Batman...

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Warped9, Jun 2, 2012.

  1. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, I saw that program. They look at the file info and it says:

    Last Modified By: Dennis :guffaw:
     
  2. the G-man

    the G-man Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I don't know about that. Carrey turned out to be a very good actor. I think he could have pulled off menacing if given the chance. I mean, just look at this face.
     
  3. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    I see that a bit more fitting for a Nolan Verse Penguin.
     
  4. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Agreed, although apparently Mr. Nolan is NOT a fan of the Penguin character.
     
  5. Admiral James Kirk

    Admiral James Kirk Writer Admiral

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    I would say that a Nolanverse Riddler should be like Jiggsaw from the Saw series with his convoluted planning and insane traps but he already did the Jiggsaw thing with The Joker in TDK.
     
  6. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Probably because of the bullshit Burton did with him. You could really make The Penguin in the Nolan Verse a pure evil mobster Kingpin like Tony Soprano mixed with Tony Montana or something.
     
  7. Admiral James Kirk

    Admiral James Kirk Writer Admiral

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    If he didn't want to do The Penguin as a little, penguin-like fat guy, he could have just made him a mobster who likes to wear tuxedos. It's not like Oswald Cobblepot is Killer Crock or Man-Bat. He wouldn't have shattered Nolan's oh so precious "reality". :lol:
     
  8. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Well that's what The Penguin is supposed to be! He's just an odd-looking, needlessly dapper, mobster kingpin. What Burton did with The Penguin was just beyond absurd. And by "odd looking" I just mean he's short, fat and ugly. Not at all supposed to look like a penguin except in the most vaguest of ways.
     
  9. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    If I were doing a Nolan-style Penguin, I'd set him up as this anonymous crime boss, and Cobblepot as this very respected, upper-class scion of a famous, wealthy family. Only gradually would we come to realize that the Penguin and Cobblepot are the same man, and that his family's great wealth has always been backed by a corrupt criminal syndicate with the government in its pocket.
     
  10. the G-man

    the G-man Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Man, how great a Paul Giamatti/Nolanverse Penguin could have been.
     
  11. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I think a Nolan verse Penguin and Riddler would be very similar to the versions we saw in Arkham City. I've called the Arkham games a near perfect merging of the Timm'Verse and Nolan'Verse before. Penguin was awesome in that game, and he's been pretty much a manipulating gangster character for a while now. Using the Iceberg Lounge as a front for his operations.
     
  12. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    But then what's the difference between him and a Sal Maroni from TDK?

    He's just an uglier mob boss? Take away the monocle, tuxedo, umbrella, etc. and that's basically what you get, right?
     
  13. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Commodore Commodore

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    Its not just Danny Devito's version of the Penguin. There is not much complexity to him. Which is why he has often being reinvented with only the name and the parts of his clothes and appearance remaining.
     
  14. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Well, The Penguin could be made a bit more complex with some deeper motivations. Maroni/Falcone were just regular mob bosses pretty much criminal masterminds. The Penguin could have been made to have darker ambitions to utterly take down and destroy Gotham from within as a bit of revenge for a lifetime of ridicule.
     
  15. ALF

    ALF Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The version of The Penguin in the game Arkham City is the winner.
     
  16. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    Batman Begins (2005) *****

    Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City to fight the city's criminals.

    I'd forgotten how much I had enjoyed this film. As big a step upward as the 1989 Batman was over what had preceded it Batman Begins takes it to another level. There is very much a Batman: Year One feel to this movie. Yeah, they fudge Batman's origins by adding Ras al Gul into the mix too soon, but aside from that they put it all together rather well. Also I really like that for this reboot they avoided the Joker the first time around and gave us an interesting take on a lesser known villain, the Scarecrow.

    With any superhero film you're going to get a fair amount of symbolism and exaggeration, but you can offset that with a good dose of realism to foster a decent suspension of disbelief. Nolan jettisoned Tim Burton's Gothic like Gotham City for something of a more modern feel. Nolan's Gotham is a mix of contemporary and post WW2 look to it.

    One aspect of this film makes it feel older than more current superhero films: it takes its time building the foundations in the beginning. Everyone knows the basics of Batman's origin and yet the first half of the film is very much focused on Bruce Wayne before the Batman persona is invented. I found myself liking this although I could see how someone else might get more impatient for Batman to finally appear onscreen.

    One thing that surprised me was the infamous growling Batman voice didn't seem so pronounced this time around. Only a few times did it feel just a touch overdone while the rest of the time it sounded mostly like Christian Bale's voice pitched a bit lower.

    I recall a lot of criticism over the Rachel Dawes character when this film came out, but again this time around I really didn't have any issue with her. I felt all the characters were decently done in this. I liked Gary Oldman's take on Gordon although I could quibble about introducing him so soon in Bruce's life. I really liked Morgan Freeman's portrayal of Lucius Fox.

    I was one of the many who didn't care for the new "Batmobile," the Tumbler, when early pics surfaced, but seeing it in action onscreen I near instantly bought into it. I certainly like it more compared to the Batmobile of the previous four films. It look much more like what a more realistic Batman would have at his disposable rather than an overly designed show car.

    I really liked a lot of the imagery in this film. I also appreciated the more serious sensibility to it and with the camp elements turned way done to almost zero.

    In the end this was a damned good start to Nolan's Batman trilogy of films. It certainly had me pumped for its sequel.
     
  17. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Camp elements at almost zero? I'd say they were completely at zero! :)
     
  18. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Commodore Commodore

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    "Camp" is a term that is used so often and in different ways it can mean anything now.

    Most people tend to associate it specifically to the Adam West tv show. But it has history and meaning that is bigger than that.

    Some think Superheroes are Camp in any form regardless of how seriously they are done. It is a adult man going out at night in a Bat costume after all.
     
  19. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^Camp is presenting something in an exaggerated and farcical way in order to poke fun at it. If the intent is to treat it seriously, then it's not camp.


    I think Batman Begins is a flawed and uneven film. The parts of it that feel like a character-driven indie drama are awesome, but the big action set pieces are pretty stupid and feel tacked on to meet the expectations of a summer blockbuster. First you've got the part where Bruce says he refuses to kill, and then immediately, deliberately throws a hot poker into a munitions dump and kills a whole bunch of people. That was unforgivably stupid and wrong, assassinating the character and throwing logic under a truck just to meet a mandated quota of explosions. Then there's the climax where a microwave weapon is somehow powerful enough to flash-vaporize all the water underground (and somehow able to penetrate the metal pipes in the first place) and yet doesn't boil the water inside people's bodies and kill a whole bunch of people (who are also oddly unscalded by all the superheated steam all over the place). Not to mention the needless complication of turning a toxin into a waterborne form just so you can then vaporize it. Why not just make it airborne in the first place? Who's the League of Shadows's strategic planner, Rube Goldberg? That whole thing is just complete nonsense and physical impossibility on every level, and it belongs in something as ridiculous as the Burton or Schumacher movies, not in a realistic universe like Nolan's.

    So BB was a very flawed movie that only got it half right. It wasn't until TDK that things really came together, either because Nolan had figured out how better to integrate action into his realistic approach, or because he was under less pressure from the studio and got to do things his own way.

    I never really had a problem with Katie Holmes as Rachel; I think she did a perfectly acceptable job, but happened to be surrounded by really brilliant actors who were operating on a higher level.
     
  20. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

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    I normally despise origin stories in superhero movies because we all know the story intimately, but Batman Begins is the only one where I actually preferred the first half of the movie to the second half. It was that well done. Bruce's rage and pain, the international locations, Ra'sh Al Ghul, it was all just perfect.