Completely Random Thoughts

[LucasM]

[WARNING: nuttin' at all 'random' about this post!]

To me, the entire 'railroad in the sky' stuff belongs in Batman Beyond, not in an up-til-then apparently serious film about an at-the-time deadly protagonist (as well as a more deadly antagonist).  Had the train been on the ground (or even slightly elevated, as in NY, or Chicago, or Seattle, or Tokyo, or even Disneyland) it wouldn't have been a cartoon and it could - possibly - have been taken somewhat seriously.  Or, had the climax of 'Begins' been in a Batman Beyond cartoon film, I would have accepted it no problem.

For Begins, I think Ra's al Ghul might have been a worthwhile antagonist, if it hadn't been he (and apparently only he) that trained Bruce Wayne.  That jarring distortion of the character's origin, and the cliche' of 'student becomes the master', undermined the rest of the plot for me.

There is a level of suspension of disbelief that I simply cannot achieve for a live action film - and that level is not only required, but surpassed, by Batman Begins.  There's not remotely the level of suspension of disbelief needed for The Dark Knight... regardless of the absurdity of the situation, the events are largely realistic (as is the city, for a dramatic change from 'Begins', despite still being Gotham).  The 'flights of fancy' that compose Dark Knight work because they are tethered to reality.  No such tethering occured in 'Begins'.

And, as most have agreed, 'Rises' was virtually unwatchable for multiple reasons.  [Not the least of which is the crap with healing a broken spine with no medical care in the worst prison on the planet... if the spinal cord was cut (which, simply watching the impact, it could not have avoided being) there is no coming back from that.  That's, again, untethered fantasy.]  But yeah, as QV said (and I basically stated here prior to its release), Bane is the least interesting antagonist that could have been chosen for a Batman film.

So what does all this tell us?  That, (for me at least), for comic book movies to be 'great', the film has to be taken seriously and enacted with fantasy and science fiction having strong tethers to reality (or at least 'believable bullshit' [which 4-5 story high trains and healing broken spinal cords don't contain in these films]).  [Another e.g.: Iron Man 1 came so damn close to losing me with the slapstick shit (which, in reality, would have easily resulted in Tony dying at least twice: [what the fuck: spoilered in case anyone's not seen Iron Man 1 but still plans on it]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the crash after the 'Mark 1' flight in the desert, and slamming into the ceiling when first testing the repulsors for flight)

... after each of those (and one other I can't quite remember now) I had to fight my way to get back into 'believing' the story.  Possibly why I'm in the minority with apparently liking IM3 better than the first two.  Black took the character and story seriously, Favreau did not.  (Granted, he came from playing Foggy Nelson in DD, so had no clue that these films could really be anything but a childish joke... but it still falls on him that they ended up with as punch lines.)]

Enough fucking diatribe...  to each their own.  If you enjoy 'Begins' &/or 'Rises', and if you hated 'Dark Knight' - good for you!  Whatever floats your boat.

              Lucas out  -  peace!

[Quantum Vagina]

I like Iron Man 3 more than the other two. Tony got to undergo a heap of development and the twist is one of the best I've seen in any movie EVER. I can understand how that could ruin the movie for some people,  but I loved it.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Seems I'm able to suspend my disbelief a bit farther when it comes to comic book movies, and treat live action as animation.  Of course knowing these days it really is mostly animation helps...

Also, not reading comic books helps, since I only know the TV and movie versions of Batman.

And since I find the impact of The Dark Knight lessens each time I watch it I place the first 2 films about even now.  The 3rd one does suffer badly from an unworthy villain.

[Tripe]

Since I do both VO and edit audio, Bane really irks me. That they deliberately chose to make him sound like the victim of bad ADR simply ratchets up the annoyance.

[Darth Geek]

  As much as I like The Dark Knight, the ending hurts it. Sorry, but you simply CANNOT complain about Venom being shoehorned into Spiderman 3 and then give Two-Face in The Dark Knight a pass. The reveal of Two-Face in the hospital bed should have been the ending shot to that movie. And along with him comes the bullshit "we must blame Batman for Two-Face's kills". Um...it's Gotham PD! Covering up murders is like the ONLY COMPETANT THING THEY DO!
  The Dark Knight Rises has soooo many problems, it's surprising it comes from the same writing and direction team. But unltimately the movie loses me at the very beginning by Bruce being in hiding and not active as Batman for several years. No. Just, no.  It also brings up the odd thing I don't hear anyone else mentioning. From what I can tell, he had only been Batman for a year between Begins and Rises, right? So Batman is only active for a year, gone for EIGHT years, and then then back for another few days? Not only is that a shockingly short active lifespan for a hero, but I don't buy the public still embracing him so readily once he comes back. They've been hearing about him being a criminal for 8 times as long as there were rumors he even existed and was a hero.
  And by the way, who sees that bulky helicopter thing he was flying and goes "that must be Batman"? Batman's been gone for years at that point. I think they'd be far more likely to panic and think "CIA black helicopters", or at least "holy shit the US military is actually fucking doing something".

[Sideswipe]

One year of being Batman woulnt have wrecked his body like the way the doctor described.  I could understand if he had been going all out and fighting nothing but master martial artists every day for five years.  I would have been ok with the fall at the end of DK messing up his leg if he had not fallen off a skyscraper and walked away from it. I am probably going to get a lot of shit for this, but I think Heath Ledgers performance as Joker is highly over rated.  Im not saying he didnt do a good job, he definitely did.  It wasnt a flawless piece of acting that should be studied and revered for all time like some people want to make it out to be.

[Darth Geek]

One year of being Batman woulnt have wrecked his body like the way the doctor described.

