The Dark Knight Rises The "Nolan's views on Batman villains" thread

[Omegabat]

I would never accuse Bane of being Batman's archenemy. That's unquestionably the Joker.

Agreed,I am a big Bane fan but even I wouldn't go that far.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

Dont show me Deathstroke scans,I have read that entire series.He's one of my favorite characters,the only reason people remember that arc is cause Slade beat Batman the rest of the story is forgettable and meaningless,certainly not movie adaptation worthy.

Rises was hardly an adaptation of Knightfall, just like Begins was hardly an adaptation of The Man Who Falls and The Dark Knight was hardly an adaptation of The Long Halloween. They take cues from them and adapt situations, not the entirety of the story.

Batman and Slade have no conflict or history.And what exactly would Slade have been in Rises? a mercenary? check we got that with Bane.

Slade could have filled that role.

Doomsday had no personality or depth when he was introduced,he killed Superman by in an all out brawl,Bane got a solid origin story in Vengeance of Bane.

Doomsday got his origin story in Hunter/Prey. In both of their "showcase" stories both villains show little depth, Doomsday obviously moreso since he cannot communicate.

Prometheus was created years after Bane,so how exactly is Bane a poor man's version of him? Bane's creators mentioned Doc Savage as an inspiration.

I don't mean that Prometheus came before, I mean that Prometheus is better.

Yeah I've read all those stories,each have a completely different version of the Riddler,one second he's a criminal mastermind who deduced Batman's secret,then he's a PI who forgot,then he's a demon worshipper etc.Only Riddle me That is a proper Riddler story,Dark Knight Dark City is one my all time favorite Batman stories but if I wanted a Batman story on cults,Barbatos,demon worship I'd rather go for Morrisons Batman.Hush was a lame Jeph flippin Loeb story where characters pop in at random and are poorly handled.That story had Batman going through Knightfall all over again only for Riddler to pop in at the end and reveal himself as the "TEH mastermind".Even an idiot can write a story like that,Hush was by all accounts poorly written.Hush himself was a dismal character,the writer had no grip on most of the characters(in typical Loeb fashion we got dozens of well known characters running around),it did nothing for the Riddler aside from him deducing Batman's secret ID(and by his own admission he needed the Lazarus pits along with years of experience fighting Batman something which Bane didn't) and then it didn't last long for writers to ignore that remove that development either.

I originally typed out a big response concerning Riddler's sometimes seemingly fluid personality, and how it is the same for all characters. But you only really need to do one. Joker. Just look at Joker, he is new every story he is in.

Black Mask is at his core just a sadistic criminal with a torture fetish and an empire,just like Skull but Skull is that and a LOT more

Focusing on just broad characteristics makes every character seem the same. Those same attributes apply to Joker, as well as Professor Pyg, Penguin etc.

Bane is nothing like Spawn.

Bane copied his mask.

Read the "Bane" one shot.It screams TDKR.

The '97 one? If so, I don't particularly care for it.

I already addressed the stupidity that was Hush,it was'nt just Ra's who was outsmarted but also the Joker,so yeah lets digest the sheer stupidity of that.

Every character has stupid stories, don't focus on the disjointed narrative, because that wouldn't make it into the film if it were a well told story. Focus on the broad points and situation. Hush could have been used as a substitute story and worked perfectly following The Dark Knight.

Even Snyder's Lincoln March had more panel time before he was revealed as the final villain.

The fact that you in one post acknowledged the sublime story telling of Grant Morrison and piss poor story telling of Scott Snyder has made me not want to argue any further

 

[Victarion]

I feel the Hush connection to Bruce's past would feel more forced; it hinged on the villain being a childhood friend of Burce's. I'd prefer that relationship be developed or touched on in at least two films prior to Hush's appearance. During all the Riddler speculation, I was actually hoping Deathstroke would be the villain in here. He sounded more intriguing than what Riddler could bring to the table this late in the game.

 

[shauner111]

Riddler would fit this tone perfectly but just not right after the Joker.

