The Dark Knight Rises The TDKR General Discussion Thread - - - - - - Part 155

[ThePhantasm]

Love your new avvy, Joker.

 

[The Joker]

Thanks man

 

[Slade W]

I think it is cool too. It would be more appropriate around Christmas time though IMO.

 

[The Joker]

Thanks Slade. I thought so, too, but I loved it too much to wait til December. Plus I have a special Christmas Joker avatar I traditionally use every year. One of him in a Santa hat standing by Harvey Dent's Christmas tree in The Long Halloween.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

Tim Sale is the true hero of TLH.

 

[AnneFan]

Tim Sale is the true hero of TLH.

TLH, DV, Haunted Knight and When In Rome will always be near the top of my Batman comics tree. They're good stories, but the art is also lovely - even though Joker's teeth can be drawn ridiculously oversized.

 

[shauner111]

I always found those to be good but overrated. They're not very original either. The whole Corleone/Falcone family thing is a bit much.

The appearances of Freeze, etc...unnecessary. Sale's artwork is even better in Dark Victory, but i felt the story was mainly a rehash of Long Halloween. So yeah, other than the good Dent/Gordon/Batman stuff, it's really Tim Sale that stands out for me.

 

[The Joker]

I think Sale's artwork was better in TLH. He kept Joker looking normal in that. It was in DV that Joker's teeth suddenly became insanely huge;

I mean look at that 2nd one. His chin goes half way down his chest. TLH Joker looked much better;

 

[shauner111]

I think i originally wanted the Falcone children in the trilogy, but now im happy Nolan didn't use them. Nolan and the folks in charge of Gotham did a good job with avoiding the Vito Corleone look of Carmine.

 

[Decepticonus]

I love Sale's work, especially the Poison Ivy with the clover hair that is just running off the panels. The big grin Joker honestly never bothered me. It's art, he's having fun with and just exaggerating it. Remember comic books themselves aren't meant to be realistic, nonetheless I do understand the criticism.

The Godfather/Falcone works because well everyone can make that distinction right away since the Corleones are so iconic. Aha, these are gangsters, mafia, with alot of pull, power & money, they're italian. No exposition or anything is needed. I guess it doesn't bother me much because I didn't grow up on the Godfather, though I get it, I do. Plus, same time I'm not much for Godfather I prefer Goodfellas

 

[Brother Jack]

Dark Victory is one of the best Robin stories I've ever read. I love the visual dichotomy of Sale's Batman and Robin together.

 

[Victarion]

Brother Jack,

Spoiler

a while ago I noticed you had a reference to Davos Seaworth in your sig. What're your thoughts on Stannis's character development over the last season and his motive for burning his daughter...considering who Stannis was going to war against, could you see the sacrifice as justified. Not good, mind, but justified?

 

[BatLobster]

TDK was on MTV the other night. Caught some of the end, good times. It's amazing how much Oldman really drives a lot of that movie.

Also, I showed my girlfriend the BvS and Suicide Squad trailers finally (long overdue). I'm always curious to hear her un-fanboy-biased take on things. She said she thinks Suicide Squad looks better and more interesting than BvS. I told her I'd have to agree. Especially after re-watching both trailers.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

I love Sale's work, especially the Poison Ivy with the clover hair that is just running off the panels. The big grin Joker honestly never bothered me. It's art, he's having fun with and just exaggerating it. Remember comic books themselves aren't meant to be realistic, nonetheless I do understand the criticism.

The Godfather/Falcone works because well everyone can make that distinction right away since the Corleones are so iconic. Aha, these are gangsters, mafia, with alot of pull, power & money, they're italian. No exposition or anything is needed. I guess it doesn't bother me much because I didn't grow up on the Godfather, though I get it, I do. Plus, same time I'm not much for Godfather I prefer Goodfellas

Dude, Loeb lifts dialogue and visuals straight from the movies. It's way more than simply homages. I cringe as I read it now.

 

[The Joker]

The Godfather/Falcone works because well everyone can make that distinction right away since the Corleones are so iconic. Aha, these are gangsters, mafia, with alot of pull, power & money, they're italian.

I agree, and I grew up with The Godfather, so I enjoyed those parallels even more. As mob boss characters go (I mean regular ones not freak mob bosses like Black Mask), Falcone is far and away the most interesting one the Batman comics have ever had. That includes the repercussions from his criminal empire with his children Alberto, Sofia, and Mario.

Dark Victory is one of the best Robin stories I've ever read. I love the visual dichotomy of Sale's Batman and Robin together.

I remember hearing Bale was a big fan of it, too, and TLH'

"I mean DC sent me just a box full of graphic novels which I had in the trailer all the time with me. But the two that I like particularly were Dark Victory and The Long Halloween - really fantastic imagery and the severity of Batman and everything."

http://movies.about.com/od/batman/a/batmancb060805_2.htm

Which was funny because a huge part of it is Robin's origin, and Bale once said he'd chain himself up somewhere in protest if they ever tried to bring in Robin into his movies;

“If Robin crops up in one of the new Batman films, I’ll be chaining myself up somewhere and refusing to go to work.”

http://www.slashfilm.com/christian-bale-rules-out-robin-for-batman-3-and-beyond/

TDK was on MTV the other night. Caught some of the end, good times. It's amazing how much Oldman really drives a lot of that movie.

