[SPOILERS] The Dark Knight Rises (1.0)

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

No, because if he's just as bad as the villains, then he should be stopped, he should be locked up, he should not be doing what he's doing. Being fearsome, having a tough scary facade, is quite a different thing from being evil, being a menace. And in that case, then he's no longer a hero, he's an anti-hero, which is a very different kind of character.

Then I have to disagree that Burton's Batman is 'just as crazy as the villains" interpretation as you stated, compared to Nolan's Batman. As I said I don't see a difference in the vigilante justice in Burton Batman vs. Nolan Batman. Being fearsome and having a tough scary facade is part of it, but Batman also takes justice into his own hands by beating the crap out of baddies and creating collateral damage in the process.

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Dark-Knight-Rises-Vehicle-Gets-Name-28916.html

My one critique is that it looks nothing like a Bat. It's a flying Tumbler. I mean, it doesn't have wings -- which are a pretty big part of both bats and planes.

Watching Batman (1989) tonight to settle this debate once and for all.

I'm not the biggest fan of BATMAN to be honest. RETURNS improved on most things.

Haven't seen Returns in a while either (that will be next on the queue), but as I remember it, it was almost more a character study of Oswald Cobblepot, which I found intriguing, which in a way was similar to Nicholson's Joker.
Both Nicholson's Joker and DeVito's Penguin, involved the similar scheme of seducing Gotham into supporting their power, whereas the current Nolan series seems more about creating fear and unleashing terror and chaos as a result.

What was it didn't do it for you with BATMAN?

I don't know. Compared to DeVito's Penguin, I didn't find Nicholson's Joker that compelling. I don't care much for Danny Elfman's score either. RETURNS just feels much more self-assured and confident. I like those qualities in a film.

Would you say TDK had a confidence to it?

More so than BEGINS.

I guess anyone in this thread doesn't care about spoilers?

Apparently Joey King is playing the young Talia Al Ghul (I would presume in the scenes with Josh Pence as Ra's).

http://perezhilton.com/2012-01-20-dark-knight-rises-secret-villain-confirmed

I hope so, I'd like to see Talia in the film.

Never heard of this Joey King.

Goes googling...

...ah, I see. Looks like that Kick Ass girl.

I watched BATMAN '89 over the weekend, and figured I'd write about it here. It brings up some questions about the Nolan films...

BATMAN (1989)-

Sorry, it just ain't up to snuff. I get that in 1989 this was a brand new take on Batman since the last movie was the campy 1966 film, so it was impressive then. But watching Batman '89 now, it feels incredibly dated. I used to appreciate Tim Burton's fantastical Gotham, but now it obviously looks like it was filmed on a sound stage and the Warner Bros. backlot. The lighting is also too glaring in many of the scenes, which again makes it painfully obvious that the filming is done on a set. Furthermore, any serious credibility the film was going for, is lost on the terrible acting by pretty much everyone except Jack Nicholson. Both the Knox and the Kale characters are cringe-inducing. Even Michael Keaton gives a rather 'blah' performance. His Bruce Wayne is snobbishly aloof, but not in any sort of introspective or brooding way, like how Christian Bale portrays the character. Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Dent are forgettable (even if the ladder is played by Colt-45 Lando). As I said, Jack Nicholson's performance is the highlight. He brings a confidence to the character. We also get the sense that there is a deeply flawed person behind the make-up. Does he do the character more justice than Ledger? I'm not sure. I liked that Ledger was more physically animated. But I liked having some backstory on the character, which BATMAN provides. I suppose they didn't need to tell the tale twice in TDK. I do however like the actual Batman character better in '89 than in the Nolan era. It's much more clear that he is the hero by the way he appears in the shot. The bat is the symbol, but we always know he is the force of good to defeat the bad guys. Afterall this is super-hero story, so this distinction is much better than the whole "mixing up the heroes and villains" crap the Nolan's hurl at us. The action in B'89 is also not as brutal and jarring on the senses as the Nolan faire. In my view, TDK is just as nerve numbing as the jolty editing of QOS. Again, these are comic/superhero movies, I want to be able to enjoy what's happening, not feeling like I'm going into an epyleptic seizure. The music score of Batman 89, I thought fit the tone of the film well, as Danny Elfman and Tim Burton are always a familiar pairing. I don't love it, but it serves the mood. The Prince songs on the other hand, again add to the dated quality of the movie.

