V.F.T.T.D.

November 4, 2023 8:37 AM

VFTTD is an acronym for Villains Falling To Their Deaths. And it's a Youtube playlist (thirty strong and counting) of, you guessed it, villains falling to their deaths in horrific yet somehow mesmerizing and stress relieving ways. WARNING: completely concerned with villains falling to their deaths, often including some preliminary violence, also actual landings. SPOILER ALERT: shows how many movies you may not have already seen more or less resolve themselves with their villains falling to their deaths.
posted by philip-random (41 comments total)

Wilhelm, paging Wilhelm, white courtesy telephone please.
posted by chavenet at 9:01 AM on November 4, 2023 [10 favorites]

I can’t believe it didn’t open with Hans Gruber! (Although I imagine he is somewhere in the 30 parts.) Now do villains getting blown up!
posted by TedW at 9:02 AM on November 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

sometimes they explode when they land
posted by philip-random at 9:03 AM on November 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

TedW came in to say "Hans Gruber better be first!"

its ICONIC especially when we know that they dropped him on 2 so the surprise would be real!
posted by supermedusa at 9:04 AM on November 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

What goes up must etc etc...
posted by y2karl at 9:07 AM on November 4, 2023

Sometimes they are falling to their death, but in many other cases they are falling during their death. I mean, if an elf stabs you with a longsword smack through the center of your skull then pushes you off a cliff, is cause of death really falling?
posted by mark k at 9:10 AM on November 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

I JUST WISH I HAD JESSIE'S GIRRRRL

not strictly villains, i guess, but i still support the railing system
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:20 AM on November 4, 2023 [12 favorites]

I'd like to see a movie where the villain falls to their death in an unrelated way, like during the good guys planning the assault on the dark tower or whatever. Cut to the villain walking up stairs eating a Kind bar and reading their phone, they do that thing where you take a step up but it's not far enough and your toes slip off the nose of the stair tread. Over the banister or back down the stairs, a TBI or broken neck. Cut back to the good guys, still planning. Cut back to the villain, an extended quiet shot of a dead villain before the henchpeople find them. Cut back to the good guys, still planning. Credits.
posted by rhizome at 9:39 AM on November 4, 2023 [12 favorites]

The best subcategory is where the villain is hanging onto the edge and the hero offers a humanitarian hand, but the villain refuses or causes themself to fall in some other way. This is a trope I approve of.
posted by caviar2d2 at 9:44 AM on November 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

So much closure
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 9:45 AM on November 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

The best subcategory is where the villain is hanging onto the edge and the hero offers a humanitarian hand, but the villain refuses or causes themself to fall in some other way. This is a trope I approve of.

Christopher Lloyd in STAR TREK 3!
posted by brundlefly at 9:48 AM on November 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

So much closure

You know, I don't think it is, mostly? Every Frame A Painting had a bit on the real failure of Jackie Chan's western movies, I think, where they noted that the real reason so many of them just don't work is that Chan's great movies are about Chan just taking more abuse and finally outfighting, outworking or just outstubborning his opponents, when his eastern movies all end with somebody finding the gun, or the fabric tearing, or whatever. Just last-second-luck stuff. You see a lot of that in even the first few of these entries, and I sometimes wonder if that brand of suddenly-you-win heroic closure has somehow corroded the collective moviegoing ethos in some way.
posted by mhoye at 9:52 AM on November 4, 2023

First place my mind went was Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. I generally think of VFTTD as a way to kill the villain while keeping the hero's hands morally clean and Gaston is the tidiest example of this.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 9:56 AM on November 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

if an elf stabs you with a longsword smack through the center of your skull then pushes you off a cliff, is cause of death really falling?

Yup. Constabulary fallo-deatho we call it. I have a phd in science.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:08 AM on November 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

Gaston dies????!
posted by supermedusa at 10:12 AM on November 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

Christopher Lloyd in STAR TREK 3!

I (kick) have HAD (kick) enough of YOU! (kick) Somehow made better realizing that Lloyd had to voice-over "wha? whuaaaaaa...." at some point.
posted by credulous at 10:41 AM on November 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

GAAAAAAAAAAY

I'm sure it's in there, but still...
posted by tspae at 11:02 AM on November 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is such an archetypal trope that will never die, because it allows the Evil Villain to be definitively defeated, but the Good Hero stays Good because you can shift blame: "It wasn't me who killed the Villiain; it was gravity!"
posted by jonp72 at 11:12 AM on November 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

To be fair, from some perspectives, we are all, heroes, villains, and bystanders, falling to our deaths every moment we live.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:18 AM on November 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is such an archetypal trope that will never die, because it allows the Evil Villain to be definitively defeated, but the Good Hero stays Good because you can shift blame: "It wasn't me who killed the Villiain; it was gravity!"

The villain is defeated by their own hubris.

