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Trailers:MoneyBall? More Like Broke Brad Pitt

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  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    Quid wrote:
    I'll just repeat the fact that I don't think it's a bad film, I just feel like story is constructed so that everything Batman does (and I do mean EVERYTHING) just plays into the Joker's hand in some fashion, and that doesn't reflect well on the character and thus why I don't think it's a good Batman film.

    Why? This happens to Batman all the time. Half his rogues gallery is as deadly as they are because they're incredibly manipulative and intelligent.

    I think I've wasted enough people's time in this thread on this tangeant, no need to drag it on further. If you really want to know Quid, send me a PM.

    Undead Scottsman on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    What's to know? You seem to have your own personal opinion of what Batman should be that doesn't really mesh with several of his stories.

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    Ooooh, I just spotted a poster for Attack The Block. Looks like it will make it across The Channel after all!

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    I guess I haven't been keeping up with internet fads, we're supposed to hate The Dark Knight now? Watched it the other day for the fourth time and it was still really enjoyable, main complaint is his batman voice.

    Still finding new things to like about it and every second Heath Ledger is on screen is absolutely riveting

    override367 on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    That fad started shortly after the "You can't offer criticism towards something unless you absolutely loath it" fad.

    Get with the times, man!

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    I just take issue with poor criticism. So far you've offered that it wasn't a very Batman movie. You haven't really backed it up with anything beyond what appears to be a very limited understanding of Batman's history.

    I mean shit, I could care less if you personally don't like that Batman didn't come out with a clear and perfect win. That's your opinion and you're free to have it. But when you try to make up reasons that don't hold up to reality it's annoying.

  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    I think everyone can probably agree that the thing with the ballistics from the bullet hole is irreparably dumb. It was silly and overdone and the story could've moved forward in a number of less-ridiculous ways.

    Anyway.

    I think it's kind of silly to complain that batman "didn't win." Nolan's batman isn't the supersmart/perfect justice league batman. He really acts pretty horribly in a lot of situations and isn't somebody you'd ever want running around society except maybe in one as close to complete breakdown as we're meant to believe gotham is. One of the main narrative thrusts of TDK is that batman and the joker really aren't very different at all, aside from batman's one rule.

    ed: and sure, batman plays into the joker's hands (well, batman doesn't really play into them that much, but everyone else does.) And while it does seem a little silly how immaculately coordinated all the joker's plans are, it's no more ridiculous than half the things batman does. Batman's villains aren't really compelling unless they can stand on equal footing with him.

    Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
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    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    Well, firstly I wasn't referring to you with that statement, Quid. You haven't accused me of saying something I haven't.

    Secondly, while I was trying to keep it to PM's, but if you're going to bring it up everyone else might as well get the context.
    Quid wrote:
    What's to know? You seem to have your own personal opinion of what Batman should be that doesn't really mesh with several of his stories.
    I was just going to say that different mediums apply different constraints on things. You can have a long-term back-and-forth between Batman and his rogue's gallery in the comics/cartoons, but with the movies they had two and a half hours for the Joker, and that's all they get. As such, I felt it was a flaw that there was no back-and-forth. For every action Batman had, the Joker was ALWAYS two steps ahead. For every time Batman did something against the Joker, it was either part of the Joker's plan, or it was just a showy event that, while Batman DID save lives by averting, ultimately served simply to distract Batman from the Joker's REAL plan. Even Batman's final sacrifice, though we are expected to see it as a victory, IMO comes off as the lesser of two evils as the situation in Gotham will undoubtedly get worse what with Batman either hiding or being impeded by the police, thus crime will rise and it'll prove the Joker's whole "humanity is crap" theory anyway.

    That's why I feel the film does a disservice to batman's character by always having the Joker being ahead. Batman is supposed to be really smart and clever too: he should be able to outwit the Joker half the time. Instead, everything he does plays into the Joker's hands, or ultimately has no effect on his overall scheme.

    Again, it's not that Batman "didn't win" in the end, it's that he didn't win ANYTHING. It was all Joker and every supposed victory that Batman had just reveals another layer or consequence of the Joker's plan. There's no final bit where Batman turns the tables on the Joker and lays the clown's plan to rest. That is why I have the opinion that I do.

