The Marvel/DC/Fox Pre-Expande Universe

The Dark Knight does a lot of things well, in areas where superhero movies are often weak. It keeps a strong pace throughout, avoiding a lot of the pacing issues that plague many superhero movies: Exposition Dump, long intro portions before things get moving, montages. It has a plot that's not predictable (even less predictable if you're not a comics reader), whereas with most comic book movies you can guess the ending and most of the middle based on the trailer alone. It had a villain who was dangerous, interesting, and posed a moral rather than merely physical or intellectual challenge to the hero. A villain who poses a moral or emotional challenge tends to produce the strongest superhero movies, because it enables them to have more going on than just watching costumed people punch each other.

The Dark Knight Rises, though, was utter dreck.

edited 8th May '17 6:31:35 PM by Galadriel

I think that because for a good while batman the dark knight really took the concept of villian make the plot since it can be resume to "the joker does something, the hero try to stop them, they fail, repeat 3 times until he kind of wins" very few super movies goes so far, only Civil war and Bv S and both "cheat" a lot in order to do that.

Also the dark knight is pretty much the most bleak and dark storu so far since the joker pretty much wins, it show the tone dosent mean story.

You know, if there is one comic book movie director that gets a lot of hate nowadays besides Zack Snyder, it's Bryan Singer. I remember a year ago when Apocalypse happened I saw a lot of discussion about how the "only good X-Men movie" (First Class) was notably not directed by him.

The old X-films have aged terribly, especially the costumes and fight scenes. And his return to the X-films didn't exactly go well from all I've heard of Apocalypse and DOFP....

Funny how the only superhero movie directors the Internet has it out for never did an MFU movie. That's not me being snarky, it's just interesting. Only Snyder and Singer really get hated on at any length from what I've seen, no other director.

edited 9th May '17 8:08:41 PM by Nikkolas

In a way, the X men show how much things have change since before, from the 2000 to marvel the idea of superhero was pretty much "they are guy who does stuff and have power...but they are NOT super" and the X show it well, they never their costume, they barely use their codename and overall it play closer to sci fi or concept idea that comic book.

Things have change A LOT, fans got more used to comic books movie being around and demand the most silliest aspect to be there, so rather than be movies with chararter that supose to be hero, they want the superheroes to be there, not surprising Guardian of the galaxy embrace this with open arms and for what it seen so those Ragnarok.

Watching Dark Knight Rises for the first time.

I've never been a huge fan of The Joker. I don't hate him - but my favorite TAS villains were Two-Face, Poison Ivy and Ra's. (It's kinda funny that Batman Beyond went out of its way to pronounce his name correctly in defiance of TAS but it looks like Nolan keeps saying it wrong.) The Joker is just overexposed and overdone and I feel like Two-Face is a better foe for Batman anyway. In The Dark Knight Returns which I just got done reading, it's mentioned Bruce has supported Harvey's attempted recovery for a long time. In spite of this being a cynical, drunken Batman, he clung to the hope that Harvey could reform. For obvious reasons. If Harvey could conquer his dark side, then so could Bruce.

But neither could win in the end. They were both damaged beyond the hope of salvation. The contrast between the White Knight and the Dark Knight was my also favorite part of TDK, not The Joker's ludicrous "if these people want to blow up these other people then what does that say about humanity?" It says nothing. Those two ships, whether blown up or not, mean nothing.

So I suspect a lot of the complaints about Dark Knight Rises stem from Bane just not living up to the legacy of The Joker. But while Ledger did a masterful job in portraying a very limited character, I don't think Hardy has such a huge mountain to climb, at least not for me.

I know for a fact some people have criticized how "Alfred abandoned Bruce" in this movie. Again, I've read TDKR. I've also seen Batman Beyond. There is no future for a Bruce Wayne who continues to be Batman. All he will ever know is darkness, loneliness and misery. Alfred is like a father to him and no father wants to see their son live such a miserable existence. What Alfred does here is commendable.

The Dark Knight Trilogy has never had what I would call amazing fight scenes but the Batman/Bane fight was...odd. The total lack of music is a weird choice, as is how unceremoniously Bane finishes him off. The breaking of the Bat has no fanfare. Bats doesn't even scream or groan. I don't get it.

