I love both Hopper and Syndrome, but chose Hopper just because…Well, I don’t really know why. Both he and Syndrome make me laugh, they’re both scary at times and they’re both really credible villains, so they’re both my favourites, really.
No matter how many new Pixar films I’ve seen, no other enemy seems to intimidate me the same way that Hopper did. Syndrome was also a great villain, but despite how much of a threat he was I always saw him as being a bit more comical.
Hopper is one of my all-time favorite animated characters, villain or no, Pixar or otherwise. I think he’s one of the best developed, he has a great design, and Kevin Spacey’s voice was just perfect. He also has some of the most quotable lines: “First rule of leadership - everything is your fault.” “Are you saying I’m stupid? Do I look - stupid - to you?” Charlie Muntz Fangirl that I’ve become, I’ve still got to say that Hopper is #1.
Oooo, I’d probably go with Chick. Although I do like most of them. But I dunno, I guess I find Chick to be the funniest at times. He’s definitely the type of car I love to hate
Well, for a majority of the time I have been partisan to Syndrome, because there is quite a believable backstory to make him turn into a villain.
But, I am quite intrigued these days with Muntz, especially how a villain acts when they have their trust to the protagonists… it’s quite something that does get you thinking about the personalities of antagonists.
I never really had a favorite Pixar villian until Syndrome popped up. I love him. <3
Even if he’s not trying to be, he’s so funny and lovable.
I also love how in the Pixar short “Jack Jack Attack”, he was talking about putting a “B” in front of the “S” on his outfit, but didn’t want to walk around with a big “B.S.” because of what it stands for. XDDD
I do feel sorry for him though (as I do with most Pixar “villians”), because he didn’t start off bad, he was just this cute little boy who wanted to go on adventures with Mr. Incredible. Even though he got in trouble and in the way, all he wanted was to help out.
He was a little sweetheart. Sometimes when I watch The Incredibles I think to myself “I wish Bob would have said something to him, besides “go home, Buddy.” you know”.
Maybe tell him to stop following him and putting himself in danger, just so even if Syndrome was still mad at him… he probably wouldn’t have turned out to be a bad guy.
That’s kind of what I like about Syndrome’s origin as well. Bob certainly didn’t hate Buddy and just wanted him out of harms way, but he was just getting really annoyed with him following him around all the time. He never would have expected Buddy to hold such a powerful grudge on him thinking that Bob was trying to keep him from doing anything, when all he was trying to do was warn him about the bomb on his cape. Syndrome is just as much at fault though, cause his vengeance had made him go way over the line over what seems like such a trivial thing.
So yeah, I do think Syndrome is a pretty deep character. I think I only put him behind Hopper because you still get a reason to sympathize with him, while Hopper is never once shown to be good. He’s just plain cruel and scary in every scene that he’s in. Maybe that makes him underdeveloped, but it just makes him comes across as being the most evil in my mind (but I’ll admit, it could also just be my nostalgia).
I like Zurg, but it’s just that he’s not quite considered a real villain. The toy Zurg in Toy Story 2 was really kind of a gag character. The Buzz Lightyear of Star Command Zurg would be a real villain, but he too couldn’t be taken very seriously at times on the show (And even though I said Syndrome was somewhat comical, it’s not to the same extent as Zurg).
I voted for Muntz… but I’m still actually debating that choice.
I actually also don’t think that Syndrome is all that sympathetic in some ways- oh sure he gets SOME from me- it seems like he lacks a father figure and latched onto Mr.I, and it’s more likely he crawled his way to his position of success and business so it means more and says something compared to Mr.Waternoose, who merely got it from his family.
I DON’T think he was a ‘cute little boy’ either there was something seriously wrong with him even as a kid. Something seriously off- and the fact that he could build rocket boots and go off to obsessively stalk Mr.I on the level that he did shows that he wasn’t getting enough attention for people to realise he was in desperate need of psychological help- he did not even recieve this it seems to me, even when the police took him home and probably told his mother what he’d been doing (Did she even care? Hard to say when we didn’t see her.). He desperately NEEDED psycological help but obviously did not get it. Or GOOD help anyway.
And fifteen years later we see he’s just south of being a full blown sociopath- even more so than Waternoose… How this happened is anyones guess. A mentor perhaps to show him tricks who is now dead (murdered?) or merely ‘taken care of’. Or something.
Oh sure, we see him get blown of with Mr.I, and perhaps that was a major kick start into his further descent into the mental spiral- but there was something WRONG in the beginning before all that and something else also must have happened in all those fifteen years to make him go from (admittadedly) a kid with a likely to be low economic background some mental issues to the practical-sociopath-head-of-business we saw. His mind in his delusions may think that Mr.I’s rejection was what caused him to turn out how he was exactly but really. It’s more so the event that sticks out in his head and gave him the nudge onto that path. Syndrome strikes me as the guy who hates feeling worthless- which is what Mr.I did to him. He had no higher purpose- he just wanted glory and didn’t care who he hurt along the way He didn’t want to solve I don’t know, an ENERGY crisis or anything. It was all about power. And he already had plenty from the weapons industry. Of course he probably still felt weak even with all that. Sometimes people just do. By killing supers he tried to be the powerful one again. Of course however Mirage was right:
“Valuing life is not a weakness, and disregarding it? Isn’t strength.”
I pity Syndrome on some level, but really it’s just a step above the pity I feel for Waternoose- someone probably raised at best to consider companionship, people who even consider you FAMILY or like a FATHER must come second to your ambitions. Disturbing, sick and saddening all in all.
followed closely by Hopper as they’re both very powerful. Waternoose is a jerk manipulating his whole company. 
He’s the best.
