphs. However whilst Bishop was a touchingly wholesome Benevolent A.I. who saved Ripley and Newt, David is a creepy A.I. Is a Crapshoot A God Am I android bastard who kills thousands of people including Shaw the heroine of Prometheus and experiments on her corpse and uses Covenant’s protagonists to breed the Xenomorphs.
- The Big Bad of Better Watch Out is an evil version of Kevin McAllister from the Home Alone films, taking the popular fan interpretation of him as a budding sociopath who thoroughly enjoys the pain he inflicts on the Wet Bandits and running with it. Like Kevin, Luke Lerner is a smart kid who sets a ton of traps in his house to fend off a home invasion around Christmas. Unlike Kevin, Luke staged the entire thing in order to seduce his cute babysitter Ashley, and when she finds out what's really going on, he has her Bound and Gagged and kills multiple people — one of them (Ashley's boyfriend Ricky) with the famous paint can trap from Home Alone, here depicted realistically as something that could kill someone.
- Blade Runner 2049 has two regarding characters from the 1982 film.
- Luv is this for Rachel. They’re both are dark haired females Replicants with the same haircut with a fringe and practically have the same attractive introduction at the overarching organisation’s headquarters, forming attachment to the investigating Blade Runners in the process. However whereas Rachel left Tyrell out of love for Deckard and never did anything violent beyond saving Deckard from Leon by gunning the latter down; Luv is extremely violent and needlessly cruel destroying Joi, K’s holographic love out of jealous spite after he rejected her earlier in the film. Luv also stays loyal to Wallace throughout, unlike Rachel with Tyrell.
- Wallace is this for Tyrell. While Tyrell was at worst an Anti-Villain being genuinely affable and caring to his Replicant creations. Wallace by comparison is Obviously Evil being sociopathic and cruel —killing a newborn Replicant with his own hands.
- In Brightburn, a childless couple (who really want a child) from Kansas finds a baby boy in a crashed spaceship near their farm one night. They adopt the boy, doing their best to raise him in a loving home. As he grows older, he begins to develop extraordinary powers, including invulnerability, flight, and super speed along with heat vision. He even takes to wearing a red blanket around his shoulders like a cape. Unfortunately, this kid also rapidly develops from a seemingly sweet-natured and loving kid into a psychopathic, violent predator who regards humans as prey, and the use of his powers against people is Played for Horror. A brutally straightforward example of this trope as applied to Superboy (and presumably eventually Superman). As The Stinger shows, there are also corrupt, murdering counterparts to Aquaman and Wonder Woman, and likely others.
- Cool World: Holli Would is a sexualized cartoon character who interacts with real humans, not unlike Jessica Rabbit of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Jessica was a redhead with exaggerated features, Holli was drawn to heavily resemble her actress, Kim Basinger. While both are very attractive to humans and cartoon characters, their sense of morality and motives differ completely. Jessica genuinely loved Roger and all of her actions were to help him, and when the two are together they have nothing but affection for each other; Holli only manipulated Jack after a long list of humans she tried to bring to Cool World so that she could have sex with one to turn human and was willing to endanger both worlds if it meant she could keep living among humans. Ironically, Holli has more in common with Jessica's literary origins than her more well-known film depiction.
- Godzilla vs. Kong introduces minor antagonist Ren Serizawa, son of the heroic Dr. Ishiro Serizawa. His role in the film is to pilot a Humongous Mecha designed to kill off towering monsters, one of which it was built from and the novelization shows his relationship with his father was not a pleasant one. He's basically Shinji Ikari, but instead of being a passive teen who resents being used as a pawn, he's an aggressive adult who enjoys his job.
- The Good Son: Henry Evans is essentially Kevin McCallister gone horribly wrong; both are Wise Beyond Their Years, able to outsmart and fool adults, and take pleasure from jerry-rigging painful homemade contraptions. Kevin is a good-hearted kid defending himself from robbers and his antics are Played for Laughs. Henry is The Sociopath perfectly willing to murder his own family and his crimes are Played for Horror. To drive the point home, they're played by the same boy.
- Hancock: Deconstructed. Hancock starts out as a pretty clear corruption of Superman, a lazy bum who drinks too much and causes needless collateral damage with his heroics. As he's taken in by a PR man who wants to help clean up his image, it's revealed Hancock has a pretty good Freudian Excuse for his behavior, having come to genuinely believe he's unworthy of affection. Getting over these issues and embracing his potential to be the Big Good is the point of the film and Hancock's own Character Development.
