The Dark Knight Rises The TDKR General Discussion Thread - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part 146

[Shikamaru]

Funny how I am probably the most militant TDKR criticizer on these boards yet that pic does not annoy me in any way.

 

[Bruce Malone]

This is a pretty sick pic too.

 

[BatLobster]

My guess is it annoys Kane and Phantasm because they think it should be the other way around.

I don't care though, Nolan did a lot for the character. As did Burton, as did Timm/Dini. Batman is only as good as the creators that give him life.

 

[ThePhantasm]

My guess is it annoys Kane and Phantasm because they think it should be the other way around.

Yes. You are right in some sense about Batman only being as good as the creators who give him life, but the keyword is creators plural. The mythos is far reaching and doesn't belong to any one person - they simply give their interpretation of the mythos and the character. And Nolan gave a darn good one, but his isn't the ultimate end-all interpretation.

 

[ThePhantasm]

And I say that as a big Nolan fan.

 

[Snow Queen]

The reason I'm fine with it is because Nolan pulled Batman into the public eye in a positive way after one of the worst CBMs ever that left a very negative air surrounding the character.

 

[Carnotaur3]

I can't obviously speak for everyone, but Bruce Wayne/Batman has a lot more depth in Nolan's trilogy than all the other film interpretations of the character.

 

[kvz5]

I can't obviously speak for everyone, but Bruce Wayne/Batman has a lot more depth in Nolan's trilogy than all the other film interpretations of the character.

I agree.

 

[BatLobster]

Yes. You are right in some sense about Batman only being as good as the creators who give him life, but the keyword is creators plural. The mythos is far reaching and doesn't belong to any one person - they simply give their interpretation of the mythos and the character. And Nolan gave a darn good one, but his isn't the ultimate end-all interpretation.

Well, of course. But seeing as the meme is quoting one of Nolan's movies, I'm fine with Bats addressing Mr. Nolan personally in that instance .

 

[The Joker]

I can't obviously speak for everyone, but Bruce Wayne/Batman has a lot more depth in Nolan's trilogy than all the other film interpretations of the character.

Easily. No disrespect to Keaton, but they barely scratched the surface with him. Ironically Schumacher went deeper into Bruce's mind in Forever.

 

[Shikamaru]

Yes. You are right in some sense about Batman only being as good as the creators who give him life, but the keyword is creators plural. The mythos is far reaching and doesn't belong to any one person - they simply give their interpretation of the mythos and the character. And Nolan gave a darn good one, but his isn't the ultimate end-all interpretation.

I agree with what you said but I think you're misinterpreting the joke behind that picture. The message of that picture is not that Nolan is the end-all-be-all of Batman. The whole joke is that Nolan was the one who saved Batman in live-action after the disaster that was Batman & Robin.

 

[BatLobster]

The message of that picture is not that Nolan is the end-all-be-all of Batman. The whole joke is that Nolan was the one who saved Batman in live-action after the disaster that was Batman & Robin.

Bingo.

 

[ThePhantasm]

I'm not sure how accurate it is that Nolan saved Batman. We had BTAS and a whole generation that grew up on it; we had dark stories in the comics; we had a number of "darker" Batman live-action projects that just never took off between Schumacher and Nolan. I think Nolan hit a sweet spot that a lot of people had been waiting for. I don't think Schumacher's films really hurt Batman's rep that bad in the eyes of the GA... it wasn't so much Nolan saving Batman as putting him back out there again and saying "Hey, remember this guy? He's back."

There's this sort of myth that's grown up that Schumacher single-handedly destroyed Batman and Nolan saved him. I don't think Batman needed saving, his mythos could handle its rep just fine - Nolan simply brought that mythos back out there again, and the public was hungry for it.

 

[ThePhantasm]

I don't really want to over-analyze the graphic - I get that its a joke and reading too much into it kills it. Its just kinda a pet peeve of mine - the joke doesn't really hit home for me.

