Was Captain Rhodes a villain?

[LivingDeadGuy]

I think I heard from somewhere that his character wasn't a true villain in Day of the Dead (maybe it was from his actor Joe Pilato in an interview). What do you guys think?


My thoughts are: He threaten to shoot Sarah just because she wouldn't sit back down in her chair, he and the other soldiers treated Miguel like garbage, he shot Fisher in cold blood and tried to kill Sarah and Billy by throwing them to the zombies, and he left his own men behind to get torn apart by zombies while he ran for his life inside the military complex (ironically after he accused Miguel of being a coward thinking he was running away).

Yeah that pretty much makes him a villainous bastard in my opinion.

[Neil]

Yep... While some of his motives were valid, he wasn't a nice piece of work to say the least...

[Furiousbunny]

He was just human. Whenever you write a “villain” you have to remember they have to have a purpose for their actions otherwise it just comes off as a stupid cartoon where the bad guy is just evil for the sake of evil. Forced into a command he was not ready for in a hopeless situation with dwindling resources and watching his soldiers die with little or no results he just lost his mind. You can see it in the scene after Sarah cuts off Miguel’s arm. That being said he was a lunatic at best.

[shootemindehead]

Haven't we discussed this at length on the forum before?

Or am I deja-vu(ing) ?

[LivingDeadGuy]

He was just human. Whenever you write a “villain” you have to remember they have to have a purpose for their actions otherwise it just comes off as a stupid cartoon where the bad guy is just evil for the sake of evil. Forced into a command he was not ready for in a hopeless situation with dwindling resources and watching his soldiers die with little or no results he just lost his mind. You can see it in the scene after Sarah cuts off Miguel’s arm. That being said he was a lunatic at best.

Well of course he was human. But a lot of humans are pretty rotten too and he's a prime example of such a human.

I guess some of his actions were understandable (like when he shot Logan after finding out that he was feeding the dead soldiers to Bub) and they were all in a stressful and hopeless situation. But between him and Dr. Logan they were the worst people in the group.

shootemindehead you must be dejavuing. ;)

[MagicMoonMonkey]

Rhodes and his men were the true victims of Day of the Dead.

We have debated this before and we will debate this again...

Everything up to the point where he finds his men butchered is just bluster born of frustration at the shit job the civilians were doing.

RIP Rhodes. You did your best in trying times.

[LivingDeadGuy]

Rhodes and his men were the true victims of Day of the Dead.

We have debated this before and we will debate this again...

Everything up to the point where he finds his men butchered is just bluster born of frustration at the shit job the civilians were doing.

RIP Rhodes. You did your best in trying times.

Well maybe if he and his men weren't such racist, sexist, power-tripping assholes they wouldn't have ended up as victims. Sarah was the one truely trying to get everyone to cooperate for the survival of the human race and of course nobody wanted to listen to her because she was a woman.

In my opinion the soldiers deserved what they had coming to them and so did Dr. Logan.

[JDP]

Rhodes and his men were the true victims of Day of the Dead.

We have debated this before and we will debate this again...

Everything up to the point where he finds his men butchered is just bluster born of frustration at the shit job the civilians were doing.

RIP Rhodes. You did your best in trying times.

There's many problems with such an argument. Dr. Logan did not represent the entire civilian team. He was his own man, and the other civilians in fact thought he might be losing his marbles. The other scientists were trying to see if the problem could be solved in more practical ways. That Dr. Logan went insane with his impractical plan to "tame" the zombies does not justify blaming the other civilians for what he did and punishing them as well. There was no need to shoot Fisher and shove Sarah and McDermott into the zombie corral. Rhodes himself was obviously an unbalanced megalomaniac, willing even to shoot his own men if they did not take his rants seriously and did not carry out his cruel orders. If anything you might justifiably say that even his own men were victims of Rhodes' tyranny. They weren't exactly "nice" people either, but none of them, not even Steele, who by all means was a major a-hole himself, was as bad as Rhodes. The sequence where all the soldiers are laughing and having fun at Rhodes' expense when he gives the outrageous order to shoot Sarah just because she did not want to sit down is very telling of who the biggest a-hole down in those caves was.

[LivingDeadGuy]

There's many problems with such an argument. Dr. Logan did not represent the entire civilian team. He was his own man, and the other civilians in fact thought he might be losing his marbles. The other scientists were trying to see if the problem could be solved in more practical ways. That Dr. Logan went insane with his impractical plan to "tame" the zombies does not justify blaming the other civilians for what he did and punishing them as well. There was no need to shoot Fisher and shove Sarah and McDermott into the zombie corral. Rhodes himself was obviously an unbalanced megalomaniac, willing even to shoot his own men if they did not take his rants seriously and did not carry out his cruel orders. If anything you might justifiably say that even his own men were victims of Rhodes' tyranny. They weren't exactly "nice" people either, but none of them, not even Steele, who by all means was a major a-hole himself, was as bad as Rhodes. The sequence where all the soldiers are laughing and having fun at Rhodes' expense when he gives the outrageous order to shoot Sarah just because she did not want to sit down is very telling of who the biggest a-hole down in those caves was.

Man, everything you just said is SO true! The other soldiers were nowhere as bad as Rhodes and even Steele who was a major dick had his redeemable moments like when it was made obvious that he didn't want to actually shoot Sarah despite the fact that he didn't like her. So they were victims of Rhodes and his tyranny.

And Dr. Logan may have been the epitome of a mad scientist but the other scientists weren't so bad. And honestly how could they be expected to solve the problem of the zombie outbreak after the world has pretty much ended? They should have all listened to John and found a nice safe island where they could concentrate on rebuilding the human race (of course realistically they would need more females than Sarah)

[Moon Knight]

Rhodes! I freaking loved that character. Not one redeeming trait. As a military man I wouldn't call him a coward pre Apocalypse. He's selfish no doubt. Self preservation and manipulation kicked in high gear during the ZA. At the end of the day he was a real piece of shit; a bad guy when the shit hits the fan. No remorse for his actions.

[LivingDeadGuy]

Rhodes! I freaking loved that character. Not one redeeming trait. As a military man I wouldn't call him a coward pre Apocalypse. He's selfish no doubt. Self preservation and manipulation kicked in high gear during the ZA. At the end of the day he was a real piece of shit; a bad guy when the shit hits the fan. No remorse for his actions.

He also had nice hair and was the only man in the military complex to have a nice clean-shaven face. :P

[Moon Knight]

He also had nice hair and was the only man in the military complex to have a nice clean-shaven face. :P

More of a reason to hate him haha.