My son just read Star Wars Visual Guide. He bought it at the book fair at his elementary school. This book had a section of villians. My son, daughter and I think that Count Dooku is the coolest villian, seconded by the short lived Darth Maul. The Count Dooku character has an intriguing light saber in the book. The statue in the Jedi temple of Dooku was in the book. I don't remember that from the movie. We had to go back and watch the movie again to see if we could see Dooku's statue. The first movie used the palace of Caserta in Italy. I actually had to go and show the kids pictures of the real building, then we could go in and see what was fake from the movie.
I remember reading the books of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy when I was a teenager, and thinking about the Saruman character, more than the other characters. I think it is because there really isn't all that much information about the villian, so a person can use their imagination more to fill in the blanks. The kids also thought Saruman was more interesting than Gandalf. They only saw the movie and the boy has the Visual guide from the Movie. The book is a little too advanced for the younger one. I might try reading it to them, and see what they think about the movie after reading the book.
Re: Star Wars Visual Guide and Lord of the Rings Visual ...
I believe you are correct. The bad guy gets to do all the stuff I wish I could do. We have a t.v. program called Judge Judy in the United States. People, usually really, really stupid, badly behaved people come on the program and argue their problems for Judge Judy in her courtroom. Judge Judy says all the things I wish I could say. She is allowed to tell people to shut up!, she tells them they are illogical and downright ill behaved. Sometimes I just have to watch it, and then I think I WISH I could say that.
Re: Star Wars Visual Guide and Lord of the Rings Visual ...
Sir Christopher Lee said it himself, "the bad guy is frequently much more interesting than the good guy", but the reason why he is more interesting comes not (in my opinion) from a lack of information about him but rather because the villain's actions flatter our own dark side.
Steinbeck wrote about Le Morte d'Arthur, "It did not seem strange to me that Uther Pendragon wanted the wife of his vassal and took her by trickery. I was not frightened to find that there were evil knights, as well as noble ones. In my own town there were men who wore the clothes of virtue whom I knew to be bad... If I could not choose my way at the crossroads of love and loyalty, neither could Lancelot. I could understand the darkness of Mordred because he was in me too".
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