Jacob should've been the protagonist of the Fantastic Beasts franchise.
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00:00 It goes without saying that a protagonist can make or break a movie, get them right
00:05 and they can bolster an entire franchise basically by themselves, but get it wrong and a potentially
00:12 lucrative IP can crater overnight.
00:15 But sometimes the results are a little less dramatic though, even as it's clear that
00:19 the filmmakers hedged their bets on the wrong character to lead their movie and probably
00:23 should have looked elsewhere.
00:24 That's what we're covering today as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these
00:28 are 10 Movies That Chose The Wrong Lead Character.
00:32 10.
00:33 Circe – Eternals
00:34 Though Marvel's Eternals is certainly an ensemble-led affair, the de facto protagonist
00:39 is clearly Circe.
00:41 She's an Eternal who possesses the promising ability to manipulate matter but spends far
00:45 too much of her screen time trapped in a love triangle.
00:48 She's not a bad character, but she's just not a hugely compelling lead, despite a solid
00:53 effort from Gemma Chan.
00:54 Perhaps had more time been spent developing her complex relationship with humanity, she
00:58 might have seemed a more fitting protagonist.
01:00 Ultimately, the Eternals' lineup contains several more interesting and well-wrought
01:05 characters.
01:07 Perhaps best of all, Fastos, whose unique role in shaping humanity's development through
01:10 technology gives him a direct and fascinating tether to the audience.
01:15 9.
01:16 Ford Brody – Godzilla
01:18 The MonsterVerse admittedly doesn't have a stellar track record with human characters
01:22 as it stands, though the decision to assign Godzilla 2014's protagonist duties to the
01:26 painfully dull US Navy officer Ford Brody was an especially egregious mistake.
01:33 The movie's first act benefited considerably from the presence of Ford's father, Joe,
01:37 with the marketing emphasizing Bryan Cranston's role in that film, only for him to be suddenly
01:41 killed off at the end of Act 1.
01:44 Even Bryan Cranston himself has been vocal about his character's death being the wrong
01:47 call, deeming it an "utter waste," echoing the sentiment from many fans that Joe should
01:52 have been the movie's lead and his son swapped into a supporting part.
01:55 Instead, Ford takes the reins in a movie where Godzilla's screen time is relatively scant,
02:00 and without the character generating any sparks of interest at all, the film becomes a pure
02:04 drag almost any time it focuses on him.
02:07 8.
02:08 Sandy – Grease
02:09 Sandy is the outright lead of the hit musical Grease, though in more recent years there's
02:14 been a fair amount of pushback against her character arc.
02:17 That would qualify as her happy ending as changing herself entirely for the boy in her
02:21 life Danny.
02:22 But aside from that, Sandy is just a bit of a one-note character, all things considered.
02:26 Especially compared to the leader of the Pink Ladies, Rizzo, Rizzo is a rough-edged character
02:31 whose arc is considerably more interesting.
02:33 Yet while Sandy's decision to drop her pretensions towards "properness" are rewarded at the
02:38 film's end, Rizzo's free-spirited nature is largely shamed throughout the story.
02:43 But Rizzo is a self-actualized person from the get-go and doesn't need a boy to get
02:47 her there.
02:48 It's clear that she's pretty harsh to Sandy, but it's born more from a frustration
02:51 with her slavish devotion to propriety.
02:53 And the film still does a solid job of revealing Rizzo's more sensitive and vulnerable side.
02:58 Rizzo isn't as easily defined as Sandy, but that's part of why she's a far more
03:02 interesting character and ultimately worthier of being the role model that young girls could
03:06 look up to.
03:07 7.
03:08 Cole Young – Mortal Kombat 2021
03:11 Despite Mortal Kombat being one of the most iconic and recognizable video game franchises
03:15 in history, Hollywood still thought that last year's new movie needed an audience insert
03:20 character for some unknown reason.
03:22 And so the movie is led by an entirely original creation, MMA fighter Cole Young, who is later
03:27 revealed to be the descendant of Hanzo Hasashi, aka Scorpion.
03:31 Now Louis Tan does a fine enough job with the meager scraps that he has, but both he
03:35 and his family feel like wildly unnecessary additions in a film overflowing with beloved
03:40 existing characters.
03:41 There are several easy potential protagonists among the lot of them, especially Liu Kang
03:45 and Scorpion, not to mention Johnny Cage who doesn't even appear in the film.
03:49 Pre-release Cage's absence seemed so baffling that many fans, ourselves included, believed
03:54 that Cole was actually going to become Johnny Cage by the film's end, but alas, that didn't
03:58 happen.
