Architecture of Villainy
or call it villain’s lair.
Just the other day, a friend came up to me with a question, “What’s the most bad-ass villain’s lair?” Confidently, my thought roamed to the Death Star, Goldfinger’s mansion, and even Penguin’s sewer lair in Batman; not answering the question. But of all the movies I have watched, I couldn’t recall any great villain’s lair of recent memories. Nothing memorable struck me, and not even from superheroes powerhouse Marvel Cinematic Universe. There is something definitely missing here; all writing and direction aside, the art of production and portrayal of villains’ lairs are fading away. And with it, the crafts of making great villains.
Why is villain’s lair so important, even more than the heroes’ base? It’s because movies in general spend more screen time following the journey of the protagonists, allowing more time to understand the whole arc of the heroes. Consequently, the characterization time for villains becomes shorter; the viewers may not even know the whole villain’s story line. Thus, every villain’s scene has to be effective in portraying their story line. And along with the fact that these villain scenes are commonly set in the lair where they are arranging their plans, the setting of the villain’s scene becomes essential to pose them as forces to be reckoned with.
A villain’s base or lair is not only supposed to be a place where the evil force live or cook up their evil plans. It could portray their ideology, their personalities, or simply to intensify their villainous side. What’s really exciting is that movie as a medium provide endless possibilities for every form of architecture that the mind can imagine. There is no physical and even construction limitation to what’s possible in the cinematic world, yet these possibilities are never harnessed to the standard. Taking examples from recent blockbuster movies, we’ll see what’s missing.
For one, the lairs in current cinema cease to reflect the character and philosophy of the villain. How many times have we seen bad guys operate in interchangeable warehouses or laboratories? These settings are not even characterized to the villains, and only exist to set them somewhere. Take Spiderman: Homecoming’s the Vulture’s empty warehouses, Batman Vs Superman’s last warehouse fight, or Iron Man 3’s Mandarin’s empty mansion. These are just lazy productions; there are no emotion or information conveyed through the designs, even as simple as an atmosphere of dread sipping out from the lairs.
The lair could very well be an extension of their character, every decoration; every furniture; every burnt in the wall could deepen the audiences’ understanding to the villain leaving the audiences feeling unease every time the movie cut to the villain. What’s his philosophy? What are we supposed to feel for the villain? Are we supposed to be scared or maybe sympathize with the villain? Take the massive and artificially created Death Star for example. On one hand, the design showed the menacing power that the empire possesses. But beyond that, it also portrayed the primal theme of star wars which is machine against nature as the empire prefer the machine so much so that they created their own moon as a base, in contrast with the rebel’s base that’s set on natural setting.
Beyond the missing characterization of the villain in the lair, the lack of contrast is also a noticeable problem. A great villain’s lair is able to show contrast between the villain and the hero or the rest of the world. The contrast is important in villains as they represent the forces that are trying to impose their visions or disrupt the stability of the current state. Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man movies, and Ant-man suffer this kind of problem just because the heroes and the villains are using the same technologies (powers).
However, the same background and power do not excuse the lack of contrast. The contrast shows the differing views that starts the conflict in the first place. Again, Star Wars shows this contrasting concept of artificial and natural beautifully. While the empire and rebel alliance pretty much used the same light sabers and technologies with the rest of the galaxy, the differences in architectural design portray the polar opposite views. In a smaller scale, we could see the contrast between Andy’s and Sid’s houses in Toy Story. They are both coming from the same background in terms of being kids and having toys, but the design of the rooms show how they would treat the toys differently, thus creating the contrast between the protagonist and the antagonist.
Lastly, the bland and predictable setting. Some villains’ lairs design have been played out for a lot of times that they stop being so interesting and memorable. Odin’s throne, Frost Giant’s throne, and Dark Elf’s throne; evil thrones in all Thor movies, for instance, have been shown time and time again in Marvel movies that they stop becoming so menacing.
But take a look at Ken Adams’ works and you will see the unexpected. With almost every early James Bond’s villains’ similarity: billionaire, evil, cat-stroking maniac, Ken Adams always managed to astonish the viewers with his unexpected villain’s lairs Gigantic and solid set design are produced to show the architectural taste of the villain. Of course, various exaggerations are used, in You only live twice, the villain reconstruct a whole volcano to be the base to store rocket ship. In The Spy Who Loved Me, an underwater massive submarine based is showcased. Even a simple meeting room for the evil organization Spectre is designed to the detail. The design plays with audiences’ presumption of a lairs and always manage to bring new twist to them. Each one of them showing different new threats to the MI6.
And just as important as a lair, there are cases where villains do not need any base or lair in portraying the character. Joker in The Dark Knight and Kahn in Star Trek: Into Darkness are the profound example of this special case. The existence of a base for a villain unconsciously gives a sense of stability to the audiences and therefore by writing the lair off of a villain, it creates a sense of unpredictability; an unchained monster that could appear anytime.
So let’s face it: what’s a villain without a great setting? An astounding villain’s lair can bring all the villain’s traits together. It does not only perform as a mere place, but a living and breathing space that defines the villain, captures the essence of his work, even without a single dialogue. And now, every-time you watch those summer blockbusters, try to observe and ask yourself, “does the architecture of the villain tell me anything?”