Overall, Batman '89 is not that great of a film. The photography is rather bland and most of the performances are pretty campy and bad. It doesn't hold up 23 years later. The Nolan films by contrast, look great, if a bit dizzying on the senses. They are much stronger in a craftstman sense of film-making. That being said, I have problems with the Nolan films. The main problem being, the idea of the hero of Batman is gone, and we're left with more of a psychological action flic. Tim Burton at least got the idea of Batman as hero right. This leads me to the question, did Chris Nolan even need to make the Batman reboot? What was the raison d'etre for these films? Sure they were huge successes, but did he really need the Batman character to tell those stories? I'm not really sure he does. Swap out the character names and city, and you could still have the themes and stories that Nolan lays out. I'm convinced that Nolan's films would have actually been better this way. You can address the theme of fear, vengeance, self-discipline, psychosis, widespread crime and hysteria more believably, than with super-serious characters dressing up in bat suits and make-up. The result is laughable to me. Batman works in a Tim Burton fantasy world with clear cut heroes and villains, but not necessarily in the hyper-realistic Christopher Nolan world.

FG Wells wrote:

The Nolan films by contrast, look great, if a bit dizzying on the senses. They are much stronger in a craftstman sense of film-making.

I prefer Burton's filmmaking style. I find Nolan's films interesting, but I don't care for the camera jumping all over the place all the time with no apparent aim. At least that's what I see.

BATMAN '89 is dodgy in a lot of respects. Especially in the writing. Nolan has better plots, but I prefer the dialogue from Burton's films. BB is nothing but shitty trailer dialogue to me. TDK is a slight improvement, but I don't care for the movie feeling like a long line 10-15 second scenes that are all about one, on-the-nose thing.

As for camp and all that, Burton was making a comic book, and Nolan feels like he's making HEAT with Batman.

I do find Nolan's Batman films to be very compelling, and I think I prefer TDK to BB. But I think maybe the first half of BB is the best, or works the best. It flows nicely, and Neeson makes it work well. Then it jumps the rails and feels plot-by-numbers once the giant Microwave of Doom is reported missing.

EDIT ADDON: I was considering watching BB/TDK tonight... Maybe I shall.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

I do find Nolan's Batman films to be very compelling, and I think I prefer TDK to BB. But I think maybe the first half of BB is the best, or works the best. It flows nicely, and Neeson makes it work well. Then it jumps the rails and feels plot-by-numbers once the giant Microwave of Doom is reported missing.

EDIT ADDON: I was considering watching BB/TDK tonight... Maybe I shall.

Agree on BB, the second half could have been the climax of any super-hero film from the 2000's. I was thinking of more of the photography in the Nolan films, especially in the first half with the Temple shots. It just looks like better film-making to me, or at least much more refined. The lighting looks really bad in BATMAN '89, especially in some of the street scenes.

Batman Returns is next up on my queue...

FG Wells wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

I do find Nolan's Batman films to be very compelling, and I think I prefer TDK to BB. But I think maybe the first half of BB is the best, or works the best. It flows nicely, and Neeson makes it work well. Then it jumps the rails and feels plot-by-numbers once the giant Microwave of Doom is reported missing.

EDIT ADDON: I was considering watching BB/TDK tonight... Maybe I shall.

Agree on BB, the second half could have been the climax of any super-hero film from the 2000's. I was thinking of more of the photography in the Nolan films, especially in the first half with the Temple shots. It just looks like better film-making to me, or at least much more refined. The lighting looks really bad in BATMAN '89, especially in some of the street scenes.

Batman Returns is next up on my queue...

I was talking more about how the camera is used. Burton has an idea of how to shoot, and he shoots it that one way from what I know. I don't think he gets much of any coverage. It's just the kind of filmmaking I like. As for lighting and such, I think Nolan's films look great. It's like QOS. It looks great, when you see WTF is happening.

BATMAN RETURNS is a lot more polished, I think. BATMAN is a bit... shabby. But it mostly has an engery to me, an energy that RETURNS doesn't actually have in my eyes. It feels like an event. And it also feels like a comic strip come to life.

Speaking of Burton's dialogue vs. Nolan's.
I remember Sharky accusing Nolan dialogue of sounding like "My Chemical Romance" lyrics, but frankly, Burton's isn't much better -- "a kiss is only deadlier if you mean it"? C'mon! What is that?
At the moment, the all-around best Batman films are animated -- MASK OF THE PHANTASM, RETURN OF THE JOKER, UNDER THE RED HOOD, YEAR ONE -- although I still think TDK did the best job in live-action.