- Michael Myers of Halloween and Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th are both derived from Norman Bates of Psycho, the prototypical Slasher Film (Jason even echoing Norman’s Momma's Boy status). Laurie Strode is even played by Jamie Lee Curtis daughter of Janet Leigh who played Marion Crane. Except where Norman was a Tragic Villain having been horribly abused and twisted by his domineering mother until he developed a Split Personality, Michael and Jason are far more monstrous and rack up a far greater body count. Michael in particular, unlike Norman, has no Freudian Excuse for his disturbing nature being simply born evil.
- It's a Wonderful Life: Mr. Potter heavily resembles Ebenezer Scrooge, being the grouchy, uncaring town rich man who's loathed by the populace and whose death is likely to go unmourned, and who is heavily associated with Christmas. But Dickens demonstrates that Scrooge isn't entirely a hopeless cause; he's had a hard life and when he receives a chance to reform, he grabs hold of it wholeheartedly. It's a Wonderful Life never indicates that Potter had any tragic backstory to explain why he's so cruel to people and he never changes. Also, even at his worst, Scrooge was a Villainy-Free Villain Protagonist, Potter committed an actual crime when he pocketed the money Billy misplaced and another one when he falsely accused George of embezzlement. Furthermore, in a deleted scene, Clarence gives Potter a biting speech that's essentially a compressed version of Christmas Future's time with Scrooge. He drops dead of a heart attack rather than throwing himself on the messenger's mercy and begging for a second chance as Scrooge does.
- Murder by Death: Milo Perrier parodies Hercule Poirot, both of them being famed Belgian detectives. However, Perrier possesses far less self-control and politeness than his original and seems to be more of a Punch-Clock Hero than the highly principled Poirot.
- My Super Ex-Girlfriend: G-Girl is an expy of Supergirl (got her powers from an alien meteor instead of being an alien, has a Kryptonite Factor of the same meteor that empowered her, but otherwise the same basic Flying Brick). The film asks "What if Supergirl was an insecure, neurotic, overly-controlling woman with a fondness for Disproportionate Retribution?"
- Norbit turns The Nutty Professor (1996) on its head with Rasputia Latimore. Rasputia and Sherman Klump are both obese, insecure and Love Hungry Eddie Murphy characters. Sherman's a gentlemanly scientist, Rasputia's a psychopath. Case in point, while Sherman uses a special formula to become his ideal self, Rasputia simply threatens her husband into compliance.
- Pearl (2022): In addition to the old, bitter version of Maxine that she became by the time X (which this film is a prequel to) takes place, the film's Villain Protagonist Pearl is also this to two other famous characters.
- First is Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz. Like Dorothy, Pearl lives on a farm with her family and longs to go someplace exciting and far away. However, she decidedly lacks Dorothy's sweet nature from the start and becomes increasingly comfortable with killing people who inconvenience such plans.
- Second is Carrie White from Carrie (1976).note Both are the beautiful titular main characters of their respective stories who live under the thumb of their oppressive mothers and dream of breaking free, a dream that ends in tragedy. Mia Goth does an excellent imitation of Sissy Spacek's Texas accent, and both films even have a pivotal scene where the main character hits her Rage Breaking Point after she's humiliated on stage while dressed in a rosy color (red for Pearl, pink for Carrie) during what she hoped would be the happiest moment of her life. However, Carrie was presented as a Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold whose suffering was largely the fault of those around her, from her mother to her school's Alpha Bitch, and could've been accepted by her peers if not for them. Pearl, meanwhile, is presented as a psychotic, mentally disturbed young woman with an ego the size of Texas and no such Freudian Excuse who kills animals for fun and later moves up to people, making her a far more malicious villain.
- Saw X: Cecilia Pederson and her father Finn are Eviler than Thou versions of the series' main villain, the Jigsaw killer John Kramer. While John kidnaps people he feels to be wasting their lives and forces them into Death Traps where they must make Life-or-Limb Decisions to survive, hopefully learning a harsh moral lesson in the process, Cecilia and Finn are phony doctors who offer false hope to people dying of cancer by shilling a "miracle" cure that doesn't actually work, taking their money and leaving them to die. Interestingly, they're initially portrayed as Virtuous Character Copies of John in the sense of them being people who use controversial methods to help others, with Cecilia and Finn claiming that they're being persecuted by Big Pharma before we learn exactly what they did that caused them to flee their home country of Norway and operate out of Mexico, which causes John to decide that Even Evil Has Standards and set Cecilia and her assistants up to die in his "games".
- Scary Movie:
- Doofus "Doofy" Gilmore is a parody of Dwight "Dewey" Riley from Scream. While Dewey is a dorky yet competent police officer, Doofy seems to be a mentally-impaired buffoon but is actually the true killer.
