5 Movies That Would Be Better Without The Lead Character

He's a bad boy Velociraptor trainer who is only crucial to the story because he is played by Chris Pratt. Make no mistake, if it was anyone but Pratt, America's Cool Older Brother, the executives at Universal would've probably had his character be disemboweled in Act 2. By the logic that these films operate on, his basic character type -- glib, arrogant, macho -- is that of a villain. They didn't even give the character any kind of an expert background. ("What, and make him some kind of nerd?") They just say he was in the Navy before he trained raptors. That's it. Not "He was in the Navy and trained a deadly squadron of throat-slitting commando dolphins." He's just been on a boat before.

What's worse, all of his one-dimensional swashbuckling and wisecracking detracts from the arc of the female lead, Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire. Unlike Pratt, she plays a character with actual growth, going from a heartless executive to practically starting her own dinosaur PETA within 24 hours. The Big Bad of the series has always been greedy unethical corporate executives, so why not center the movie on the development of one who learns the error of her ways?

"Yeah, that's great, kid," says a studio exec, chomping on a cigar. "Listen: How about instead, and stay with me here, the Dinosaur Whisperer starts a dinosaur motorcycle gang? Your thing may be good storytelling, but mine will look badass on the poster. Which means I win."

Universal Pictures

Also, he "dies" at the end of four of the five movies so far, so he's not even playing the same character from one Terminator to the next. It's always just an excuse to bring back the familiar face. "I'll be back" isn't a catchphrase anymore; it's a threat to the audience.

The writers are completely boxed in by this choice. They can't find some creative new way to explore this universe. Instead, the machines or John Connor or whoever the bad guy is in this convoluted series now will always just 3D print another Schwarzenegger and send him back in time because fate or whatever.

What's the thing that he wants besides rum and a bigger cut of the Pirates action figure and merchandise sales? What's the thing that, when the other actors ditch the series or have their roles downgraded, will keep people connected to Jack Sparrow? Because at heart, he's the Steve Urkel of the series, meant to awkwardly burst into the story, lighten things up, and then sail away on someone's boat. He should be there for flavor, to weave in and out of other people's adventures, people who have goals and strong personalities -- like Angelica, the daughter of Blackbeard in On Stranger Tides, or Henry Turner from Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Instead, the foundations of the sequels are built upon Jack Sparrow's narrow range of mannerisms and shenanigans, using the "Why not just make a whole movie about the Minions?" logic usually reserved for bad spinoffs. You seriously can't find a single other charismatic star to take over as protagonist? Surely somebody wants the work.

What does he do? Well, in First Class, he starts the X-Men, but he does so with Magneto's help, so that's half of a thing. And then he helps Magneto almost kill Magneto's former abuser, but then gets mad at Magneto when Magneto kills him? This isn't really explored, as Prof. X gets paralyzed immediately after.

In Days Of Future Past, he has disbanded the X-Men and sits around, depressed and unwilling to help with anything. Then, in what I assume is a ridiculously biting criticism of the character, his future self communicates with him and tells him to get off of his ass and help. He does this by convincing Mystique not to kill someone important.

In Apocalypse, Xavier gets kidnapped, calls for help, loses his hair, and then encourages Jean Grey to beat the bad guy. Thus the tally of Important Leading Character Things That He's Done stands at 2.5, meaning that he's doing less than one important action per movie. This leaves you wondering "Why isn't this all about Magneto instead?" Hell, look at how adult Magneto is introduced in First Class.

Xavier gets no such scene, because, at best, Xavier should be the secondary character he normally is. An influence, or mentor, someone to offer Magneto a path other than violently seeking vengeance. Xavier is there to make Magneto more tragic, not the other way around. Magneto turning his back on Xavier should be the climax of the film series, and him saying, verbatim, "I love my mutant brothers, BUT I MOSTLY LOVE TERRORISM, DAWG" is way stronger than Xavier repeatedly whimpering "You were my friend!" over the course of three movies.

Megan Fox is not good in the Transformers films, but he's actually pretty great in stuff like Jennifer's Body and New Girl. There's a strong chance that she comes off as dull eye candy because of who is directing her. As this excellent video from Lindsay Ellis points out, Banes is actually a well-rounded character ... in the script. She has both a rich backstory and internal motivation (unlike, say, Sam). She's a former car thief, having been brought into the life by her father. So already, if you gave her that "my grandfather awakened Megatron" deal, you have a built-in internal character conflict: Your whole family has a history of awfulness, so where does that leave you? Do you follow that path, or do you forge ahead with your robot pals and boot Starscream out of the galaxy?

She's also a great mechanic (in a movie about alien cars) who constantly gets underestimated because she doesn't look like one. She uses her skills to save the day multiple times, by her own choice (where, again, Sam is just thrust into the plot because of other people's actions), until finally ... she steps aside while Shia LaBeouf singlehandedly kills Megatron. Meanwhile, every shot frames her like she's there only to be a tan, glistening figure for teenage boys to drool over.

This should have been her movie. The fear of having anything but a young male in the lead is the only reason it wasn't. I'm not saying it suddenly turns it into Oscar bait, but you'd have a likable, capable, fleshed-out character driving the story forward. Maybe some people would even leave the theater thinking, "You know that time when the robots took a nap and some humans talked? That actually didn't make me want to die."

Daniel has a Twitter that is mostly devoted to Spider-Man and Pokemon.

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For more, check out 22 Side Characters More Interesting Than The Leads and 28 Great Movies From The Perspective Of Minor Characters.

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