And that was Dark Knight Rises. It was...very different from TDK. It feels like a "genuine" superhero movie, instead of an action flick featuring two guys in silly outfits. Nolan wasn't afraid to be over-the-top and even ridiculous. TDK was all about the grittiness and keeping everything as "real" as possible.

I suppose this creation of a movie unashamed to be larger-than-life pissed some people off.

Or maybe they were just sad like me when Bane got taken out like that. I mean, it was kinda funny, but this movie has a lot of anticlimax in it.

I wish Bane's revolution had been a real thing. I don't mind Talia being the real Big Bad but Bane actaully trying to create a weird anarchist state is interesting. Overall the movie just felt kind of hollow, as in I was more attached to the idea than to what was happening. Bale is just a terrible Batman and the only character I liked was Bane.

edited 13th May '17 8:07:23 AM by Nikkolas

Honestly, Alfred's first response should have been to have Bruce committed when the guy started talking about dressing up as a bat and beating people up. That's why the abandonment is so hated - him not approving of Bruce's life style makes sense. It's him not doing anything about it or even letting it go on this long that's the issue.

This could have been hands down the darkest Batman movie. You don't really get more fucked up than mob rule. But Nolan kinda sanitized the horror of things, presumably to maintain the tone and also to keep it PG-13.

Still a great speech, though.

edited 13th May '17 5:04:04 PM by Nikkolas

From what I've heard, "Raysh" and "Rahzz" are both accepted pronunciations of the Arabic Ra's, just different regional accents.

If you compare the tone and scope of the whole Nolan trilogy, it's rather odd. Batman Begins features a ninja league who claim they caused major historical disasters for thousands of years (the Black Death, the Great London Fire, etc). And they try to destroy Gotham with a fear-inducing toxin aerosolized via a microwave emitter. Then The Dark Knight is much more down-to-earth, with the Joker just using ordinary bombs. The only parts that strain credibility are how the Joker could set up some of his traps, and the exact nature of Harvey Dent's disfiguring. (Realistically, if Batman hadn't killed him, he'd have died from infections in a few weeks.) And then The Dark Knight Rises switches back to the scope of Batman Begins and then some. Fittingly, I think TDKR has more continuity nods to BB than to TDK (though I haven't sat down and counted yet).

The Dark Knight Rises has several problems, really. The romance with Selina isn't really well-developed or particularly insightful into either character's psyche, and Batman's arc in the movie doesn't really make any sense (he starts off physically broken, gets further physically broken, and somehow not only heals but is now strong enough to make Bane feel hurt even though he was shrugging them off earlier).

The movie also kind of suffers from not exploring the population of Gotham like TDK did (see: the ferry boat scene). In here they're just puppets for Bane or victims for Batman to save, which makes the endgame feel rather hollow compared to TDK.

There's also a subtle sociological undercurrent that's kind of Unfortunate Implications to TDKR. It's a movie where Bane's "revolution of the masses against the corrupt" is portrayed as overwhelmingly negative, and rather than the city saving itself, it's the corrupt police force that is the force of good in the end, rather than the citizens realizing Bane's evil and taking justice into their hands.

Bane being explicitly patterned after the occupy movement doesn't help matters.

DKR was ghostwritten by Frank Miller.

Or maybe Goyer is more Right Wing than I thought and Folding Ideas was onto something when hesaid TDK was Bush propaganda. Goyer apparently wrote a very similar character to Rises Bane in a Call of Duty game of all places. The false prophet who really just wants everyone dead and has gathered a following with empty promises.

But the military is presented as pretty bad here, dooming pretty much everyone to death because of Just Following Orders I have no idea what sort of political message is pro-cop but anti-military.

As forthe agency of Gotham citizens, the ending of TDK was a couple guys deciding to lie to everyone because everyone can't handle the truth.

edited 13th May '17 7:56:16 PM by Nikkolas

The Dark Knight did have those moments of obscuring the truth to the masses and Bruce's mass surveillance plot, but the movie at least tried to treat these as highly morally ambiguous actions as you can see by Gordon's speech in the end and Lucius Fox's calm disgust for Bruce's plan.

Part of what made the movie so appreciated when it came out was that it focused on to what extent heroes go to stop the villains and the lines they have to cross to stop them. The moment Alfred burns Rachel's letter is treated as outright tragedy, for example.

