The Dark Knight Rises Anticipation Station

Wolfgang Petersen is dead to me.

Does that count?

I like that accent.

The point about distaff counterparts is well taken, but man, have you seen these Batman movies? Total sausage-fests. Catwoman may be the first female in a Nolan Bat-flick who's more than a plot cipher.

Two hour movie. Besides Two-Face I don't think any of the villains in Nolan's films so far have had anyhting I'd call an appreciable character arc.

The problem with Harley Quinn is a Joker fangirl in a film without the Joker - regardless of whether or not she's ever met him - seems besides the point. It's a nemesis intentionally drawing reference to some other nemesis who isn't here.

They learned people really liked The Dark Knight (Joker, Two-Face) and Batman Begins (Ra's, Scarecrow). I don't blame them for repeating the process, but sure, I'd be happy with a movie with just, let's say, Catwoman.

 

I mean, I have an annoying, overblown regional accent too. But I don't expect to see it in the media unless it involves the line "squeal like a pig."

Most of my complaints are about how crummy a comic book character Harley Quinn is. On the other hand, the only time I've ever been remotely interested in her is this image I saw of a fan-made poster of her done up in the Nolan style. Which is to say, ugly and nasty. I saw that and said, "That's conceivably a compelling character that I might go to the local cinema to see, without worrying why everyone else has slipped their hands in their pockets."

 

There is a simple way you could do Harley without the Joker. The Joker's chaotic war on Gotham in the last movie had a profound effect on the city. There could be a young impressionable girl who viewed what he did and became obsessed with the ideals that the Joker embraced. This girl was inspired to take on a persona of her own and go out performing her own acts of chaos on his behalf. She calls herself Harley Quinn and her outfit is similar to the one that the character has in Arkham Aslyum/City the video games. She's a anarchist/goth chick.

Or if you wanted, you could have the more traditional Harley origin of her becoming corrupted by Joker and his ideals while interviewing him as his "counselor" during his incarceration in Arkham. There are a multitude of ways you could introduce Harley in the Nolanverse had he chosen to use her.

 

For anyone who hasn't played the game here's Harley's Arkham Asylum outfit, and Arkham City (I prefer this one myself). I could easily see the City outfit working in a Nolanverse movie. IMO the Asylum outfit is still a little to OTT for it to really work in the Nolanverse.

 

The hell are those platforms supposed to be useful for?

Anyway, here's a noodler, to fill some time until we can talk about new stuff:

Batman is a violent man who only marginally cares about the government and does not care about the law, but is obsessed with his idea of justice.

Batman will never kill and, when it is within his power, does not permit other people to do so.

Given these facts, should Batman be violently opposed to, say, the State of Texas?

 

Everybody should be opposed to Texas.

 

You know, it's probably the height of hubris to think that I've actually come up with a new (if limiting and flawed) approach to Batman, too. I'm willing to bet there are at least half a dozen stories where he knocks out a power plant and every back-up generator so that Zsasz doesn't get electrocuted. And Grant Morrison has read every one of them.

Actually, I can think specifically of one story where Batman cleared the Joker of a crime he didn't commit so that "Gotham State" or whatever state it was wouldn't execute him. Although that's a little different, since presumably he'd have let it happen if the Joker had actually committed that specific murder that he was sentenced to death for.

 

Yes, you could remove the Joker from her backstory entirely. I'm not sure if that really leaves her as a recognizable character, though.

The alternatives boil down to her being directly tied into and talking about a character who ain't in your movie, as I've observed above.

I'd assume Batman is against the Death Penalty, yeah. If he's involved at all politically it's something I could see him trying to repeal with that sweet, sweet megacorporation moolah of his.

 

They are not facts.

 

I don't think that would be too hard to pull off, considering anybody who sees the new movies will very likely have seen TDK.

 

I love Texas, it's an awesome state...

I disagree, we never see him kill bc it was and will be a comic originally, but if he was irl and faced off against a child rapist or something like that, I could see him dropping them off a building and just not caring.

 

Did a search and found these...





I think she looks a little too morbid.

Here's another version...



Those shots are from the same site as the Catwoman pics I posted earlier. I find the red outfit especially impressive. It's a nice piece of semi casual-wear that captures the "Crazy Joker Fangirl" spirit of Harley Quinn without looking as dark as the pics above or too over-the-top cartoony. And I suspect that a Nolan version of the character could still include a straight-up jester outfit, but in the right context.

 

^The top one was the one I liked, and the other two below it are basically fine as well. The cosplay chick in a dress cut like a teddy, on the other hand, is pretty much every thing I dislike about Regular Harley Quinn, and more, since at least Regular Harley Quinn does wear pants (however sexualized, and if only for a few more months).

Fact-based conclusion, then. If you disagree, name all the folks Batman's offed, and all the times he's allowed, say, Jason Todd to shoot someone when he could stop him. I forget how or if he reacted to Manhunter in Los Angeles, but maybe that was too far away for him to realistically do anything about it. Hey, I'm willing to be proven wrong.

And I can actually name one person Batman did try to straight-up kill, and that was Darkseid. New gods evidently don't count, probably because Morrison could recognize that extending your no-kill policy to the physical manifestation of the concept of fascism is pretty stupid, even for a comic book.

 

Obviously, but that's actually the problem here.

The audience will no doubt do plenty of comparing the villains of your new Batman movie to the last one. Do you really want one of your villains being a character who's whole shtick is enthusing over how awesome the last movie's villains were on their behalf?

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ULSvR6hhyI[/yt]

 

"Reasons why the Burton Batman was, in many ways, the best Batman."

 

Not to mention all of the deaths from Batman blowing up the chemical factory down by the river!! /Farley

 

The Tumbler is back.

 

Well i guess it wouldn't be Nolans Batman without the BaTumblerMobile.

 

Not surprised to see it back. After all I believe the one Bruce had was a prototype. He probably just asked Lucius for another one I think that looks like the Bat-Pod behind it to me.