I agree with quite a bit on both of you. O Prime, the comparison to Singer's X-Men is a good one and I agree. I think I like Nolan a bit more than you because you said you dislike his vision. I like his vision, it's simply not my favorite. I definitely prefer Burton's art direction which was like the brooding atmospheric world of The Long Halloween- gargoyles and decaying landscapes to boot. I like Nolan because he's really good at characterization, but with the realistic feel I always think of his work as elsewhere tales which simply presents an alternate take on Batman.
I kind of agree with this. Although I think many of Nolan's characters are
very weak. The thing is though, with Burton, Batman was a strong character, Alfred was a strong character, Joker was great, Vicky Vale was adaquate and the rest were just kind of there. With Nolan, his movies had several characters, and all of them at least had something to do. You don't have a case of Pat Hingle "James Gordon" where an otherwise intergral character just becomes a kind of comic relief with little to no impact on the story.
For that reason, I fully accept what he does and quite like it.
I can watch it, and enjoy it, but unlike Burton, I find myself wanting more changes to bring it closer to the book. Burton isn't perfect to me by any stretch, it's just that when I watch his at times I go "wow, that's just like the comic" and with Nolan that
never happens.
But indeed, he lacks far too many elements of what I consider "vintage Batman." Nolan gives us a Scarecrow with only a mask, he looks like a businessman with a potato sack on his head as opposed to what Scarecrow usually looks like.
This is an excellent example.
For the man who directed
Inception I find Nolan's imagination to be fairly limiting on the Batman mythos. Whether he has powers or not Batman is a mythic figure, every bit as mythic as Hercules and Apollo. The more you explain things, such as breaking down the creation of the costume, or making him go through several proto-batcaves, the less impressive and interesting Batman becomes.
Let's rewrite
Batman Begins for a moment and instead of having the Bruce Wayne who mopes through life, let's think about how the comic origin would've played out. There is something compelling about a ten year old who upholds a bedtime oath he makes to his dead parents. Nolan's problem was from day one he attempted to make Batman grounded and logical. His Scarecrow is symptomatic of this. Nolan's movies tend to try to answer the question: why
should a man fight crime dressed as a Bat. Then he shoehorns all these motivations, whether they be technical aspects of the costume, or romantic feelings or chiding butlers as to why this course of action is Bruce's choice. That's not Batman though!
Batman is meant to be ridiculous, which makes his serious devotion all the more compelling. He's not just fighting a war, he's fighting a war we, the audience, all know is a completely ridiculous for one man to undertake.
