Origin Stories that *ruined* perfectly good characters.

10. Darth Vader (Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith) Okay, so the preamble to Anakin becoming Darth Vader is pretty fun. Watching the little fuck get his arms and legs lopped off more than makes up for the wee fuck's whiny irritations in Episode II. But the big reveal of the series' premier villain? One word: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

9. Freddy Kreuger (Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare) Fred Kreuger's origin story is probably my favourite in slasher history. They even improved it with the "bastard son of a thousand maniacs" bit in Dream Warriors. It's quite impressive that they managed to get a good few movies in before they fucked it all up. And fuck it up they did, quite impressively, with the help of Alice Cooper and a pointless daughter. Even worse is the TV episode they did.

8. Dumb and Dumber (Dumb and Dumberer) Not horror? If you've ever seen this absolute hunk of shit of a movie, then it was bound to have horrified you at some point. Dumb and Dumberer will make you wish Harry never met Lloyd at all. Quick tip: Dumb and Dumberer should be followed by a viewing of Hostel. Seeing Derek Richardson (either the Dumb or Dumberer character) tied to a chair and in the process of being murdered serves as a lovely little palette cleanser.

7. Spock (Star Trek) Don't get me wrong, the Star Trek reboot is a brilliant movie - one of my favourites of 2009, in fact. But its biggest mistake is in turning Leonard Nimoy into *shudders* Zachary Quinto.

6. Judge Dredd (Judge Dredd) Well, any origin in which a character ends up as Sylvester Stallone has to be a shitty one, but Judge Dredd's Judge Dredd is an exceptionally terrible one. On first glance, it seems to be pretty close to that as dictated by the comics. Along with brother Rico, Dredd was cloned from the DNA of Chief Judge Fargo. But, like the rest of the movie, they fucked it up somehow - turning Dreddy's birthright into some sort of "revelation" and having characters discover it through the use of naff computer trickery. This makes the list simply because it had Judge Dredd grow up to be Sylvester Stallone. Drokk that.

5. Wolverine (X Men Origins: Wolverine) So your franchise's most prominent character is suffering from amnesia. He's also gawd-knows-how-old, meaning that you've several hundred years of timeline to play with. Oh, and you fucked up the series with the last movie, so sequelization's not an option. What's a Hollywood to do? Milk it s'more with an origins tale. Now with added shit CGI. Marvel Comics' Wolverine is only an interesting character when his idiocy and ridiculousness is already highlighted (Garth Ennis' Punisher comics shows how to write the character properly) and you can show a fair bit of gore. The fella's got claws and is pretty much unkillable. Instead, Origins crams too many characters into its limp plot, and even goes so far as to include the origin of Logan's leather jacket. You know your movie is bad when the accompanying videogame adaptation actually manages to be better.

NOOOOOOOOOOO

4. Jigsaw (any Saw movie that isn't 1-3) In the first and best Saw, Jigsaw was a pretty unknown figure. In fact, the closest thing the movie had to a villain proper was a pre-Lost Michael Emerson. Briefly showing up at the end of the first movie, Tobin Bell's John Kramer had to wait until the sequel before he could unveil the full extent of his evilness. Revealing that he's dying from a brain tumor, he outwits Donnie Wahlberg (probably not too hard) and escapes; dignity and scariness intact. Still not done, Kramer reappears in Saw 3, where he promptly dies. Character arc neatly tied up. Villain still pretty awesome. Unfortunately, Lionsgate could still smell plenty of lovely money to be made. Cue a bunch more sequels in which every spare moment of Jigsaw's life is flashback, showing you a bunch of shit you really didn't need to see. Consider your welcome fully worn out. Yours too, Amanda.

3. Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) Not entirely bad Chainsaw Massacre movie. Fucking awful origin story. No surprises to be found here, just a predictable rehash of shit you've already seen. Did we really need to see Hoyt become sheriff and start up the whole cannibalism thing? Well, seeing as they'd already killed him off in the Jessica Beil thing, I suppose prequelisation was the only way forward. The Beginning was just a lazy way to bring back the original remake's 'best' (me, I found him annoying and overrated) character. Leatherface's story is briefly covered too, but no-one seems to give a shit about him anymore.

2. Michael Myers (Zombieweiner) Apparently young Michael Myers had a horrible blonde hair do, wore crappy rock t-shirts and looked like a sulky Village of the Damned reject. But it only gets worse. Not only was momma a stripper, but she was a Rob Zombie floozy too. To be sure, if I were trapped in a movie this shitty, I'd kill people too. There's a reason John Carpenter's character origin lasted ten minutes: all the scariness comes in Michael's 'otherness'.

1. Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal Rising) The worst Lecter book becomes by far the worst Lecter movie. A naff origin is made worse by a laughable script: "You do not honor the human pecking order, Hannibal. You're always hurting the bullies". And indeed he is. There's plenty of gore here, but nothing can hide the pointlessness of it all. There's a curious little streak wherein the movie tries to make us root for Hannibal, and has him only eating those who deserve it. A bit like Dexter, only shit and nonsensical. Hannibal Rising is a movie that will have you hate the rest of the series retrospectively.