Nope, I already said that it was one of the biggest box office hits of all time (in 1989).
Michael Bay's Transformers movies are some of the biggest box office hits of all time, too. That wasn't what I was talking about. I'm talking about general reaction to the movie. You're acting like it's seen as some low grade bad movie.
As for comic book movies being common place before Batman '89, this is not entirely true, besides most of these were of the camp variety:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_superhero_films
It doesn't matter whether they were of the camp variety or not, they were still comic book movies.
Aside from the Superman sequels, you had.. what?.. Condor Man, Swamp Thing, The Toxic Avenger and Howard the Duck??
Red Sonja, Howard the Duck, the three Superman sequels, Supergirl, Swamp Thing, Condor Man, The Return of Swamp Thing, The Toxic Avenger parts 1-3 etc.
That's over 12 superhero movies in the space of 10 years. That's just a mere four more movies than this:
After Batman you had TMNT, Darkman, Captain America, The Guyver, The Rocketeer, The Shadow, The Fantastic Four, The Crow, Dick Tracy, The Mask, Judge Dredd, Tank Girl, Barb Wire, The Phantom, Spawn, Steel..... before Blade in 1998.
Hardly a bigger implosion of more comic book movies is it.
Nope, even though I agree there are flaws like all movies.
Alright then show me a couple of posts you've made praising anything about the Nolan movies. You only have 300 odd posts.Shouldn't be hard to find.
Yeah but some movies that are now considered classics were panned when they came out, or made poor box office. Blade Runner and The Thing, for example. Some movies which were considered great for their time don't hold up well today.
That's two different arguments you're making. You're listing two movies that gained classic status. Then you're saying movies that were once considered great don't hold up, which means they were not all that great to begin with if they can't stand the test of time.
Are you saying Batman '89 doesn't hold up?
Not just this message board, but elsewhere. I remember the hype when this came out, but since then I have noticed a backlash from many many people, pointing out it's flaws and that it was 'overrated'.
That's just hearsay. I don't believe you've seen any significant numbers that constitute a backlash. If there was we'd have heard about it by now. I think you're just over exaggerating a loud minority you've seen.
The internet is the now and the future. It's more important how general audience perceive things to me 20 years from now than a bunch of elite critics. Will TDK get an audience backlash when Batman VS Superman comes out just like what happened with Batman '89? Time will tell.
I'm not talking about a bunch of elite critics, I'm talking about general negative reaction, like those listed in the ones I showed you for Burton's movies. They were not critics specific, and more importantly they were reactions that happened to the movies when they were released. They have just lasted the distance. They didn't fade away over the years.
The TDK trilogy doesn't have that kind of reception. Not when they were released and certainly not now.
Give it another 20 years or so.
Sure. See you in 20 years then.
No, Grissom wanted him whacked 'cause he was screwing his missus. But he was too afraid to do it himself which is why he had him setup. Napier was obviously a big player in the criminal underworld of Gotham.
That's my whole point. If Grissom needed Jack, if he was a vital part of Grissom's empire, he wouldn't have had him killed off, no matter what he did. But he did because he wasn't as important as Jack liked to believe he was to Grissom.
The only reason Napier was notable was because he was a direct link to Grissom. It was Grissom they wanted. Napier was just the means to get him. Like Lau in TDK was the means to get the mob.
Oh you mean the ones that just repeat what I just showed you?
Finger, who he admitted helped him with the initial idea, had shown him a photo of actor Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs.
Bill Finger and I created the Joker. Bill was the writer. Jerry Robinson came to me with a playing card of the Joker. […] But he looks like Conrad Veidt " you know, the actor in "The Man Who Laughs", by Victor Hugo. There's a photo of Conrad Veidt in my biography, "Batman & Me." So Bill Finger had a book with a photograph of Conrad Veidt and showed it to me and said, "Here's the Joker." Jerry Robinson had absolutely nothing to do with it.
This one doesn't even mention where they got inspiration from, just who claims they created Joker:
http://archive.today/VsY8I
Nor does this one:
http://archive.today/53Qwn#selection-937.0-937.804 It also just covers the argument of who claimed they created the Joker.
Well how? I don't understand. Wikipedia says The Killing Joke was published March 1988. Batman went into pre-production April 1988.
Wikipedia is a website that can be edited by anyone. I can go in there now and change it to say they started filming last year if I wanted to.
Oh, and Studios > Burton in many creative decisions on Batman '89, which is why he wouldn't have returned for the sequel unless they gave him more creative control.