    EDIT: Another way of saying it is that I don't think the film really showed us that Batman and the Joker were as equal as they are in other stories. Batman was always following the Joker and never once got ahead of any of the Joker's plans. (He ALMOST caught up one during the assassination scene, but the Joker's plan went off before Batman fully grasped what was going on.)

    Undead Scottsman on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    So, like in the comics. Wherein the Joker does in fact tend to outsmart him at every turn except at the very end. Batman is really clever, but he's neither the smartest now at an advantage against the Joker. What you're asking for would severely take away either from believability as the Joker escapes again and again from failed schemes that Batman manages to somehow figure out immediately as they occur or instead the Joker just fails to be all that intelligent which takes away from what makes his character an excellent enemy of Batman's.

    Also, like other said, people already know Batman's smart. They spent two hours before the second movie witnessing that. It doesn't need to be reemphasized throughout the rest of the second.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    In for a penny, I guess...
    Quid wrote:
    So, like in the comics. Wherein the Joker does in fact tend to outsmart him at every turn except at the very end. Batman is really clever, but he's neither the smartest now at an advantage against the Joker. What you're asking for would severely take away either from believability as the Joker escapes again and again from failed schemes that Batman manages to somehow figure out immediately as they occur or instead the Joker just fails to be all that intelligent which takes away from what makes his character an excellent enemy of Batman's.

    Batman can thwart the Joker without capturing him (just like how in the Dark Knight, capturing the Joker didn't thwart the Joker's plan). I'm not asking for batman to win every single time. I'm not asking for Batman to gain precognition. And I'm not asking that Batman repeatedly capture the Joker only to have him escape again and again. I'm just saying that the world's greatest detective should do some detective work and try to figure out where the Joker's plan is ultimately heading, and use that information to stop parts of it, if not the overall plan. We almost saw that in the Dark Knight with the assassination scene I mentioned above: move up the timetable by 15 or 20 minutes and you could have had a scene of Batman preventing a part of the Joker's plan.
    Also, like other said, people already know Batman's smart. They spent two hours before the second movie witnessing that. It doesn't need to be reemphasized throughout the rest of the second.
    Well, I'm not asking them to remind the audience, I'm just asking them to utilize an established part of Batman's character.

    I'm not asking anyone to agree with me here, I'm just giving my opinion and trying to at least give my reasoning for it, even if it is apparently wrong. ;) Do you at least see where I'm coming from on this?

    Undead Scottsman on
  • Operative21Operative21 Registered User regular
    That's why I feel the film does a disservice to batman's character by always having the Joker being ahead. Batman is supposed to be really smart and clever too: he should be able to outwit the Joker half the time. Instead, everything he does plays into the Joker's hands, or ultimately has no effect on his overall scheme.

    Well, in all fairness in the context of the film, it's supposed to be the first time the Joker and Batman have crossed paths. In the comics Batman's overall success ratio with the Joker comes from years and years of encounters during which Batman has pretty much become the closest thing one can get to an "authority" on the Joker. It's also worth noting that Batman isn't always victorious against the Joker. The "A Death in the Family" storyline being a prime example. I would argue that Joker couldn't be an effective nemesis for the Batman if he wasn't as equally clever. Besides, even if Batman doesn't actively foil the joker every time, he does end up saving a fair number of people. Heck, just do a quick mental count of the number of people that would have ended up dead in the film if not for the Batman, and I figure you have the basis for claiming a Bat-victory.
    Off the top of my head, the folks at the Dent fundraiser, the hostages disguised as terrorists, two ferries crammed to capacity with people, and one terrified accountant.
    Even Batman's final sacrifice, though we are expected to see it as a victory, IMO comes off as the lesser of two evils as the situation in Gotham will undoubtedly get worse what with Batman either hiding or being impeded by the police, thus crime will rise and it'll prove the Joker's whole "humanity is crap" theory anyway.

