How could the Eco-Villains have been more plausible in their actions?

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mizz_invincible

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Now Captain Planet and The Planeteers has many problems which keep it from being an effective means of educating the young minds of the environment.

One of which is being that the villains caused environmental disasters for the sake of being evil. Most of them would be hurting themselves in the long run, plus it's misinforming to the viewers whom you seek to educate.

So how would you adjust the villains of the show in order to avoid that mistake? Best three I can think of:

1. Looten Plunder: Now they were close to making a believable polluter with him, but they fudged him up by making him delight in his actions. I probably would make him more like David Xanato or Lex Luthor. He will do what's profitable, and might sometimes even help in pro-environmental causes if given the motive to do so. He might have a sense of humor, but he wouldn't be the mustache stroking villain who delights in oil spills.

2. Dr. Blight: Hard to describe, but much like the show, I would rationalize her actions to her being insane. But she might not work as a long term villain.

3. Duke Nukem: Less realistic, but I'd go with an angle that his mutation makes it so that clean air and water is harmful to him, and that he needs smoke and toxic to continue surviving. So he'd cause intentional pollution, but for the need to survive.

My idea's probably suck, but I thought this discussion would be worth a shot rather than just critiquing the villains as they are actually depicted.
 
The eco-villain concept simply can't be plausible. Plausible would be, say, the Planeteers nagging poor villagers for clear-cutting a forest because they need the land to grow food. Or stopping coal-fired power plants even though we're addicted to the cheaper energy they provide. Not exactly black and white heroic or exciting and there's really not much action figure potential, so they decided to go with something a lot less plausible for propaganda purposes.
 
Antiyonder -

You pointed out a major flaw of the series. The villains were so unbelievable that I couldn't stomach the show past a few episodes of Season 1. I don't think I could elaborate any more than you have.
 
The thing is, they kind of had to be mustache-twirling evil villains because, well, Captain Planet is Anvilicious, and the guys who pollute had to be evil, evil, evil. It wasn't about plausibility or interesting dilemmas, it was about clearly showing right and wrong. Plunder giving to pro-environmental caused may've confused children watching the show.

Still, you do bring up an interesting point...



Blight wouldn't be that hard, actually. How many rules and regulations are in place in the real world in regards to scientific experiment because of the harm it may cause the environment. Have Dr. Blight rationalize experimenting on animals or wiping out a species of plant because, in the long run, it benefits science.
 
Seems pretty simple enough. The man's about making money. If helping the environment makes him over a million dollars, he will help the environment.



That works too. It plays into the idea that villains don't see themselves as villains, so good observation.:)
 
It's very, very hard to have something as complex as environmental pollution be black and white unless you make nature the villain ala Ultraman Great. That's the main failing of Captain Planet, among dozens of others. Pollution is not something made because people are evil. It's made as a byproduct.

Not to mention it was the same band of idiots over and over ad nauseum. You didn't think considering the billions of reasons to pollute or the population, that we might have gotten another villain besides the usual jerks? (You know, besides Hitler in that one episode?)
 
My point was that it's tricky to show why it's bad, in some cases, to help the environment. If a bad person does a good thing, is he a good guy or a necessary evil? If you stop him, does that prevent future donations?
 
Oh no it's possible. Lobbyists, various pharmaceutical companies, shifty politicians, corrupt mega-farms and their teams of geneticists.

If you leave the tree hugger angle behind and look and take a look at what corporate is up to, it starts to become pretty clear cut. It'd make for one helluva intrigue type show. Not really for kids though. *shrugs*
 
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