THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Pre-Release Thread - Page 63

 

Here is a twenty minute breakdown of some of the problems with the scene. A journey into the world of continuity:

 

 

For the record, I concede some of this fellow's points, but I kind of just rode with the scene. It didn't especially confuse or boggle my mind.

A very informed and smart critique of Emerson's critique:

 

http://josephkahn.blogspot.com/2011/09/analyzing-action.html

 

I tried to be circumspect about it, but somehow you deciphered it.  My post was a specific shot at you, and how disappointed I am in you.  May you never breed!

 

 

But seriously, there's a large gap between "the same frequency" and more than three hundred times more.  Just saying.  And I was including myself too.  I have posted two dozen times about this movie that hasn't even come out, and only made one substantive post about a movie that was the best last year had to offer.  I should never breed.

 

Forever ago, but anyway: those pretty little bows are the natural consequence of not being able to fundamentally change anything about the character. Change Batman or Spider-Man too much in the present, and they're not Batman or Spider-Man anymore. Change nothing about them, and there is no narrative arc or tension. But you can add all kinds of bells and whistles to anything and everything that got them to the point of actually being Batman or Spider-Man.

 

I agree with you, though. It gets creatively stagnant after a while.

Amidst all this discussion about the weird "second" reveal of the Bat at the end, a random thought occurred: I think it's the first time we've seen it can actually fly/maneuver more than just a vehicle that hovers a bit off the ground. Perhaps that's what they were trying to reveal with that shot (albeit not very effectively).

 

 

 

Hey, I started and account for 36% of the entire Raven post-release thread, mister!

That's nothing to be proud of. You monster.

Everybody go see A SEPARATION.  It's fantastic.

 

While I enjoyed it, I couldn't tell what was going on in the action sequences; the camera was too tight. Pretty good for its genre, though.

 

Maybe I'm what's wrong with cinema audiences today but when I was watching that scene the last thing I was thinking was "Waaaaitaminute, what side of the van is Dent sitting on?"

Whatever their faults--and they do have a lot of faults--the Burton films absolutely NAILED the tone a Batman movie should have. Dark and intense, but with a level of wit and whimsy, and most crucially, not even pretending to take place in the real world. I honestly think that's kind of important, and it's something that undercuts the Nolan films *A LITTLE BIT*. Nolan's films are begging for you to take them seriously, and they're good enough that you mostly can, but there's still a certain "this is IMPORTANT, dammit" vibe you get from the more insecure species of comics fanboy, or the New 52, or whatever. The quality is poles apart, but the spirit is the same. Whereas Burton's films feel far more confident that you'll meet it halfway and allow you to enter into a borderline fantastical world, which makes questions of how the Tumbler works or why no one recognizes Bruce Wayne as Batman (or why there's a murderous penguin-man living in the sewers) seem less relevant. It's clearly some kind of alternate reality. Which makes it ironic that Burton generally had a better handle on the superficial stuff like the costume and the Bat-voice.

 

If you could apply the more thoughtful character writing and thematic stuff of Nolan's films to the aesthetics of Burton's movies, you'd have something approaching the perfect Batman movie. Actually I more or less described the best of Batman: TAS there, which is why it's still my favourite on-screen iteration of Batman.
 

Maybe I'm what's wrong because I was. Didn't know there as a big to-do about that exact sequence. The video (and its rebuttal) are very interesting.

 

For the record, it didn't ruin the movie for me; it's just a curiousity like the cameraman in the mirror in A Christmas Carol. (and NO, I'm not saying anything is a blatant error).

 

Man, even in joke images the movie makes the geography of a dialogue scene unclear!  Just which side of the room is Batman on???  NOLAN, THAT HACK.

Prankster: I love Batman:TAS too, and it is also my favorite incarnation. But why *can't* we have an incarnation of Batman like this? Why does Batman *have* to not take place in the real world? If that's your preferred take, that's fine, but I don't think it should be some sort of requirement. From Nolan, I don't sense any insecurity at all. He's always been a very confident director.