    Well, things getting worse in Gotham is pretty much purely speculation. We don't really have any further data on which to base such a conclusion without seeing what happens after the film ends. Besides - it's Gotham, its baseline state of things is a steady stream of regular crime. I would argue that his actions return Gotham to a state of "okay, I can kinda live here" as opposed to a state of "I have a 50% chance of being bombed when I go to work today."

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    Okay, I'll concede the point that it's not proven that Gotham goes to crap (and that basically negates my argument.)

    Also, I see your point about it being the first time they've clashed so Batman doesn't have the experience yet to deal with the Joker, though I'd just like to say that I'm not expecting Batman to win every encounter with the Joker, and I've said as much. (I don't know why people keep taking what I say to the extremes. Am I using a weird font or something? :))

    And as for the people he saved: yes he saved them (and that is heroic) but again, those are effectively speed bumps that the Joker throws in Batman's way in order to slow him down or distract him from his ultimate goal. While batman saving them is a good thing, it also plays into the Joker's hands.

    EDIT: I mean, just to illustrate the point, if I was such a stickler for having Batman win all the time, you'd think I be grousing about Bane being the new villain. :)

    EDIT2: Holy crap is the :D smiley smug as fuck. Remind me never to use that one again. :P

    Undead Scottsman on
  • HonkHonk Honk is this poster. Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    I really liked The Dark Knight, it was sweeeeet.

    But there was something about the pacing that I personally didn't enjoy all the time. I thought the film ended at about three different places, like I was getting ready to start the applause but then the film started up again and kept going for 40 minutes - then I was convinced it was going to end again. Etc.

    PSN: Honkalot
  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    Honk wrote:
    I really liked The Dark Knight, it was sweeeeet.

    But there was something about the pacing that I personally didn't enjoy all the time. I thought the film ended at about three different places, like I was getting ready to start the applause but then the film started up again and kept going for 40 minutes - then I was convinced it was going to end again. Etc.
    Yep, it could have essentially not included Two Face

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    Godfather wrote:
    Ross, I know you like movies and pride yourself on quality film-making, but sometimes you sound like that guy in the group who has to snub a film on every merit or he doesn't feel like the smartest guy in the room.

    There's nitpicking and then there's Over-Compulsive.

    I liked The Dark Knight, quite a lot. It succeeds despite some very, very glaring script problems, and it does so because it has a great cast and a great director.

    See? "Great acting + Great Direction = Great movie." It has the requisite two out of three things you need for a great film.

  • NeliNeli Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    I guess I haven't been keeping up with internet fads, we're supposed to hate The Dark Knight now? Watched it the other day for the fourth time and it was still really enjoyable, main complaint is his batman voice.

    Still finding new things to like about it and every second Heath Ledger is on screen is absolutely riveting

    No one is hating on it.

    It kind of feels like if you criticise TDK in any way 5 forum dwellers will rise up out of nowhere and tell you how dumb you are for not finding the movie perfect.

    So, time to criticise it I think. :(

    Personally I thought it was really cheesy at times. I couldn't suspend my disbelief at watching some cartoony cabal of crimelords sitting around a table, watching a clown randomly offering a ridiculous business proposal with a bomb strapped to his chest. I mean I love the Jokers performance but the situation itself was silly and it happens to be the foundation of the entire plot of the movie.

    Most of this is just nitpicking but by far the worst thing in the movie is the bat-sonar. It was just plain awful. It was a complete deus ex machina and without it Batman would have failed completely in the movie. The ONLY reason he even gets to the Joker at the end is because he pulls an impossible technology out of his ass at the last second and then at the very end of the movie they destroy it for some silly reason so the completely ridiculous and overpowered device can't be used in future movies.

    Watching a boat full of supermax prisoners and a boat full of scared civilians not blow each other up. The first thing that'd happen in real life is that a mom trying to save her kids would push that button or a prisoner trying to survive/escape. It felt extremely sugar coated and naive and served no purpose other than to make the Joker look dumb because Batman had no influence on the situation since he missed the deadline.