- Likewise, Gail Hailstorm is a parody of Gale Weathers. They're both Intrepid Reporters and Attention Whores who see the murder spree going on around them as a way to boost their own profile, but Gale is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who ultimately helps save the day and becomes nicer in the sequels, while Gail kills a student on live TV for being annoying, refuses to intervene in a murder happening in front of her because she wants to film it, and helps Doofy escape the police.
- Buffy Gilmore is a non-villainous version. While she's not a killer, she's still a snobby, promiscuous, self-centered, and generally catty caricature of the two characters she parodies, Tatum Riley from Scream and Helen Shivers from I Know What You Did Last Summer.
- Small Soldiers: The Commando Elite are a dark parody of the G.I. Joe toyline: military badasses who tirelessly battle animalistic enemies. The Joes contend with Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization. The Commandos' rivals are the Gorgonites, borderline pacifists. The army mens' programming means they simply don't care that the Gorgonites are peaceful.
- Star Wars:
- Being derived from The Hidden Fortress, Darth Vader’s character mostly strongly parallels Hyoe Tadokoro The Heavy of the evil faction who has a We Used to Be Friends relationship with the Old Soldier Master Swordsman general of the film (Rokurota Makabe — Obi-Wan). Except where Rokurota Makabe was a true Anti-Villain and Noble Demon who doesn’t hurt any of the heroes and pulls a Heel–Face Turn to good guys’s side by the end of the movie, Anakin by contrast is The Dreaded Hero Killer who doesn’t turn back to the light until his final moments.
- Emperor Sheev Palpatine aka Darth Sidous has many similarities to Emperor Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon (Lucas admitting Star Wars is inspired by the 1930s/1940s serials) both being powerful and sinister cloaked Evil Overlords of their respective empires who are frequently seen in a Slouch of Villainy on their cool thrones. However where Ming at least has some redeeming traits such as genuinely caring for his daughter Aura and having Villain Respect for Flash, Palpatine is a utter sadist to the core with no qualms trying to kill his own family such as his granddaughter.
- Rogue One being a gritty deconstruction of the franchise’s formula and archetypes has a fair amount of this.
- Cassian Andor is this for Han Solo. Both are cool crack shot rogues who wear vests, have a Cool Spaceship and have The Big Guy (Chewie — K-2SO) as their partner and co-pilot. However where Han was a outwardly charismatic Jerk with a Heart of Gold who never took things too far, Cassisn by contrast is a Byronic Hero far more willingly to kill unarmed men in cold blood or shoot them in the back to ensure he gets out alive. Cassian’s prequel series furthers the dichotomy, as the titular protagonist takes Han’s Only in It for the Money to an even greater extent where he abandons the rebellion completely rather than willingly come back Just in Time like Han does and it’s only through a twist of fate does he join the Rebels again. Cassian really represents what Han would be without the comfortable Lovable Rogue aspects that make up his character.
- K-2SO is this for C-3PO. Both are sleek and sassy humanoid droids who provide comic relief throughout the story. Except where Threepio is generally harmless and is always polite as possible towards his human masters, K-2SO being a reprogrammed Imperial Enforcer droid is incredibly brutal and even downright threatening with him scaring the crap out of Jyn during his first scene where he subdues her. He’s simultaneously more capable and more dark than Threepio ever was.
- Jyn Erso herself is this for Princess Leia. Like Leia, Jyn is the short brunette Action Girl daughter of a powerful political figure (Bail Organa — Galen Erso), who has to watch helplessly as her father is killed and in the continuity of the films both pull a Heroic Sacrifice at the end of their journeys. However where Leia was always devoted to the rebellion, Jyn for the most part wasn’t, seeing it as futile to stop the Empire and was content to accept Imperial domination for the sake of surviving. It takes seeing her father’s Forced into Evil plight and sabotage of the Death Star as a final act of defiance, for Jyn to become a true believer of the Rebellion.
- Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: Scourge, the Big Bad and The Heavy, bears some similarities to the Silver Surfer from Marvel Comics. They are residents of a planet their respective masters targeted for consumption. But whereas Norrin Radd became the herald of Galactus in exchange for his planet's salvation, Scourge sold out his planet to Unicron in exchange for becoming his herald for the sake of power. Silver Surfer underwent a Heel–Face Turn after being defeated and treated with kindness, leading him to stop Galactus from consuming Earth, whereas Scourge here remains irredeemably evil and loyal to Unicron to the bitter end, even going so far as to stop the heroes from averting Unicron's arrival even when it's guaranteed he's going to die.