I know that. You're missing the point again. Burton is the one who read TKJ. He's the one who wanted to cast Dourif, a much younger actor, as the Joker. But the studio overrode him. Meaning he was well aware Joker was a younger man. He wanted to cast a younger man.
I don't recall saying exactly that. My actual quote was: (And btw, Heath Ledger knew Batman was going to save him, Nicholson didn't, so Heath Ledger wasn't being fearless)
Right, that was your initial argument which is nonsense. Joker did n ot know Batman would save him. If he did what the heck would be the point in even trying to make him kill him in the first place if he knew ahead of time he wouldn't?
Then I said:
That doesn't mean he was fearless. He was trying to win a psychological game against Batman. Crazy, but not fearless. Nicholson was not trying to prove that Batman would kill him. He had already tried to kill him twice before, yet Ledger had been saved by Batman once before, therefore it was more likely that Ledger expected Batman to save him again.
Then:
Heath Ledger was fearless because he was in control of the situation. Both when Harvey had the gun on him, when Batman almost ran him down and when Batman threw him off the building.
Exactly. Two contradictions. First you say he was fearless, then you say he wasn't.
You're flip flopping all over the place on this argument that I think you've lost sight of what ever point you were trying to make.
Ok, you got me on the "fearless" thing. The reason being that he was trying to get Batman to break his one rule. However, you can't rule out that in the back of his mind, he had a pretty good idea that Batman would not allow him to die, otherwise there would be no point to his "ace in the hole" back up plan. I think that was the point I was trying to make.
All good criminals have a back up plan just in case. You can never be 100% certain about anything, even if you think the odds of something happening are darn good.
Joker was not about to put all his chances on one thing. Because he had a back up plan just in case is not an indicator that he had a really good idea his plan would fail, and he would never break Batman.
He was just accounting for all possibilities. It's one reason why he was such a great villain.
Well if he was 100% certain then he wouldn't even bother with a backup plan, would he?
Of course he would. Again you miss the point the movie actually spells out to you. He was not going to risk everything in a fist fight with Batman. In the remote chance he would fail, and you can tell by the surprise and then anger he had when he realized the ferries were not going to blow each other up that he had been certain they would, he would have a back up plan just in case.
And yet his "ace in the hole" was Joker's final victory, even though he was hanging upside down and about to be arrested by SWAT, he was laughing his ass off. Why? Because Joker had WON (at least in his mind).
I know that. That was a totally separate thing to him laughing because he thought he finally broke Batman. That's the point. You were claiming he was laughing because he knew Batman would save him. That he was in control of the whole situation, when in fact he had just racked up two failures in this scene. Failing to make the ferries kill each other, and failing to make Batman kill him.
The difference is, Jack Nicholson LOST. He had no "ace in the hole". He was screwed. Batman won, not Joker.
That's not the difference. The difference is Nicholson's Joker was afraid to die. It was not about winning or losing. He had already lost twice already before this. His smilex scheme was foiled. His plan to gas the city at the parade was foiled. Batman blew up his poison operation at Axis. He had failed at everything he attempted. Batman had won.
That was the crux of the whole fearless discussion. Ledger's Joker didn't show he was afraid of anything. Nicholson did.
Of course Ledger Joker was pissed that his plans failed, but in the end, he is laughing.. he got the last laugh, he won, he gained control.
That's the only part of this whole analysis you've got right. He was laughing over his victory over Dent.
I don't even know how to respond to that. Absolute fear pretty much takes over a person's mind and reduces them to a quivering wreck, with no control whatsoever.
You must be joking. People smile out of fear and terror all the time. Especially if they're trying to hide the fact they are afraid.
No, I meant on message boards I've been on, and movie fan sites.
Yeah so you've said. You're over exaggerating a small minority.
There are changes in every movie script during production.
Yes, and in the case of this movie, especially the scene in particular we're discussing, it's very different to the one you've posted in that script. Including this smile you keep claiming you see.
I am talking about what is in the movie that matches with what is in the script. The smile is there, I see it, and it's in the script. I even posted an image and the video for you:
And nobody except you sees this as a smile. It looks like a strained look on his face from trying to hang on. I even asked you to show me some examples of other people who made this observation and not surprisingly you couldn't show any.
You're seeing something that isn't there.
Then I even pointed out where it says so in the shooting script.
I don't know how much more blunt I can be.
An out dated script with a ton of changes to the actual movie we got, including this smile you keep saying you see. It's not there. It went out with the handcuffs, the dialogue when Joker falls, and a million other things changed from that scene and the movie in general.
We all remember bats attacking Joker, Joker in handcuffs, Joker saying I saved the last dance for you as he fell with the Gargoyle etc.
