| “ | Get the hell outta here! Go on, freak! | „ |
| ~ Jim threatening Edward. |
| “ | Hey! I said, "Stay away from her!" | „ |
| ~ Jim's last words before he got stabbed and fell out the window to his death. |
James (simply known as Jim) is the main antagonist of Tim Burton's 1990 live-action film, Edward Scissorhands. He was Edward's arch-nemesis and Kim's ex-boyfriend.
He was portrayed by Anthony Michael Hall.
Biography
Wanting money to buy a van, Jim takes advantage of Edward's ability to pick locks and breaks into his parents' house. The burglar alarm sounds and everyone except Edward escapes. Despite Kim's mad insistence that they return for him, Jim angrily shouts they do not go back.
While the family is setting up Christmas decorations, Edward creates an angel ice sculpture. The shavings from the ice create an effect of falling snow, which Kim dances under. Jim calls out to Kim, distracting her, and Edward accidentally makes a cut on the palm of her hand. Jim says that Edward had intentionally harmed her and uses this as an opportunity to attack Edward in a jealous rage. Then he roughly shoves him out of the Boggs' house. When Kim sees this, she immediately breaks up with Jim and tells him to leave. Upset by the loss of his relationship with Kim, Jim goes to his friend's van to get drunk.
The situation gets worse when Kevin is almost run over by Jim's drunken friend. Edward pushes Kevin out of the way and in a state of excited panic, accidentally cuts Kevin's face, making witnesses think he was deliberately attacking Kevin when he was actually saving Kevin from being runned over. Jim takes the opportunity to charge at Edward and attack him, but Edward cuts his right arm. When everyone hears the police siren, Edward flees back to his hilltop mansion and the neighbors form into an angry mob and follow him.
Kim heads to the mansion before the neighbors can get there and reunites with Edward, having learned about the truth of the events. Jim follows them and brutally attacks Edward, who doesn't retaliate until Kim angrily knocks Jim out with a pier and threatens to kill him if he doesn't leave Edward alone. However, rather than listening to Kim, Jim instead slaps and pushes her away from him, prompting a shocked Edward to get up on his feet and help Kim. Fed up with Jim's horrible treatment towards Kim, Edward angrily stabs Jim in the stomach before pushing him out of a window in retaliation, leaving Jim to fall to his death.
Trivia
- Jim is very similar to Gaston from Disney's Beauty and the Beast: They do not reveal how truly evil they are until the end; as well, both start off as arrogant jerks, but they become jealous and violent when the females fall in love with the male protagonists. They also both share the same fate; however, they both fall differently. Gaston's jealousy gets the better of him and, determined to kill the Beast, stabs him with a knife, making him swing his arm in pain and for Gaston to lose his balance. The Beast also starts to lose his balance, but Belle pulls him back up, making Gaston fall off the roof to his death whilst Jim gets stabbed and pushed out of the window by Edward for attacking Kim.
- He is also similar to Victor Quartermaine from Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Both are in love with the females, but their rivals are the male protagonists. They also believe their rival to be impure (Quartermaine because Tottington falls in love with an animal and Jim because Kim falls in love with Edward and he doesn't have human hands).
- He is also similar to Curley from Of Mice And Men, since Jim is arrogant, controlling, belligerent, and so mean to Edward for his abnormality. His attitude towards Edward is similar to Curley's attitude towards Lennie.
- He is also similar to Steele from Balto.
- Both are self-centered individuals who see the protagonists as freaks and bully them for that (Jim is mean to Edward because of his scissors for hands, while Steele is mean to Balto for being half-wolf).
- Both become more aggressive, psychotic, and murderous later on.
- Both are main antagonists of films that have the protagonists' names in their titles.
- However, Steele was far worse than Jim as he deliberately tried to sabotage his own team (which were racing to deliver medicine from the mountains to the village for ill children) by making them lose their way back to the village. This ultimately proved that he didn't care about the possibility that the sick children might die because of him, and that he only went on with it so that he could spite Balto.