 

I agree that Burton nailed the tone of Batman (in '89, anyway) but I've always felt that DC's setting of their heroes in "unreal" & "hyper-fantastical" cities has always been their Achilles Heel. The Schumacher films went overboard portraying Gotham as a "gothic comic book" city, thus expanding the tone of the Batman into the world around - and it was campy as fuck. Nolan went the polar opposite way by treating Gotham like a real city in the real world. This "hyper-realistic" ultimately drowns out the core tone of Batman, the character.

 

I prefer the latter's "real world" approach and believe that a "foundational realism for the fantasy" has actually always been Marvel's greatest strength. That's the magic of Marvel - they can go off the deep end into the cosmic whatever - and it's all based in our world, which makes the fantasy that much more fantastic.

 

With the "real city vs fantasy city" thing, Superman '78 is the one DC movie that hit that balance perfectly. Metropolis was clearly late 70s NYC and the movie was that much better for it.

 

No, I don't mean to imply I have a huge problem with it. There SHOULD be multiple iterations of Batman, with different styles and tones. But I do think Nolan's films occasionally bump into a wall when it comes to their demand to be taken seriously. Nolan's particular brand of po-facedness might play better in a more surreal, Burtonian world. When you try to ground it in "reality", stuff like the Bat-voice tends to stick out a bit more. Nothing wrong with the idea of doing a "realistic" Bat-flick, but I actually feel like a more light-hearted, or at least less self-important, tone might have suited the world of Nolan's movies a little better.

 

It's a minor concern, I hasten to add. I still really like Nolan's movies. But you have to admit there are awkward bits and stuff that's easily parodied.

 

But those are misjudgements by specific filmmakers. The idea of doing a "hyper-real" or expressionistic world has worked a lot in the past, not just for comic books and comic book movies. As I mentioned, Batman: TAS pretty much nailed it--sure, it was animation to begin with, but that's one of the reasons animation works at all, and it's essentially on the same plane as the Burton movies in that regard.

 

Maybe I'm a little regretful because we so rarely see this kind of expressionistic filmmaking these days, whereas I grew up with it in the 90s. But I think it's perfectly suited to comic book movies. Even Marvel movies could use a little more of this kind of flair (though I agree those should be a little closer to "reality". But come on, we're talking about a reality created by Jack Kirby, and "realistic" is one thing his art is not.)

 

OK, I get what you mean. Hell, even I make fun of stuff like the Bat-voice or some of the hammy extras (though none of them are as bad as the ones in Spider-Mans 1 and 3).

Also, as per the Joe Chill discussion a page or two ago, I agree that this is another thing TAS got right, the idea that Batman's parents' killer should remain nameless and faceless...that it's just the concept of "crime" rather than a specific guy he can get revenge on. But Joe Chill in Nolan's version isn't too bad--the important point is that Bruce doesn't get revenge directly. And it could be argued the whole movie is about him realizing there's a whole system at fault rather than a single guy he can blame for everything (Ra's Al Ghul being the same idea writ large).
 

^

I love that myself. It becomes less about vengeance, and more about trying to create a world where what happened to Bruce can't happen to anyone else.

Which is why I've always felt like Batman's quest was more like a crusade than anything else. You look at Spider-Man and it's he mindset of a young kid. He's just trying to stop bad people and most of the time he is having fun at it. But Batman is the mindset of a fully aware adult, pushing his 30s to 40s. He looks at it like a war. Which is why Nolan parallels some of that to the War on Terror in TDK. But again, that isn't Bush analogy. It was all to remain relevant to our times. 

What I find most interesting about the Marvel vs. Dark Knight films is that, generally, the Marvel heroes struggle with believable and real-world emotional problems and life issues, while someone like Batman's conflict is so abstract, especially in the Nolan films -- "saving the soul of Gotham" and whatnot -- that in the end, it comes off more "unreal" than anything in Spider-Man. Maybe it's a bit of a tired thing to say by now, but the characters feel real in the Marvel films, even when they're alien Norse gods. In The Dark Knight, they just try to get the gadgets right.

