oh, here comes the one keep saying it is
Very basic math,yet
just can't show everyone how
Vote numbers + weight of vote = score average---by put
real figure into
your formula to set an example----
52 votes--
8.8(
380991) ---slip to
8.6(
380939)
http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=393295&page=9
of course it is
frustration, I understand that
PS: over 160 posts I wrote in this forum,how many IDs(people) I have been discuss with/response with?
I rest my case. Take a look in that link, Brain Damage. That's exactly the kind of "discussion" you're letting yourself in for if you keep replying to him. Do yourself and this thread a favor and let that sleeping dog lie.
For the record, I want to say that I am very impressed with the level of civil and calm communication in this thread. It's one of the only TDKR threads on the internet that seems to be this way at the moment. Everywhere else I went (though I admit I didn't check most of the TDKR section in fear it would be the same as everywhere else), the threads would be full of Nolanites and fanboys in general. I'm very surprised by this thread and I hope it stays that way. And if I sounded a bit too angry in my first post here (things like "I can write multiple essays on the stupidity of this film!" may have been me going too far), it is because I was expecting a more "Nolanite thread" than this thread actually was so I apologize for that.
I want to say all the threads have been like that, but they haven't. It's actually been pretty bad this week in particular, but this thread has for the most part been kept civil. Mainly because the more mature people have been posting in here.
Agreed on BB and TDK. Those movies do get better with with subsequent viewings. Every time I watch them, I find or get something that I haven't picked up before and drive deeper into the themes and certain character arcs. On the other hand, like I said before, I was dissapointed with TDKR even more the second time I saw it. The reason for that was probably because, like I said earlier, I believe TDKR gets worse the more you overanalyze it while I always felt that BB and TDK got better and better the more you overanalyzed them.
Some people have told me that I shouldn't overanalyze TDKR at all but seeing as how it is a sequel to 2 films that were overanalyzed to death throughout the years and still currently hold up as great comic book movies and great movies in general (with TDK specifically being one of the most overanalyzed movies of all time and still holding up), I don't buy that excuse at all.
Exactly. If BB and TDK can stand up to such close scrutiny then Rises shouldn't be an exception. As a big fan of TDK yourself have you ever read this;
The Symbology of Batman
The final monologue that Commissioner Gordon brings the themes from Batman Begins to their logical conclusion: Namely, that as a man, Bruce Wayne’s powers to evil crime are rather limited. As a man, he can be corrupted, he can be killed, and ultimately, he can be defeated. As a symbol he can become far more, and at the end of The Dark Knight, he becomes, to society, an uncontainable force in very much the same way the Joker was. He becomes hunted, making people believe that he cannot be controlled, that he has lost all respect for societal norms and the rule of law. As Gordon realizes he needs to blame the murders on Batman, he acknowledges not only the need for society to push their fears onto something, but their hopes as well (which he allows them to do by preserving Dent’s good name).
In order to keep from tearing itself to shreds, society needs to believe in the incorruptibility of good and the relative remoteness of evil. The Dark Knight points us to ways in which we cope with this need.
Simultaneously, it’s also made clear that, in fact, Batman never succumbs to his own dark, inner urges. In the movie, Bruce Wayne says the line, “I’ve seen what I have to become to fight men like him,” and he rejects the path he has to take to stop Joker, a man who has no rules whatsoever. In one of the more memorable scenes from the film, the two have a showdown in Gotham’s city streets, the Joker manically screaming “Hit me!” as Batman is propelled towards him in the bat pod. As much as Batman wants to annihilate the Joker, he knows he can’t violate his own moral code, and almost sacrifices himself to prevent this from happening (albeit as part of a broader ruse to capture him). Still, Batman doesn’t seek to kill evildoers, but to bring them to justice. The dichotomy that the film sets up between Joker and Batman is one of chaos vs. order. The dichotomy between Joker and Dent is one of good vs. evil…
The Triumph of Evil Over Good
“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
These words, spoken by Harvey Dent in the film and its trailers, portend the inevitable corruptibility of heroes in the Batman universe. At the beginning of the film, Dent represents absolute good, a goodness that’s so pure, that has so much potential to change Gotham, that even Batman is thinking of hanging up his spurs.
