FROM "THE INCREDIBLES"
WARNING THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!
I'll admit that this was a difficult choice choosing if I liked Syndrome or Lotso better, not just in terms of ranking the villains on my list but for which one is my favorite Pixar villain altogether. Both are similar for having a tragic back-story that turns them into heartless characters that seek power, but they both have a major difference in terms of personality, abilities, and how they carry out their villainous schemes. It was a very hard decision, but in the end I wand-up choosing the rich fan-boy who carries weapons to create chaos and fight against his enemies.
The first reason why I prefer him over Pixar villains like Randall, Hopper, and Lotso is his heartbreaking back-story. When we first see him he's a hyper and enthusiastic kid named Buddy, who obsesses over his idol Mr. Incredible by following him as he's fighting crime in hopes to persuade him to be his sidekick so that he can help save the world with him. He knows all of his skills, history, and moves; can create inventions to help aid him and Mr. Incredible for their battle for justice; and has taken the time to a make a cheesy Superhero outfit and heroic identity called "Incredi-boy". But no matter how hard he tries to convince Mr. Incredible to give him a chance, he coldly turns his back on him at every turn, telling him to "fly home" because he "works alone". And when he tries to take action, he just makes things worse by accidentally destroying property and letting the villain get-away. Now in all fairness, I don't really blame Mr. Incredible too much for turning his back on him. I mean after all he is a kid who's inexperienced at fighting, makes mistakes, and probably needs some help given how much he obsesses over him (and doesn't remember the fact that he was holding the villain Bomb Voyage in his grasp when he told him to leave, instead of directly staring at him as if he had nothing to do), where it makes sense for him not to want put the kid's life on the line, especially when considering that he doesn't have powers like him (and yes I know he lets his children help him fight crime, but it's not like he was opened to the idea from the start either). But with that said, he was a little too harsh on him. He uses the ejector seat to throw him out of his car instead of politely telling him to leave, or shoving him out himself; doesn't congratulate or seem impressed that a kid has invented a pair of rocket boots at all; and the way he tells him to leave was just flat-out cruel. I know he's fighting a bad guy, and that he’s getting ready to get married, but can he be just like "Hey, I admire your courage for coming out here to help, and I'm impressed by your rocket boots, but I don't need any help right now, but maybe in the near future will discuss how you can help me fight crime". It probably wouldn't have worked considering how over-obsessed and determined he is to impress Mr. Incredible and that he'll eventually realize that his kind way of telling him to leave was complete B.S. overtime, but at least he would show some kind of gratitude and respect for his "number 1 fan", rather than his anger towards him feeling personal.
The reason why I find his back-story more heartbreaking compared to Lotso is even though Lotso's story is sad; it was still revolving around a misunderstanding. He thought Daisy had replaced him, when in reality it was her parents and there was nothing that she can do about it. Here, our villain is directly being shunned away by the person who he idolizes and wants to be like as a kid, which is definitely every kid and young adult who fans over a celebrity worst nightmare come true! How would you feel if the person you looked up to, coldly turned you down, or wasn't the person you thought they was, you'd be devastated, which is why his transformation to becoming a villain is so sad because we can relate to his feelings of disappointment and rejection. The interesting thing about seeing Syndrome when he was young is the fact that he's voiced by the same actor who voices him as an adult, Jason Lee, where you think that would sound distracting since he's voicing a kid, but his voice surprisingly fits the personality and design just as well as how the film's director and writer Brad Bird perfectly fits the role of voicing the character of the female Superhero fashion designer Edna Mode.
One of the many cool thing that makes the villain my favorite from the other Pixar villains is how insanely rich he is! Since he has a talent for creating weapons and gadgets at a young age, he eventually got so rich from making them that he owns a whole entire Island that looks like Neverland from an aerial view, but looks more like an Island that a James Bond villain would love to have once you set foot on it, with tons of skilled henchmen working for him that carry guns and drive futuristic flying vehicles to chase down intruders, as well as a number of robots disguised as birds that keep the Island under surveillance, and will alert that there's an intruder if a person doesn't identified them-self. He also has secret passage ways that control the nature on the Island that lead to his lair; a giant computer room with hidden booby traps; a dining room located by a waterfall of Lava; a monorail system that goes around the Island; a launch tower for rockets that's located inside a volcano; and he has a Jet that can function as an airplane and submarine, complete with an automated pilot that serves cocktails. Holy cow, this guy really has it made!
