Von Talon

"Pigeons. Pathetic little creatures."

- Von Talon

General Von Talon (simply known as Von Talon) is the main antagonist of the 2005 computer-animated Disney film, Valiant. He is a villainous falcon who works for the German forces in World War II. He is Cufflingk and Underlingk's boss.

He was voiced by the legendary British actor, Tim Curry, who also played Hexxus in FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Pennywise/IT in Stephen King's It, Kilokahn in Superhuman Samurai SyberSquad, Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Drake in The Pebble & the Penguin, Maestro Forte in Disney's Beauty & the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, and Big Brother in Johnny Bravo.

Personality
General Von Talon is a cruel, sarcastic, manipulative, and mean-spirited general who has a hatred for pigeons, and he also takes pleasure in eating his prisoners. He rudely calls Valiant a pipsqueak. He lost his left eye sometime during the war and wears an eyepatch. He and his minions' job is to capture homing pigeons that are carrying valuable information and bring them to their base: a huge fortified bunker on a sea cliff. Von Talon tortures his prisoners by forcing them to listen to Werner Bruggemann's Da Jodel Rudel. He stuffs and mounts the pigeons that he killed and placed them in his trophy room.

History
In May 1944, five years since the declaration of World War II, three Royal Homing Pigeon Service war pigeons are flying across the English Channel with the White Cliffs of Dover in sight, carrying vital messages to Great Britain. Despite the poor weather conditions the pigeons have nearly reached their destination. However, they are suddenly ambushed and attacked by a villainous German enemy falcon called General Von Talon; two of the pigeons are instantly killed, yet the third, Mercury, is taken as a prisoner of war.

Despite Mercury being captured, he resists interrogating to Von Talon where the messages were meant to be departed. So Von Talon and his goons resort to tortures to get Mercury to crack. First they try blasting him with Werner Bruggemann's Da Jodel Rudel playing over the intercom, but despite the loud annoying yodeling, Mercury still does not crack. Von Talon then injects Mercury with a truth serum. While Mercury tells the truth, he still refuses to actually tell them what they want to know, and instead babbles on and on, annoying them until he accidentally reveals the location: Saint-Pierre.

In France, the war pigeons come under attack by Underlingk and Cufflingk, resulting in Bugsy and the message being captured. Von Talon takes the message from Bugsy and decides to cage him up and eat him later. The troops follow Bugsy to the falcon's bunker, where Valiant takes advantage of his small size and sneaks into the bunker through the gun barrel, retrieves the message, and frees Bugsy and Mercury. Unfortunately, the falcons are alert and give chase. As Gutsy and the others fend off Underlingk and Cufflingk, Valiant flies to London to deliver the message, followed closely by Von Talon.

After a climactic chase by the falcon, Valiant hides in the cottage where he lives, where he is attacked by Von Talon again. With the help of Elsa and Felix, Valiant finally defeats Von Talon by getting a giant hook caught on his medals, leaving him to be beaten senseless by the water wheel. It is unknown what happened to Von Talon after this, but he was presumably arrested.