User blog comment:Jamie/Episode 7 - Amazing Spider-Man 2/@comment-166-20140520030039/@comment-1895174-20140520193859

Somewhat.

When people complain about a movie having too many villains, what they're really complaining about is the movie having too many plot lines. The more supporting characters there are, villain or otherwise, the more plot lines the movie needs to have. Is Electro going to be a supporting character in this movie? Then Electro needs his own plot line. Is Aunt May going to be a supporting in this movie? Then Aunt May needs her own plot line. Having to divide screen time to give all of those characters their own little plot lines cripples each of those stories.

What makes villains different from other supporting characters, however, is that villains suck up a lot more of that screen time than everyone else. The villain is almost always a new character, so he needs to be introduced. Then he needs an explanation for his special abilities/villainy. Then we need an initial fight between him and the hero, a showdown at the end, and probably one other fight somewhere between those. All the while establishing character. Do this for multiple villains easily puts a strain on the story that most movies can't make up for.

Spider-Man 3 (a movie I honestly don't think is as bad as its reputation) is the poster child for this, going through the motions three times for Harry Osborn, the Sandman, and the Venom symbiote, barely leaving any time for anything else. If Venom wasn't in that movie, maybe there would have been more time to develop the other conflicts. Maybe there would have been time to make Gwen Stacy more than just some "other girl" to throw a wrench into Peter and Mary Jane's relationship. Can anyone remember something of substance Aunt May did?

But the reason I say "somewhat" is because this doesn't happen if the movie doesn't attempt to develop the character, leaving them in a tier below supporting character. Look at the original X-Men. That movie has four villains: Magneto, Mystique, Sabretooth, and Toad. Five if you want to count Senator Kelly. Does anyone complain about X-Men having too many villains the same way they complain about Spider-Man 3? Only one of the four, Magneto, is an actual character. The other three members of the Brotherhood are snarling, brutish henchman, with only a handful of lines between them, and are only around for there to be some cool fight scenes.

There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes its better to have a few characters just be parts of a whole rather than make them their own, distinct characters, taking time away form developing more important characters by extent. Compare X-Men to X-Men: The Last Stand and you'll see why. Unlike the original movie, The Last Stand tried to develop several members of the Brotherhood. Magneto, Jean Grey, Callisto and the Juggernaut are all developed characters. In Juggernaut's case, I think we can all agree his character would have been better if he never said anything at all. But throw in new new heroes Beast, Kitty Pryde and Angel, trying to maintain the returning characters (even then, look at what happened to Cyclops and Nightcrawler), and the mutant cure plot on top of all that, and you have the perfect mess of too many plot lines and character arcs crammed into an hour and 45 minutes.