Dr. Erwin Armstrong (The Boss Baby: Family Business)

Dr. Erwin Armstrong "Babies are gonna rule the world one day, and that day is coming sooner than you think." Gender: Male Type: Hypocritical powerful villain wannabe who thinks he's smarter than everyone else Age: Baby Species: Human Portrayed by: Jeff Goldblum Status: Alive Media of origin: The Boss Baby

Dr. Erwin Armstrong is the main antagonist of The Boss Baby: Family Business. He is the founder of the Acorn Center, Tabitha's school, but in reality, he is a scheming and smart baby who plans to get rid of the children's parents and rules. He is voiced by Jeff Goldblum.

Why He's Intentionally the Generic Villain to End All Generic Villains

1. Similar to Jimmy Crystal from Sing 2, which came out five months prior, to get the baby out of the crib, he is a very boring and generic villain that only cares about his reputation, doesn't want anybody making him look like a fool, doesn't want parents to boss and telling babies what to do.
2. His motivation to get rid of adults all around the world using a phone app and making babies take over the world is completely nonsensical and more flawed than Francis E Franics' motivation to replace babies with puppies from the first movie and other Boss Baby villains with really stupid motivations, even by DreamWorks Animation villain standards for many reasons, even to the point where he makes other bad DreamWorks villains like Guy Gagne from Turbo, Ms. Grunion from Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Makunga from Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Prince Charming (Shrek the Third only) and especially Francis E. Francis look more threatening and well written by comparison.
   • First off, babies are known to be the weakest out of the human lifespan since there are hazards all over the world that babies could get injured or killed if that weren't enough, they could even die from neglect due to the lack of their parents' support and safety, possibly lead to the end of humanity if generations of humans died off, making him feel like he wants to end humanity just like most of the Boss Baby villains like Francis E Francis, especially because he treats the babies like wild animals without any learning skills in a room with cameras all around so he could spy on them when he could've just simply build some robots or even hire some human adults to supervise the babies just in case anything happens to them such as bullying or injuries and to teach the babies things like reading and writing.
   • Second, if babies take over the world, they will soon age up to adults in years (if they survived the hazards or neglect) with troublemaking skills and lack of intelligence due to the lack of safety knowledge and support from the adults as well as the fact that Armstrong doesn't even care about babies getting injured or killed from many harmful hazards if he gets rid of the adults, this makes Dr. Armstrong's motivation dangerously sadist and could get in huge trouble by the authorities for large amounts of infant neglect.
   • Third, if he teaches children at his school, then why does he only want babies to turn bad by getting rid of their parents, when the children are way older than the babies, mostly aged between 6 to 12, at his school, also have parents to be supportive, and yet he doesn’t do anything with them right after their parents were brainwashed by their phones through an app he created for the school play aside from using them as targets to brainwash the adult audience and the Templeton children, which he tried to kill them to prevent them from stopping adults getting brainwashed all over the world through a server. Not to mention that he also wants to get rid of rules from the babies’ parents so that they can be free to do whatever they want, even though he has school rules for his students, which just goes to show not only his motivation is completely nonsensical, dangerous, and sadistic since he doesn’t care how much babies and children died from neglect, but also how hypocritical Dr. Armstrong is when it comes to children. Sound familiar?
   • Fourth, if he gets rid of the human adults, every job (including very important jobs like health and safety) would've entirely ended with nearly the production of life on Earth helped by humans such as food, water, and electricity dying off, which babies and children would've died from very little food supply and health failure due to being in a world without any human adults. To make matters worse is that Armstrong also doesn't care about jobs and life on Earth dying off without help from all the adults, which means he acts more of a sadist moron who wanted to end humanity and life on Earth rather than a highly intelligent baby as the sequel supposedly depicts.
   • Fifth, If adults get brainwashed by their phones for way too long, they'll soon drain up their phone’s battery, causing their phones to become extremely overheated and possibly explode due to the battery’s overheating caused by using the app on their phones, causing his brainwashing plan to backfire since adults will suddenly return to normal (especially those who were lucky enough to not get brainwashed by having their phones on low battery or not have a phone at all), only having certain eye injuries and blindness due to having glued on their phones way too long, and the adults are very likely recalling the app for being dangerous for both their eyes and batteries on their phones, as well as the hypnotizing glitch being found, thus having the app banned and removed from App Stores altogether, making Dr. Armstrong’s brainwashing device of choice (which is just an app on a phone that takes innocent pictures of children made to brainwash people) ridiculously pointless.