TDKR actively retroactively weakens TDK by proving that no, it was all heroism.

Also: I wouldn't say TDKR really treats military men as bad. They're more treated as ineffective, but not bad. The movie somewhat wants us to sympathize with them when we see their leaders agreeing not to nuke the city.

edited 13th May '17 8:49:05 PM by Gaon

Well it is one of the most idealistic Batman stories I've seen. The idea he can just put up the cape and live a normal life is something I'm not used to, nor do I personally believe it. But it's not my movie and they clearly wanted to tell a more straight hero story than TDK. It's why Bane is a physical/spiritual obstacle and not a debate partner like Joker was. Batman is already right (from the movie's perspective), he just has to prove he's right by conquering his foe.

I know some people react badly to the idea of Übermensch and that's cool. It makes an interesting superhero story to question these supposedly superior figures and what they do. But I don't really mind a story where the masses are helpless and it's up to a few extraordinary folks. That's just part of storytelling in...well, most everything.

edited 14th May '17 1:21:59 AM by Nikkolas

I mostly dislike the way the word Übermensch keeps getting misused.

It's funny, because Alfred's disapproving of Bruce's Batman activities is something we've only had since Frank Miller. Prior to Miller's take on Batman with The Dark Knight and, more germane to Alfred's characterization, Batman: Year One, Alfred was an enthusiastic supporter of all things Batman.

Honestly, if there's one thing of which I am supremely tired, it's super-hero films that seem mildly ashamed to be super-hero films.

What counts as ashamed to be superhero films?

I don't mind the concept of the people being hapless citizens and the heroes swooping in to save them, in general. I prefer when the citizens fulfill some role into the plot other than victims (the raimi spider-man movies were pretty decent with this, portraying civilians as at least trying to make a stand).

Thing is, TDKR is a sequel to TDK. That is in several ways it's main, crucial problem. If TDKR followed after Batman Begins it'd have been received way more kindly. TDK introduces several ambiguities and complexities TDKR just gives up upon. For example: Joker's plan isn't foiled by Batman. It's foiled by his thesis on human nature being proven to be wrong and mankind (i.e the two ferries) showing that no, humans aren't just selfish sacks of shit. But at the same time the movie undercuts that by showing Harvey Dent did do evil after what the Joker did, so the movie has this interesting ambiguity if the Joker is correct or not (the movie's answer is, more or less, "he's not entirely wrong"), which is quite rare for comic book movies to do.

The Dark Knight put the philosophical debate of the plot front and center and did some intriguing things with it. TDKR teases doing the same but chickens out. The movie sets up a vague conflict about "Gotham's reckoning" (presumably, the obscenely unequal society of Gotham being toppled over) but throws it away without a second thought (Gotham's reckoning means exactly jack shit other than "Bane takes the city hostage").

The idea of Bane as this dark prophet who guides the oppressed against their oppressors but in a very evil way is mostly theatrics and Unfortunate Implications, it has no real impact on the movie itself and Bane isn't even genuine about it, as he's just doing on Talia's behalf (who's just doing it for daddy's sake). This is very unlike Joker's whole battle for Gotham's soul. Hell, it's unlike Ra's' whole "this corrupt city must be cleansed" shtick. It's very shallow.

TDK likewise introduces the idea that Batman is kind of damned to live this martyr's life forever for the sake of Gotham ("We'll hunt him. why? because he can take it." and "You're the man who can make the choice no one else can make. Gotham needs you") and the entire movie supports this. TDKR just erases that without a second thought and has him live happily ever after with literally no consequences, which weakens the entire point TDK was trying to make and makes the entire movie make a lot less sense (Alfred's lying about Rachel ends up coming across as him just being a dick, for example).

This is why people wanted Bats to die at the end of TDKR. That's where the story was heading. The sharp turn to "no he can just live happily ever after" sticks out like a sore thumb. Bruce even has one dialogue in the trailers (but not in the movie) which teases this: Selina - "You don't owe these people anymore. You've given them everything." Bruce - "Not everything. Not yet."

TDKR seems to think it is a smarter movie than it really is, is part of the issue. It has all this religious and metaphorical symbolism to Bane (prophet of the oppressed, neo-terrorist, an embodiment of Batman's old age creeping up on him) but it's just fluff with no substance and the central thematic conflict of the movie amounts to little else other than "Big guy (for you) vs I'M BATMAN" while praising itself for being so clever.