With all the money he has, and possessing weapons that he made from scratch, instead of using them for good, he uses it for revenge against his idol Mr. Incredible. He has an energy beam that can freeze any one in place and levitate them as they are frozen; new and improved rocket boots for him to fly around; a miniature bomb that's shaped after Mr. Incredible’s old symbol that can cause massive destruction; and a device that can see if anyone's dead or alive. He's so powerful with all the gadgets and futuristic weapons he carries that with the exception of the baby Jack-Jack, none of the Incredible's ever lay a finger on him since he can freeze them all in a millisecond. He also shows no problems or remorse over killing Mr.Incredible's own family because seeing him cry about the loved ones he's lost is sweet revenge for him, where he goes as far to taunting him with the same words that he used to break his spirits as a child. Most of Syndrome's taunts against Mr. Incredible and his family are both harsh and yet so funny thanks to Jason Lee's delivery. My favorite taunt is when he mocks Mr. Incredible for calling for help, that's humorous for how he hops around saying "help me" in a scared childish voice, but at the same time harsh considering that it would be out of character for him to ask for help which upsets him so greatly that it causes him to angrily shout out the word "lame" a few times. And that's another thing I find intriguing about this villain, even though he hates Mr. Incredible after the heartbreak that he's given him, he still obsesses over him. He wanted Mr. Incredible to be the final test subject for a weapon that he's created before he takes action; geeks out over the facts that he faked his own death, and that he married another Superhero and had a family of supers; and knows that Mr. Incredible would never ever kill an innocent, even after losing his loved ones that he uses for his own advantage.
But as much as he takes pleasure on taking revenge on Mr. Incredible, that's only a minor part of his overall evil plan. His main goal is to actually wipe out Superheroes forever!
He does this by locating Superheroes in-hiding, and hiring his assistant Mirage to send them a video message of mission briefings. Before I go further into the plan, I'm going to talk a little bit about his assistant Mirage. While I like that her character, mannerisms, and design is supposed to resemble a bond girl working for a villain like Pussy Galore from "Goldfinger" for example. I don't find her character that interesting. She's not boring or anything, but she's mainly the kind of character who you know is going to reform later on in the film, that just makes her come across as a cliche with hardly anything new about her.
Getting back to Syndrome's main goal, once the heroes contact Mirage, they go to his Island to fight off an experimental battle robot called an Omnidroid, where he secretly uses the heroes as test subjects for his robot by killing each and every one of them. But if a Superhero destroys the Omnidroid, he'll know what needs to be improved, and will summon the Superhero that destroyed it back, where they're this time guaranteed to never leave the Island. And he keeps doing this process until the majority of supers are dead (since he can't track Elastigirl, and that Mirage lets Frozone go free so Mr. Incredible can take his place) and when he's ready to test his robot on the hero that he hates the most. The primary reason why Syndrome is my number favorite Pixar villain is because he commits genocide! He's killed such a large number of down and out Superheroes over the years after being let down by one, that it’s disturbing and sad. We never met them, but it's still depressing considering that he's killing off a race of powerful but innocent people out of hate and vengeance! And looking at their names and designs on the computer when we discover this information, we find ourselves wanting to learn more about them before they were axed off. The Omnidroid also comes across just as interesting as the Superheroes are, since it's been through so many different designs and alterations, and the final product that came out of it is Syndrome's most deadliest weapon yet, that can shoot lasers; has claws that can turn into buzz-saws; can change into a sphere to roll around to get to places faster; is gigantic in size; and is indestructible!
