SimonM7

Yeah, Webb said a long time ago that the eyes would be bigger in Amazing 2. He also said the webshooters would be "gnarly", whatever that means.

Aw yeah, leading the charge! Let's take the L out of COULD! It's not like it's up to much in there.

"In the script, this villain is the first time it’s be written really, really well."

Irony. :)

Ed Mcguiness! I think his chunky, bold art style was essentially made to draw Hulk, so I pretty much dropped that book when he did. Hopefully this is a worthy use of his time.

I hope Hugh Jackman is in the actual movie, because I sure haven't any posters so far where he doesn't just look like a cardboard cutout version of himself, or like someone drew him in Photoshop.

@NazarethSavage said:

People aren't raving about horse racing though. Your comparison between horse racing and Nolan's Batman films doesn't work. The films aren't overrated because I didn't think they were that great, they are overrated because people give them more credit than I think they are worth. It doesn't really matter as far as how people feel about those films what people are praising those films for, it's all subjective but I'm not going to change my mind. Nolan did very well writing villains. Joker and Bane were two of the best depictions of villains in a superhero related film i've ever seen (although I think Nicholson's Joker was better than Ledger's) but as far as Batman himself, I wasn't impressed with Bale on any level and since the movie is ABOUT him, that's kind of important.

I didn't compare Nolan's Batman to horse racing, I compared your falling asleep when watching Batman to my falling asleep watching horse racing - implying that those reactions don't say anything about quality, just preference. Saying I fall asleep during Antiques Roadshow obviously isn't relevant to whether antiques are worthwhile or interesting, it just means I don't see the appeal. Likewise when you say Nolan writes villains well, I think you're wide off the mark of where the real appeal of those movies lies. Sure, there are people that go WOAH, BATMAN PUNCHES A MAN! and reckon that's the reason they're great, but as I was saying I think those people are wrong. They're perfectly allowed to enjoy the movie for whatever reason, of course, but that is definitely not the primary strength of those movies. Putting that argument out there only serves to let people yell "overrated!" because they've never really had the noteworthy parts highlighted to them.

The main issue (of a few) Nolan's Batman faces is that it's not a terribly good Batman as a character film, but I already explained why I think that in my previous posts.

@BatWatch said:

@SimonM7:

I'm with you on everything you said to Simon except that I do not think Dark Knight Rises was a good film even divorced from Batman. In addition the whole time and space issues, there were a freakin' ton of plot incongruities. It had some good things going for it, but to me, it was just okay.

Oh yeah, I could go on for a couple of pages about why I thought TDKR was poor. I think the most heartbreaking thing about the way it was poor, however, was that it brought up a lot of themes I thought were fitting for a finale. It just bungled the execution of them horribly, and I attribute that to Nolan's inability to make coherent films on that scale.

Nolan tells stories on an emotional and philosophical level more than on a cold, hard, concrete level, but as his movies grow in scale and get more visual, it becomes a problem. When the crux of your movie is spelled out in hard, physical terms like TDKR, and you sometimes only circumvent the crux on an emotional level, it makes no god damn sense. TDKR spoiler: For example, when Bruce teleports back into Gotham after climbing out of the prison, the philosophical/emotional point of that is that Bruce Wayne has crawled his way back from a dark emotional place - he has reconstructed and redefined himself again. Batman - who needed to be *more* than a man - now needed to be just a man again to succeed. He needed to feel again in order to climb out of the cave, a mirror image of the scene in Begins where he falls into a cave and subsequently becomes The Batman. At that point, Bruce has already stripped himself of the mantle, and the ending isn't as out of left field as it may ultimately seem.

But, of course, when you're following the plot and those scenes are put into the context of an overall predicament that is extremely literal (unlike TDK, where Nolan dealt with clashing philosophies, and that was played out entirely on a philosophical level at the end) it basically breaks the movie. And it does break the movie. This really isn't a case where you can rationalise away the gaping chasms that are the plotholes, or simply the way it mishandles large chunks of the cast. By the end of it, there isn't a single aspect that feels thoroughly satisfying, not even the thematic ones, which would've been of at least some comfort. :(

I think there are reasons they shouldn't bring "Robin John Blake" into Justice League, but none of them are brought up in this article, I reckon.

Nolan's Batman movies weren't built with Justice League in mind, and all the stuff that exists in them exists within their own frame of what feels plausible. This is true, but it's definitely not deal breakingly true. In Iron Man, there were no actual allusions to super human strength or fantastical abilities, and even though Iron Man as a movie exists wall-to-wall with stories that feature infinitely more outlandish stakes, Tony Stark's struggles with reasonably human predicaments aren't at all cheapened. You buy that missiles = considerably bad, even though the Hulk could prolly just chew them up in his movie.

Avengers had mental things happening, and now that the Iron Man 3 trailer is out, surely blowing up Tony's fancy apartment shouldn't faze us at all? Of course it does. It's because of tone and the language a movie speaks - a tone and language that a movie can re-establish just as easily as it establishes them.