As for Sharky's desire for films with social relevance and import, perhaps he could take a look at Paul Pope's work on Batman, wherein the Caped Crusader is an individualist hero fighting against totalitarian regimes in the " Elseworlds" stories of "The Berlin Batman" (casting Wayne as a German fighting the Nazi party from within in 1939) and "Batman: Year 100" (where Batman fights a dystopian US government in 2039)

Sykes, you're always late to the party.

FG Wells wrote:

I do however like the actual Batman character better in '89 than in the Nolan era. It's much more clear that he is the hero by the way he appears in the shot. The bat is the symbol, but we always know he is the force of good to defeat the bad guys. Afterall this is super-hero story, so this distinction is much better than the whole "mixing up the heroes and villains" crap the Nolan's hurl at us.

I do think Nolan could put more work into making Batman look like a hero visually, but where in his films are the good guys and bad guys not clear?

FG Wells wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

I do find Nolan's Batman films to be very compelling, and I think I prefer TDK to BB. But I think maybe the first half of BB is the best, or works the best. It flows nicely, and Neeson makes it work well. Then it jumps the rails and feels plot-by-numbers once the giant Microwave of Doom is reported missing.

EDIT ADDON: I was considering watching BB/TDK tonight... Maybe I shall.

Agree on BB, the second half could have been the climax of any super-hero film from the 2000's.

My take on it is that Begins enters dumbass American action mode for the climax. Gordon driving the Tumbler =\

"I gotta get me one of those!"

Yeah, I love the first half of BATMAN BEGINS but the second is increasingly conventional, action-driven and dull (not to mention increasingly shackled to the soundstage). The climax is indeed very tiresome.

Loomis wrote:

Yeah, I love the first half of BATMAN BEGINS but the second is increasingly conventional, action-driven and dull (not to mention increasingly shackled to the soundstage). The climax is indeed very tiresome.

I don't think it ever gets, in my view, bad. It just falls into by-the-numbers routine. And it's annoying that everyone gets to where they need to be automatically. The Tumbler just happens to land 10 feet from Gordon, and I seem to recall Rachel finding the exact same kid Batman saw earlier. It's just a little disappointing after the quality of the first two-thirds, even though that still has the "Nice coat" moment (ugh) and Rachel giving Bruce the same arrowhead thingy after 20 years and for no real reason it seems.

The final act of BB is still heads and tails over most superhero films I've seen.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Loomis wrote:

Yeah, I love the first half of BATMAN BEGINS but the second is increasingly conventional, action-driven and dull (not to mention increasingly shackled to the soundstage). The climax is indeed very tiresome.

I don't think it ever gets, in my view, bad. It just falls into by-the-numbers routine. And it's annoying that everyone gets to where they need to be automatically. The Tumbler just happens to land 10 feet from Gordon, and I seem to recall Rachel finding the exact same kid Batman saw earlier. It's just a little disappointing after the quality of the first two-thirds, even though that still has the "Nice coat" moment (ugh) and Rachel giving Bruce the same arrowhead thingy after 20 years and for no real reason it seems.

The final act of BB is still heads and tails over most superhero films I've seen.

Agree here, the end of BB was in some ways the 'nescessary evil' to sate the appetitie of the more traditional comicbook fans in real terms BB is a film in which Batman doesn't really appear till the very end so the mini-adventure to finish the tale was a means to take 'nearly Batman' and make him into something more recognisable. By comparison TDK has it easy, the sensibilities of the audience have been tested, and is therefore allowed a more consistent presentation.

[quote="Louis Armstrong"] I do think Nolan could put more work into making Batman look like a hero visually, but where in his films are the good guys and bad guys not clear?

There is more of a clear distinction in Burton's Batman. Echoing what Fairbane-Sykes wrote a few posts back. Nolan doesn't use the Batman image to great effect, as in the scene where he is standing on the ledge. There is very little visual flaire to that image. In Burton's one, Batman would appear as a silhouette in the background, with light in the background, a strong music cue, and then upon close-up the yellow insignia is made clear. There's a very traditional super-hero saves the day feel. In TDK, Batman feels more over-shadowed by the other characters in the film. Batman is also, essentially the misunderstood fugitive in TDK and doesn't receive any redemption by the end of the film. Batman Begins really plays up the origins story, so it feel like it's more like a character study of Bruce Wayne than Batman. Not to say these ideas aren't interesting to explore, and that the superhero stories aren't old hat at this point. I just think that if you are going to base a film around super-heroes, it's essential to play up the visual dramatic effect to make that world believable.