Typically: hero has upper hand and can defeat the villain; the hero chooses not to kill (having the virtue of compassion / mercy, which is why they’re the hero) and helps the villain escape death; the villain is then all chuffed about themselves for having duped yet again the hero and makes some clerical error which leads to their death by the consequences their own actions.

I mean I had the same beef for a long time (just kill them! Just this once!) but when it was explained to me thusly I came to accept it.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:08 PM on November 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

The best subcategory is where the villain is hanging onto the edge and the hero offers a humanitarian hand, but the villain refuses or causes themself to fall in some other way.

My favorite version of this, and absolutely what I would do if I were a supervillain.
posted by praemunire at 1:11 PM on November 4, 2023

Cut to the villain walking up stairs eating a Kind bar and reading their phone, they do that thing where you take a step up but it's not far enough and your toes slip off the nose of the stair tread. Over the banister or back down the stairs, a TBI or broken neck.

RIP Rosalind Shays!!!!
posted by praemunire at 1:12 PM on November 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

Cut to the villain walking up stairs eating a Kind bar and reading their phone, they do that thing where you take a step up but it's not far enough and your toes slip off the nose of the stair tread. Over the banister or back down the stairs, a TBI or broken neck.

It's more of a minor character than the true Big Bad of the movie, but Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight has a scene that does this very well where a character who's part of the crew robbing a house trips on the stairs with a gun & accidentally shoots himself in the head.
posted by jonp72 at 3:19 PM on November 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

*Pours one out for White Boy Bob*
posted by kirkaracha at 3:46 PM on November 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

Eh, it's been done
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:56 PM on November 4, 2023

For my money the best one is from Sharky's Machine (1981). Stuntman Dar Robinson's 220-foot fall "still stands as the highest free-fall stunt ever performed from a building for a commercially released film."

Sure, Burt Reynolds shoots him a bunch of times before he falls, but he's already been shot a couple of times.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:07 PM on November 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Just give me one where the baddies yanks a hidden ripcord.
posted by gottabefunky at 4:36 PM on November 4, 2023

Coincidentally, only minutes before seeing this I got a sponsored link for an Advent calendar, in which Hans Gruber falls one floor each day until Xmas.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:54 PM on November 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

"It wasn't me who killed the Villiain; it was gravity!"

It wasn’t even the fall, just the sudden stop at the end.

…an Advent calendar, in which Hans Gruber falls one floor each day until Xmas.

I got that for my wife’s (adult) son a couple of years ago and it is now a treasured addition to their Christmas village (albeit a little out of scale).
posted by TedW at 6:01 PM on November 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

As a supplement to this video, may I offer Defenestration The Movie? Content warning: defenestration.
posted by JDC8 at 6:10 PM on November 4, 2023

Wile E. Coyote better not be in here because he is the hero, and the Road Runner the villain
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:06 PM on November 4, 2023

Mod note: A couple of early derailing comments deleted.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:47 PM on November 4, 2023

We really need a cat’s eye viewpoint playlist of villainous objects being dispatched from mantelpieces.
posted by rongorongo at 12:29 AM on November 5, 2023

For my money the best one is from Sharky's Machine (1981). Stuntman Dar Robinson's 220-foot fall "still stands as the highest free-fall stunt ever performed from a building for a commercially released film."

Wow, I actually was thinking of the Burt Reynold's movie Stick (1985), where Dar Robinson (again) actually has a memorable guest appearance as an impolite assassin, who eventually makes a rather impressive fall from the top of a building.
posted by ovvl at 7:19 AM on November 5, 2023

I'd like to see a movie where the villain falls to their death in an unrelated way, like during the good guys planning the assault on the dark tower or whatever.

Considering the flagrant OSHA violations in most evil lairs, it's really surprising that this is not more common.
posted by BrashTech at 10:28 AM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

A couple of early derailing comments deleted.

Another supporter of the railing system!
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:29 AM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Dar Robinson (again) actually has a memorable guest appearance as an impolite assassin

Impolite? Yeah, I'd say! You should warn people before you break out your Rutger Hauer impression.
posted by jonp72 at 1:31 PM on November 5, 2023

Content warning: defenestration

I absolutely love that we have a word that means "throw somebody out a window."
posted by kirkaracha at 2:25 PM on November 5, 2023

I can’t believe it didn’t open with Hans Gruber! (Although I imagine he is somewhere in the 30 parts.)

"I hope that s not a hostage."

Part 5.

kirk / kruge is in part 6
posted by eustatic at 7:38 PM on November 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Dredd is in part 14
posted by eustatic at 8:24 PM on November 5, 2023

"It wasn't me who killed the Villiain; it was gravity!"

Batman: I won't kill you but I don't have to save you.
Joker: But if you could save me, but chose not to, then practically didn't you have a hand in killing me? Your moral code has some philosophical holes. Ahhh!


Among the best: Commando:
I thought you said you'd kill me last.
I lied.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:32 AM on November 6, 2023