03:59 It's just totally ridiculous that in 2021, with Hollywood supposedly adapting video games
04:03 with a degree of respect and reverence, we're still getting very cynical decisions like
04:07 this.
04:08 6.
04:09 Julie James – I Know What You Did Last Summer
04:12 I Know What You Did Last Summer's protagonist is Julie James, a smart, sensible, beautiful
04:16 young woman, but ultimately is a rather boring and dead ordinary choice for the slasher flick's
04:21 final girl.
04:22 Many fans of the movie believe that there was a far better lead character waiting in
04:25 the wings, and that's Julie's good pal Helen.
04:28 The fact that Helen has her own Wikipedia page while Julie doesn't really says everything
04:32 that needs to be said about the respective impact on the audience and general pop culture.
04:37 At first glance, Helen seems to be a stereotypical horror movie beauty queen, defined by vapid
04:42 self-interest and little else.
04:44 Yet there's a surprising depth to Helen that exposes her deep-running vein of emotional
04:49 vulnerability.
04:50 Helen is evidently wracked with guilt over the fatal car accident that she was involved
04:54 in and has a fraught home life to boot.
04:56 We're compelled to root for Helen to survive, and so it's such a crushing letdown that
05:00 she's ultimately killed off at the end of an unforgettable chase sequence, despite surviving
05:04 in the novel no less.
05:06 Julie's fate was never really in doubt, which could have made it such a fantastic
05:10 surprise to kill the prototypical final girl and have Helen make it to the end instead.
05:15 5.
05:16 Raleigh Beckett – Pacific Rim
05:18 Now Charlie Hunman did all that could be done with Pacific Rim's wafer-thin protagonist
05:23 Raleigh Beckett, but the movie really belongs to the infinitely more memorable and appealing
05:27 supporting character Mako Mori.
05:30 Mako admittedly has a relatively large role in the film, but there's no denying that
05:34 she plays second fiddle to Raleigh, who by comparison is a rather uninteresting, charisma-free,
05:39 generic white guy lead.
05:40 Perhaps the single most memorable sequence from the film is the flashback detailing the
05:44 loss of Mako's parents in a kaiju attack on Tokyo, resulting in her subsequently being
05:49 adopted.
05:50 Between Mako's tragic backstory, her strong willed determination, and the admittedly terrific
05:55 performance, it's really a no-brainer that she should have led this blockbuster.
05:58 However, releasing in 2013 as it did, long before Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel finally
06:03 convinced crusty Hollywood executives that female-led tentpoles were viable, the apparently
06:07 smart, sensible choice was picking the bland, interchangeable dude.
06:12 Ironically, with Raleigh not returning for the sequel, 2018's Pacific Rim Uprising,
06:16 it would have been the perfect opportunity for Mako to slide into the lead role, but
06:20 instead, she returned for a mere fleeting cameo in which her character was inexplicably
06:24 killed off.
06:25 Cool.
06:26 4.
06:27 Sam Carpenter – Scream (2022)
06:30 The recent fifth Scream film did a rock-solid job of introducing audiences to a new cast
06:35 of likeable young characters, capable of carrying the franchise forward with or without the
06:39 original surviving heroes.
06:41 Scream's lead character ended up being Sam Carpenter, who is eventually revealed to be
06:45 the biological daughter of one of the series' original killers, Billy Loomis.
06:49 While that is an interesting idea to make the series' new lead the descendant of the
06:53 original villain, who appears to have inherited their aptitude at bloodletting no less, as
06:57 a protagonist Sam pales somewhat in comparison to her sister Tara.
07:01 Tara becomes an immediate sympathetic character from the film's very first scene, where
07:06 she unexpectedly survives a run-in with Ghostface.
07:09 In addition to being a horror film fan, Tara takes an incredible amount of punishment over
07:13 the course of the movie, cementing both her vulnerability and her toughness, ensuring
07:17 that she feels the most Sydney-like of the new characters.
07:20 Furthermore, when comparing the two's acting capabilities, Tara is just simply better,
07:24 more deeply felt and persuasive.
07:26 Both sisters are at least set to return for Scream 6, though, which begins shooting very
07:30 soon.
07:31 3.
07:32 Jim Preston – Passengers
07:34 Passengers was one of 2016's most hotly anticipated films, the star pairing of Jennifer
07:39 Lawrence and Chris Pratt in a big-budget sci-fi romance having box office gravy written all
07:44 over it.
