This might be more interesting as Maggie Sawyer, Dan "Terrible" Turpin and the Metropolis SCU.
Gotham PD show in "Nolanverse" being developed by the WB
- Thread starter Dream
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it probably wouldn't work to well since the main reason Batman was gone for 8 years was there wasn't any major criminal activity as in no mob and no supervillains.
No, the main reason Batman was gone for 8 years was because he felt he wasn't the right solution for Gotham anymore. Batman was what Gotham needed to pull itself out of the mire and begin its path to recovery, but once the people began to take responsibility for restoring their city to health, and once they had Harvey Dent as a better symbol and inspiration than Batman, then Bruce felt it was time to step aside. That was the whole point of TDK. See, the difference between Nolan's Batman and other versions is that this Bruce saw Batman as a temporary solution at best -- not something Gotham would always need to protect it, but as something Gotham needed to grow beyond. It wasn't until the events of TDKR that he came to realize there was still a need for Batman to exist.
The opening of TDKR makes it clear that Gotham was not without crime in those 8 years -- rather, it still had active organized crime, but the Dent Act gave the police and the courts enough clout to hold it in check. There were still people committing crimes and getting put in prison over those 8 years, which is why the prisons were so full when Bane liberated them. But Batman, by building up Harvey as the hero and himself as the villain, had transferred the responsibility for Gotham's protection from an animal-themed vigilante to the police and judicial system where it belonged.
So yeah, this would basically be a cop show. But it would be a cop show with a potentially interesting premise, about a once deeply corrupt city that's now being aggressively cleaned up, but whose cleanup process is built around reverence for a man who actually became a monster. There's a story there. Maybe not a story that has much to do with Batman, but then, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't look like it'll have that much to do with Iron Man or Captain America either.
I imagine the Dent Act itself could provoke a backlash from criminals, just as Batman's emergence provoked a backlash. The reaction to Batman was the Joker, the emergence of the supercriminal. Perhaps the reaction to the Dent Act could be the criminals developing a more sophisticated and unified organization of their own to counter it, or operating more subtly to try to stay under its radar, as opposed to the more brazen activities they were free to commit before. I could see a major role for, say, a crime boss called Edward Nygma, sometimes nicknamed Riddler for his devious deceptions and master schemes.
Except the only important person who knows that to be true is Gordon. And said secret doesn't get out until TDKR, when the result is... nothing, really, what with all the other, more immediate hubbub afoot.
Small problem: if there were a truly dastardly villain afoot, wouldn't Robin pay Batman a social call a bit earlier than the time of TDKR?
No offense, you've brought your conceptual A-game as usual, but I can't tell you how sleepy reading this makes me feel.
Not to mention that the notion of a glossy, high-budget show fetishizing a super-criminal vs. authoritarian police "war" at a time when many real American police forces are having to lay off desperately needed officers due to budget cuts, and when prisons nationwide are severely overcrowded and increasingly run for profit, is frankly kinda sick.
I actually like what I've read of Gotham Central, but like others have said, the concept works better as a series about cops who are in a universe where they have to deal with supervillains. The nolanverse, even ignoring my intense hatred of it, is not set up to do the type of Gotham cop show that could be good. The way this show is being set up, I really don't see any potential to get an entertaining show out of it.
SHIELD, even absent Iron Man, Thor and co, is an extraordinary organisation dealing with extraordinary threats in a fantastical universe. Gotham PD, without Batman and his gallery of villains, is just another police force in an ordinary city, albeit one with a particularly high crime level.
And let's face it, it's not like the depiction we saw in TDKR was a particularly realistic depiction of policing. Hundreds of cops living underground but looking remarkably well-fed and clean? Even with the outline Christopher describes, I can't see this taking off. It would be too unheroic for the comic book crowd and is hardly going to compete with The Wire as a depiction of a gutsy police force dealing with organised crime. And, as Gaith has intimated, we pretty much know how it's going to resolve.
And let's face it, it's not like the depiction we saw in TDKR was a particularly realistic depiction of policing. Hundreds of cops living underground but looking remarkably well-fed and clean? Even with the outline Christopher describes, I can't see this taking off. It would be too unheroic for the comic book crowd and is hardly going to compete with The Wire as a depiction of a gutsy police force dealing with organised crime. And, as Gaith has intimated, we pretty much know how it's going to resolve.
Can't there be classic villains?
^ Do you mean classic Batman villains, the ones Nolan chose not to show? There could, but doesn't it beg the question Gaith posed, namely why didn't Batman come out of retirement to face them down?
Gordon is the only person who knows it as of the end of TDK. But since it is the truth, there is evidence of it, evidence that other characters could uncover. Many TV series have been about characters finding clues to deep dark secrets and investigating them. And in many such series, the secrets do not become publicly known, either because the protagonists never prove it or because they agree to keep the secrets. So there is no reason a show like this couldn't be fit into the Nolanverse framework.
Not all villains are equal. Bane was a major, existential threat. Blake came to Bruce because Gordon had been shot and was talking about an underground army gathered beneath the city. That wasn't just crime, that was terrorism and invasion. The stakes were life-and-death for the whole city, and the head of the police was out of action. Batman was the only place to turn. There could easily be many other threats that didn't rise to the same level.
