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The film Megamind wasn't a huge commercial success—it was up against some stiff competition when it premiered in 2010—but it's gained a bit of a cult following since then.
A much better known film is Despicable Me and its sequels and spin-offs.
Both films turn the hero story around and tell everything from a self-described villain's perspective. In these films, the "villain is actually the hero" is the endgame of the plot.
But cinema has given us other antagonists that while they might never become the hero, the stories become very different when viewed from their perspective.
Reddit user CynicalCosmologist asked:
"What movie is really sad when told from the 'villain's' perspective?"
Dirty Dancing
"Baby's father in Dirty Dancing. Dude just wants to have a nice family vacation."
~ zigaliciousone
"Right? Heaven forbid he protests against his 17-year-old daughter getting seduced by the 25-year-old resort dance instructor.
"The dad also has to medically treat Johnny's ex-girlfriend for an infection after a back alley abortion. Of course he doesn't want his underage daughter getting involved."
~ IvanaDrago
"Worse, he wasn't just a dance instructor. The story is he's banging hot moms for money while giving private 'dance' lessons."
~ CountryFriedQuinoa
"Anyone over the age of like 25 completely understands the father's perspective."
~ notsmartprivate
Austin Powers 1, 2 And 3
"Austin Powers. Dr Evil’s upbringing is tragic:"
"'The details of my life are quite inconsequential.... My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloé with webbed feet'."
"'My father would womanize; he would drink; he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament'.”
~ BaxTheDestroyer
"'My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon... luge lessons... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets... When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds—pretty standard, really."
"At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Vilmer ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum—it's breathtaking... I suggest you try it'."
~ gardenfella
"I haven't seen this movie more than a couple times and most recently maybe 20 years ago. I have no memory of this speech and yet I 100% can hear it in the voice and delivery of Dr Evil."
~ RedditAtWorkIsBad
The Little Mermaid
"I recently re-watched The Little Mermaid and, well, let's just say I was rooting for her father rather than the 16-year-old wanting to elope with a person she saw for like a minute."
~ Deranged_Snow_Goon
"Ariel: 'I'm 16! I'm not a child anymore!'."
"7-year-old Me: 'Yeah! She's basically a grown up! Don't be mean, Triton!'."
"41-year-old Me: 'She is absolutely a child and I wonder if my parents thought that line was as ridiculous as I find it now when we watched it 30+ years ago'."
~ Deep-Jello0420
"bUt DaDdY I LoVe HiM!"
"Sh*t makes me cringe now every time."
~ _space_pumpkin_
Meet The Robinsons
"Meet The Robinsons."
"Goob just needed some sleep is all."
~ Agreeable_Oil_936
"I can understand that. I've shouted at people who wouldn't let me sleep, before."
~ Geminii27
Mrs Doubtfire
"Mrs Doubtfire because imagine how scared Pierce Brosnan's character was when Mrs Doubtfire tried to kill him with pepper."
~ IceSmiley
"He also survived a drive-by fruiting."
~ Embarrassed-Ad-1639
"Robin Williams‘a character was a sh*t husband in that movie."
"Of course your wife is going to divorce you if she comes home from her breadwinning job, and you’ve got a petting zoo running around the house, after walking out on yet another job, when you’re already on thin ice!"
"But the whole movie is acting like his ex-wife is a mean, borderline-evil shrew!"
"And all the judge was asking him to do was get literally any job and keep it in order to see his kids more often!"
"'I love my kids!' Fine, why don’t you show it by acting like a goddamned grown-up for once."
~ gringledoom
Hellboy: the Golden Army
"Prince Nuada from Hellboy: the Golden Army."
"He’s the Prince of a dying race of fae, has to see his father lead his kind into darkness and obscurity, and THEN see humanity tear down everything he loved for their own greed/expansion."
"His speech about how the world will never see the likes of the Elemental Forest God was heartbreaking."
~ shadowhood2020
"This isn’t the first story where humans started off living side by side with fairy tale or mythical creatures, then ultimately pushing them out to extinction."
"This movie did have me wishing for an alternate version where humans are the ones to lose."
~ Zee_whotookmyname
Liar, Liar
"Cary Elwes' character's perspective in Liar Liar."
"You've had a legitimate, mostly positive relationship with your girlfriend and are now at the point where you're trying to get to know her son. There's a lot of trust invested by this point."
"You've accepted that her ex-husband is an important part of her life and are happy with the arrangement of her son dividing time between you and his biological father."
"In other words, you're a pretty mature family man. Except her ex-husband starts crossing boundaries and trying to convince your girlfriend to get back together with him. You don't always realise what's going on, but you get the feeling that some sort of undermining is going on between him and their son."
"Meanwhile, your girlfriend is becoming more and more emotionally torn because her ex-husband keeps breaking promises and disappointing her son, but equally tries to undermine you to her and beg for further chances."
"This culminates in the terrifying face of Jim Carrey appearing outside your plane window during high speed takeoff, eyes wide open and manically shouting, on the day you were originally going to move to a new city as a 'new family'."
"Yet despite this, you retain a godly amount of humility and gracefully back out of the relationship, knowing that Jim has won over the family and that it wouldn't be fair for any parties for the farce to continue."
"Yeah, Cary Elwes' character is intentionally goofy at times and jumped the gun on the relationship, but the man is a bit of a saint for putting up with that."
