What should remembered si that 'realism' is just a trend in movies right now. A very popular one. But just a trend. It will eventually be replaced by the next one. And the next Batdirector will give us his vision of Batman.
Totally...
I think Nolan can do a better job at tweaking the golden age origin than Burton did, Burton put too much emphasis on making it dark than realism.
You see, and this is what kills me. "Realism", especially in case of Batman, isn't really realistic. You want true "realism", rent
The Godfather, or
Schlinder's List, otherwise what you're watching isn't realism. At it's heart, Batman is a comic, Nolan only creates illusions of realism, the only problem I have is they take it too far. They try to imagine it totally in our world, but in the end they still have to make those leaps of faith into the world of fantasy. Consequently I find Nolan's take to be at odds with itself. It does this "realistic" and "gritty" tone, but most of the events and characters are as implausible as the one's from Burton's era, or even West's era.
Ultimately for a comic film to work for me it has to embody the comic and be good. Marvel proved to me, with
Iron Man and
The Incredible Hulk that the audiences can accept a more comic booky world, and quite frankly, it didn't seem to me any less "realistic" than Nolan. The thing about fantasy is the writer makes their own rules, and the movie is expected to follow them.
Lord of the Rings for example, has it's own world which operates different from our own, yet the film is able to maintain the world in which it operates.
Batman Begins to me is kind of like
Enchanted if that movie took itself seriously. It tries to shoehorn a fantasy character into a realistic setting, the only problem is while on the surface that is fine, scratch at it a little bit and like a house of cards it falls apart.
That's one of the reasons I like BTAS and Burton so much. They were realistic in the sense that physics seemed to matter most of the time, but they allowed themselves to explore the world of fantasy without limiting themselves. Making it more fun, but also more believeable. See if all I have to do is accept that certain people can fly, or turn into green giants, or make advanced tech, then I don't need a bunch of pointless explanation when it comes to revealing how they became who they are.
Batman Begins was all about demystifying the character, and bringing him down to a level of you and me. In a way the reason "where does he get those wonderful toys" is such a memorable line is because we don't have to know. The movie makes clear Batman is no ordinary man, despite what we see on the outside, there is some mythic and unexplainable quality about him.
Once you use realism to strip all those elements away you lose, ultimately, what makes comics so interesting in the first place.