I mean, we're talking about an ongoing series as opposed to a movie. Naturally you'd want to maintain a certain status quo, and thus it stands to reason that you'd go for villains whose plans are a little more subtle than invading or destroying the entire city. You'd focus on crime bosses who are pursuing less cataclysmic, more long-term strategies -- the kind of characters who can sustain a weekly series as opposed to a movie.
From the perspective of a comic-book fan, that's a bad thing. From the perspective of a television network executive trying to draw in a general audience, that's a good thing. Cop shows are a perennial favorite with the public. Plenty of people will watch any reasonably good cop show, regardless of what source material it's based on. So this is a safer direction for the network to take than something more extravagantly comic-booky. Given how much money networks have to spend to make TV shows, it's understandable why they'd prefer to play it safe.
I thought the movies made that extremely clear. One, in the wake of TDK, Batman was seen as a villain, and that was what Bruce wanted. He didn't want the Gothamites to need Batman. He wanted them to mature beyond that rather bizarre need, to take responsibility as a community for building a better, more just Gotham for themselves. And he achieved that by giving them reason to turn against Batman and instead embrace a more conventional crimefighting hero, Harvey Dent. It's the "teach a man to fish" principle. At the end of TDK, Gotham's people had taken responsibility for making the city a better place themselves, following the spirit of Dent, and so they no longer needed Batman to keep the peace. For him to try to be Batman again in that climate would've been counterproductive, would've undermined everything he'd achieved in TDK.
For another thing, as we saw in TDKR, Bruce was practically crippled by all the punishment his body took. He wouldn't have been able to do much crimefighting at that point. On top of which, he was grieving for Rachel and became a recluse.
The point of TDKR is that it took a truly extraordinary threat to overcome those factors and bring Batman out of retirement -- and it had to be after enough time had passed that the people were able to accept him. It's quite easy to believe that he would've stayed out of it as the GCPD dealt with more conventional foes.
^ but I assume by 'classic villains' Konata Izumu was talking about the very sort of unconventional, extraordinary villains Batman has to fight because ordinary cops aren't equipped to.
As to your point about cop shows being easy to sell to the public, really, what's the point of setting the show in Batman's fictional city and avoiding all comic trappings? Why not just make it a real city? Easier still to sell.
As to your point about cop shows being easy to sell to the public, really, what's the point of setting the show in Batman's fictional city and avoiding all comic trappings? Why not just make it a real city? Easier still to sell.
Not much to add, just that I agree with those saying a 'Gotham Central' type series would make more sense in it's own unique continuity, separate from the Nolan films. Indeed, with AoS already on the way and if the 'Powers' TV show ever gets off the ground, this show could be made redundant very quickly...on the other hand that never stopped them from making a bazillion versions of CSI.
Regardless, the possibility of a live action version of Bullock and Montoya alone makes the show a must see for me. A version of Cassandra Cain could also be interesting.
Regardless, the possibility of a live action version of Bullock and Montoya alone makes the show a must see for me. A version of Cassandra Cain could also be interesting.
I think it'd make more sense for them to wait until Batman is reintroduced in the flow-up to MOS and set it in that continuity.
That's assuming the new Gotham will be as visually mundane (and therefore TV-feasible) as Nolan's, though, and not a hyper-gothic fantasy nightmare town a la Arkham City games. In the meantime, sounds like the rich, white Jonathan Nolan would like to make even more sweet green writing scripts that play into societal fear and distrust of inner cities without waiting to see in which direction the new Batman's Gotham will go.
And that should be 'follow-up.' Bloody iPhone!
You're right, people should just stop writing crime stories altogether until all the nation's social problems are wrapped up completely. So like, never. Or, maybe they can use those stories as a vehicle to talk about those very issues.
I also like the completely baseless implication of racism, classism, and fearmongering against Jonathan Nolan exclusively, because he wrote stories set in a fictional universe that's been around since the 30s.
You stay classy, Gaith.
I don't know. I want to like this idea, but it's not really doing anything for me. It is set in the Nolan continuity, but it seems highly unlikely any of the characters we actually know or care about will be in it. Being set between TDK and TDKR kind of limits what they can do, since we all know how things have to play out, especially if they do use Commissioner Gordon and John Blake (even if recast with different actors). Although on the other hand, that period does span something like eight years which even if the show is a raging success there's a slim chance it'll surpass that length.
So as it stands, unless they do recast Gordon and Blake as I doubt Gary Oldman or JGL will agree to star in the show, it'll likely star brand new characters, or are there police characters from the comics they could use? Then, obviously no Batman, one wonders why bother doing a cop show about Gotham anyway?
Still, I guess it sounds better than the legal drama about Bruce Wayne's lawyers I joke about occasionally.
So as it stands, unless they do recast Gordon and Blake as I doubt Gary Oldman or JGL will agree to star in the show, it'll likely star brand new characters, or are there police characters from the comics they could use? Then, obviously no Batman, one wonders why bother doing a cop show about Gotham anyway?
Still, I guess it sounds better than the legal drama about Bruce Wayne's lawyers I joke about occasionally.
The show sounds like a decent idea. First episode of Person of Interest was thin and aimless. Can Jonathan Nolan write?
They don't have to be that incredibly powerful. They can be just weird.
This is the reason it's in the Nolan universe. They probably wanted a show with some comic book characters.