 

[Shikamaru]

I'm not sure how accurate it is that Nolan saved Batman. We had BTAS and a whole generation that grew up on it; we had dark stories in the comics; we had a number of "darker" Batman live-action projects that just never took off between Schumacher and Nolan. I think Nolan hit a sweet spot that a lot of people had been waiting for. I don't think Schumacher's films really hurt Batman's rep that bad in the eyes of the GA... it wasn't so much Nolan saving Batman as putting him back out there again and saying "Hey, remember this guy? He's back."

There's this sort of myth that's grown up that Schumacher single-handedly destroyed Batman and Nolan saved him. I don't think Batman needed saving, his mythos could handle its rep just fine - Nolan simply brought that mythos back out there again, and the public was hungry for it.

That's basically what I meant. I should have worded things differently in that case. Regardless, he did bring those mythos back on the big screen.

 

[ThePhantasm]

I didn't mean to start a long discussion about it. I usually ignore the graphic - the only reason I spoke up at all was because Kane said what I was thinking.

 

[BatLobster]

It's two-fold.

The thing was WB was struggling with how to relaunch the franchise for a long time. They didn't have any idea what to do with the property, they were throwing everything at the wall and nothing was sticking. Aronofsky and Miller could've been the guys to step up to the plate and deliver what people wanted, but they went too extreme. Nolan came in with the perfect take for something that was both gritty and commercial. It's not that it was dark, it was the new heightened sense of realism. The more realistic take on the mythos was perfect for the times and just the right antidote to wash away the remnants of camp.

I agree that Nolan hit a sweet spot that people had been waiting for, but at the end of the day he was the guy that walked into WB with a pitch that won them over. If he never did that, there's no guarantee that whoever made the next Batman film would've hit that bullseye. There's a lot of different takes out there on how Batman should be done, but Nolan's seemed to have a ton of universal appeal.

For what it's worth, I tend to think things happen for a reason (if Scorcese never made The Aviator, TDKT may never have happened) and I think Nolan was exactly the right person at the right time to take on the character cinematically.

 

[shauner111]

I think the character and its fans owe a lot to Nolan's trilogy. That pic is a fun nod to Nolan for reinventing the character in the publics eye after 8 years without live-action films.

I mean before Begins when was the last appealing film? Was it 10 years because of Forever? Was that even THAT appealing? I mean..it was commercially successful but more people disliked it than liked it. It was a time but not in a way where you felt like all kinds of audiences were respecting Batman and his universe. Im gonna say it had been 13 years since people respected Batman and the characters. Sure Batman Returns disappointed a lot of people with its new direction and how it went against the comics (like how some people view bits in TDKR) but I believe people respected the actors involved and the artistic visuals. People felt like they could take Keaton seriously and those Burton films brought credibility to the general audience and made the real Batman embrace the fact that Bats was dark on film and with some dramatic performances.

Im going to say the G.A may not have seen Batman Beyond or the Animated Series. If they did, there's a good chance they only saw them as cartoons and nothing more. They sure as hell weren't reading comics during the 90s and 2000's. The films are all they had.

So all 3 Nolan films have brought the character back to the mainstream movie going audience, in a respectable manner for the first time since Burton. And then brought it to an even higher level of respectability. They weren't the reason for the creation of the successful Arkham games but the trilogy made a large number of people interested in Batman again, enough for them to go out and buy Arkham City.

Dark Knight even sparked an interest in batman comics/graphic novels in a bigger way when they were promoting Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum and Long Halloween as inspirations behind Heath's Joker, and the rest of the story. I remember they were being sold everywhere in 2008.

The fans owe everything to Nolan. Even the closing chapter of Rises. It's allowed a reboot, where new filmmakers can keep it gritty and serious at times and be influenced to cast credible actors all across the board. But then they can branch off into new territory with the series and do things Nolan ignored.

Even if you hated Blake. Nolan's nod to Robin has gotten the mainstream talking about Robin for the first time since the 90s. And talking about him like with speculation and wonder for the future, even if theyre never getting a spin-off. That will do wonders for Robin (Grayson) once he's brought into the reboot. People will be far more accepting of his entrance, more than he was even before 2012.

