The Dark Knight The Realism Debate thread

[The Squirrel]

Oh, yeah, but nothing compared to the Nolanites who would probably accept a two year old with baby powder on his face, ketchup on his lips, and green crayon in his hair in the guise of "realism." I'm not a Burtonite, but the extremists on both sides are full of crap.

Just like Republicans and Democrats!

Funny how you can never escape Extremists.

 

[CaptainClown]

Omfg Burton Did A Better Job Then Nolan!

Omfg Nolan Made A Gritty Realistic Batman!

Omg Burtons Joker Didn't Have Make Up!

Omg Its Realistic!

 

[8atman]

Wow last time I rush a thread trying to leave work, lost track of time and didn't want to not post it before I left. Sorry for any confusion, it is a bit jumbled (didn't even finish the title).

What I'm saying is do you think it's possible that Nolan is going to put one big final twist in his version or story of Batman? A twist that shows us Batman's failure? Realisticaly your not going to get the main players of this new franchise to stick with this for years to come pumping out movie after movie. So why not let Nolan tell his story and if there is still life in the Batman series give it another revamp. They are obviously not afraid to do that if someone else will be portraying Batman in the JLA movie. Plus Bale hinted they should hold off till the end of their series. Would seem to me that there is an end at sight.

My guess is Nolan has an end to go with his begining of the story that he's telling. Nolan isn't the type to have one of those happy endings, especially if he's giving some realism to it. In interviews anytime the character of Batman or Bruce is talked about its mentioned how this is a tragic tale. The idea of becoming Batman wasn't brought forth by sane rationalizing, this was an act of desperation or borderline insanity. For a character to go to those depths it's very likely he'd meet a tragic end. With all this talk about Bruce's identity being at risk it might be the opening of a door to a tragic end for him.

Is that better?

 

[The Dark Guybrush]

Wow last time I rush a thread trying to leave work, lost track of time and didn't want to not post it before I left. Sorry for any confusion, it is a bit jumbled (didn't even finish the title).

What I'm saying is do you think it's possible that Nolan is going to put one big final twist in his version or story of Batman? A twist that shows us Batman's failure? Realisticaly your not going to get the main players of this new franchise to stick with this for years to come pumping out movie after movie. So why not let Nolan tell his story and if there is still life in the Batman series give it another revamp. They are obviously not afraid to do that if someone else will be portraying Batman in the JLA movie. Plus Bale hinted they should hold off till the end of their series. Would seem to me that there is an end at sight.

My guess is Nolan has an end to go with his begining of the story that he's telling. Nolan isn't the type to have one of those happy endings, especially if he's giving some realism to it. In interviews anytime the character of Batman or Bruce is talked about its mentioned how this is a tragic tale. The idea of becoming Batman wasn't brought forth by sane rationalizing, this was an act of desperation or borderline insanity. For a character to go to those depths it's very likely he'd meet a tragic end. With all this talk about Bruce's identity being at risk it might be the opening of a door to a tragic end for him.

Is that better?

again, batman will not meet an untimely demise in a nolan film.
the whole point of the batman character is, to me, a symbol of hope when there should be no hope. bruce wayne suffered something tragic, and overcame it the only way he could.. nolan's nailed the character pretty straight on the head so far, i doubt he'll muck things up for the sake of having a "twist ending".. tragic figure or not, BATMAN WILL NOT DIE IN THESE FILMS. christ. i understand what you are saying but it's not making a whole heck of a lotta sense..

 

[fcrowelle06]

I Am Iron Man!!!

 

[Mr. Socko]

There is certainly an aspect of "realism" present in much of Begins. But when people say it means Batman might die or such and such villain must be changed in a 180 to fit into this batman universe, it's ridiculous.

 

[8atman]

again, batman will not meet an untimely demise in a nolan film.
the whole point of the batman character is, to me, a symbol of hope when there should be no hope. bruce wayne suffered something tragic, and overcame it the only way he could.. nolan's nailed the character pretty straight on the head so far, i doubt he'll muck things up for the sake of having a "twist ending".. tragic figure or not, BATMAN WILL NOT DIE IN THESE FILMS. christ. i understand what you are saying but it's not making a whole heck of a lotta sense..

I'm not even meaning death when I say Batman's demise, maybe he just can't be Batman anymore but he still makes a difference. I didn't think it was that far fetched.

 

[The Dark Guybrush]

bruce wayne will never stop being batman.

 

[The Marvel]

.....least untill he gets a heart attack at least.....

 

[Spider-Bat]

It's A Comic Book, Shove The Realism, Even Though Batman Has No Actual Powers That Doesn't Matter, It Is In A Realm Of Fantasy, And There Are Weird Things And People In His Universe.