    Harveys face. I mean come on. What. That looked like a cartoon. It didn't even look gross because it looked too dumb and made no sense. At Harvey Dents hospital scene I was like "aww yeah, now we get to see TWO FACE!!" and a few seconds later I was just looking at the screen in disbelief

    The bike sequence was really dumb and felt out of place to me after a relatively realistic first half of the movie. He pops out of his car, drives through a mall, does some weird thing against a wall and then tries to ram the Joker for no apparent reason before crashing his bike infront of the Joker instead. I was laughing at this point which I don't think the movie wanted me to do

    Most importantly the movie was just not very interesting beyond the Joker. I loved Heath as the Joker and all of his scenes were fun. But the rest of the movie? Pretty bland. Bale kind of just got lost in there and no other actor apart from Heath really did anything memorable, at all. Overall it is still the best comic book movie out there though.

    Neli on
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    I have stared into Satan's asshole, and it fucking winked at me.
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  • LanzLanz ...Za?Registered User regular
    KalTorak wrote:
    Yeah, if there's one fault I can find with Nolan's movies, it's that they're short on emotion, which sometimes hamstrings the actors from creating an entirely human character. They have motivation and everything required to tell an intricate story that my mind loves to chew over for months afterward, but sometimes it seems like the intricacy of the plot just doesn't leave room for a very intricate character.

    There are emotional moments that establish motivation or convey pieces of the plot (I believed Angier's despair after the water tank trick went wrong at the beginning of The Prestige, for example), but most of the other characters just don't have time to develop emotion, or something.

    I think the strongest emotional connection I've felt with a Nolan character was Dom in Inception, mainly because the window ledge scene freaked me out and I got a huge "it would suck for that to happen" feeling. Most of the time it doesn't really bother me, because I'm watching a Nolan movie and it's like my brain is eating a huge delicious meal; I don't mind if the characters aren't as emotionally developed as they might be.

    I call incorrect:

    Example: Inception:
    Cobb talking with his mind's conception of Mal how it will never ever match up to the real Mal that he lost, and he needs to let go. Just, I cannot begin to detail just how much emotion went into that scene.

    waNkm4k.jpg?1
  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    The biggest problem with the Dark Knight is the exact same problem with all Batman related media: Batman is a boring, flat character.

  • DaxonDaxon Registered User regular
    I, for one, have always preferred Batman Begins to The Dark Knight.

  • DeebaserDeebaser on my way to work in a suit and a tie Ahhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered User regular
    The Joker is a lot less badass when you realized who killed him.

    Michelle-Tanner-full-house-212998_384_284.jpg

    HOW RUDE!

  • wanderingwandering Russia state-affiliated media Registered User regular
    Bale's Batman voice is great.

    WHERE IS HE

    While I'm at it the Nuke the Fridge scene in Indy 4 is easily and by far the best part of the whole movie.

  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    TDK could have been a 4 minute movie that was just the Joker crashing the mob meeting scene and I would have loved it.

    "You think you can steal from us and just walk away?"
    "myeah."

  • DisrupterDisrupter Registered User regular
    I think a lot of TDK defenders come out of the wood works because TDK discussions always start with someone going "Ugh, I hate it when people talk about how the dark knight is the best movie they ever saw, its not that good."

    Like, it always starts with people randomly saying other peoples opinions on it are invalid and wrong. So then I think people who really like it feel a bit insulted and have to come out and defend it. Like why do people care what OTHER people say is the best movie? Its an opinion, you're not allowed to be mad at them for having it or declare them to be wrong.

    That being said, I want to watch TDK today, then go see harry potter so I can see the trailer!

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  • wanderingwandering Russia state-affiliated media Registered User regular
    KalTorak wrote:
    TDK could have been a 4 minute movie that was just the Joker crashing the mob meeting scene and I would have loved it.

    "You think you can steal from us and just walk away?"
    "myeah."
    I was reading a TDK script online - and the "myeah" wasn't there. Who knows but I like to think Heath Ledger came up with it himself.

    Also the Joker's laugh in the beginning wasn't written as an ironic fake-laugh, and the Joker didn't refer to Lao as "the television".

  • TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    All this talk of The Dark Knight makes me want to break out the blu-ray. Still no official copy of the TDR teaser online?

    And in other teaser news, Avengers may have a teaser in front of Captain America.

  • Casually HardcoreCasually Hardcore Once an Asshole. Trying to be better. Registered User regular
    Heroes don't need to win in the end, that's just silly. What they do need though is an emotional arc through the story, which I didn't feel like Batman had in The Dark Knight.

    Bruce Wayne was millimeters away from achieving his goals, from creating a Gotham City where you don't need a 'Batman', from finally being able to have a normal life. Then some crazy ass clown in make-up comes along and, a single hammer fall, nails shut the coffin of Bruce's life.

    That's a pretty fucking crazy emotional arc.

  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    Batman Begins, while it is a good movie, is maybe the perfect example of a Superhero Origin Story that is entirely unneccessary and superfluous. There is nothing that happens in The Dark Knight that necessitates Batman Begins having existed to get you ready for it. For as good a movie as Begins is, it's the best argument for Hollywood getting itself off its addiction to "Origin Stories," as almost every superhero movie that people consider good is a self-contained sequel: X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, Blade II, Hellboy 2, The Dark Knight, etc... Audiences can jump into that world (like most readers jump into a comic) without having read anything beforehand.

    The way origin stories worked in comics was that the character had to prove they were worth your attention and your time, and THEN, maybe you'd get a glimpse at their origin later. And even then, that origin was there only to provide shading and extra motivation to a character you're already invested in. With movies, that's all backwards - we're often given a character we don't give a shit about, and then we're forced to watch them for a whole movie as they fuck up, only to be told at the very end that the superhero we WANTED to see will be waiting for us in the sequel. That doesn't even take into account the superheroes whose origins are so well known that re-telling that origin is literally a waste of time.

  • Operative21Operative21 Registered User regular
    Okay, I'll concede the point that it's not proven that Gotham goes to crap (and that basically negates my argument.)

    Also, I see your point about it being the first time they've clashed so Batman doesn't have the experience yet to deal with the Joker, though I'd just like to say that I'm not expecting Batman to win every encounter with the Joker, and I've said as much. (I don't know why people keep taking what I say to the extremes. Am I using a weird font or something? :))

    And as for the people he saved: yes he saved them (and that is heroic) but again, those are effectively speed bumps that the Joker throws in Batman's way in order to slow him down or distract him from his ultimate goal. While batman saving them is a good thing, it also plays into the Joker's hands.

    To be fair, I can agree with part of your argument. I've always felt that some of Batman's more impressive moments were when he demonstrates his ability as a detective, and that is one element they haven't touched on much in the movies. The closest they came in the Dark Knight was the build up to the assassination attempt, which I believe you already cited in an earlier post.

    I wouldn't declare it the best superhero movie. Too much of that depends on personal tastes and personal tastes vary too wildly to make such a general statement. I would go so far as to call it my personal favorite superhero movie though, but that's strictly based on my opinion of course.

  • matt has a problemmatt has a problem Points to 'off' Points to 'on'Registered User regular
    Batman Begins, while it is a good movie, is maybe the perfect example of a Superhero Origin Story that is entirely unneccessary and superfluous. There is nothing that happens in The Dark Knight that necessitates Batman Begins having existed to get you ready for it. For as good a movie as Begins is, it's the best argument for Hollywood getting itself off its addiction to "Origin Stories," as almost every superhero movie that people consider good is a self-contained sequel: X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, Blade II, Hellboy 2, The Dark Knight, etc... Audiences can jump into that world (like most readers jump into a comic) without having read anything beforehand.