 

[BatmanGoesToRio]

Is the Riddler really some kind of watered down Joker? I would say: No.
Of course in "Forever" he is. But in this movie even Two-Face is a cheap Joker rip-off.
The Riddler can be shown and written as a very intelligent and sane guy who is absolutely not random at all. The problem is that Nolan's Joker was absolutely out of character. Nolan's Joker was a schemer and IMHO he was not crazy. Not at all. So maybe there are no huge differences between his version of the Joker and his version of the Riddler. But in the comic, there are.

 

[shauner111]

Heath's Joker would wait in the passenger's seat of a truck and if a cop happened to arrive, without hesitation he would shoot the cops head off. Then he would proceed to go ahead with what he was doing, and if need be, he would change the plan on the fly. Joker had basic ideas but he also improvised quite a lot. Do things in the moment then alter a plan if he had to. Joker thinks on his feet.

I guess Riddler is not as chaotic of a killer. While Joker is messy, Riddler is meticulous. Obsessively so. I can see the character going to the barber every couple of weeks and maintaining a neat appearance. And to the point: I can see him only killing a person if he could throw in a challenging riddle/puzzle/game while doing it. He would probably prefer to NOT kill anyhow. He's more about the puzzle of a crime.

Joker was going to blow up the ferries anyway, he just wanted to prove his point first. I think Riddler would have just walked away after that situation.

So i do think they are different but it was an incredibly good decision to NOT use Riddler directly after Joker. They are psychological villains without that physical threat. The games we saw in TDK is another reason why it was smart to follow it up with Bane. But i would not object to a Nygma vs Blake story (graphic novel, animated or live-action). Meaning, they could bring the character into Nolans universe and do him different from Joker....just right after Joker would have been a stupid move.

I still stand by the fact that Nolans Riddler and Joker, one after the other, could have been dumb because there's plenty of similarities. But i can now say that when i thought about it...there's also a heck of a lot of differences where they can at least co-exist as long as there's a distance between movies/stories & even directors. Maybe that's why it was best for Burton to never tackle Riddler or Schumacher to never tackle Joker. Because the same director or writing team could possibly repeat things. This is why the reboot needs to use Edward and distance themselves from the J-Man, at least until the franchise continues Bond style through re-casts and new filmmakers.

 

[BatLobster]

Nail on head shauner. It's not that they're too similar overall, just that they're vaguely similar enough that it's not the best choice for a direct follow up.

Similarly, bringing in Bane and the LOS wouldn't have felt right immediately after Ra's, but for film 3 where a lot of time had passed it works.

 

[Omegabat]

Rises was hardly an adaptation of Knightfall, just like Begins was hardly an adaptation of The Man Who Falls and The Dark Knight was hardly an adaptation of The Long Halloween. They take cues from them and adapt situations, not the entirety of the story.



Slade could have filled that role.



Doomsday got his origin story in Hunter/Prey. In both of their "showcase" stories both villains show little depth, Doomsday obviously moreso since he cannot communicate.



I don't mean that Prometheus came before, I mean that Prometheus is better.



I originally typed out a big response concerning Riddler's sometimes seemingly fluid personality, and how it is the same for all characters. But you only really need to do one. Joker. Just look at Joker, he is new every story he is in.



Focusing on just broad characteristics makes every character seem the same. Those same attributes apply to Joker, as well as Professor Pyg, Penguin etc.



Bane copied his mask.



The '97 one? If so, I don't particularly care for it.



Every character has stupid stories, don't focus on the disjointed narrative, because that wouldn't make it into the film if it were a well told story. Focus on the broad points and situation. Hush could have been used as a substitute story and worked perfectly following The Dark Knight.



The fact that you in one post acknowledged the sublime story telling of Grant Morrison and piss poor story telling of Scott Snyder has made me not want to argue any further

True,but Slade doesn't have the dynamic or history with Batman(as compared to Bane) that is required,why not just have Toyman or Trickster replace Joker in TDK? if we go by that logic.