If I Want To See Realism I'll Watch The News.

Just Make The Comic Come To Life!

 

[CConn]

No, don't make the comic come to life. Unless you're adapting a single, specific comic, it's impossible to do. A character like Batman's comics are extremely varied and thematically and artistically different. Believe it or not, there ARE Batman comics as realistic - if not moreso - than Batman Begins.

What they SHOULD do, however, is bring the characters to life. It's one thing to take a certain tact when adapting a comic book. Realism (for Nolan), Gothic Noir (for Burton), it's all good in its own way. What's bad is when you start altering the very well-established status quos of the characters simply to fit whatever particular vision you have.

You like realism? That's great. Put Batman in Chicago. It's certainly looked like Chicago once or twice in the comics. Leave out some of the more fantastic elements of the universe like Clayface and the Mad Monk. What you should not do, however, is start editing every character in the film to proscribe to that realism (or whatever approach you're taking). When you start doing that - when you (seemingly) are ashamed to show the Scarecrow with his mask on, and can't even say the Joker's skin is bleached, what's the point of adaptation anymore? What's the point of translating a comic book to film when you don't even care enough about the characters to carry their integrity over into film? That's my thought.

 

[The Sage]

No, don't make the comic come to life. Unless you're adapting a single, specific comic, it's impossible to do. A character like Batman's comics are extremely varied and thematically and artistically different. Believe it or not, there ARE Batman comics as realistic - if not moreso - than Batman Begins.

What they SHOULD do, however, is bring the characters to life. It's one thing to take a certain tact when adapting a comic book. Realism (for Nolan), Gothic Noir (for Burton), it's all good in its own way. What's bad is when you start altering the very well-established status quos of the characters simply to fit whatever particular vision you have.

You like realism? That's great. Put Batman in Chicago. It's certainly looked like Chicago once or twice in the comics. Leave out some of the more fantastic elements of the universe like Clayface and the Mad Monk. What you should not do, however, is start editing every character in the film to proscribe to that realism (or whatever approach you're taking). When you start doing that - when you (seemingly) are ashamed to show the Scarecrow with his mask on, and can't even say the Joker's skin is bleached, what's the point of adaptation anymore? What's the point of translating a comic book to film when you don't even care enough about the characters to carry their integrity over into film? That's my thought.

 

[MAKIEVELLI]

I like how you framed your argument. Very well said man. To make the Joker a permanent white alien, makes him a cartoon character which doesn't fit into Nolan's world. This will be a very interesting and crazy joker, yes he's a man. I think some fanboys don't want to accept that the Joker is just a human that doesn't need to go through a white transformation to be THE JOKER.

When you go through a transformation process, it is very comic bookish. It is trying to get kids to identify a character as being beyond human. You don't need to do that in a movie, it works much better the way Nolan is doing it.

Yes he does, otherwise he's just some crazy screw-up who paints his face like a little kid. The thing that makes him the Joker and not "Jack Napier" is that he doesn't wear a goddamn costume.

 

[Super_Ludacris]

Nolan's Scarecrow wasnt that far off than the canon Scarecrow....so I dont why people point to him as a flaw.

 

[The Dark Guybrush]

TDK slogan- "MORE realer. LESS faker."

 

[Mr. Socko]

Nolan's Scarecrow wasnt that far off than the canon Scarecrow....so I dont why people point to him as a flaw.

As I posted on the Begins board...


Scarecrow is one of my favorite villains who has alot of potential. In Begins film, he was wasted entirely. The reason is because there was no real quality to the character, let alone quantity. He wears a normal suit and a potato sack for all but one scene he's in. He served no more than the role of a small pawn. He honestly wasn't very memorable, not a single bit. In his finale scene, when he's remotely looking like the Scarecrow, he's atop a horse, looking so badass and making you think something awesome is about to happen...then he's electrocuted and rides off screaming in a scene that lasted less than a minute.

But that's not to say he was all bad, because he wasn't. Murphy did a good job, I liked the way he delivered the lines, and he looked the part. Murphy could have been perfect had the Scarecrow had more to do. A good actor in a very underused role.

It's a shame he won't have a bigger part in TDK either. From the news we've heard, he'll be in even less of TDK than Begins. Shame what Scarecrow has become on film.

 

[Super_Ludacris]

He seemed the same, minus the scarecrow outfit....Nolan did his ass a favour lol

 

[Rorschach II]

I know this is a little off-topic, but Scarecrow is probably the villain best-suited to Burton's Batman. In retrospect, the sequel should've had him as the villain instead of Penguin.

