I’ll Always Look This Good: Why We Need A Hellboy 3

The Themes

The consistent theme running through both Hellboy films is the necessity of choice. Told that he must “fulfill his destiny” and become a key to the world’s destruction, Hellboy instead opts to save the world he lives in rather than the one he came from. The lives of his friends mean more to him than inherited power, and he can make the choice to rip off his own horns rather than harm those he’s promised to protect. Yet Hellboy and his friends are still outsiders – vilified even in their attempts to help a world that continues to reject them as Other.

The second film broadened the concepts of the first, introducing new characters to challenge the worldview of the people within the film and the viewers outside it. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army introduced the conflict between men and elves: an age-old conflict in which human beings attempt to co-opt the powers of nature. The villains here are not really villains, but creatures from a different world being threatened by our own. Once more, Hellboy and his friends bestride the divide, their loyalties challenged by the very just complaints of Prince Nuada.

As the second film draws to a close, our heroes make the choice to walk off and no longer serve an entity that wants to control them instead of accepting them. With Liz pregnant and Hellboy about to become a father, a third film is broadly hinted at, as these creatures attempt to adapt (or not) to a world that will never view them as equals.