Vengeance of Bane came out before Knightfall,Doomsday got a partial origin story in Hunter Prey(after Death of Superman) and then after that in the Doomsday Annual.Basically Bane was a character in Knightfall,Doomsday was just a RAWR monster in Death of Superman.Another problem with Doomsday is his nonsensical power set,he just makes no sense at all.

Prometheus himself is arguably just a Wrath ripoff(motives,origin etc),and like Doomsday Prometheus's power is just plot devices that make no sense and rely on the stupidity of other characters.
I've seen many villains benefit from that but Doomsday and Prometheus that it to a whole new level.

I think the problem with the Riddler is that he hasn't had proper stories to his resume that Nolan could look at and go "WOW",just making him deadlier by imagination(or for the heck of it) would most certainly result in a Joker knockoff.

Joker is the best personification of those types of characters with so much story,dynamic,history etc.

Arguably Deathstroke copied Spider-man's mask if we just go by pattern.But it was never the intent of the writers/creators.

Again problem with Hush was that
Knightfall had already done the same and with much greater consequences/results.
Hush himself was and to this day remains a lousy character.
Riddler only appeared in like 2 panels before he was declared the mastermind of the plot at the climax(in a story that ran almost a year).You could interchange the Riddler with any generic character and the result remains the same,Knightfall had Bane's stamp on it unquestionably,Riddler cannot say the same for Hush.
Hush relies too much on supporting characters.

 

[shauner111]

Hush is overrated by a lot of people around here. Not only does he rely on supporting characters but he himself was never original. He always seemed like a knock-off of a few different Batman rogues over the years, in appearance and characterization. He has a cool name and look most of the time but it doesnt mean it's original. I also think it's extremely weak to suddenly tie him into Bruce's origins like 60 + years into the characters history. It always feels lazy to me when this happens. Even though i like Black Mask a hell of a lot more than Hush, and he debuted close to 20 years prior, it was another thing that i was never comfortable with. Suddenly he knew Bruce growing up, and so did his parents etc. I dont buy into that stuff. If Nolan ever used these two characters for a sequel, they would have needed to be at least referenced in Batman Begins for me to believe it. Or write Roman Sionis in a different way. The reboot will work no matter what because the origin of that universe will probably be open. But there's still something that feels off about it for me.

I dont really see the Spawn, Bane mask thing. Maybe a little bit, but didn't Spawn arrive a year prior to Bane in the comics?? It feels almost impossible that there would be a link. They were probably writing and conceptualizing Bane right before Spawns debut or at the same time.

 

[The Batman]

The idea that Ra's, in any form, is a watered down Bane is laughable. Straight laughable.

 

[Victarion]

Bane's original mask looks more like a death's head. Its not at all luchadoresque whereas his TAS mask is.

On Chris B's Batman fansite there's old "leaks" you can find pertaining to TDKR. One of the more interesting ones included Talia, Black Mask and the Bat. Perhaps Nolan was going to use Black Mask at one point? I think he could be slotted into the film in Daggett's place if you wanted.

 

[DACrowe]

Unlike previous incarnations, the villains are not just crazy madmen or pulpy mobsters. They are meant to evoke terrorists. They tap into a primal fear we have these days.

 

[Omegabat]

The idea that Ra's, in any form, is a watered down Bane is laughable. Straight laughable.

We're talking about the movies not comics,and even in the comics it's Ra's resources that put him at an advantage,wait now that I think about it even in the comics Bane had the Secret Six(Knockout,Banshee,King Shark,Black Alice) who would destroy Ra's organization.

IMO overall Talia>Bane>Ra's

 

[The Batman]

more than ever, I stand by what i said

 

[badgrammar]

Read the "Bane" one shot.It screams TDKR.

Holy CRAP! You're right!!!!

 

[Snow Queen]

Really sorry, wrong thread.

 

[GothamInAshes]

i dunno, i loved Nolan's view on Batman's villains. no superpowers seems to tie into his more realistic and darker view of Batman. i personally love it!! t:

Nolan is my hero. he really is. he is an amazing, visionary director. just sayin...