Dent is referred to frequently as Gotham’s “White Knight,” a term used throughout the course of the film. I was speaking with a friend about this movie today and he pointed out that when he went to see the movie he did not anticipate “The Dark Knight” could actually also refer to Dent, a clever yet profound subtext to the film (and that’s not even mentioning the night/knight pun, which I will choose never mention again after this sentence). Indeed, Dent’s journey from light to darkness is handled plausibly and adeptly in the film, which makes his story arc monstrously tragic.
Many people have remarked on how depressing the film is and I would say that I mostly agree: The Joker’s ability to destroy that which Dent loves and turn him to the evil that he becomes is sad in a way that can only be experienced by seeing the film. But the apparent relative ease with which Joker does this is what makes the Dent storyline strike so close to home: The film makes us realize that we, as humans are limited, and that our capacity to be good is subject to the vagaries of fate and whatever the hell else decides to destroy what we love. Dent is not just a proxy for hope, he’s a proxy for us as well, reminding us of the duality that lies within each of us.
The Thin Line Between Anarchy and Order
As Nolan has stated in interviews, this movie was not meant to explore the Joker’s backstory because it’s really not that important to the film. Simply put, the Joker represents anarchy and chaos, a constant and near-unstoppable force whose origins are inexplicable (something which is made clear rather explicitly when the Joker delivers two creepily different monologues as to his scars’ origins). Many people compare Joker to other film and comic book villains but the one that I think he can be most closely associated with is Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men, who is a force of nature. His origins are unclear but his actions are strongly felt by those around him (to put it mildly).
The Joker is unpredictable and can’t be reasoned with, nor does he have any broader goals except to create chaos and destruction. When I saw the movie Funny Games and watched an interview Michael Haneke, I was struck by something he said: To paraphrase, he said that we as individuals have personal spaces that go unsaid but are accepted by almost everyone. When people violate this personal space, the results can be terrifying. In a similar fashion, the Joker upends the genre conventions of a villain in that he has no inhibitions and refuses to hew even to the ultra-basic moral code of criminals (see: the opening scene). When a character has no values that you as a viewer can relate to and hold on to, the results are extremely disorienting. This unmoors our basic assumptions of the person’s capabilities.
All of this comes to a head in the hospital scene, when Joker gives Harvey Dent the “It’s all part of the plan” monologue, a speech that’s chilling not just for its content and delivery, but also because of its incisive commentary for us as Americans. I will not make any overtly political statements here, except to say that the complacency with which we as Americans have accepted atrocities and miscarriages of justice committed around the world as well as right here at home may have consequences beyond what we can imagine. The Joker’s monologue points to our baffling perceptions and reactions to the events that disrupt our lives. In our society, what exactly constitutes cause for alarm? And how much sense do those standards really make?
The Terrible Logic of Human Nature
What do people do when they are put in the worst of situations? What would you do if you were given the ultimate power over someone else? The movie touches upon these questions of human nature, but they are perhaps its least developed.
We see this theme pop up several times, most notably in two separate instances. Firstly, it’s evident when Batman breaks into Wayne enterprises and gives Lucius Fox fee reign of the cell phone hackery he has perpetrated upon all of Gotham. Fox demurs, believing that one person should not have this power. People are so easily corrupted that even an initial desire to do good can ultimately lead to evil, the film seems to be saying. This is further confirmed as the entire video interface comes to a fiery end, in a spectacular Batman-programmed self-destruction.
We also see it at the very end, when two separate sets of people are given the ability to destroy each other. Given the lead-up to the film’s climactic action scene, it’s a little bit strange that the boat-bomb storyline ends in the way that it does: With both criminals and everyday citizens concluding that they won’t take another’s life just to preserve their own. Throughout the whole movie, Nolan seems to be trying to tell us we are all easily subject to the temptations of the dark side, but the rest of the movie is already so relentlessly dark that perhaps this ending was more palatable to general audiences.
