These Movie Character Names Are Just As Ludicrous as ‘Victor Von Doom’

 

“It’s not real scientific,” one of the characters from Coraline says. “But I heard that ordinary names […] can lead people to have ordinary expectations of a person.” Quite right, Neil Gaiman. That’s why we have lower hopes for this new Fantastic Four reboot now that Toby Kebbell has revealed he’s playing a villain named “Victor Domashev,” and not “Victor Von Doom.”

While everyone else is worried that Doctor Doom will be a blogger in Josh Trank’s upcoming movie, THIS is the part we can’t get over at CraveOnline. (But yes, that blogger thing raises some red flags too. We’ll admit it.)

Doctor Doom is one of the great comic book superheroes, full of ego and power and mad intelligence. His reputation to Fantastic Four fans is big enough to warrant a big-sounding name. So why change it?

 

Related: Doctor Doom is a Blogger in the ‘Fantastic Four’ Reboot

 

We’ll have to wait for the filmmakers to answer that question, but the reaction we’ve been hearing most often online is that “Victor Von Doom” is simply a silly-sounding name for a character in a modern movie. And yes, we’ll grant you that Doctor Doom was created back in 1962, when superhero comic books weren’t exactly renowned for their subtlety, but he’s a beloved character whose popularity has lingered for over 50 years.

Victor Von Doom’s reputation precedes him. “Darth Vader” is a silly name too, if you think about it, but no one thinks about that anymore (if they ever did). You don’t need to rename him “Darren Vadrosky” just because it sounds a little more plausible.

So surely audiences would be willing to accept the name, wouldn’t they? Like they did twice before, without comment, in the two Tim Story movies? (Granted they had other things to complain about, but still.) We don’t even necessarily mind changing Doctor Doom’s original profession in the movie, since that’s a big change that might have something to do with Josh Trank’s interpretation of the world the heroes inhabit (for better or worse), but making a change as simple as a character’s name strikes us as unnecessary at best, and selling the character short, at worst.

Hollywood history has shown that big characters, larger than life figures who live up to the majesty of their names, can get away with this. So if you’re one of those people who think that audiences would balk at a character named “Victor Von Doom” in The Fantastic Four, we would like to present a whopping 27 characters with names either just as outlandish as his, or names so vastly ludicrous that “Doctor Doom” sounds downright normal in comparison. 

 

These Movie Characters Also Have Ludicrous Names:



 


William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.

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