Yeah, that is one thing that I think they overdid on the "realism". I get that it is tough on Bruce Wayne physically to be Batamn. And there is all the psychological issues as will. But ultimately we the audience WANT to see him be Batman. So going out of their way to give him horrible physical problems (and yet then offhandedly giving him robotic supersuit that waves all of that away  ). So seeing him give it up is not really a happy ending for the audience. As cliche as it might be now, having the last shot of the hero looking out over the city is done for a reason.

[Quantum Vagina]

[like Lucas, nothing random.]

I personally think it was more than that. It was definitely a really, REALLY good performance. My issue with it is that I just plain don't like that version of the Joker. Nolan's obsession with gritty realism forced them into the corner of a psychotic joker with very little comic effect, and that disappoints me. The Joker is supposed to be... I can't think of how to put it down from my head, but to me the Joker's always represented the lack of control of his insanity that Batman is dangerously close to. Batman, when you think about him, is a god damned hilarious concept. Billionaire goes crazy, spends a shit ton of money to dress up as a bat to beat up bad guys. That's ridiculous and hilarious. One of his villains is named the PENGUIN, and another's a glorified CLOWN. Honestly, I think that's where the problem in the Nolan Trilogy is: they didn't accept that as a ridiculous notion and run with it. You can make a conscious effort to appear like you're denying it extremely seriously and it will be hilarious, but you have to do that just right, and that's not what they wanted. I said it when I was talking about Pacific Rim: sometimes, cartoons have to be cartoons, even when they're people. Batman's too ridiculous to be serious.

I'm also DAMNED tired of Batman. Who gives a shit about him anymore? I was really annoyed to hear they were throwing him in then next Superman movie, which is barely about Superman anymore. Of all the characters that you need for a Justice League movie, don't you think you could skimp on character building Batman? EVERYONE knows who he is. All you need him to do is be Captain Killjoy about everything and have him save everyone in the end, because that's ALWAYS what happens. With the Avengers, it made sense because of ALL of those heroes, only Hulk had had much of a screen presence before, and they needed to distance themselves from it. Superman needs movies. Wonder Woman needs movies. Batman does NOT need movies. And really, they're the only three you need to set up. Maybe a new GL, but he doesn't need a movie. And make him John Stewart, not Hal Jordan. He's the one we're used to in the Justice League, and they need to distance themselves from that film about guys the wear rings shaped like lanterns that happen to be green.

/rant

[Pak-Man]

My day calendar tells me I should be wishing our Australian board members a happy "Eight Hours Day," "Canberra Day," "Labour Day" and "Commonwealth Day!" So happy those days, Australia! Also, what are those? (I mean, we have Labor day, too, so I'd guess that's pretty much the same thing, but what are the others?)

[Tripe]

Celebrating the not so interesting Capitol and loyalty to the queen would seem to be two of them.

Eight Hours Day has me banjaxed though.

[Sideswipe]

(I mean, we have Labor day, too, so I'd guess that's pretty much the same thing, but what are the others?)

You would think that, but you would be wrong.  Their Labour day is about celebrating the wacky habit of adding unnecessary U's to word that do not need them.

[Darth Geek]

Since I do both VO and edit audio, Bane really irks me. That they deliberately chose to make him sound like the victim of bad ADR simply ratchets up the annoyance.

Speaking of that, I remember when the trailer came out. And a few people who had seen the movie reported in. People were complaining that Bane couldn't be understood. I thought I heard something about Nolan changing the voice a little to make it more clear. Does that mean there was an even WORSE version of it before?

[LucasM]

  As much as I like The Dark Knight, the ending hurts it. Sorry, but you simply CANNOT complain about Venom being shoehorned into Spiderman 3 and then give Two-Face in The Dark Knight a pass. The reveal of Two-Face in the hospital bed should have been the ending shot to that movie. And along with him comes the bullshit "we must blame Batman for Two-Face's kills". Um...it's Gotham PD! Covering up murders is like the ONLY COMPETANT THING THEY DO!

While I still really like Dark Knight, I agree with part of this: the 'blame Batman' does hurt the film.  Not enough to undo the rest of it (for me), but if they'd left the murders unsolved less effort would have been placed on solving them by the police than having it 'known' that Batman did them (and, as the guys pointed out in the RiffTrax, less police budget money would have been wasted) and they simply would have rapidly turned into ignored cold cases.

Hell, they could have blamed the Joker for the murders more easily than Batman (even "in one of his rants he said he ordered his henchmen to kill them") - people already knew he was nuts and a violent killer and that he had already killed others.

I think Two-Face could have sustained his own film (though likely not under Nolan), but having the Joker use him as a pawn to 'increase chaos' and as a backup plan seemed reasonable to me.


I also agree with QV's comment about 'enough Batman: get WW, or a 'real' GL on screen more before a JL film' (though I think that Superman was found to be THE single most recognizable 'person' around the planet at one point a couple decades back, so we could do without more of him as well for a while).  Personally, I'd like to see a Martian Manhunter film instead... or The Question possibly.

[RoninFox]

I definitely don't agree with "enough Batman" but I'm all for getting other characters their own rightful space.

[LucasM]

I definitely don't agree with "enough Batman" but I'm all for getting other characters their own rightful space.

With 'enough Batman', I (I don't know about QV), was meaning "if there's only enough 'room' in the film-making for one or two films a year, there's other characters I'd rather see started, rather than having yet another Batman incarnation".

Yes, there's plenty to see with Batman - hell, thousands and thousands of stories in the last ~75 years have been written about the character.  But if there's limited numbers of DC comic-based films they can make any given year, there's such a rich variety of characters that could use screen time before diving into another Batman series.  That's what I meant.  [Right now I'm just not thinking and writing as clearly as I have before.]