I'll still take that gadget approach. When I watch Marvel's films, the majority of the time it feels like I'm watching one, long toy commercial. I sense that's the adult in me talking (not that I'm calling anyone immature in their preferences).

I would have to disagree. The Dark Knight films might talk abstractly about their goals and be philosophical about them, but the films do more of presenting a living city full of inhabitants that deserve to not be afraid. At least there are faces in the films to fight for. There's something completely one-dimensional about most other superhero films when it comes to why Superheros protect whom. The Dark Knight really nailed the reasons in its third act, and Rises is urgently and interestingly continuing to put a face to the people of Gotham. 

 

This is an incredibly good thing and it's really going to make the moment Batman is triumphant feel very special indeed.

 

But I would say the fact that the Marvel films embrace their comic book origins and don't deny or resent the fact that they're making a piece of commercialized entertainment like Nolan does is exactly what makes me prefer them. The Nolan films exist pretty much only to sell toys too, but they've somehow convinced everyone that's not the case, and that's part of what irritates me about them.

 

I don't think Nolan's Batman struggles with things that are so abstract and unreal. Figuring out what is too far when pursuing your passion. Finding out your passion owns you, and has led you to do things you thought you'd never do. Finding out the good and bad are blurry lines, not sharply drawn, and struggling to find your own path walking those lines. Placing your faith in someone you think has it more together than you do....only to see them fall apart, and its effect on your own hopes and view of self.

 

These seem like eminently understandable and fairly universal struggles, and I think they're very present in the Nolan films.

 

IMNSHO, it's the humor in the Marvel films that provide that extra connection with the viewer. Nolan's just not a funny guy. Neither are his protagonists, by and large. I'm fine with the heaviness in the films, but I also really dig the humor in the Marvel films.

 

You might very well be correct from the WB execs POV. I think you're completely wrong WRT Nolan, Bale, and a lot of other folks involved in making the actual film.

 

(And this isn't me being a Nolan fanboy. I don't think Singer made the X-Men films to sell toys. The studio sure might have, but I don't think Singer, McKellan, and company had toy-selling as their primary objective.)

 

I dunno if I agree. The Spider-Man movies always felt like they portrayed a New York full of excitingly real and authentic-seeming inhabitants, while still making Spider-Man an authentic and relatable character himself. I'd rather have something like Avengers, which gets the whole main cast exactly bang-on while still accepting itself as a comic film, than a superhero movie that focuses on portraying a realistic cityscape with social stratification and whatever. There's The Wire for that, and Batman will never do it better.

One he knows is endless. He's unhealthy in his drive. It's why Bats is the most enduring out of all the capes and has had the most frequent adaptations - the dude has problems!

 

Well yeah, it's pretty clear Nolan doesn't think he's making the movie to sell toys. But that's why it exists -- if it didn't sell toys, it wouldn't have become a movie. The Marvel films embrace their place in that consumer culture, while The Dark Knight seems to be covering its ears and shouting loudly until the cameras are done rolling. I just prefer my comic book movies to actually want to be comic book movies. It feels more genuine to me, and hence more enjoyable.

There's a place for both.

 

You had 4 movies prior that embraced the commercialization of the property. Does every single interpretation have to follow the same blueprint in order to avoid being labeled resentful of their source material? Because that's how that comes off. What's wrong with skewing a conventionally kid-friendly property more toward an adult one when there's more than enough of the former to choose from? It's a healthy exercise, as far as I'm concerned.

 

Also, I bet that toy sales, in comparison to the Burton/Schumacher eras, are down. Which we should celebrate! Because it's not being driven from a majority-marketing perspective.

 

 

 

Indeed-ily do!