Christopher Nolan thinking his movies are smarter than they really are is a running issue, actually.

edited 14th May '17 12:21:13 PM by Gaon

I think everyone gives Nolan's movies too much "intellectual" credit, which is precisely why TDKR doesn't bother me.

You won't hear any objection from me about changing Bane a bit and cutting out all the crap with Talia just wanting revenge. Keep the anarchist revolution, that was good. Focus more on his being banished from the League of Shadows vs. how Bruce was chosen to be Ra's heir. We see some of that anger in Bane when Bats taunts him during their first fight.

The movie just wasn't interested in another debate of ideas. Bane was a giant to be slain.

edited 14th May '17 5:14:18 PM by Nikkolas

I do agree Christopher Nolan's intellectual prowess is overrated. He has tendency to have characters monologue at length to the explain the audience what is going on (Alfred has several speeches in TDK that pretty much only serve to tell the audience what they're supposed to think) which has a 50/50 chance of working depending on the movie or scene they're in. Like, it's a pretty powerful scene but it is somewhat silly when you think about it that Gordon delivers his melodramatic "watchful protector, silent guardian" speech to a 8 year old who has very little idea of what the fuck he's going on about.

Other superhero movies had also fairly interesting themes but they're less verbose about it. Batman Returns has a goddamn maelstrom of philosophical discussion but it's mostly subtext and subtlety. Characters don't go at length about the philosophical ramifications of their actions.

But he TDK and Begins are pretty good movies, I would say. TDK brings a lot of interesting concepts to the superhero movie table and it is quite likely Nolan's third best film (after Following and Memento, in that order).

At the same time Nolan's films are exactly what one means when someone says "comic book movies that are afraid to be comic book movies". His portrayal of Gotham is literally Chicago (unlike the lush gothic world of Tim Burton) and he insists on stripping Batman of his entire mystique which severely limits his plot pool.

Zack Snyder's primary flaw to me is that he's trying to ape Nolan in the DCEU but he lacks Nolan's skill. Snyder is a man forever at war with himself because he's a man who can just craft generically cool action in the vein of 300 but he can't do anything with any semblance of depth despite being his life's entire goal. He's Stephen Sommers if he had delusions of grandeur, essentially.

I still think the most faithful Batman adaptation in atmosphere is Batman Returns. It's the exact type of storyline I can see being done in something akin to The Long Halloween.

Memento is actually quite brilliant in my opinion, far and away the best of Nolan's work. It has a lot less of what I would say is his biggest flaw (the characters literally explaining all of the themes and ideas of the movie in a melodramatic way that makes them feel more like ciphers), the characters feel less like ciphers and its "gimmick" is one of the most ingenius ways of telling a story in film I have ever seen. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it, it's honestly one of my top 5 favorite films.

Overall I actually think his Batman movies are probably the weakest pictures he's worked on, honestly. I would agree he has his fair share of issues but what I can say about his work is that I always felt I walked away feeling I had watched something that was interesting in some way. That's more than I can say about a lot of movies.

I used to be much more critical of the Burton films but my opinion on them has softened a bit over time. I really, really enjoy their audiovisual aesthetic and I don't think there's been a superhero movie that's really managed to top it in that regard since.

edited 14th May '17 5:47:34 PM by Draghinazzo

I agree entirely with Draghinazzo. But I find both Inception, The Prestige and Interstellar to be weaker than TDK. Interstellar is likely his worst. Prestige is mediocre and Inception is decent, about the same level as Begins, to me.

I find it almost a shame Burton never had a chance to do the Scarecrow, because the neo gothic surreal atmosphere of his Batman films plus his German Expressionism inspirations could have made Scarecrow fucking horrifying in a Cabinet of Doctor Calligari-ish way.

edited 14th May '17 5:49:50 PM by Gaon

The problem with Burton Batman movies, to me, is they're too silly. He puts on this big show of darkness and his Gotham is awesome, but there's no real dramatic weight to anything. It's too absurd. Batman '89 is just as ridiculous as West Batman, only now everything is blacker.

