Every once in a while, when my friends and I have a refreshing hops-based beverage in hand, the topic of conversation turns to what we would do if we won the lottery. It probably goes without saying that, among the group of us, only I still cherish the foolishly optimistic belief that I could really win said lottery one day, instead of recognizing that it basically represents what my father calls “a tax on stupid people,” so now and then I buy a Win For Life scratch-off card and fantasize for a minute or two about the wondrous possibilities of winning a thousand dollars every week for the rest of my life before fishing a nickel out of my pocket and playing the card, and I scratch off the little windows, and usually I don’t win a damn thing, but sometimes I’ll win two dollars, and each ticket costs two dollars so I feel that I’ve broken even. (The less said about my way-too-excited response to winning two dollars, i.e. waving the card at the deli clerk and chirping, “Hey, I won something!” while smiling happily, the better.) Anyway, we all have big plans for this money we’ll never see, and we all have different ideas for what we’d spend it on first – of course, we all want to buy spacious real estate and found charitable educational trusts and pay off school loans or credit cards, but once we knew that we could buy anything we wanted, which “anything” would we make a beeline for right away? I can’t speak for my friends, but I know what I’d do. I wouldn’t start pricing houses in the Hamptons, or walk into Tiffany’s and say in my most nonchalant tone, “One of each, please,” or get a chin tuck – at least, not right away. I’d head straight for the Sharper Image store at my local mall, and I’d buzz right past the vibrating Barcaloungers and the global positioning systems to the roped-off display area on the left side of the store, and I’d point to the five-thousand-dollar working replica of Darth Vader that stands on a platform behind a little sign that reads, “Please do not touch the Sith Lord,” and I would snap my fingers and say, “Can I get this to go?” I haven’t worked out how I’d get it home – no way would that thing fit into my Accord – so I suppose that technically I’d have to rent a stretch limousine first so that I could transport Lord Vader to my apartment, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

At the moment, of course, I’ll have to settle for a slightly smaller item from Sharper Image’s Vader inventory – namely, the Darth Vader phone, which plays the Imperial Death March to signal incoming calls instead of ringing (you can also make it breathe ominously or say a line of Vader’s dialogue). I have a borderline-unhealthy obsession with Darth Vader, and I already own a frightening quantity of Vader paraphernalia (keychains, Pez dispensers, coloring books, little holographs that I got out of bags of Doritos, backpacks), but I covet even more (Vader computer mouse and matching Death Star mouse pad, Vader-shaped shampoo bottle, Vader lunchbox with “Vader head” Thermos). I even dressed as Darth Vader once for an initiation ritual in college, croaking “reset the chamber for Skywalker” over and over until I lost my voice. I’ve always loved that character, even as a little kid – something about that gleaming black entity, the swirling cape, the daunting mechanical voice, made me shiver with delight every time he appeared on-screen – but the attraction probably had as much to do with the general deliciousness of movie villains as with the fetishized black plastic of Vader’s helmet. Give me a truly great movie villain over a corn-fed hero any day.

Movie villains have a flair and presence that the so-called heroes often don’t. Of course I root for Luke and Leia and Han Solo – George Lucas doesn’t leave me much room to do otherwise – but I’d rather watch Vader marching down a hallway while storm troopers jump out of the way of his cloak, or choking a general without even touching him, or lashing at Obi Wan with his light saber, than listen to Luke whining about checking out power converters. Vader cuts an imposing and scary figure, one that I sort of envy when I go to Macy’s and I have to weave and jostle through the crowds of people around the makeup counters and in the aisles, and I always think to myself that I could get in and out of there much faster if I wore a vulcanized rubber breastplate and a long black mantle and a helmet with opaque eyes and if I made intimidating breathing sounds. Let me put it another way. If your manager put you on perfume greeter duty, would you spritz Darth Vader? No, I don’t think you would, and I don’t think you would let Darth Vader stand around for ten minutes drumming his fingers on the glass case and waiting to pay for a Swatch, either. Vader and his mysterious aura of conflicted evil carried Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, and Return Of The Jedi suffered from his absence (and from the Ewoks, but I’ll leave that for another column).

Villains always seem to have power, as Vader does, which might explain why he fascinates me, but villains also fascinate me because they ignore the rules that the rest of us follow, something I usually don’t feel brave enough to do. My other favorite movie villains – General Zod of Superman II and Bridget Gregory of The Last Seduction – have powers also, Zod superhuman strength and speed, Bridget high intelligence and the ability to manipulate men to her desired ends, but I couldn’t care less about their powers. I just wish I could get away with saying some of the things they do. I talk a good game, but when it comes down to it, I usually smile and behave myself and save the eye-rolling and complaining for later because I don’t want to make a scene, but villains don’t give a crap. Developing a sociopathic lack of affect would probably help me in that area, but still, how many times have I wanted to point at the annoying co-worker who keeps bricking my filing system and announce in my crispest Terence Stamp accent, “We have no further use for this one. Kill him”? How many times has the cat emerged from under the bed, only to hear me intone for the hundredth time, “At last, the son of Jor-El – I was beginning to think you were a coward”? Zod can fly, and he can shoot laser beams out of his eyes; he doesn’t have to make nice, and he knows it. Bridget Gregory can’t do those things, but she can take the piss out of a man like nobody’s business. Before I saw The Last Seduction, several different people told me I reminded them of Bridget, and after I saw the film, I took it as a compliment. She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she knows what she wants in bed, and she walks into a strange bar in a strange town and, when the bartender ignores her, demands to know what a girl has to suck to get a drink. I would never get away with that, but I would love to work up the courage to try someday.

Zod and Bridget don’t have the character depth of Vader, but they have the Èlan crucial to brilliant villains. Melrose Place‘s Amanda Woodward has it too – that ability to make us hate her while at the same time admiring her chutzpah. Certain villains, my favorite ones, the ones that really appear to enjoy themselves while doing dastardly things, lend the movies and TV shows they appear in a playfulness and sense of humor often missing from straightforward stories of good-versus-evil. They have the best lines, and because the actors don’t have to worry about endearing themselves to the audience, they can ham it up as much as they want (viz. Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, although Shatner beat him handily him in the scenery-chewing department). In other words, movies obviously need villains, and movies just as obviously need more villains played by Alan Rickman.

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Kneel before Zod.

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