Gruber was more of a comical character whose 'baddiness' was always diminished because you knew he was going to get beaten by a jive talking copper with a bad vest.
And there you were thinking Vader would win all along, huh? Sorry that didn't work out for you.
An antagonist can be a person (Gruber, etc), a thing (Volcano erupting, etc), an emotional construct (family unity, etc). Hell, it can even be the protagonist himself (though inner conflict is more a literary tradition than a cinematic one). But given it's motion pictures we're talking about in this thread, and given a 'bad guy' is played by an ACTOR - hence me specifying, 'bad guy' in my original post - (thanks for getting that one wrong Loz and Liam. Nice work from both of you
), then it's safe to assume that the actor's performance as the said 'bad guy' is part and parcel of what makes his role so memorable. Something which, when combined with great dialogue and a powerful narrative structure, lifts the film to a whole new level.
If you strip performance out of the equation you could say the Alien from Alien, the Predator from Predator, the shark from Jaws and Hal from 2001, are great antagonists (and they are). As is Jason from Friday the 13th and Michael from Halloween. And yes, you can certainly throw Vader into this list of iconic antagonists. But compared to Nicholson in The Shining, Hopkins in Silence, Malcolm in Clockwork, Al in Scarface, Glen in Fatal Attraction, (etc, etc)...Vader is nothing more nor less than a cool black guy doing a great voice over.
