No, Kuato&G, please don't put words in my mouth like that, that's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying from a literary point of view, it's more interesting if the line between so-called "good guys" and so-called "bad guys" isn't so easy to find. It's much more in line with William Golding's intent, which was to write about the tragedy of the human species.
Literary theory since Aristotle has long held that tragedy requires that your tragic heroes must be possessed of a few tragic flaws, in Aristotle's words.
So, for example, in Shakespeare's "Othello," Othello's tragic flaws are intense jealousy concerning his wife, and flowing from that, gullibility when Iago starts spreading lies about her. It doesn't mean Othello is a bad guy, it means he's not perfect, and his imperfections get the better of him in the end.
Ralph's tragic flaw-- especially in this 1990 version, but it's also clearly seen in the original novel-- could perhaps be said to be one of timing, how he's hardly ever tuned in to the present moment the way Jack is. Ralph tries too hard to be a nice guy precisely when he shouldn't, and then turns around and tries to play hard-ass precisely when he shouldn't.
For example, when the signal fire goes out and the boys miss their chance at rescue, Ralph could have, and should have, gone to Jack and tried first to reason with him, as in "Look, Jack, what you guys are doing with the hunting is good, but I just think that keeping the signal fire going is more important in the long run, so either we've got to have you, Jack, make it your first priority, or we're going to have to find somebody else to be in charge of it. Which do you think is the best choice?"
Instead, Ralph just gets mad and throws a scene, turns it into an ego clash, which just feeds into Jack's biggest strength. Well, what do we expect? Ralph's just a kid. But so are we all, which is why we're stuck on this little island called Planet Earth and running around with all these atom bombs and US Marines dropping flaming things from helicopters and such, and that's Golding's point.
On the other hand, Ralph displays great strength of character in defending the weak and the bullied, among whom Piggy is Numero Uno.
Well, that automatically becomes a more interesting story if Piggy himself isn't so gosh-darn likeable as he was in the 1963 film, and that's one of the things I like better about this version.
"I don't deduce, I observe."
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