 

[Mr. Socko]

He seemed the same, minus the scarecrow outfit....Nolan did his ass a favour lol

As I said, Murphy would have been the perfect Scarecrow had the filmmakers utilized suched a fascinating character instead of degrading him to around 5 minutes of screentime and a suit & potato sack. The potential was certainly there, but they made him into a C-rate pawn who did nothing memorable throughout the entire movie.

Murphy as the Scarecrow was in no way bad, but he lacked definition.

 

[Super_Ludacris]

People complain about his outfit but I was watching BB yesterday and I was thinking "You know he would have looked dumb with thewhole outfit on anyway". You had to show some transistion to him becoming a rogue in the future but I mean its just as well he didnt go all out

 

[Mr. Socko]

People complain about his outfit but I was watching BB yesterday and I was thinking "You know he would have looked dumb with thewhole outfit on anyway". You had to show some transistion to him becoming a rogue in the future but I mean its just as well he didnt go all out

I hope you realize the lack of characterization for such a potentially memorable arch-nemesis of Batman goes long past a "bad costume." Hardly any motivation, completely underused, 5 minutes of screentime, yelling the word "fear" every other minute he was on screen. He became nothing more than a little pawn and his finale was awful. It wasn't even an entire minute. And now in TDK, his screentime is supposedly even less than in Begins. Such a wasted character.

 

[MAKIEVELLI]

As I said, Murphy would have been the perfect Scarecrow had the filmmakers utilized suched a fascinating character instead of degrading him to around 5 minutes of screentime and a suit & potato sack. The potential was certainly there, but they made him into a C-rate pawn who did nothing memorable throughout the entire movie.

Murphy as the Scarecrow was in no way bad, but he lacked definition.

In Nolan's defense there is not much to do with Crane to begin with. There are only so many shots you can have of people cowering in fear and their hallucinations pounding relentlessly at the screen. At some point it just gets repetitive.

 

[BubbaGump]

No, don't make the comic come to life. Unless you're adapting a single, specific comic, it's impossible to do. A character like Batman's comics are extremely varied and thematically and artistically different. Believe it or not, there ARE Batman comics as realistic - if not moreso - than Batman Begins.

What they SHOULD do, however, is bring the characters to life. It's one thing to take a certain tact when adapting a comic book. Realism (for Nolan), Gothic Noir (for Burton), it's all good in its own way. What's bad is when you start altering the very well-established status quos of the characters simply to fit whatever particular vision you have.

You like realism? That's great. Put Batman in Chicago. It's certainly looked like Chicago once or twice in the comics. Leave out some of the more fantastic elements of the universe like Clayface and the Mad Monk. What you should not do, however, is start editing every character in the film to proscribe to that realism (or whatever approach you're taking). When you start doing that - when you (seemingly) are ashamed to show the Scarecrow with his mask on, and can't even say the Joker's skin is bleached, what's the point of adaptation anymore? What's the point of translating a comic book to film when you don't even care enough about the characters to carry their integrity over into film? That's my thought.

Good post, but I don't agree with the last paragraph. Just as Nolan has his vision, so did Burton (despite the "oh, he made a true BATMAN movie"). Burton edited his characters to fit his vision as well. Catwoman was totally wrong, yet she was great. Penguin wasn't exactly his comic book counterpart either, yet he functioned so well--he's probably my favorite villain in all the films.

As long as the edits are done well, I really don't have a problem with directors' different interpretations of characters. I see it as new ways of looking at characters, settings, etc. Even if Nolan's Joker isn't perma-white (though I have a feeling leaning otherwise...), it's not like we still won't have the comic books, TAS, or Jack Nicholson.

 

[Mr. Socko]

Good post, but I don't agree with the last paragraph. Just as Nolan has his vision, so did Burton (despite the "oh, he made a true BATMAN movie"). Burton edited his characters to fit his vision as well. Catwoman was totally wrong, yet she was great. Penguin wasn't exactly his comic book counterpart either, yet he functioned so well--he's probably my favorite villain in all the films.

As long as the edits are done well, I really don't have a problem with directors' different interpretations of characters. I see it as new ways of looking at characters, settings, etc. Even if Nolan's Joker isn't perma-white (though I have a feeling leaning otherwise...), it's not like we still won't have the comic books, TAS, or Jack Nicholson.

Well said.

 

[BubbaGump]

In Nolan's defense there is not much to do with Crane to begin with. There are only so many shots you can have of people cowering in fear and their hallucinations pounding relentlessly at the screen. At some point it just gets repetitive.

Stop kissing his ass.