Two-face is The Dark Knight was a huge mistake. Well, killing him was a huge mistake.
Yes, I know Burton did the same with The Joker, but it's interesting that Batman's biggest mistake is repeated in the Nolan film.
Rank the Superhero movies!
- Thread starter Trekker4747
- Start date
Yes, I know Burton did the same with The Joker, but it's interesting that Batman's biggest mistake is repeated in the Nolan film.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
The only area unique to Burton that TAS borrowed heavily from was scoring. All the other similarities could be just as easily said to come from the common source material (Miller).
For the record, the character is Bane. Venom is the supersteroid that Bane uses to gain his super strength.
Marvel has a bad habit of doing this too. See all three Spidey films, Iron Man I, etc. Only the F4 movies gave us suitably "Marvel" deaths (ambiguous so as to not preclude a "return of" situation).
It was stylistically similar with 40s fashion and pulp undertones with hoodlums and small-time crooks, and was (for lack of a better word) 'lightweight' in it's study of the Bruce Wayne/Batman character.
He was talking about Venom in Spider-Man 3 : /
Yeah, it is annoying and I wish more films had the guts not to off their villain.
You know, I really enjoyed The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, too, but when did Miller start getting credit for everything that is good about Batman, even projects like TAS that he had nothing to do with? What about Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams, Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers, Greg Rucka, Bruce Timm, and all the other influential artists and writers who have shaped the mythos over the last couple of generations?
Getting back to the original topic, one of the things I really like about X2 is that it's one of the few superhero movies that successfully juggles multiple heroes and villains. Most superhero movies can't even handle two villains without falling apart, but X2 hangs together while still giving most of the cast their own character arcs and moments.
Getting back to the original topic, one of the things I really like about X2 is that it's one of the few superhero movies that successfully juggles multiple heroes and villains. Most superhero movies can't even handle two villains without falling apart, but X2 hangs together while still giving most of the cast their own character arcs and moments.
Last edited:
I agree whole heartedly. I don't get the presumption that Frank Miller was the writer that brought Batman back to his dark roots. Nope...that started ten years before Frank Miller.
Though I mixed feelings about X2, the film did do a good job have balancing all of its characters. With the exception of Cyclops, everyone was given enough screen time for their character.
I'm arguing that mood has nothing to do with it. Regardless of Burton's take on Batman, he just didn't really make great films during his tenure with the character. His films DO fall flat by comparison, but that has nothing to do with his aesthetic choices or how "moody" or "spooky" he made Batman.. it's due to the fact that his scripts were half-baked, his characterizations were thin, and his movies were generally speaking mediocre.
At least with Nolan, regardless of his realistic take on the character or not, I can enjoy those movies as movies, and not just mood pieces (which is what the Burton movies essentially are). There's nothing wrong with that, but I just prefer a genuinely good movie, one with an interesting, complex plot and fleshed out characters, and not one that looks pretty and flashy but offers little to nothing else.
^^^Except, the Nolan scripts are half-baked. I'm not quite sure what "thin" characterizations mean to you but to me it means those that the characters are delineated by just a few character traits. By that standard, Nolan doesn't come off so good, either. Nolan's visual imagery and his score (I'm assuming you're one of those people who imagine the director as such is the creator of the movie, sorry if I'm wrong) are inferior to Burton's. If Burton is mediocre, then Nolan is subpar.
I don't agree with that at all. Bruce Wayne had a full character arc in Batman Begins. He began the film very petulant, unwilling to see the bigger picture and very much hungry for revenge, and as the film progressed, he learned the nature of vengeance and justice and eventually started to think beyond just his own inner grief.
As for The Dark Knight, the writing is intensely brilliant, as is the writing of The Prestige. Both films require multiple viewings to even begin to decipher what they're about in the end.
The Joker's dialogue is brilliant not for what he's saying, but when and how he's saying it. In the film, The Joker is literally the most honest character. He tells a lie really only once, when he tells Batman the location of Dent and Harvey. Of course, one could argue that Dent really was AT Rachel's location mentally because of his overwhelming concern for her, and vice-versa.
But I digress.
But let's take this. What does The Joker ultimately want in The Dark Knight? He wants to be taken seriously. However, as a deranged psychopath, he cannot see that dressing up like a clown prevents one from doing that. The entire film has almost every single character belittling the Joker.
Batman: "He can wait..."
Gordon: "You let the clown out..." (this is at the end even after Joker's blown up the hospital)
Mayor: "The clown can keep till morning..."
Maroni: "He's a clown- a nobody..."