   • If anything, he feels more like a rejected Saturday morning TV cartoon villain as well as being more suited for bad cartoon shows like Mega Babies rather than an actual DreamWorks Animation movie villain.
   • Even Prince Charming from Shrek the Third, while being flanderized compared to the second Shrek film and also often considered to be one of the worst DreamWorks Animation movie villains, has a more interesting and justifiable motivation to take over Far Far Away with the fairy tale villains to avenge the death of Fairy Godmother, his mother, while being the new king of the kingdom after King Harold’s death and killing the titular protagonist who doesn’t want to take over Harold’s role as the king at his show when compared to this villain with a very nonsensical and hypocritical motivation.
3. Aside from his motivation, he's a huge hypocrite even without his villains plan, especially since he tends to say that he's smarter than everyone else, yet he can be a total moron at times like thinking that Precious is a dog or a cat when he's a pony in the climax and claims to be very good with kids, yet at his school, he committed child neglect to the babies by treating them like wild animals in a room with cameras spying on them, and that could’ve been given lawsuits and fines from their parents for not teaching them despite paying him to teach the babies and get sent to prison for this, how hypocritical can this villain get.
4. He has no respect for adults whatsoever, as he sees them all as manipulating control freaks who are solely responsible for everything that's wrong with the world like pollution and wars when he, himself also has parents who are adults just like almost all the babies.
5. The climax between the Templeton children and him is just a lazy rehash of the climax from Penguins of Madagascar, only with humans, set in a school, and had more filler than that climax, the only reason why the climax was so dragged out is just serves as an attempt for writers Tom McGrath and Michael McCullers to make him a powerful villain that could surpass other way better and more powerful DreamWorks villains like Drago, Tai Lung, Lord Shen, Kai, most Shrek villains, except Prince Charming, Pitch Black, and more recently, all of the Puss in Boots: The Last Wish villains, especially Big Jack Horner and Death, and that, along with the Bad Guys, came out a year after Boss Baby 2 and were major improvements over this movie and Spirit Untamed a year prior, by constantly outsmarting the Templeton children into preventing them from turning off the server and it goes on for more than 6 minutes into the movie’s remanding runtime, making the climax nothing but a total waste of time for some people all because of Armstrong trying too hard to be a powerful villain, but fails at that due to the lazy writing.
   • However, the climax would've been much shorter than 6 minutes if the Templeton daughters just simply explained his true colors to the older children (including Tabitha's classmates) and inspire them as an large army with the daughters as leaders to help the Templetons defeat and expose Dr. Armstrong, snapping the adults out of their phones while taking them to safety, and turn off the server since Armstrong betrayed all his older students by getting their parents brainwashed at the school play while exposing himself as a baby, and that could’ve made the climax less filler and more well deserved karma for Armstrong, plus an redemption for Tabitha’s bullies after finding out that what she said about Armstrong being a fraud was true and agreed to help her, but instead the older students became completely useless and are never seen again until after the climax where they’re seen reuniting with their parents after the server is destroyed, making it a huge, missed opportunity for the older students aside from the Templetons and the unaffected babies to be part of this dull and dragged-out climax.
   • Sure, longer climaxes with powerful villains in animated movies can work if it’s done right such as Puss in Boots: the Last Wish and the Mitchells vs the Machines because both the villains and climaxes in those movies were actually well written since they have way better motivations that are so strong that the heroes had to work hard together and get over their fears and weaknesses to stop them without dragging out too long, but here, it doesn’t work mainly because of the writers using the “we had a powerful villain” excuse to drag the climax out and making the heroes (who are minors (with both Theodore and Tim slowing changing back into adults)) much weaker by comparison without any effort put into it, especially considering that the older children and to an extent, the babies (despite them defeating the ninja babies) not even being involved to help the Templetons get to the servers while snapping their parents out of their phones as well as the fact that Dr. Armstrong is already horribly written to begin with a motivation that is so nonsensical that he feels more of a total idiot rather than a highly intelligent powerful villain.
