Fictional villains and failures of control

Which film and science-fiction villains most spectacularly undermine their own plans?

The answers vary. The more developed examples concern Equilibrium's unstable control system, Marcus's treatment of Khan, and Palpatine's apprentices, with disagreement over which version of a character is being judged.

The nominations include the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Conspiracy, Robotnik, the Tetragrammaton from Equilibrium, a Tron: Legacy villain, Admiral Marcus, and Palpatine. Several answers remain brief or depend on which screen version is being discussed. Equilibrium receives a more developed criticism: a regime suppresses human behaviour while granting some highly trained enforcers exceptions it cannot reliably control. Marcus is criticised for coercing Khan into developing advanced weapons while giving him opportunities to escape and act against his captors. Palpatine's choice of apprentices produces a further disagreement over Maul, whose television characterisation is defended against an assessment based on the films. The exchange uses fictional failures to examine control over capable subordinates and the limits of judging characters across different versions.