Hasta la vista, baby

Well, it looks like you all hated me so much that you've given me this award for it, and I'm loving every minute of it.

-- Louise Fletcher when accepting the Oscar for playing Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

They couldn't have found a better actress for that role. You could tell she was having a ball with it too.

I hear, like most people who play villains that are easy to hate, she was a real sweetheart in real life.

It takes a lot of empathy to understand hatred
- That could be, but I also have to say as someone who has done it in VO roles that it is a lot of fun to play a villain because you get away with chewing a lot more scenery and your character is either so broadly-written that you can have fun with the broad choices or so complex that you have make a lot of fun with the details. And I know I personally have never played a role in between. I don't know that the former really requires empathy, but you can still be hated for your roles when you play the former all the time.
  I imagine at her level, which I was nowhere near, she got to have fun playing the complex villain whenever she wanted after that Oscar. And if I had her talent, I would too.

Conner: “No, they really like Kai Winn.”

T-800: “…I’m calling CPS.”

*T-800
- Ah, you’re right.

I don't like the character (or any holy rolling bs in my sci fi, for that matter) - BUT - respect to the actress that can pull off that role and Nurse Ratched, because that woman's thespian skills summon hate in a way that is frankly impressive.

Exactly. Louise Fletcher was an amazing actor that could make you feel total disgust at the sight of her in her role. Just the dripping condescension to her saying "my child" shows how great her talent was.
- the dripping condescension to her saying “my child”
  well put.

Interestingly Jenette Goldstein played a minor character in Star Trek Generations.

Are you sure that is Goldstein and not the T1000?
- Now I imagine how cool Robert Patrick as Odo in DS9 would have been.

Example number 1000 why mimetic polyalloy is inferior to a changeling.

Changelings do a little research before copying someone. Not this lazy bullshit that terminators do. Hell Miles didn’t even realize that his husband had been replaced by a changeling and they hung out for weeks.

Well...TBF the T-1000 didn't exactly have 2 years and an expansive intelligence network to work from. And the only reason John Connor was alive to that point is he had a T-800 protecting him. In the span of a couple hours the T-1000 tracked JC to the arcade and almost turned him into swiss cheese if Model 101 didn't show up at that exact moment.
I'm sure many of us have seen the director's cut, or at least the deleted scene after this conversation where the T-1000 goes outside and kills the dog because he won't stop barking...and finds his real name on the collar.
- I'm not fully up on Terminator lore, but aren't they from the future? Seems like they could probably have a pretty good idea on most things just from stored data
I feel like much of my life has been a waste because I haven’t been apart of this debate before. Mimetic Polyallow ftw because you don’t have that long lead time.

She is awesome... awesomely villainous! 😎

God I love Louise Fletcher though

You’ve got to love an actor that can do such a good villain.
I read somewhere that’s why Dukat just kept getting more and more obviously evil as the show went on - Marc Alaimo was so charismatic that people were empathising with him too much.

T-800: "Wait, how can she like DS9 when it won't launch for 2 more years?"

EDIT: I stand corrected, T2 takes place in 1995.

John Connor was conceived in 1984 and he's at least ten years old during these events.
- I looked it up and you're correct - T2 takes place in 1995. Guess that arcade was just too poor to afford more recent games!

I mean... When it comes to villains it's a bit weird. I like Kai Winn as a villain because she's so hateable. If the bad guy doesn't make you want to punch them in the face, they're not a really good bad guy IMO.

I also like Naraku from Inuyasha because I hate him so much.

I think they made her relatable enough, she isn't just a cartoonish villain, she has crisis of faith and feeling like abandoned by her gods.
Even Gul Dukat has some relatability, but then he is a charming fascist in the end.
- Even before that, she is rightly shown as a political go getter, trying to use her position for a higher position. She plays from strength and weakness well.

I laughed way more than I should have when I saw a variation of this where the mom was a programmer and the trick was peer code reviews

What she did? Actually reviewed the code?
- How do you check for this over a phone call?

You really did love to hate her.

😂