Superman (casting, rumors, pix till release)

[Nerys Myk]

I'm curious as to why he hated TDK so much.

[Gojira]

kirk55555 wrote:

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Well, that link just confirms that I'll hate the movie. This quote in particular is what I'm talking about

I figured Nolan would be the main person behind the story, and I HATE The dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises (TDK being my second most hated movie of all time after JJ's 2009 abomination) so, from my perspective, this is really the worst Superman movie that could possibly be made. Well, actually, I suppose they could have gotten JJ to direct it, at which point the movie would suck so badly it would cause a rift in the space time continuum and destory the universe.

Still, its going to be bad. Also, the line about it not being dark or brooding seems like a complete lie. Nolan cannot do a movie without brooding and being overly dark (not to mention horrible characters and a plot almost as bad as what the geniuses behind Transformers and ST 2009 write, but that isn't as much a producer thing, so maybe those areas might be slightly less incompetent then they were in TDK and Rises since he's just producing). I guess that, like with Batman and Spider-man, I'll just have to hope that, in 10 years or so, we'll have a reboot that turns out a good movie. I really hope the movie just bombs. I want it to fail in ways that make Superman Returns look like a blockbuster. Then, maybe Nolan will just go away and leave superheros alone.

That said, I'll probably see it on DVD, out of morbid curiosity if nothing else. I got through Rises even knowing I'd hate it (I don't hate Rises quite as much as TDK because I was prepared for it to suck, but it was a horrible movie). Man of Steel will be another trainwreck movie. I know it will suck, but I'll watch it to see how badly it sucks. Based on the trailer, which had things like bearded (hobo?) Clark and Johnathon Kent telling young clark he should have just let a bus full of children drown, this may get into so bad its entertaining territory, which is honestly the best case scenario for it.

I have my issues with TDK and the TDKR but I certainly do not hate them. Nolan can be too complex and dark and I wished he would have simplified the plot and made it a little more fun but besides that they were really well done.

I have not seen anything so far to put me off on the Man of Steel. I just wish you could be a little more open minded about the movie. You have pre-judged it and in that frame of mind you may just end up confirming your bias.

[kirk55555]

Well, I don't want to get into a war about it, but I'll just list a few things I disliked about the dark knight. I'm not trying to start an argument, or derail the thread. (Note: List is not really in order, i'm just typing my reasons as I think about them, and this list is only for TDK, not Rises, although some problems would fit for both) also, its in a spoiler for 1) length and 2) so people who don't care can easily ignore my post. Like I said before, I'm not trying to start a discussion, just stating a few of my problems with TDK.

Christian Bale is horrible. He sucks as Wayne, he sucks as Batman, and his stupid bat voice just really takes away any credibility he might have had. I'm surprised the criminals don't laugh at him as soon as he opens his mouth. The way he's written is bad enough, but Bale just isn't great when it comes to acting. Writing wsie, Bruce didn't have the commitment that Bruce usually has, he was constantly questioning and whining. Its ok if he sometimes wonders if he's doing the right thing, but in the end batman is committed to crimefighting. He doesn't need to spend so much time being so indecisive. Rises just took that as far as it could go. Also, h is relationship with Rachel just annoyed me, and never seemed that interesting.

Alfred sucked. He was totally unsupportive of Bruce, and I just wanted to see him die everytime he was on screen in TDK and Rises. He spent all his screen time trying to get Bruce to quit being Batman and went even farther in Rises).

Making Batman a "villain" to the people just to protect Dent's reputation is still stupid. I've read a lot of arguments for it, but in the end it doesn't make that much sense and was just really annoying.

The plot was slow, and boring. The parts with Bruce were really slow and usually noring enough to put you to sleep, and the batman/Joker parts were either irritating, or just a waste of time.

I have a lot of misc. aesthetic problems, which are the least important complaints but include things like the stupidity of the Bat bunker and my eternal hatred for the Bat Tumbler. The actual Batsuit isn't horrible, although there is something I dislike about the cowl I can't quite put my finger on.




Heath Ledger was an ok psycopath, but a horrible Joker. All the philosophy stuff was so not Joker it wasn't funny. There was a good line in the Injustice: gods Among Us tie in comic with Joker, explaining his motivation. Batman asked why Joker had done what he did (I won't spoil what happened).