When his Omnidroid is finished, he plans to let it loose in the city to cause havoc and endanger the lives of many, and show-up as a Superhero to fight the machine, when he'll actually be secretly using his remote that controls the robot to destroy it, and in the end be praised as a Superhero for his staged actions by rising to fame and glory. And when he retires from saving people's lives, he'll sell his inventions so that everybody can have powers and be super. So he doesn't just kill the majority of Superheroes just to pass himself off as one, but he plans to make sure that Superheroes will be gone for good when Superpowers can now be accessible to the point where they'll no longer be considered to be a special or an abnormal thing! Who would have guessed that such a dweeb would be the downfall of Superheroes, let alone being one of the richest men in the world?!
When his plan backfires since he can't stop his own robot, and that the Incredibles have taken away his supposed glory by destroying the robot themselves as he's knocked-out, he sinks to a new low by kidnapping the family's baby to raise him to be his evil sidekick as revenge for foiling his chance to become a Superhero, and for Mr. Incredible refusing to take him under his wing when he was a kid. Now that's truly one disturbed man! But in an out of nowhere and yet hilarious twist, Jack-Jack has the powers to shape-shift into different forms, including a mini-devil to fight against Syndrome and destroy one of his rocket-boots. When Syndrome is about to make his get-away after the baby is rescued, Mr. Incredible throws a car at his escape Jet, which causes his cape to get caught inside the Jet's engine that sucks him right in and causes the jet to explode! OK, that is in my opinion thee harshest and gruesome death to have ever happened to a Pixar villain! And what I enjoy most about his defeat is how the film foreshadows it. When we see him as a kid trying to impress Mr. Incredible by flying away to get help, Bomb Voyage places a bomb on his cape that nearly gets him killed. And when Mr. Incredible asks Edna to add a cape on to his new suit, she refuses as we get a series of flashbacks of Superheroes getting into accidents because of their capes. What’s also amusing about the foreshadows to his death is Syndrome doesn't just get into an accident that costs him his life because of his cape, but he also suffers the same fate as one of the Superheroes did in the flashback! The film's mockery of Superheroes wearing capes is indeed one of the cleverest and yet darkest jokes that the film has to offer.
Earlier I talked about my favorite taunt from Syndrome, but the line from him that makes me laugh the hardest for how funny the delivery and writing is, is not from the movie itself, but from the spin-off short film "Jack-Jack Attack". The short film is no masterpiece compared to Pixar's other works in terms of short films, but it's still a lot of fun as we get to look into the enigma member of the Incredibles where I find myself buying that these events happened while they were fighting on Syndrome's Island. And Sydrome's cameo towards the end when the babysitter Kari thought that he was the back-up babysitter that Helen was supposed to send always has me laughing hard, because when Kari asks what the S on his suit stands for, he claims that it stands for "Sitter" and that he didn't want to use the initials for babysitter because he would be walking around with a big "B.S.", as he is talking B.S. That is just gold! One thing you may notice from his little cameo in the film is that he's not wearing his mask, which is interesting because we never ever see him take off his mask when he's an adult. And speaking of a feature to his costume, I do enjoy the design and color scheming for his Super-villain identity, where his clothing is drenched in black and white, as the only bright color that stands out is his red volcano shaped hairdo, that looks silly but at the same time mischievous.
I know it may be weird for some of you that he's not on my top ten since he is my favorite Pixar villain, but that's because the villains that I have coming up on the list are characters who I like better in terms of ranking all categories of Disney villains (well...with the exception of TV shows). But whether he is on my top 10, top 20, or even top 30, Syndrome from both "The Incredibles" and the short film "Jack-Jack Attack" still out ranks all of my favorite Disney villains in the Pixar category. His back-story is sad; he's tons of fun to watch; he carries all kinds of powerful gadgets that the heroes hardly stand a chance against; lives on an awesome Island; and his motivation of ridding the world from Superheroes is darker than any Pixar villain I've ever seen.
"And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can be superheroes. EVERYONE can be super! And when everyone's super...NO ONE will be."
-Syndrome
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