This worked for the time, same as how Singer's X-Men movies worked for the time. They showed superhero movies could be good and even interesting. But they've aged like an old piece of fruit. I enjoy Burton Batman movies as sort of weird black comedy romps more than as Batman films. And X-Men I don't enjoy at all because Singer is a hack.

I really don't want to argue about Snyder again but he's managed to produce the only Batman worth shit. Bale is awful as Batman. These movies work in spite of him, not because of him. And Keaton was, again, just too ridiculous. (Batman sleeps like a bat....) Affleck is the only actor who was both competent enough for the role and given the right direction to pull it off.

But all the best Batman movies are animated, anyway. Under the Red Hood and Return of the Joker are masterpieces compared to any of the live-action stuff.

That being said, this scene was the scariest shit ever when I was 8.

edited 14th May '17 6:06:38 PM by Nikkolas

It IS true that Burton Batman is still campy, just a darker gothic camp if any such thing ever existed.

Also the best animated Batman movie is Mask of the Phantasm.

edited 14th May '17 6:12:37 PM by Draghinazzo

Almost nothing is undeniable. Nothing is true, everything is permitted and all that.

I disagree with the notion the Burton movies are too silly (if anything, Returns is too unrelentingly grim. It's the most nihilistic Batman movie ever made). They're the right amount of silly. The thing really is Batman comics are inherently absurd in several ways, and the best writers realize this and capitalize on it. Gotham is corrupt to unrealistic levels and Batman keeps fighting a bunch of freaks in masks with colorful alias and absurd M.Os. But despite this inherent insanity to the Batman mythos it's also a world of dark human drama about a motherfucker dressed like a Bat. The world of Batman is the world of Bathos. It's both absurd and realistic. It's almost Magic Realism.

Nolan's problem is he plays the tone of dark human drama correctly, but he misses the mark by portraying the world as too straitlaced and mundane, missing the inherent contrast in the Batman mythos.

Tim Burton, if anything, was ahead of his time. His Batman movie (which came out in 1989) came in the heels (and was inspired by, on Tim Burton's own admition) The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and The Killing Joke (1988), two of the most famous kickstarters of the dark age of comic books which were stunningly recent when he was making the movie. By the time he made Batman, the silver age and Adam West Bats were still the public mainstream. He decided to go with the (then very novel) new, darker take on Batman.

He borrows from TDKR the idea that Bruce Wayne is the secret identity and Batman is the real self, which Keaton clearly portrays. The focus on Bruce Wayne as a highly traumatized and rage-driven individual whose main method is striking terror in his opponents is a pretty Miller-ish take on the character. Keaton's Bruce is a very awkward, strange fellow, similar to Miller's Wayne. The "who made who?" conundrum of Batman-Joker in the movie (where neither is quite sure who created who) is inspired by The Killing Joke.

Batman Returns almost seems to borrow from Grant Morrison's insanely Freudian Arkham Asylum in several ways with how absurdly psychological the movie is.

But I do agree the best Batman movies are animated. Return of the Joker is probably Batman's best film.

I don't really have a problem with Nolan's straitlaced interpretation of the setting and characters. It's just another take on a character that had already proven very flexible.

Gaon is correct is that Burton's Batman helped shape the popular conception of the character back to his darker roots, but even before Miller's TDKR, Neal Adams/Denny O'Neil and Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers back in the 70's were already laying the groundwork for taking Batman back in a darker direction. I'm not saying that contradict or lessen the impact that Burton's vision had on the character (because it was huge, especially when you consider how it shaped Batman The Animated Series), but it was also a culmination of a general trend to try and bring Batman back to his roots and try to tell and darker, more ambitious stories in comics in general.

As I noted in the other thread, I just read Dark Knight Returns and I have heard that it inspired everything from Burton to Nolan to Snyder. Those are three radically different takes on Batman, obviously.

I see what you mean about Miller inspiring Burton's "Bruce Wayne is the mask" idea but the Batman in DKR is psychotic. He's an old man raging against a hopeless world. An old soldier fighting a war he can never win because that's all he knows. It's rather depressing. I never got that feeling from Batman '89 and I admit I haven't re-watched Returns in years.

I always felt the truth of Bruce Wayne vs. Batman lay in the middle. He's not a billionaire playboy and he's also not a force of terror. These are ways he defines himself but none of them are truly him. The real him died with his parents and what has existed since then is a ghost wearing different disguises to try and seem like a person.