Humans can’t handle power responsibly. But maybe, in our shared humanity, there is still hope for compassion.
***
At its best, The Dark Knight holds a mirror up to us as viewers and asks us to look closely, to examine ourselves as humans and as citizens. It doesn’t always do this gracefully, but it tries far more than any comic book movie in recent memory has ever done. The fact that it succeeds most of the time is a testament to Nolan’s script and artistry.
http://www.slashfilm.com/assessing-the-themes-of-the-dark-knight/
Really great analysis of TDK's themes.
I personally have a theory to why TDKR turned out so bad IMO. Nolan originally had a plan for 3 Batman movies. He completed 2/3 of his plans in BB and TDK but then Heath Ledger died and since the Joker was in Nolan's plan for the third movie but Nolan wanted to honor Ledger by not recasting the Joker, so he had to cancel all his plans and come up with a plan completely new from scratch - not even a backup plan btw. I'm also assuming that Nolan was given a limited amount of time by WB to come up with a new idea for the third movie or else they would've replaced him as the director, and that Nolan didn't have time to fully plan out everything but didn't want someone else to take over his franchise and mess it up at the same time. So he rushed into production with TDKR.
I agree. I've always felt that the Joker was going to be in the sequel. How large a role he would have had is anyone's guess, but I definitely believe he would have been in there. Apart from the immense popularity of the character, the Joker's work was not done. Batman and Gordon covered up his ace in the hole by hiding the truth about Dent's downfall, thus denying the Joker the battle for Gotham's soul which he had won by proving he could tear down someone as good as Dent.
I think it would have been Joker, not Bane who revealed the truth about Dent. I daresay it would have been handled a lot better than it was in TDKR, too.
On top of that, I also feel that Nolan's heart wasn't in this movie and I think that may be due to Ledger's death. We know part of the reason why Ledger was suffering from stress (or whatever mental condition he was suffering from) was due to all the physical, mental, and emotional work he put into portraying the Joker, so it wouldn't surprise me if Nolan feels a bit guilty & responsible for what happened to him. I am not saying Nolan is in any way guilty or responsible for Ledger's death. Just that it wouldn't be that unrealistic or unlikely if he himself felt that way. So with those 2 factors in mind, those could be the reasons why TDKR turned out the way it is.
Well I don't know about that, but I know Nolan felt so strongly about Ledger's passing that he felt even a mere mention of the Joker in the movie would be disrespectful or hurt Heath's memory in some way. It was Nolan's call. His movie and all. But personally I don't see how referencing the Joker would have hurt Heath's memory in any way.
I mean the consequences of Joker's actions was heavily felt in TDKR. I don't see why one step further and mentioning him by name would have mattered. It's not as though people didn't notice Joker wasn't mentioned, or were not comparing Bane to Joker etc. He was on people's minds regardless of whether he was mentioned or not. You look at all the references to the tragic ends to Rachel and Harvey in TDKR and you know who was responsible for that.
I partly agree with all the good points you brought up about the film. The reason I say partly is because although those are all good points and good things to look forward to in a Batman film, I would argue about half of them either don't work in the context of the movie or are not executed that well. It goes back to what I said earlier about the movie having a lot of great ideas in it but they all fall apart when looking at the movie as a whole.
Fair enough. I understand where you're coming from, even though we don't see eye to eye on the execution. It's all subjective. What works for one person doesn't for another.
It reminds me of a discussion we were having over the last week regarding the lack of a "Gotham voice" in TDKR. Specifically how Begins and especially TDK went to lengths to show the people of Gotham, their thoughts and reactions to the major goings on in Gotham. The rich people at the hotel dinner talking about Batman, the Cops in Police HQ talking about Batman, the Dent press conference, the ferries etc.
Whereas in TDKR we never got anything like that, and it was a movie about a revolution of the people in Gotham and they were practically ignored. Some people felt the simple image of deserted streets was enough to give their feeling on it, but many of us don't agree. We wanted to see Gotham's reaction to the return of Batman, the reveal of the Dent cover up, Bane's revolution etc.
