sambalam

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sambalam

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#1  Edited By sambalam

You can't have Havok before Cyclops. That's going bass akwards! How can the younger brother show up in an X-men movie before the older brother who didn't even know he was still alive? This movie is just pissing me off more and more with every new piece of information they throw at us.
 
The X-Men are such a brilliant concept and it'd be so easy to do well, especially set against the 1960's, but they keep mucking it up!

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sambalam

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#2  Edited By sambalam

I think the beauty of Batman's character is that he could easily go the way of any of his Rogues Gallery. He rides the line between villain and hero every day and there are writers who love to push him to the edge and see what he'll do. And despite constant temptations that would easily rid him of most of Gotham's villains, Batman refuses to cross the line. He knows it would be too easy and after that, he'd be exactly what he's fighting against. I think that would break him more than anything. Even Frank Miller's Batman couldn't kill the Joker, the guy had to do it himself!
 

No Caption Provided

 
I agree with Greg Rucka's examination of Batman. There's a nobility in the sacrifice he makes every night knowing that no matter how many people he saves he can't save everybody, but he's going to try his hardest.
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sambalam

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#3  Edited By sambalam

Catwoman. Hands down. She's more interesting, more compelling, and she and Bruce have a beautiful connection. Talia would just weigh everything down with "Daddy issues," but Selina could bring a lightness to the film. She's more about the chase and she loves it when Batman chases her!

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sambalam

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#4  Edited By sambalam

Sebastian Shaw would make more sense, especially since they're including Emma Frost in the cast, but it would depend on what the story itself wants to accomplish.

 

Shaw could appeal to both Magneto and Prof. X, especially in their early years. Magneto could see the Hellfire Club as allies while Charles finds their methods to be too questionable for his liking, causing a rift in their friendship. 
 
The same could be said of Mr. Sinister. I agree that having him in his Nathaniel Essex phase would be better, especially if it's his battles with the X-men that pushes him into being Mr. Sinister. But Essex presents a third front in the mutant integration problem. Essex does his genetic manipulations and it's how Magneto and Charles react to his research and experiements that cause them to split over their philosophies on mutants and humans.

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sambalam

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#5  Edited By sambalam

Dick didn't even want to be Batman and he did so reluctantly because he realized that Gotham needed Batman.
 

The Birth Of The New Dark knight
The Birth Of The New Dark knight
I think when Bruce comes back he'd be more than willing to hand over the cape and cowl because he knows it belongs to Bruce. It's his mission, not Dick's, to rid Gotham of crime.
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sambalam

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#6  Edited By sambalam
@Whitesycamore said:
"  I think Jason Todd was killed off because he didn't fit the context of Batman at that time.  I think if he had been introduced later after the memory of Dick Grayson as Robin had faded somewhat and the 'grim and gritty' interpretation of Batman had fully taken hold, the fans would have been much more receptive to him.  I first found out about Jason in the Nightfall arc, and I was immediately interested in this dead Robin who seemed to have such an effect on Batman.  I got hold of the issues where he was Robin, and I didn't find him irritating at all - this was probably because I didn't have much attachment to Dick Grayson-Robin and because I knew that this Robin was fated to die pretty quickly. 
People often say that Jason was "whiny" or "snivelling", and I really wonder where they get that from - Jason was frustrated when the justice system failed to protect victims and he expressed that frustration in a forthright way.  I would hardly call that snivelling. "
Actually, after the death of Jason Todd is when Batman started getting into his really grim and gritty phase, which prompted the introduction of Tim Drake. So, really, you have Jason Todd to thank for Batman's more intense persona!
 
But I do agree that Jason is a much more interesting character now, but only because Judd Winick has made him more interesting. In the hands of other writers, he can still be insufferable.
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sambalam

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#7  Edited By sambalam

DC: The Joker, hands down, every time. He's the Yin to Batman's Yang and it's beautiful to watch these two go at it; chaos vs. order, the demon vs. the clown! Fell in love with the Joker during the animated series with Mark Hamil and Heath Ledger's performance only solidified what an amazing character he is with so little back story.  After him, pretty much most of Batman's Rogues Gallery.
 