Sticking Nolan's Batman in Justice League would be a puzzle the writers would have to solve, but it's nowhere near as unsolvable as this article - and many others - suggest. When you reinsert Nolan's Batman back into its own context, you just need to make that boundary clear through the storytelling techniques employed.

I also don't think Justice League Batman necessarily needs to be Bruce Wayne, but it sure as hell can't be their cobbled together fanservice name "Robin John Blake". It made zero sense as a name in TDKR, and if you're gonna have a different Batman than Bruce Wayne on the big screen, you really better make it Dick Grayson, or someone fucked up somewhere. They, um... arguably already did when they didn't let him be Dick Grayson in TDKR I guess.

And finally, I just don't think a Batman moving forward should need the "baggage" of Nolan's films. This is technically a great opportunity to get the character of Batman - and even to a degree Bruce Wayne - right. If you told mainstream people that Batman is a detective, I think they would go "Nnnnooo.. that doesn't sound right.. I'm pretty sure he's a self employed, one man PMC that wages war on crime with his tanks and jets and stuff".

Also, you're eventually coming up on Batman stuff that would just be diminished by viewing it through Nolan's lens, because you suck the fun out of it by forcing it to adhere to such strict rules of realism.

It's disappointing that Nolan ended on a pretty weak film, but I still think they should leave his trilogy alone and create a more charismatic Batman universe. In it you would be able to have sideways wide shots of his silhouette, jumping over rooftops and stuff - and standing atop buildings makes an impressionistic sort of sense, as opposed to ZERO SENSE in Nolan's films. Seriously, how did he even get up there?

So, yeah. I'm opposed to JGL in Justice League, too, but for different reasons.

@NazarethSavage said:

@SimonM7 said:

Everything that's praised to the level of The Dark Knight will get a similarly strong backlash. If they're "overrated", they are likewise overBErated. This is true for anything.

I will say I think Rises gets an unfair pass because people just went into it with a TDK is the bestest thing ever, so this will be, too! state of mind, when in truth Rises has some huge, fundamental problems. To be completely honest, I think a lot of people praise The Dark Knight without understanding what it is about it that is worthy of praise. When you go "grit - check, elaborate villain monologues - check, dramatic music - check" and think those equate Rises to TDK, you will most definitely shower Rises with more love than it deserves.

Not to harp on the point and sound like a jerk, but the fact that you have a huge number of people championing The Dark Knight without grasping why they should, also means you get a large portion of naysayers that have no reasonable arguments to argue against - thus birthing the hands being thrown in the air and movie deemed "overrated".

To me it's overrated because I simply didn't enjoy them and massive amounts of people are acting as if this is the greatest trilogy ever and as a Batman fan and a comic reader I don't feel the character was done enough justice for the reaction it got. The films were alright but nothing special. I didn't even see the first one all the way through because I was bored to sleep. I had to watch it on network television to see the whole thing and I had to make myself not turn it off.

That doesn't actually say anything about the films themselves, though, and you can hardly blame people for not being spot on in guessing your relationship to them. I fall asleep watching horse racing - that doesn't mean horse racing is overrated, it just means horses bore me to tears. The Nolan Batman films pay very little attention to what the Batman and Joker are in terms of established characters, and rather take a step back and interpret them both. The result is two very fascinating character studies, but obviously not fan-service to any preconceived notions. I'll definitely grant that they're not the best Batman films, because they give little attention to who the Batman is and what makes him cool in his comic book and cartoon incarnations - but that certainly doesn't diminish their success at simply being great movies. This is exactly what I mean by people praising them for the wrong reasons. They are *not* great representations of established characters, they are *not* the most satisfying THING WHERE BATMAN PUNCHES A DUDE, they're great, interesting stories extrapolated from the icons of Batman and Joker. As such, they're the work of a storyteller, not of a translator.

And as Rises proves, a storyteller that doesn't handle scale very well, because geez, that film has some MAJOR issues with basic geography and time.

Everything that's praised to the level of The Dark Knight will get a similarly strong backlash. If they're "overrated", they are likewise overBErated. This is true for anything.

I will say I think Rises gets an unfair pass because people just went into it with a TDK is the bestest thing ever, so this will be, too! state of mind, when in truth Rises has some huge, fundamental problems. To be completely honest, I think a lot of people praise The Dark Knight without understanding what it is about it that is worthy of praise. When you go "grit - check, elaborate villain monologues - check, dramatic music - check" and think those equate Rises to TDK, you will most definitely shower Rises with more love than it deserves.

Not to harp on the point and sound like a jerk, but the fact that you have a huge number of people championing The Dark Knight without grasping why they should, also means you get a large portion of naysayers that have no reasonable arguments to argue against - thus birthing the hands being thrown in the air and movie deemed "overrated".

I wish I was more into Star Wars so I could feel excited about this. Funnily, I'm the most excited for Star Wars that I've ever been now that they're potentially put in capable hands, but I dunno if I want the hands to be THIS capable. It's weird, I'm conflicted.