Mandible

**General Mandible** is the main antagonist of DreamWorks' first rendered 3D animated film, *Antz*. He is the deluded supreme commander of the ant military, and was allowed by the Queen Antto make the decisions of the colony. He is voiced by Gene Hackman who also played Lex Luthor. He is Cutter's former boss and Bala's ex-fiancé.

## Biography

### In *Antz*

General Mandible is an ant who serves as the leader of the Queen's army alongside with his accomplice Colonel Cutter. He is a war-hungry insect with little regard for the colony as a whole (especially the army's battle against the Termites), which becomes evident when eventually betrays every ant, including the Queen but excluding his own army, by flooding the anthill in a attempt to "wash away the past".

He intends to marry Princess Bala, making her his queen and the mother of thousands of larval children, but she calls off the wedding and rejects him after becoming suspicious of his plans.

After successfully flooding the anthill, the would-be-dictator's scheme is foiled when Z, Princess Bala and the others from a ladder with their own bodies to escape from the rising waters. Mandible attempts to kill Z, but Cutter, finally having enough of Mandible's evil ways, turns against him, and instead tries to help Z, stating that is what's truly "for the good of the colony". Mandible, enraged, snaps and screams "YOU USELSS, UNGRATEFUL MAGGOT! *I*AM THE COLONY!" And he charges at Cutter but Z pushes Cutter out of the way, and he and Mandible fall into the flooded anthill, While Cutter saves Z, Mandible ends up smashing into an upturned root, killing him on impact.

## Personality

Mandible openly despises any form of individualism and the idea that the the life of one ant can pose any significance. He understands the colony as being something of a greater importance than that of the individual and claims to have dedicated his life "for the good of the colony". As the social chain of the colony tended to favour soldiers in comparison to workers, Mandible's hopes of making the colony stronger were revolved around eliminating the so-called "weak element" and thus beginning the social evolution he proclaims. For all of his claims that one ant did not matter, Mandible possessed a high sense of self-importance and claimed to Cutter that "I am the colony" before his death.

## Appearance

Stanley Mandible is a slender, muscular and handsome ant with purple eyes. He is a parody/homage of Adolf Hitler. He stands totally upright and poised. He is a strong ant with a weak brain.

## Trivia

* General Mandible is somewhat similar to Hopper from *A Bug's Life*, another computer-animated film about ants that both came out in 1998. Both are brutal insect leaders who took advantage of other insects.
* General Mandible is also similar to Adolf Hitler due to a desire to commit genocide in the name of a perfect "society" run by a superior kind of individual (for Hitler the Ubermensch, for Mandible the Soldier Ant).
* General Mandible is considered to be one of DreamWorks' most evil villains (along with Dagur the Deranged and Drago Bludvist).
	+ Mandible and Drago Bludvist are the only *DreamWorks* TV Troupes considered to be Complete Monsters.
* In the original script for *Antz*, Mandible was originally going to be a major (with an ant named Formica serving as General and Bala's fiancé) and the one who brought Bala back to the colony.
* General Mandible is the first DreamWorks Animation animal character to be an antagonist, followed by Don Lino from *Shark Tale.*