   • Not to mention that the way Tina defeated Armstrong can be shown as a huge plot hole, especially when Theodore added the control battery on Armstrong's robot suit before the play, then why can't Tina just control the robot suit with her tablet at the play very sooner before the adults got brainwashed by their phones, so she can expose Armstrong for being a complete fraud and quickly stopped his evil plan, but she instead chooses to do that after that time wasting climax which was served as an excuse to pad out the sequel's runtime, not only does this make Tina unlikable and stupid, but also show how incredibly poor the writing of this sequel is.
6. He's a bootleg copy of Professor Poopypants from the Captain Underpants movie, which ironically both movies are made by DreamWorks since both characters are intelligent teachers who want to get rid of something around the world (laughter and adults) by brainwashing people and have children as their sidekicks, Melvin Sneedly and the babies, expect without the charm that makes Poopypants a great villain with a justified and sympathetic backstory where he was made fun out of at an award show due to his name, compared to Armstrong, who has a very nonsensical backstory about why he doesn't want parents to be in babies way.
7. His backstory on why he doesn't want his parents to be in his way is not just cliched, but also very stupid and pathetic, as he runs away from home to found a school just because he's smarter than his parents who over-educated him, even though he's still a baby and his parents are just doing their jobs to protect him, if so, then he could've gotten himself in a dangerous situation since babies are known to be the weakest of the human lifespan, not to mention that if police could’ve found him running away without any adult supervision and take him back to his parents under maximum house arrest so that he can't escape from his house without any supervision in the future earlier, then none of the events of this sequel would've happened and the babies could’ve lived healthily and went to a proper school with adult supervision, showing that he's a very horribly written villain in any DreamWorks Animation movie.
   • As pointed out by Jambareeqi during his DreamWorks villain ranking video, his cover story doesn’t match up with his nonsensical motivation, which doesn’t even add up much, which caused yet another massive plot hole to his character aside from his backstory about his parents not calling the cops to find him when he runs away from home to explain the situation:
     • How come he’s a teacher who is mostly lazy in his office all day at an expensive school that encourages kids to mature faster when his entire motivation is to help babies rule over adults? Also, wasn’t he annoyed by his parents for over-educating him at an early age? If so, then how come he hasn’t been caught by the police and taken back to his parents sooner?
   • As mentioned earlier, even Professor Poopypants had a more proper backstory that adds up to why he hates laughter and his motivation to get everyone to stop laughing around the world.
8. The plot twist where he is a baby who doesn't age the entire time is very poorly executed and weak, especially considering his backstory that could’ve been easily avoided and nonsensical motivation. The plot twist could’ve been better if it was more fleshed out if it weren't for those two topics we've already mentioned.
9. His jokes are clearly shown to be unfunny and cringe-worthy, such as the infamous scene where he, in his baby form, dances with the brainwashed adults at the play, right in front of his older students, who for some reason somehow didn't even scold him for betraying and lying to them by showing off his true identity as a baby and brainwashing adults after all those years of teaching them while he disguised himself as an adult; they seem to only care about their parents rather than Armstrong’s true colors being shown right in front of their faces (while understandable since most of the children denied Armstrong’s plan while noticing their parents being brainwashed), which is yet another missed opportunity for the older students to learn about his true identity and help the Templetons defeat Armstrong.
10. He once committed animal abuse as he was throwing Precious, a pony, out of his school calling him a dog and cat during the climax, despite being intelligent enough to know every animal.
11. His true baby form is a bit ugly and uncanny in comparison to his robot adult design and the other characters, he looks more like a short old man rather than a baby despite being one.
