Villain's Motivation
In reality, everyone is the hero of his or her own story. Everyone [almost] thinks they are doing what's best, even if others would say they are doing what they're doing for the wrong reasons. That's why a truly interesting story has a villain/opponent/rival who has clear motivation, who is, according to his/her own narrative, the hero of the story.
Take Magneto, for instance. According to Magneto, the villain of many of the X-Men movies, humans have destroyed the world and are endangering his people. In the first X-Men movie, humans' treatment of mutants is paralleled with Nazis' treatment of Jewish people.
Let's expand our net to history and legend: Al Capone thought of himself as a provider of useful services, while the media vilified him for his mob-related killings and bootlegging. The same could be said of Jessie James, who some saw as a folk hero while others viewed him as nothing more than a bank robber and a murderer. From the point of view of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood could be seen as the villain.
Wrong Way
Just as a story is better when the hero's motivation is clear, a story is also better when the villain's motivation is clear. In many a melodramatic tale, villains delight in calling themselves a villain and fight the good guy simply because he's good while the villain is bad. No more motivation than that is needed.
Early Disney movies provide a very simple motivation--Snow White's stepmother's vanity, Cinderella's stepmother's jealousy on behalf of her daughters, and Maleficent's desire to fulfill the curse she'd lain. Yes, these can be called some kind of motive, but why? Why are the stepmothers and evil fairies so harsh, they'll cause death before letting the princess marry the prince? What led them to sacrifice their lives and reputations to oppress or murder an innocent? None of it is clear. One supposes they do it because they're evil, but this is no kind of clear reasoning or motivation. Why are these female characters evil? Nobody knows.
Right Way
We understand that Magneto is willing to destroy humanity because they stole his family away and are trying to oppress his people. Why do we know that? Because he has a back story. We see his childhood--not a lot but enough to know why he does what he does. We can feel and understand WHY.
When we understand why, the character becomes real to us. We understand that Kylo Ren is willing to fight the light side of the force and kill anyone who gets in his way because of his resentment toward his father and because he adopted a new father figure in his grandfather, Darth Vader.
Furthermore, we understand that Mother Gothel must keep Rapunzel isolated in "Tangled" because she will lose her youth and her life if she loses the source of her power. Their motivation is clear. Back story makes the difference between a believable villain and a stereotypical Bad Guy who is bad because he's bad.
Caveat
However, because we don't agree with his motivations, he remains a villain, the enemy. That is the one caution here, that there is such a thing as having a villain become too sympathetic. If your villain is more sympathetic than your hero, you have the new problem of the audience being confused by your story. This confusion can be useful when you flip the story around and tell the story from the villain's point of view, as mentioned in last week's blog. But in general, that confusion is to be avoided.
Conclusion
If your villain is supposed to remain on the dark side, make sure that your hero has a more vivid and sympathetic back story than the villain. Help us view the villain as understandable but not the one for whom we're rooting. Best of luck on your villains.
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