• Joker: Why? You need a reason? Its probably the same reason I beat that puppy to death with a kitten last week. When the howling and the meowing stop, and all you're left with is a mess of fur and blood and brains--well, you can't beat the warm glowing feeling inside.

Joker's reason to do what he does is, basically, because he's crazy, and has a sick sense of humor (another thing Ledger's Joker was lacking). We got a pencil in someone's eye, but no joker gas? No exploding rubber chicken's or electrified hands? I know Nolan's Batman takes itself too seriously anyway (not that Batman shouldn't be serious, just that his went way overboard) but its Joker. He has his own personality and flair when it comes to the crazy stuff he does. Ledger just didn't have "it". He made lame speeches to Batman (the scene in the police department is just painful, and is the best example of them just not getting Joker right).

Nolan wanted an overly dark, brooding Batman world that was "realistic", something which is also stupid. Its a superhero movie, it should seem like a superhero movie. Men can't really fly or stick to walls, yet people don't try to make them "realistic". You don't need to go totally ridiculous (like 60's Batman), but you can't forget that Batman is an emotionally scarred billionaire in a Bat costume. His villains have personality, and they aren't always completely realistic. You need a good mix. If you go too far in the unrealistic direction, you get people like Burton who made Penguin a freaky guy raised by actual Penguins or go in the direction of Batman Forever and batman and Robin (both of which were better than TDK, although still bad movies). On the other hand, they need to let the villains personalities show through, regardless of wether its an exploding rubber chicken, clues leading toward the villains crime, a suit in two different colors split down the middle, or a man obsessed with Alice in Wonderland kidnapping people with hypnotic hats. Burton's first Batman is great, and the best live action Batman movie. It could have been better (it has flaws), but it did hit a pretty good mix or being dark but not too dark, and not going overly goofy. Nolan's Batman tries to hard to be like something that would actually happen in the real world, and really overdoes the brooding. Batman has emotional issues, but he's not a crybaby constantly questioning his mission or being depressed because his childhood friend isn't with him/is dead. Batman himself should act serious, and he can definately be dark, but he also has personality, and doesn't constantly whine and complain. To me, Batman TAS had the definitive Batman. If you want to know specifically how I think Batman should act, and the tone of the movies should be, watch a few episodes of that. It has the best batman, the perfect joker, and is overall the best of batman.

I could go on forever, but this is a decent list of some of the things I hate about TDK.

sojourner wrote:

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Just to get some perspective on your outlook, are there any movies you like?

Here's my profile at criticker.com (a film rating/listing site, I use a different username, but its a list of all the movies I've watched that I can remember and have ranked so far)

http://www.criticker.com/?fl&user=htiman

[Nerys Myk]

Your review of TDK wasn't very illuminating. "Bale sucks", "Ledger doesn't act like the Joker" and "the story is slow" doesn't say much. A blank page is slightly more informative. Your review of your top rated film (Serenity) contains one word "Awesome". Again, not very informative.

[sojourner]

Ah, you just rabidly hate Nolan's work.

[Gojira]

kirk55555 wrote:

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Well, I don't want to get into a war about it, but I'll just list a few things I disliked about the dark knight. I'm not trying to start an argument, or derail the thread. (Note: List is not really in order, i'm just typing my reasons as I think about them, and this list is only for TDK, not Rises, although some problems would fit for both) also, its in a spoiler for 1) length and 2) so people who don't care can easily ignore my post. Like I said before, I'm not trying to start a discussion, just stating a few of my problems with TDK.

Here's my profile at criticker.com (a film rating/listing site, I use a different username, but its a list of all the movies I've watched that I can remember and have ranked so far)

http://www.criticker.com/?fl&user=htiman

No reason to battle over people's opinions. There are movies I do not like either. Thanks for the link it looks like a cool site and I joined it under the same name I have here.

[kirk55555]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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Your review of TDK wasn't very illuminating. "Bale sucks", "Ledger doesn't act like the Joker" and "the story is slow" doesn't say much. A blank page is slightly more informative. Your review of your top rated film (Serenity) contains one word "Awesome". Again, not very informative.

Reviews on Criticker have a strict character limit (500, including spaces and things like periods), so any "review" I have for rated movies on there is usually just a comment about it. Also, the word "Awesome!" in Serenity's section isn't something I posted. Criticker puts a word near everything you rate, based off of the number ranking. Depending on the ranking, it will show the score and then say something like: Awesome, Great, Good, Not Good, bad, terrible. Each word is assigned based on a range of numbers, like 90-100 rated movies are called "awesome", 0-50 are terrible, etc.

sojourner wrote:

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Ah, you just rabidly hate Nolan's work.

