hi as a michael fan who actually kinda liked his movie iteration i have some (apparently really lengthy) thoughts (under the cut because spoilers)
i would say the reason michael seems to only have negative qualities as opposed to his game counterpart is because the way scott’s chosen to adapt michael to the big screen appears to be by splitting him into THREE different characters instead of one. as jesskab put on one of their posts: michael is all afton no guilt, vanessa is all afton all guilt, mike is all guilt no afton. movie michael doesn’t have game michael’s better qualities because mike and vanessa already do. mike struggles with guilt over his brother’s death; vanessa is an unwilling accomplice to her father’s crimes. it’s redundant for movie michael to have either of those dilemmas when the two main characters already do.
all that said i’m not even gonna defend this writing decision because it is kind of annoying that scott apparently decided he wanted to tell michael afton’s story, but instead of just adapting the game lore he decided to make things harder than they needed to be by creating a whole new universe lmao. it’s stupid but yknow, what can we do
and on the topic of michael’s apparent genuine antagonism: have you heard of attribution theory, and by association, fundamental attribution error? in case you haven’t:
- attribution theory states that we can explain someone’s behavior by attributing it their disposition (personality) or their situation.
- fundamental attribution error is our tendency to overestimate the impact of disposition and underestimate the impact of situation on another person’s behavior. (e.g. if you see someone else drive badly on the road, you’ll likely assume that it’s because they’re an idiot and a bad driver, whereas if you make that same mistake, you would be like, ‘that wasn’t because i’m bad at driving, i’m just having a bad day’) (this was my psych teacher’s favorite example for some reason)
basically, fundamental attribution error exists because we forget that a given situation can easily override a person’s disposition or morality. the stanford prison experiment is a good example of that; the people who were assigned the guard role in that experiment very quickly settled into an abusive mindset (their immoral actions strengthened their immoral attitudes), where they didn’t have that mindset outside of the prison environment.
now you might be asking what the hell any of that has to do with the 2025 movie five nights at freddy’s 2. basically i’m saying michael’s “mischaracterization” is a result of a difference in his situation: instead of being the parentified eldest child who accidentally killed his brother, he seems to be the invisible younger child, considering vanessa is stated to be “the favorite” and the fact his existence isn’t remotely hinted at in the first movie
so obviously the absence of a younger brother means the bite of 83 didn’t happen—or at least, michael didn’t have anything to do with it if it DID happen—and so he never really got that reality check? we know game michael was an outright bully before the bite and that it was a big catalyst for his change, so…what if it was the only catalyst? and if it was the only catalyst, then movie michael didn’t really have any “reason” to abruptly realize he was being a huge asshole.
that aside, you might think vanessa being the favorite child doesn’t have anything to do with it because most people assume that game michael was the least favorite anyway (which. we don’t really have any evidence for. i guess sending him down to die in the sister location bunker would suggest that, but its not like william didn’t also totally let his other children die due to neglect. it honestly doesn’t seem like he particularly loved/favored any of them), but like. there is just ZERO acknowledgement or clue of his existence in the first movie. the doylist explanation for that is definitely just “they weren’t planning on putting michael afton in the movie lore”, but from a watsonian perspective it really just comes off as “william afton doesn’t give a singular fuck about his loser son” 💀. vanessa was william’s favorite and just look at what he did to her; do you think michael would’ve had it any better? even if there wasn’t any harsher abuse, sometimes outright indifference can do much more harm than hatred or disdain. michael KNOWS his father is dead, so i can only imagine he’s so hellbent on “continuing his legacy”, so desperate for a dead man’s approval, is because he never had the “love” william gave to vanessa. he needs to prove to his father that he’s just as worthy as vanessa, so he’s resolved in the idea that he would do anything in order to prove it. if that means killing people to continue his legacy, then damn it, that’s what he’s going to do. it sort of brings to mind this quote:
or maybe im totally wrong and this isn’t at all what scott was intending. i sure hope i’m not wrong, because i really don’t think michael is so cut and dry evil. i actually hope they end up releasing a novelization like they did for the first movie, because i feel like it could be a little more insightful to michael’s character.
i guess the tldr is that i feel as though michael’s antagonism is a result of abuse/grooming (because grooming isn’t exclusively sexual, and if you don’t believe anything i said above then surely you can see how it seems likely that william at least groomed michael to want to continue his legacy; he does act pretty similarly to william…) (see this is a point i should’ve brought up earlier but i forgor)
also yeah that middle part is kind of atrocious i have no defense for that. at least it looks better toward the end of the film