Batman always endures, but Nolan has given a gift to the character and set him and his supporting characters up nicely for the future.

 

[Kane52630]

I didn't mean to start a long discussion about it. I usually ignore the graphic - the only reason I spoke up at all was because Kane said what I was thinking.

I just opened a can of worms, didn't I? lol

but everything you've said so far, I agree completely.

 

[kvz5]

I just opened a can of worms, didn't I? lol

but everything you've said so far, I agree completely.

You always do!

Spoiler

 

[Kane52630]

lol, it's a gift of mine.

I will say that I don't negate Nolan's contributions for Batman (because I do love all 3 of his films afterall) but at the same time I don't like the "end all be all" mentality that goes with Nolan's Batman. The pic just rubbed me the wrong way when I first saw it and it still does, that is all.

*slowly walks away unscathed*

 

[georgec]

I think the character and its fans owe a lot to Nolan's trilogy. That pic is a fun nod to Nolan for reinventing the character in the publics eye after 8 years without live-action films.

I mean before Begins when was the last appealing film? Was it 10 years because of Forever? Was that even THAT appealing? I mean..it was commercially successful but more people disliked it than liked it. It was a time but not in a way where you felt like all kinds of audiences were respecting Batman and his universe. Im gonna say it had been 13 years since people respected Batman and the characters. Sure Batman Returns disappointed a lot of people with its new direction and how it went against the comics (like how some people view bits in TDKR) but I believe people respected the actors involved and the artistic visuals. People felt like they could take Keaton seriously and those Burton films brought credibility to the general audience and made the real Batman embrace the fact that Bats was dark on film and with some dramatic performances.

Im going to say the G.A may not have seen Batman Beyond or the Animated Series. If they did, there's a good chance they only saw them as cartoons and nothing more. They sure as hell weren't reading comics during the 90s and 2000's. The films are all they had.

So all 3 Nolan films have brought the character back to the mainstream movie going audience, in a respectable manner for the first time since Burton. And then brought it to an even higher level of respectability. They weren't the reason for the creation of the successful Arkham games but the trilogy made a large number of people interested in Batman again, enough for them to go out and buy Arkham City.

Dark Knight even sparked an interest in batman comics/graphic novels in a bigger way when they were promoting Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum and Long Halloween as inspirations behind Heath's Joker, and the rest of the story. I remember they were being sold everywhere in 2008.

The fans owe everything to Nolan. Even the closing chapter of Rises. It's allowed a reboot, where new filmmakers can keep it gritty and serious at times and be influenced to cast credible actors all across the board. But then they can branch off into new territory with the series and do things Nolan ignored.

Even if you hated Blake. Nolan's nod to Robin has gotten the mainstream talking about Robin for the first time since the 90s. And talking about him like with speculation and wonder for the future, even if theyre never getting a spin-off. That will do wonders for Robin (Grayson) once he's brought into the reboot. People will be far more accepting of his entrance, more than he was even before 2012.

Batman always endures, but Nolan has given a gift to the character and set him and his supporting characters up nicely for the future.

Great post.

Batman fans might have not been too deterred by the Schumacher films, but general audiences came to associate the character with nipples on the Batsuit. After B&R the pop culture image of Batman had practically become a laughingstock.

Batman needed a gritty, realistic refresh in the minds of most people, and that's what Nolan delivered. More importantly, Nolan's trilogy gave Bruce Wayne a long story arc and an ending he really deserved.

What Nolan did for Batman on film will hopefully be appreciated in the long run.

 

[Doctor Who]

I still have one huge problem that's been bugging me for 3 years...

Who is gillberg!?!?

 

[AnneFan]

I can't obviously speak for everyone, but Bruce Wayne/Batman has a lot more depth in Nolan's trilogy than all the other film interpretations of the character.

Yes. I enjoy the thematic material in BB and TDKR especially. Training, understanding criminals and becoming established in BB. Being depressed, emerging a new man and retiring with Selina in TDKR.

 

[Kane52630]

I still have one huge problem that's been bugging me for 3 years...

Who is gillberg!?!?

[YT]A_u2PMzFIYM[/YT]