I didn't even know Nolan before his Batman movies. My post on this site was pretty detailed, and like I said above, the character limit pretty much means I can't say anything detailed about videos on that site. I rabidly hate him because of TDK, before that he was a non-entity to me. I thought Batman Begins wasn't horrible,, but it was pretty mediocre. Then TDK came out, and I hated it for a lot of reasons, none of which were because of a bias towards Nolan. I'll admit I have a bias against him now because of the Dark Knight (not that you need a bias to think Rises sucks) but, since its the movie that made me hate him, you can't really say that I hate the movie because I hate him. It caused me to hate him. Just like how, before Star trek 2009, JJ Abrams was just some guy who directed a TV show I really only know by its reputation for being weird, and now I know he's a hack who destroys everything he touches. You can argue that my prerelease hate for Man of steel is because of my bias towards Nolan, and you'd be partially right. I definately would be more willing to give it a chance if nolan wasn't working on it. But, TDK is a different situation.

To put it simply, when it comes to Nolan, TDK is the cause of my hate and bias towards him, my hate for the movie is not the effect of a prexisting bias. Its the beginning of the hate, not a result. It made me into a "rabid" hater of his work, and because of it I know that, to me, everything he'll ever do will be worthless s%^t, because I hate his work.

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Anyone who would put Serenity over A New Hope doesn't know film at all.

[Nagisa Furukawa]

Can this thread get back to Superman instead of ganging up on one guy for his film opinions?

[Nerys Myk]

Well, we are discussing his opinion of Superman and the guy producing it. Close enough?

[Nerys Myk]

kirk55555 wrote:

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Reviews on Criticker have a strict character limit (500, including spaces and things like periods), so any "review" I have for rated movies on there is usually just a comment about it. Also, the word "Awesome!" in Serenity's section isn't something I posted. Criticker puts a word near everything you rate, based off of the number ranking. Depending on the ranking, it will show the score and then say something like: Awesome, Great, Good, Not Good, bad, terrible. Each word is assigned based on a range of numbers, like 90-100 rated movies are called "awesome", 0-50 are terrible, etc.

Anywhere else to get your full opinion then? Something more expansive?

[kirk55555]

I really didn't want to derail the thread. But, we are talking about Nolan, and he's a big part of the movie, so its still on topic in a way. My opinion on the movie is effected by the fact that I think he's a hack, and I can't really give an opinion on MoS without atleast bringing him up. Now, people getting riled up about my opinion of him wasn't really surprising, and it has kind of messed with the thread (although honestly it got a lot worse when I said I hated Abrams in a thread about him talking over Star wars) and I didn't want that. Still, I felt like I needed to answer the question about what I hate about TDK.

Anyway, speaking about MoS, I would love for this movie to surprise me, to go against all of my bias towards Nolan and be a good movie. Superman having a triumphant return to the big screen would be awesome. I just think there is a better chance of me getting abducted by aliens and named the emperor of their interstellar kingdom then there is of MoS being a good movie.

Nerys Myk wrote:

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Anywhere else to get your full opinion then? Something more expansive?

About Serenity, or TDK? I posted what I thought was a pretty detailed post about TDK. Not all my reasons, but enough that I anything else I added wouldn't be neccesary. A paragraph about my basic problems with Bale and Alfred (not a lot of detail, but enough to get my general opinion), two paragraphs about why Ledger was a bad joker, and another big paragraph about the problems with nolan's attempt at a "realistic" Batman and what I think is a better way to portray Batman outside of comics in general. If there is something in the post you'd specifically like me to elaborate on, I'll do it. I just don't know what I need to say, outside of trying to write an essay on the movie in general.


If you're talking about serenity (which I don't think you are), I can easily talk about it,although I would point out that its tied with The Wrath of Khan as my favorite movie. Its only on top of it because I think the rankings go alphabetically if the movies are tied in the numbers. If I had to choose between them I'd go for TWoK, but besides that they're the two movies that I'd say are my favorite.

[kirk55555]

Accidental double post

[Nerys Myk]

Both, actually.

[Saul]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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Well, we are discussing his opinion of Superman and the guy producing it. Close enough?

! I didn't realize Kirk55555 was producing it.