Say your boss didn't give you Martin Luther King Day off, does that make them truly evil? It can sure seem so, but take a look at some corporations that brought evil to new heights (or lows, as the case may be).  Is there any benefits package that is worth your eternal soul? 

Cyberdyne Systems:
I could go on at some length about the artificial intelligence, the nuclear defense network SkyNet, the Terminators, or the war, but when you compare all that to the phrases 'nuclear holocaust' and 'destruction of the entire human race', it all kind of stops being relevant in the greater scheme of things. Unless, of course, you are Sarah or John Conner, in which case you start to prepare to kick a lot of shiny, metal ass. The convolutions of time travel aside, T2 was the first movie to really make the idea of sentient computer systems and robots really scary.

Soylent Corporation:
There are too many people and not enough resources. How do you handle this problem? If you are China, you limit how many kids people can have. If you are the Soylent Corporation, you turn a profit by creating artificial foods. The Soylent Red is filling, but has a bitter aftertaste, while Soylent Yellow is dry and crumbly, but the Soylent Green? Yummy! At least, that seems to be the general consensus, until the local intelligentsia figure out a frightening fact and opt to 'go home'. And by home I mean that place in the sky, as euthanasia is widely available. Following the trail of the body, we get to hear the oh, so famous line…SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!  That's not just evil, it's gross.

Tyrell Corporation:
First they built extremely lifelike, artificially intelligent robots that were actually stronger and often smarter than the average human, called replicants. Then they sent them off world and made them slaves, soldiers and sex industry workers. When they realized that their creations were forming attachments, emotions and self concepts, they built in a 4 year life span to keep them from taking over and outlawed their presence on Earth, using Blade Runners to hunt them down and kill them. As if this cycle of creation and destruction wasn't dastardly enough, they continued trying to improve them, implanting them with false memories and possibly (depending on who you talk to) using these improved replicants to hunt their brethren. How many levels of slavery can one corporation create? And how eerie is the slogan "More human than human"? Before Rob Zombie, I mean. 


Weyland-Yutani Corp:
From tricking the Nostromo and her crew into a mission in which all but one of them died in Alien, to putting an entire colony in danger in Aliens, Weyland-Yutani never tired of risking the lives of its employees for the sake of obtaining a Xenomorph – or as they preferred to think of it; the perfect biological weapon. In so doing, they managed to exemplify everything we fear about mega corporations with their single minded greed and overly ambitious, under conscientious middle managers. They may have claimed to be "building better worlds", but there's no insurance package that covers a chest burster. (Perhaps most frightening of all, in the deleted scenes from Alien: Resurrection, Weyland-Yutani is eventaully bought out by the ultimate in evil empires: Wal-Mart).   


Blue Sun Corporation:
Sadly, Firefly wasn't around long enough to show us how deep the rabbit hole went, but Joss, cast and crew alike have said enough in director's commentaries and official companions that we know it went deep. For example, we know the "Hands of Blue" who hunted River Tam were tied to Blue Sun and there was even involvement with the government program that tricked River into going to their special school, wherein they actually surgically altered her brain in attempts to make her a weapon. Any corporation that does that to a young girl is scary enough, but when you see their logo everywhere – on medical equipment, cola cans, packing crates and witness River ripping the Blue Sun labels off canned foods and muttering on about how bad it is…well, we've passed scary and gone directly to terrifying territory.

What evil corporations can you think of? Tell us! Or, tell us about the scary companies you've worked for.

Comments

What is "Soylent Corporation" from? I got the rest but this one was over my head.

What about SD-6? Do they count?

Sean | Jan 24, 2008 8:32:03 AM | #

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Nevermind, Wikipedia FTW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

Sean | Jan 24, 2008 9:59:04 AM | #

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Hey, Cyberdyne managed to get an ongoing TV series commissioned by FOX. That's more evil than a zombie being adopted by a vampire with a headache!

Simon | Jan 24, 2008 11:33:51 AM | #

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Weyland-Yutani was baught by Walmart? Come, to think of it, those lobsters I purchased the other day did look kinda funny....... *Baby Alien pops out of chest and starts singing, "Hello ma honey, hello ma baby, hello my ragtime gal...."*

Ryan Templin | Jan 24, 2008 12:12:09 PM | #

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Speaking of CyberDyne...

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2425428220080124

Sean | Jan 24, 2008 12:37:17 PM | #

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How about Wolfram & Hart from Angel? Hard to get more evil than that.

GinaG | Jan 24, 2008 4:01:26 PM | #

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The two that popped into my head were Psi Corp from B5 and Umbrella from Resident Evil

erick | Jan 25, 2008 10:54:46 PM | #

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How about Lexcorp (or Luthorcorp if you're following Smallville)?

Craig | Jan 27, 2008 7:53:33 PM | #

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