On and on and on, no one takes Joker seriously. And his stories about his scars? They are just one more step -- including the bombing, maiming, and scheming he does to bring Gotham to its knees -- his "tragic" stories are just one last desperate attempt to be taken seriously through pity and sympathy toward the tragedy.
He tells the mob to take him seriously with Batman and Lau. They don't.
He tells the captive Bat-Copy to be afraid of him when he says he's not. He tells him "You really should..." and then he dares Gotham to take him seriously, particularly Batman by unmasking himself.
Then he demands the mayor take him seriously.
It goes on and on, people calling him freak (notice how much that gets to him?), trying to figure out "what it takes to get you people (i.e. Gotham) into the game..."
The only person who finally takes him seriously is Dent, at the end, when he understands The Joker's POV. But think of The Joker, a man who really never lies and ALWAYS comes thru on his word. How the heck would you feel that people still don't take you seriously? Give all the credit to the defunk mob?
But is this spelled out line by line. Nope. You have to watch for it. Very closely, really listen to what and how the Joker says his lines and you'll get it.
Look at Batman, who is often accused of not having an arc in the film.
Batman is addicted to being Batman, and The Joker challenges that addiction. Just as Gordon and Dent have their own morality tested by how far they'll let Gotham fall to not give into The Joker's demands (a refusal fueled by their inability to take him seriously [much like the post-9/11 allegory of us never truly taking terrorists seriously and belittling their lifestyles, motivations, and religions]), Batman too is tested by how many people he will let die in order to unmask.
Gordon (fake death), Harvey, then the guy named Dent, The Comissioner, The Judge, the ten or twenty people maimed during the various action sequences (shotgun police guy, the people gunned down in their cars by Joker's tommy gun, the random thugs, etc.). And lastly...Rachel.
But that's not the most important death according to Nolan. The most important casualty of Batman's refusal to unmask and give up being Batman is Harvey Dent.
At the end of the film, Dent, Batman, and Gordon square off in the abandoned warehouse. Batman is there among friends, people he should trust. And yet, when Dent screams, "Why was it me who lost everything?" Batman pauses -- he hesitates....and in that moment he makes a very simple decision NOT to unmask.
Had he unmasked, the shock and revelation alone would've probably talked Dent back from the brink, would've prevented Batman from having to tackled Dent and have him fall over that ledge.
Dent is the last casualty of Batman refusing to give up Batman. And Batman's arc require that he learn this. Notice at the end, as Gordon and Batman stand above Dent's body. Gordon talks about how The Joker won, in utter defeat. You don't even have to look closely, but Batman is hardly paying attention. He's actually staring at Harvey, the last casualty and then what does he do...?
He looks back up where they all once stood, where he refused to take off his mask and save Harvey, and then he takes on Harvey's crimes as his own.
It's a beautifully layed-out arc that ties into the themes of escalation, obsession, and eventual consumption.
That's why the infamous "tacked-on" scene is so necessary. There, at Batman's last chance to give up his mantle, Rachel is proven right when he lets yet another person die by refusing to unmask and tell Harvey, "It wasn't just you. See."
The Dark Knight is an incredibly complex film with some flaws (like the die a hero line). However, it is one of the most sophisticated and unforgiving films I've seen in recent memories, requiring a viewer who isn't going to passively sit and take it on the chin, and will look past the action sequences to see what Nolan was saying.
Batman is a man obsessed. The Joker, a man who desires to be taken seriously but is so demented as to not see why he's not, is a perpetual engine of enabling for Batman's psychosis as he pushes Batman further and further BACK against limits that Batman himself refuses to acknowledge he has. Thus, a very self-destructive cycle is born.
Superman: The Movie
Superman 2: Richard Donner Cut
Not seen 3 or 4 is so long I can't recall them at all (and from what I have read, that's perhaps for the best)
Batman
Then none of the others. Though I would count the '60's Batman movie as second.
Spider-man
Neither.
X-Men
X-Men 2
3 sucked. Read the reviews and Wolverine is terrible from what I have read.
NONE.
That's all well and good, but Batman is still the better Batman film.
As family entertainment Burton's Batman was infinitely superior in inspiring kids to buy comics and opening up that world to them. It spawned the downright brilliant animated series and proved to the world that superhero films could be more than tights and campy humour.
Nolan's films gave us tools dressing up as Heath Ledger's Joker.
Italics added.
As I recall, Dent is holding Gordon's son hostage at this point. He has already murdered Maroni. The notion that Wayne should trust Dent is ludicrous. I usually find all defenses of Nolan Batman's alleged depth and quality turn out to be founded on such nonsense.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IOuiHwgCXw[/yt]
Similar threads