07:45 And yet, it ultimately released to a fairly muted response from critics and audiences
07:48 alike due to the rather contentious characterization of protagonist Jim.
07:52 After being awoken from cryo-sleep 90 years early and spending a year living on his own
07:56 on a spaceship, Jim decides to wake up a fellow passenger.
08:00 The problem is, of course, is that rather than focus on this action as a product of
08:03 Jim's unstable loneliness, the script tries to segue it into a genuinely affecting love
08:08 story in which a selfish schmuck romances the smoking hot woman he irreversibly woke
08:12 up from slumber against her will.
08:15 Many critics noted that a big problem of this movie is its point of view, and that having
08:19 a story unfold from her perspective rather than Jim's would have positioned the empathy
08:23 in a more agreeable way.
08:24 It still would have faced an uphill struggle to convince audiences that Jim's act wasn't
08:28 one of total scum-baggery, even accepting his crushing loneliness.
08:32 But given that we're firmly on Aurora's side, having us experience events alongside
08:36 her would have righted a lot of the script's inherent tonal issues.
08:40 2.
08:41 Newt – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
08:43 It's fair to say that Fantastic Beasts protagonist Newt is a fairly unconventional lead for a
08:48 massive blockbuster IP.
08:50 He's not even remotely charismatic, has a number of bizarre physical and verbal tics,
08:54 and actor Eddie Redmayne believes that he's on the autistic spectrum.
08:57 There is a bumbling charm to Newt, for sure, but he's simply not nearly as likeable as
09:01 his good pal Jacob is, the New York baker who ends up inadvertently joining Newt on
09:06 his magical adventures.
09:07 For one, any time the character is on screen, you get an effortlessly rabble-rousing performance.
09:12 But more than that, Jacob is the perfect vessel through which audiences can be introduced
09:16 to this corner of the wizarding world.
09:19 Countless blockbusters have proven the success of using an audience-surrogate character who
09:22 is as clueless as the viewer, allowing them to organically experience the world alongside
09:26 us.
09:27 And Jacob fits the role like a glove.
09:29 Though it would be easy for Jacob to end up being relegated to the comic relief role,
09:33 his relationship with Queenie and his passion for baking bring a lot of heart and soul to
09:37 a series that it is admittedly often lacking in it.
09:40 It's probably quite fitting that Newt often feels like a passenger in his own franchise,
09:44 almost as if J.K. Rowling realises that there are more compelling characters elsewhere.
09:48 1.
09:49 Rey – Star Wars The Force Awakens
09:52 And so we wrap up with possibly a controversial choice, that, as potential rich as Star Wars'
09:58 Rey was, that she shouldn't have led the sequel trilogy as its Luke Skywalker-esque
10:02 protagonist.
10:04 After Rey's solid introduction, she settles into an over-familiar character rhythm, largely
10:08 working through the archetypal hero's journey beats that we've seen before with little
10:12 in the way of creative variation.
10:14 And there are two infinitely more interesting choices for the sequel trilogy's protagonist
10:18 – Finn, a former stormtrooper, who fans understandably expected to be the sequel's
10:22 true hero, and more ambitiously, the villainous Kylo Ren.
10:26 Kylo Ren is far and away the most complex and intriguing character of the entire sequel
10:30 trilogy, and building The Force Awakens around him would have been an especially bold move.
10:36 Audiences clearly responded strongly to the character, in large part due to Adam Driver's
10:40 superb performance, and several years removed from the sequels, he's really the only new
10:44 character who's had much cultural staying power whatsoever.
10:47 Granted, Disney would be understandably nervous about making an antagonistic character their
10:51 lead, and so Finn would have been a solid second choice.
10:54 Again, Rey is a fine enough character, but she's also painfully unadventurous.
10:58 And there we go my friends, those were 10 movies that chose the wrong lead actor.
11:02 Hope that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in
11:04 the comments section below.
11:06 As always I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter @RetroJaywitha0, or you
11:10 can swing by Liv and Let's Dice, where I do all of my streaming outside of work as
11:14 well as my Warhammer Battle Reports, and it'd be great to see you over there.
11:17 But before I go, I just want to say one thing.
11:19 Even though we detailed today a lot about lead characters who probably weren't in the
11:23 right roles, you my friend are the starring role of your life, and you deserve all of
11:27 the love, happiness and success, all of the good things my friend, and do not let anything
11:30 or anyone else tell you otherwise.
11:32 You are a massive ledge, and I want you to go out there and absolutely smash your life
11:36 goals today.
11:37 I believe in you.
11:38 As always I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak
11:41 to you soon.