    The way origin stories worked in comics was that the character had to prove they were worth your attention and your time, and THEN, maybe you'd get a glimpse at their origin later. And even then, that origin was there only to provide shading and extra motivation to a character you're already invested in. With movies, that's all backwards - we're often given a character we don't give a shit about, and then we're forced to watch them for a whole movie as they fuck up, only to be told at the very end that the superhero we WANTED to see will be waiting for us in the sequel. That doesn't even take into account the superheroes whose origins are so well known that re-telling that origin is literally a waste of time.
    Batman Begins had to be the origin story, because it dealt with a different version of his origin than any of the other Batman movies or what the general public thinks of as how Batman came to be. Yes, it revolves around his parents being killed, but the process afterwards is a different version with different good and bad characters. It also served to flesh out his parents a bit more, and give reasons why Gotham is how Gotham is. The same way if they ever decided to make a Superman: Red Son movie they wouldn't just jump into him being an adult in Soviet Russia, the Year One-inspired Batman was a big enough variation on the common perception of Batman that it had to be reintroduced from the beginning.

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  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    Despite seeing a bus ad for Attack The Block, I can only find three cinemas in France doing screenings. None of which are in Paris (two start this week, and the third just has a vague "September" note next to the times).

    I will have to go bus hunting!

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    Batman Begins had to be the origin story, because it dealt with a different version of his origin than any of the other Batman movies or what the general public thinks of as how Batman came to be. Yes, it revolves around his parents being killed, but the process afterwards is a different version with different good and bad characters. It also served to flesh out his parents a bit more, and give reasons why Gotham is how Gotham is. The same way if they ever decided to make a Superman: Red Son movie they wouldn't just jump into him being an adult in Soviet Russia, the Year One-inspired Batman was a big enough variation on the common perception of Batman that it had to be reintroduced from the beginning.

    The Batman in Batman Begins is nowhere NEAR as different as the Superman in "Red Son," and again, while the origin we get in Batman Begins does make for a good movie - none of what you just said it does is at all needed to establish ANYTHING in The Dark Knight. Hell, the bank heist in The Dark Knight does more to establish what kind of Gotham we're in than anything in Batman Begins. Same with the gangster meeting w/ the Joker, and the rooftop meeting with Harvey and Jim.

  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    Batman Begins was necessary, in the sense that I think it was important to do an initial Batman movie that didn't directly involve the Joker.

    I also thought that, overall, they did an excellent job re-purposing Gotham City from the cartoon nightmare of the older movies and making it a place where normal, modern people would actually try to live.

  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    Batman Begins was necessary, in the sense that I think it was important to do an initial Batman movie that didn't directly involve the Joker.

    True, I can see that. And I did like the attempt to get other villains in there besides the typical ones.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Batman Begins, while it is a good movie, is maybe the perfect example of a Superhero Origin Story that is entirely unneccessary and superfluous. There is nothing that happens in The Dark Knight that necessitates Batman Begins having existed to get you ready for it. For as good a movie as Begins is, it's the best argument for Hollywood getting itself off its addiction to "Origin Stories," as almost every superhero movie that people consider good is a self-contained sequel: X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, Blade II, Hellboy 2, The Dark Knight, etc... Audiences can jump into that world (like most readers jump into a comic) without having read anything beforehand.

    The way origin stories worked in comics was that the character had to prove they were worth your attention and your time, and THEN, maybe you'd get a glimpse at their origin later. And even then, that origin was there only to provide shading and extra motivation to a character you're already invested in. With movies, that's all backwards - we're often given a character we don't give a shit about, and then we're forced to watch them for a whole movie as they fuck up, only to be told at the very end that the superhero we WANTED to see will be waiting for us in the sequel. That doesn't even take into account the superheroes whose origins are so well known that re-telling that origin is literally a waste of time.

    Batman Begins exists to establish the character of Batman. One of the things that makes the series so good is that they do this. They actually spend a movie on Batman where as every other movie or series he's really had to share the spotlight. And Batman is a fairly interesting guy.

    And this allows The Dark Knight to skip all that. The film is very low on setup for Batman and such because they already did a whole movie for that. There's alot of stuff they don't tell you in TDK that you just assume cause you've seen the first.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    I think it's kind of silly to complain that batman "didn't win." Nolan's batman isn't the supersmart/perfect justice league batman. He really acts pretty horribly in a lot of situations and isn't somebody you'd ever want running around society except maybe in one as close to complete breakdown as we're meant to believe gotham is. One of the main narrative thrusts of TDK is that batman and the joker really aren't very different at all, aside from batman's one rule.