~ poyopoyo77
Bee Movie
"Bee Movie."
"A bee stole this man’s girlfriend."
~ RedPandaPrincess93
"It's a wild ride."
"I shrugged it off years ago as just being some kid's movie Jerry Seinfeld felt like making.
"I didn't realize how insane the plot is... the courtroom scenes, the romance, the wild ending, snipers..."
~ RVelts
Crocodile Dundee
"Richard from Crocodile Dundee."
You're Richard, Sue's boyfriend and boss at the newspaper. Your girlfriend Sue INSISTS on doing a human interest piece on some dude."
"You're like, 'come home I miss you', and she's like 'just this one more story', and you're like 'ok, you're the best'. So she goes off to find Michael J 'Crocodile' Dundee."
"Within 48 hours of meeting Mick, she's making out with him. You, Richard, have no idea...but it's gotta be suspicious that she BEGS to bring him back to NYC."
"It's IMMEDIATELY apparent what's going on. Sue is basically drooling over Mick, she's parading him around the upper crust of New York society, they're having some moments."
"She even f*cking invites him to the first date the two of you have had since she got back. You're understandably salty about this...and you get punched out for it."
"Feeling desperate to save your relationship, you throw a Hail Mary. While visiting her family—which you're on GREAT terms with—you propose. She says yes! Crisis averted...until the NEXT DAY when she takes it back and chases Mick into the subway to tell him she loves him."
"It's been like a week since the two of them met."
"And you know the worst part? You, Richard, paid for all of this to happen: this whole thing went down on the newspaper's dime."
"And the second worst part? You're still Sue's boss. You'll be seeing her at the office on Monday. You have less than 24 hours to pull yourself together."
"Richard got cheated on, villainized, and broken up with in the coldest way...and his only crime was not being happy about it. He's not the bad guy in this story. Sue is the bad guy in Crocodile Dundee."
~ LandosMustache
* NOT Crocodile DundeeGiphy
Lion King
"I'm not saying Scar was right for killing his brother and running the Pride Lands into the ground, but they call him Scar because he had a physical deformity."
"Before he was nicknamed Scar, his parents named him Takka... Which means garbage."
"Mufasa means king."
"'Oh hi. Let me introduce you to my sons King and Garbage'."
"How is that not setting your youngest up for failure?"
~ Flukie42
The Grinch
"Man, the Grinch just wanted to hang out with his dog on the mountain, and only asked his stupid neighbors to shut up."
~ LibraryGal
The Rock
"General Francis X. Hummel from The Rock."
"Joins the military at a young age and believes that he's fighting for his country and commands several special clandestine operations for the government and his men get killed."
"Because they were black ops, the US government doesn't give their families any benefits, it doesn't recognize them as having even served, and they don't even get military funerals. Hummel pleads with the Government to recognize these men and that they fought and died to further America's interests and he even goes before Congress to ask for the funds."
"They tell him to kick rocks. When his wife dies, he's had enough and feels he has to force their hand through taking hostages and threatening to launch VX poison gas rockets at population centers."
"He has no intent to go along with this plot, it's just a bluff."
~ futanari_kaisa
Jaws
"Jaws."
"Bruce is just trying to be a shark, man."
~ dinorawrrr91
"'THESE SHARK INFESTED WATERS!!!!!'."
"You mean their home?
"'KILL THE MONSTER!!'."
~ UrbanGimli
"The phrase 'shark-infested waters' drives me nuts."
"Are our living rooms human-infested?? No. That's just where people live."
"Sharks don't 'infest' the ocean, that's where they belong."
~ SpookyYurt
SpongeBob
"Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants."
"All he wants is some peace and quiet."
~ SuvenPan
"You know you’re a fully developed adult when you start to find SpongeBob really annoying and identify with Squidward’s point of view."
~ circa285
The Land Before Time
"The Land Before Time."
"That T-Rex just needed to eat."
~ CynicalCosmologist
"In the midst of an ecological collapse, a desperate carnivore pursues its prey for miles, only to be crushed and drowned by them."
~ Casca_In_Red
"A baby sharptooth cries in the darkness, waiting for their mother who will never return home to them."
~ FormalMango
Thor
"Thor 1. Loki loses everything, finds out his whole life is a lie, even his skin is a lie. The people who he was supposed to trust the most (his parents) betrayed him about who he was and brought him up in a society that thought his real race were disgusting savage monsters to the point that he thought it was OK to try and kill them all."
"In the middle of having a mental break down his dad goes into a coma while his mom is emotionally unavailable to give him any support because she’s busy watching the dad."
"His 'friends' betray him to go help his brother on Earth, so he is completely isolated with no support system undergoing the worst crisis of his life and goes off the rails, to the point of committing suicide because he realized no matter what he did he could never gain the approval of his father or belong there as the only frost giant in all of Asgard."
"It’s an epic tragedy when you look at it from his perspective."
~ Historical_Dog_183
It really is all in how you look at things.
As I've aged, my own perspective has been altered.
As a teen in the 1980s, my friends and I all loved Ferris Bueller's Day Off when we saw it in the theater. But rewatching it in my 30s, I viewed Ferris less as a lovable scamp and more as a horrible friend, boyfriend and brother.
What movies do you think look completely different from another point of view?