Marvel: Probably Magneto. He's a villain you can understand. He and Charles are fighting for the same thing just in different ways.

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#8  Edited By sambalam

I get more and  more frustrated with the X-Men movies every time they add a new mutant to the list. While the comics do well at dealing with the plethora of mutants, movies are a condensed medium and don't have the benefit of the serial format comics have that allows multiple storylines and multiple characters to flourish.
 
X-Men: First Class should focus on the original partnership of Xavier and Magneto as well as their first batch of students. The more characters, the less time devoted to really fleshing these people out. One of the major problems with the X-Men movies involved too many mutants, which resulted in their default character examinations of Wolverine whilst ignoring virtually everyone else in favor of leaving them as one-dimensional caricatures whose only emotions developed around how they felt about Logan. It was sad to see such complex characters reduced to little more than fodder for stories about Wolverine (and don't even get me started on the "deaths" of Scott, Jean, and Prof. Xavier). 
 
This movie is a really good opportunity to reboot the franchise, but only if they keep it simple, focus on the core characters, and try not to overpopulate the movie.

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sambalam

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#9  Edited By sambalam
@roxamilli: 
I hear ya! I've always been a diehard Dick Grayson fan, especially now that he's become Batman and all of the events surrounding Bruce's "death," but Jason has become a very interesting character thanks to Judd Winick.
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sambalam

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#10  Edited By sambalam

I am a huge fan of the current Batman movies, but something has been bugging me about how The Dark Knight has been portrayed in the movies so far. Even going back to the Tim Burton-verse, Batman is portrayed more as an action hero and less as a detective. Considering that Batman appeared in Detective Comic #27, the majority of his drive and focus remains on solving crimes. Yes, Batman's got great gadgets and tons of cash, but all of that is in service to his job as a crime fighter.  
 
The movies, I feel, have somewhat downgraded this aspect of the character. It's easy to tell the origin story, but after the death of the Wayne's, films tend to jump ahead instead of covering the extensive training Bruce went through to put his body and mind in peak condition. Batman Begins attempted to cover the training period of Bruce's life, but it was unfortunate that it started so late. Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne is probably around twenty-two-ish when Joe Chill is killed in front of him and a nagging Rachel guilts and berates him into hounding and understanding the criminal element. Within the seven or so years he's been missing, Bruce seems to have acquired all he needs to fight crime in Gotham, especially after his in-depth training with Rah's al Ghul. I understand the need to compress time and story, really, I do, but there's something lost in not showing people that Bruce's drive to avenge his parents and rid Gotham of crime has been present since the moment Thomas and Martha Wayne were killed. Also, there are skills and techniques he's acquired that took years to perfect, many of which he utilizes and passes on to various Robins.  It also glosses over how smart Bruce is.
 
And Bruce is smart, like, crazy smart! We all know that having read the comics, but the movies rarely cover this vital character trait. Bruce/Batman has more contingency plans than the American government, hence his ousting from the Justice League for a period of time, and the rule of thumb is that if you go up against Batman you may win the first fight, but Batman will always win the second fight. He figures it out and he plans accordingly. The beauty of the comic book forum is that you can read the internal monologue. You know what Bruce is thinking and how he got from Point A to Point B. Granted, films can't or won't do this, but again, something is lost from the character when you're not privy to his thoughts and how he put two and two together. There's a reason why both Rah's al Ghul and The Riddler both call him, "Detective." Batman:The Animated Series of course had more time to delve into those aspects of the character because of the serial format, but I see an opportunity with the third Batman film from Christopher Nolan to go beyond the action movie and really delve into another element of Batman.
 
So, what do ya think? Should the third Batman film give weight to Batman's intelligence? Is it too late to introduce how smart he really is? Would it be too boring to set up that kind of story? Batman Begins and The Dark Knight were both psychological and political movies on top of action, but is there room for The Detective? And does it have more to do with the villains he's up against?

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