As Disney started to want to make more complex stories and characters, one thing that changed was the way they would write the antagonists of the story. They started to use twist villains, which usually meant that they would introduce a character that seemed good, but as the movie went on they would later be revealed to be the villain. The three main movies to do this were Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Zootopia. All of these movies did very well, and some of the few criticisms were the villains.

The main reasons these characters were not as well received was because they didn’t connect well with audiences. If you were to ask someone who their favorite Disney villain was, they probably wouldn’t say Hans, ot Assistant Mayor Bellwether. That’s because their motivations and true self are introduced so late in the movie the audience doesn’t have time to connect with them. Also lets be honest these villains aren’t even that clever and anyone older than the age of ten would be able to tell that Hans was not going to end up being Anna’s main love interest.

The only exception to this would be Wreck-It Ralph. Throughout the whole movie the main villain is King Candy, itś very obvious because of his disdain towards one of the main characters Vanellope. The twist is (Spoiler Alert) that King Candy is actually a power hungry character from a game that got unplugged, Turbo. This was unexpected, but didn’t seem like it came out of nowhere because Turbo is mentioned multiple times throughout the movie, up to the big reveal. Other than that there aren’t many twist villains that tend to resonate with audiences, and that’s where they fall short in comparison to the obvious villains.