Yeah, I don't get this "all comic book movies need to be a certain way" sentiment. You have plenty of places to turn for the fun, colorful, toyetic stuff. And Batman will probably be more that way next time around. I just don't get the begrudgement towards the Nolan films. They're good movies. You don't have to love everything about them, but I feel like they at least deserve some kudos for being ambitious for the subgenre.

Definitely don't disagree with the thinking here at all, but is it possible to give them kudos for their ambition and for doing something different while still being somewhat put off by how overly serious/faux-real they are? I think a comic book film can go in a number of directions, but it's as possible for something like TDKR to be "too serious" just as much as it's possible for something more traditionally comic bookish to be "too much like a comic book". Absolutely I concur that the school of thought which suggests comic book films need only one blueprint is blatantly incorrect, but I think it's certainly reasonable to be turned off by a movie that goes overboard in one direction or another.

 

This is nonsense. Have you ever watched or read an interview with the man? He always talks about the sense of spectacle he's trying to evoke, he knows he's making entertainment, but continues along a certain thematic line that will keep him invested in the material. He can't suddenly be Joss Whedon, he can't suddenly be Jon Favreau, or whomever. I don't care much for Star Wars, but did the people who made those films go out of bounds when they tried to make you feel all of familial turmoil and loss and resurrection because, lord knows, those movies are just about selling toys?

 

John Glover once remarked about working on B&R that it was really difficult to do because Schumacher kept belting out directions like "Remember people, this is a cartoon!" He never felt like he was making anything because that movie was being made by a guy who had the studio's hand up his ass. Several years later, Goyer brough up the first meeting that he and Nolan had with WB execs where they showed graphs and charts and profit possibilities an so on, and he remarked that it was basically the execs way of warning them not to "fuck this up."

 

The man knows where the suits' interest lie*, and he accomadates them while making the best genuine (and genuinely entertaining) film that he knows how to make. Just because there aren't toys for prestige films released in the fall doesn't make those films any less crass or commercial. That's an illusion if there ever was one.

 

 

 

 

 

*And he's successfully worked the business angle to get crazy rich himself.

 

Thank you.  It boggles my mind that there are so many individuals that seem to agree with such a self-defeating notion that all Superhero comic-book movies should be fun and colorful, and that Nolan's take is stupid/droll/pretentious because it strives to be a bit more serious than most other cape films.  That's not to say I find Nolan some type of savior of the comic-book movie, or even that TDK is a flawless entity that shouldn't  ever be criticized; but, it's absolutely amazing how much hostility some people have for the franchise precisely because it chooses not to embrace some of the more fantastical elements of the Batman mythos.

 

 

 

Someone give this man an award.

Of course no one can argue as to what approach you personally enjoy more. I like both approaches myself. But the "backlash" or whatever you want to call it towards the Nolan films seems to run on this "this is too serious for a comic book property" engine, and that engine is bunk. There is nothing objectively or inherently wrong with Nolan's approach to the material. That's all I think any of the "defenders" are trying to say.

Even at it's most serious, deepest, Batman will always be about a guy who runs around dressed as an animal, a story that primary coasts to children and makes them buy toys. Yeah.

 

I don't care whether that's presented light and winking, or dark and serious, as long as it's well made either way. Loved Avengers and very looking forward to TDKR.

 

 

It's strange. I find Nolan's take to be extremely fun because it happens to be stimulating my mind and not just my eyeballs. As I said earlier, the first hour of Batman Begins is some of the most exciting superhero stuff I've seen and it's basically just people talking! That sort of stuff makes for better re-watching than most action set-pieces.