    Not really. It's certainly what The Joker believes, but the larger point of the ending is that they aren't. Batman is more then just The Joker who doesn't kill people, he's a symbol and a force for good. He believes in people of Gotham and he's willing to help them at personal cost.

  • Centipede DamascusCentipede Damascus Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    Heroes don't need to win in the end, that's just silly. What they do need though is an emotional arc through the story, which I didn't feel like Batman had in The Dark Knight.

    Bruce Wayne was millimeters away from achieving his goals, from creating a Gotham City where you don't need a 'Batman', from finally being able to have a normal life. Then some crazy ass clown in make-up comes along and, a single hammer fall, nails shut the coffin of Bruce's life.

    That's a pretty fucking crazy emotional arc.

    It could have been, but all we see is one scene where he thinks about that. I don't really get a sense in the rest of the film that he's being propelled by that anger or disappointment or whatever.
    reVerse wrote:
    The biggest problem with the Dark Knight is the exact same problem with all Batman related media: Batman is a boring, flat character.

    How do you figure that such a boring character has maintained seventy years of popularity?

    Centipede Damascus on
  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    edited July 2011
    reVerse wrote:
    The biggest problem with the Dark Knight is the exact same problem with all Batman related media: Batman is a boring, flat character.

    How do you figure that such a boring character has maintained seventy years of popularity?

    Well, that would probably be because the people who liked Marvel and DC comics (or, say, Star Trek or Transformers) as a kid keep buying the thing with the familiar logo on them, so the company keeps making products with the logo on them, giving ample chance for a brand new generation of people to pick this stuff up and keep buying it for the rest of their lives, regardless of quality, simply because it's something they're familiar with.

    edit: Not to say that all people with Asperger's are those weird fanboy types, but I bet most of the weird fanboy types are Aspergerer's.

    edit2: Also not to say that there's anything wrong with enjoying goofy silliness such as Marvel and DC comics, but liking something and something being good don't always go hand in hand.

    edit3: Made the post less... hostile. My apologies.

    reVerse on
  • JustinSane07JustinSane07 Really, stupid? Brockton__BANNED USERS regular
    edited July 2011
    Make no mistake, I love The Dark Knight. It is flawed, though. The scene where he somehow lifts prints off a shattered bullet is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen in such a polished film. It also doesn't really do anything with Batman as a character. I could list probably twenty films I've seen that are better overall films than The Dark Knight. I wish people wouldn't put it on quite as high a pedestal.

    Batman%20Detective%20comics%20Austin%20Rogers%20gun.jpg

    DETECTIVE WORK HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE GOD DAMN BATMAN!

    Edit: Infact, right about the time TDK came out, History Channel ran a documentary about the technology in Batman. Going all the way back to the Detective Comics days. Batman has always been one step ahead of real world technology. He had miniature recording devices and cameras before the real life USA spies did.

    Edit 2:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BXPOENATC8

    It's on the GOD DAMN YOUTUBE.

    JustinSane07 on
  • Page-Page- Registered User regular
    Batman Begins exists so that I can be disappointed by the lack of Scarecrow in The Dark Knight.

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  • Centipede DamascusCentipede Damascus Registered User regular
    reVerse wrote:
    reVerse wrote:
    The biggest problem with the Dark Knight is the exact same problem with all Batman related media: Batman is a boring, flat character.

    How do you figure that such a boring character has maintained seventy years of popularity?

    Well, that would probably be because the tasteless, standardless aspies who liked Marvel and DC comics (or, say, Star Trek or Transformers) as a kid keep buying the thing with the familiar logo on them, so the company keeps making products with the logo on them, giving ample chance for a brand new generation of tasteless, standardless aspies to pick this stuff up and keep buying it for the rest of their lives.

    edit: Not to say that all people with Asperger's are those weird fanboy types, but I bet most of the weird fanboy types are Aspergerer's.

    "I don't like it, so you must be mentally challenged in some way to be able to enjoy it."

    Is that about right?

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