12. Aside from getting punished by Tina, he most of the time never gets any comeuppance for his actions, as despite the ending scene involving him being reunited with his parents being heartwarming, he didn't really deserve a redemption at the end of the film since his motivation could’ve potentially injured or killed babies while acting like a complete sadist who doesn't care about how much babies died if they take over the world without adults, and jobs and life on Earth dying off, especially when compared to Tabitha’s school bullies (especially Nathan Pickles) who could’ve redeem themselves and help the Templetons after finding out that Dr. Armstrong was a criminal baby the entire time, thus becoming a lot nicer and apologizing to Tabitha for bullying her, not to mention that during the underground laboratory scene announcing his plan earlier that he literally despised his parents for over educating him during his childhood when explaining his backstory to Theodore and the babies, thus not only does this made his fate very weakly rushed and undeserved, but also felt like if the two aforementioned writers doesn't want their villain to deserve an actual proper punishment despite him being a criminal baby such as getting arrested and send to either Juvie detention centre or back to his parents under house arrest by the cops (aka the adult versions of the triplets from the first movie) who were just there along with the other adults while getting coal for Christmas, for being a fraud about his age, attempted child murder (including nearly drowning Tim and Theodore in a tank disguising as a time out room filling it with water), as well as safety and health code violations (including the rarely used water sprinkler system despite installing them and the baby room with cameras spying on them instead of building robots or hiring some human babysitters) at his school.
    • The brainwashing plan is just serves as an excuse for the writers to make all the adults and the older children (aside from the Templetons) at the play cluelessly stupid, as they barely even notice Dr. Armstrong being hold by his robot up on the tree exposing himself as a baby who brainwashes all of the adults just for him to have their babies take over the world while killing them, especially the Triplet cops who didn't even spot and arrest Armstrong just because he's a baby, yet in the chase scene which takes place a day earlier, they follow Tim and Theodore for destroying the town, nearly killing everyone in slight who are both temporarily children (even Theodore is a baby at the time that happen), this makes those cops come off as extremely hypocritical since they chase and attempt to arrest two kids for property damage and attempted manslaughter to the townspeople all the way to the Acorn centre (when it was mostly Precious), but not Dr. Armstrong despite him being a baby who committed way worse crimes than them such as child neglect and attempted infanticide to the babies.
    • This is messed up considering how he almost destroyed humanity and life on Earth by letting babies and children die from many hazards (mostly from starvation and health failure) after brainwashing all the adults, meaning it would've made more sense if he either received proper punishment or have been arrested and sentenced to life in juvie and later prison when he became an adult without the possibly of parole for his actions.
    • Overall, Dr. Armstrong's redemption is extremely forced as he has not done anything valuable to redeem himself and only exists just to shoehorn a scene of him reuniting with his parents despite hating them earlier.
13. His voice can be annoying to listen to. Not to mention that his actor, Jeff Goldblum, was seriously miscast because of how weird and phoned his voice sounded when compared to his other performances in films, especially Grandmaster from the MCU and his other animated film roles such as The Prince of Egypt and Isle of Dogs. Why did DreamWorks Animation and casting director Christi Soper cast him if they knew his voice for Dr. Erwin Armstrong would be annoying and he would phone in his performance?
14. He's extremely lazy when it comes to days at his school since all he does is sit in his office, eating and drinking sugary food such as candy, ice cream, and soda, all day instead of teaching or helping his students (especially the babies) which is extremely unhealthy and could give him diabetes in real-life.
15. Due to being the founder of his school, the Acorn Centre, he's very stupid and strict, despite being intelligent, when it comes to school restrictions which could've potentially got his students killed such as the water sprinklers being turned off to prevent water damage on school property, including the computer inside the tree, just because of how expensive his school was built, which is outright stupid, especially since people at his school would die from dealing directly with fires even without the water sprinkler system or emergency exits. Not to mention, if he doesn't use the water sprinkler systems as shown in the climax, then why did he install them to his school in the first place? This further makes him a total potential child abuser who doesn't care about his students’ safety.
16. Overall, he's considered a generic doomsday villain due to all these reasons above, even more than Francis E. Francis from the first movie.

Redeeming Qualities

1. He does run a nice school called the Acorn Centre, despite being stupidly strict towards the school and stupid rules that could’ve potentially killed his students.
2. Despite being annoying and weirdly phoned in, Jeff Goldblum does an alright job voicing him, even though seriously miscast.
3. Despite getting off scot-free for his actions and his redemption being very weakly rushed, the scene where he reunites with his parents is heart-warming.
4. The way he gets defeated by the Templeton children by exposing everyone that he's a baby in the climax gives him comeuppance for his nonsensical and hypocritical actions.
5. Because of how much of a completely nonsensical villain he is, it is clear that Dr. Erwin Armstrong is made to be hated.

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