 

This actually cuts to the heart of the Marvel/DC debate, though from the pro-Marvel perspective. I've actually always been more pro-DC. Marvel's more about character, DC's more about big ideas. Done poorly, the DC style ends up being ridiculous, campy nonsense, or completely detached from humanity, but done well it can be the more thoughtful and intellectually interesting of the two styles. Ever since Alan Moore stepped in, some of the best DC stories have been about exploring the platonic ideal of the superhero, or its consequences...Watchmen isn't set in the DCU (NO IT ISN'T SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP) but it's provided the model for what can be done with the DC philosophy. It's kind of like good science fiction, which tends to deal with big ideas that transcend individuals, though of course you want to keep it grounded in character to avoid making it too abstract.

 

Marvel's approach can cause problems, too--sure, it was always thrilling to have superheroes feel like real, flawed humans and deal with ideas that are closer to everyday life, but without a larger ideal it can easily devolve into pointless, solipsistic soap opera, which it frequently has.

I don't find any theme in Nolan's Batman films to be all that deep.

 

 

And I do understand why people like Nolan's films, I just find his approach boring.

This seems somehow relevant. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/01/a-batman-for-every-season

I don't think people are actually complaining that TDK tries too hard to make a serious, thoughtful point, but rather that TDK has no no idea what that serious, thoughtful point actually is, and the movie becomes a difficult bit of gloomy fury.

I like Begins quite a bit, though.

They're complaining about both things, but to your point, to intimate that Nolan isn't saavy enough to understand his own film is pretty insulting. For the record, I'm confident that he's successfully been hyper-critical of the character and his motivations w/out ever really showing his hand. The man's entire Filmography is sneaky like that.

TDK thoughtfully explores many ideas, the primary one being the complicated grey area of morality in a post 911 America. Like most good art, it isn't about having a "point" per se, but it is about exploring ideas and letting the viewer draw their own conclusions. I think what makes it unique and resonant as a superhero movie is that superheroes and villains are characters that traditionally operate with a black and white morality, so to put these archetypes up against such a morally conflicted background makes for a challenging and operatic morality play. It's an apporach that revolutionized crime films back in the 70's and 80's, so to update it to a superhero setting in the 00's seems like a natural throughline, as those films are the clear cinematic antecedents to TDK. I also think that it is just a good, entertaining story, which at the end of the day is the real "point".

^

We need to bust out that applause sign again for you, Sebastian.

Thanks. But my point is mainly that if I can come up with that reading of TDK, I'm sure it occured to the guy who made the movie. The idea that TDK doesn't know its own mind is patently absurd.

 

Hear, hear!

 

And to pinpoint why it's entertaining is because it's engaging. It's just different. No other filmmaker has done this before with a story based on much more ridiculous fare. But honestly, when a kid picks up a Batman comic, even today, do you really think they view it has simple-minded fun or do they take the character deadly seriously? 

 

It works here because it's inherit to the source material. It's given a way to be. Whereas you have the new Spider-Man coming out, riding on the coat-tales of Dark Knight's statistics and it just doesn't feel right. It was manufactured. Not an organic or thematic conclusion of creativity. 

 

I love the simple black and white morality stories like the next guy. Star Wars is great fun. Indiana Jones is great fun. There's just something more I can chew on with Nolen's Batman that no other recent superhero film has been able to feed me. And having watch the Rises trailer for the upteenth time, I can feel the adrenaline pumping to the end of an incredibly layered, and emotional story I've been attached to for 7 years.

 

EDIT: Also in response to Shumacher's way of directing, "Remember, this is a cartoon," even Steven Spielberg said that in order to make Raiders of the Lost Ark he had to believe it. He believed that there were Nazis chasing after a real God-possessed ark and Indiana Jones was this gun-slinging archeologist. He took it seriously in spite of the fact that the whole thing is based off 30's pulp stories.

Edited by Carnotaur3 - 5/2/12 at 4:53pm

 

As is the argument that it's "not really about anything," which you also neatly dismantle.

 

I think it's fair to criticize TDK for a lot of things, and even more fair to just not like it. I don't understand that, but, hey, YMMV. Claiming it has no depth and that the Nolans were ignorant of or didn't care about underlying ideas and themes just seems.....really off-base.