That could be a possibility that I admit I didn't consider but seeing as how it's almost the same scene as the scene in The Dark Knight Returns (with the only differences being the people they're chasing, the number of police cars chasing them, and Batman following the cars from the rooftops as opposed to the Batpod), I'm assuming it was most likely a comic book nod.
I'm inclined to agree. It was such a carbon copy of the scene that I think it could only be that. Aside from Blake we never saw any other Cop express doubt about Batman's guilt, and we all know the ridiculously contrived unbelievable way they had Blake have his doubts.
I haven't debated or discussed the movie in months so I'm going to have to go back to take a look at other posts I made in the past and refresh my memory
. The example I brought up was the example that sticks with me the most because it is the best example of a comic book nod that doesn't work in the context of the film (or at least we can assume it's most likely a comic book nod).
I can name some other examples that are not comic book nods but have the same problem. A good example would be the football scene. Great scene. If I was to show just that scene to someone that didn't see the movie, they would love it. But in the context of the film, it makes no sense. I still don't get what Bane is talking about in that scene. Something about someone in the crowd holding the detonator to the bomb? But they never address that. Bane just says that line and then the rest of the movie pretends like he never said that. Who exactly was the guy in the crowd that held the detonator to the bomb?
The football scene was Bane bluffing by saying he gave the detonator of the bomb to some random unknown citizen. If the authorities attempt to enter Gotham, or if anyone tries to leave, this unknown citizen will detonate the bomb.
Then later in the movie, you get that great speech with Bane about how he wants to give Gotham hope. Then later on, you get that great speech with Bane about how he wants to destroy Gotham because it's still the same old corrupt city on the inside. But as you could see, both speeches contradict each other.
This was Bane's idea of feeding Gotham hope to poison their souls. But I ask how can Gotham have hope poison their souls when they are completely oblivious to the fact they are going to be blown up?
There's also the problem of Bane's rationale that he is completing Ra's Al Ghul's work, because Ra's only wanted to destroy Gotham when it was full of crime and corruption and beyond saving. Even in the Ra's Al Ghul dream Bruce has Ra's says "You yourself fought the decadence of Gotham, and all you managed to achieve was based on a lie. You see now why Gotham is beyond saving and must be allowed to die". That is the real logic of the LOS. They would want to destroy Gotham after learning the peace time is all based on lies.
It would make sense if Bane knew about the Dent lie BEFORE coming to Gotham to destroy it. But he didn't. He discovered it by accident when his plan was well under way. So why was Gotham to be destroyed when it was in peace time with crime statistics so low that Gordon was going to be retired by the Mayor?
Great points. You might be just right. I'll have to rewatch both movies and reconsider that.
I never understood why people said Nolan's Batman was not a detective. He definitely has detective and strategic skills; just not on the same level that the world's greatest detective would have. It makes sense too, at least in BB and TDK. Both movies take place in Bruce's very early career as a crimefighter so it's understandable why he wouldn't be on the same level as the Batman from the comics. In all honesty, Batman in BB and TDK is not that different from the Batman in Year One and Long Halloween in terms of abilities, both stories taking place in Batman's very early career. I don't get why the realism is a big problem either since Batman's world started out very grounded in reality and then escalated more and more with every story. BB and TDK are just as realistic as Year One and Long Halloween are respectively. Heck, BB is in fact a bit less realistic than Year One is.
Exactly. Considering the time constraints within the story, with so many characters and themes to juggle, I think they showed off plenty of his detective skills.
t: but I have always been under the assumption that Talia was just insane in the end. Growing up in that pit and her father throwing out Bane must have all had an effect. To me she only respected her father after he died and became so obsessed trying to fullfill his plans that no matter what state it was in she deemed it unfit to live in. Bane just followed her into it, the Dent act just gave them leverage. They bith just seemed crazy. That's how I've always read it and I understand perfectly if others didn't.