Also, I showed my girlfriend the BvS and Suicide Squad trailers finally (long overdue). I'm always curious to hear her un-fanboy-biased take on things. She said she thinks Suicide Squad looks better and more interesting than BvS. I told her I'd have to agree. Especially after re-watching both trailers.

I agree with you and your girlfriend. The BvS trailer does nothing for me. But I love the Suicide Squad one. It looks like tons of fun.

 

[The Batman]

I actually liked the BvS trailer, but SS just looks more intriguing. It looks like it's going to be something different.

 

[titansupes]

Dude, Loeb lifts dialogue and visuals straight from the movies. It's way more than simply homages. I cringe as I read it now.

Yeah, I actually only experienced both quite recently. I only saw The Godfather Saga in January 2013 or so (and by the time the scene with Solozzo blackmailing Hagen came around, I'd declared it the greatest movie of all time, which I didn't expect!).

I'd read DV ten years ago or so, and had basically forgotten all of it, and never read TLH. So I did both about a year after I saw TG... and when it opens with the "I believe in Gotham" scene, has the mob boss's preparing a sauce and explaining the recipe, and DV almost directly lifting the "You'll have to go before a judge and show cause" dialogue... I cringed at those moments too.

Luckily, the rest is excellent. On that read through, I enjoyed DV more than TLH, I'd say.

 

[Brother Jack]

Brother Jack, a while ago I noticed you had a reference to Davos Seaworth in your sig. What're your thoughts on Stannis's character development over the last season and his motive for burning his daughter...considering who Stannis was going to war against, could you see the sacrifice as justified. Not good, mind, but justified?

I never had a Davos quote in my sig. But I did see Season 5 of the show and as a non-book reader I felt like Stannis' arc made enough sense. It was truncated and could have been executed (ahem) better but it didn't go so against the fabric of the narrative that I was against it as a plot point despite how horrendous it was. I had actually been expecting it to happen after the idea was first brought up earlier in the season. But as I understand it Stannis in the show is a pale simulacrum of the character in the books.

 

[shauner111]

Brother Jack, a while ago I noticed you had a reference to Davos Seaworth in your sig. What're your thoughts on Stannis's character development over the last season and his motive for burning his daughter...considering who Stannis was going to war against, could you see the sacrifice as justified. Not good, mind, but justified?

SPOILER TAGS. Thank God im caught up, i would have slapped you!

 

[titansupes]

Slap him anyway, for our general amusement!

 

[Victarion]

Yep! If you compare the book to that point in the show,

Spoiler

you have this line where Stannis tells his men that they're to keep fighting to put his daughter on the throne if he dies during his siege.

Spoiler tag that quote!

TS Joker in DV reminded me of the Violator from the old Spawn comics. The jaws, I think.

 

[ThePhantasm]

David Croenberg critiques TDKR:

I don’t think they are making [superhero movies] an elevated art form. I think it’s still Batman running around in a stupid cape. I just don’t think it’s elevated. Christopher Nolan’s best movie is Memento, and that is an interesting movie. I don’t think his Batman movies are half as interesting though they’re 20 million times the expense. What he is doing is some very interesting technical stuff, which, you know, he’s shooting IMAX and in 3-D. That’s really tricky and difficult to do. I read about it in “American Cinematography Magazine,” and technically, that’s all very interesting. The movie, to me, they’re mostly boring.

Anybody who works in the studio system has got 20 studio people sitting on his head at every moment, and they have no respect, and there’s no…it doesn’t matter how successful you’ve been. And obviously Nolan has been very successful. He’s got a lot of power, relatively speaking. But he doesn’t really have power. And the problem is you gotta… as I say, you can do some interesting, maybe unexpected things. And certainly, I’ve made the horror films and people say, “Can you make a horror film also an art film?” And I would say, “Yeah, I think you can.” But a superhero movie, by definition, you know, it’s comic book. It’s for kids. It’s adolescent in its core. That has always been its appeal, and I think people who are saying, you know, “Dark Knight Rises” is, you know, supreme cinema art,” I don’t think they know what the f**k they’re talking about.

 

[The Joker]

David Cronenberg does not critique TDKR:

"No, I haven't seen ['The Dark Knight Rises']. See, this is how it all gets distorted. The question was asked, to me. And, of course, when they quote me, they never quote themselves or the question that provoked the response," Cronenberg explained. "I was asked, then the journalist woman said, 'By the way, superhero comic book movies have shown to rise to the highest level of cinematic art – would you be interested in doing one?' And I said, 'Wait, who said they have risen to the highest level of cinematic art?' That's when I started my little rant. I was really responding to that. She proposed that about the new Batman movies. I had seen the one before this ['The Dark Knight'], not the new one, and I think at that time only journalists had seen it. So I wasn't talking specifically about that movie and I wasn't criticizing it directly."

It should be noted that Cronenberg's comments came a few weeks after 'Rises' hit theaters, but that's also besides the point. However, what he does want to make clear is that his feelings were more directed at the genre as a whole, and not Nolan specifically. "What I was saying was that a comic book movie is really a comic book movie. Comic books were -- especially those comic books which I was raised on (I loved Captain Marvel) -- created for adolescents and they have a core that is adolescent," he elaborated. "To me, that limits the discourse of your movie if you're basing it accurately on that, and you cannot rise to the highest level of cinematic art. That's my take on it. I went on to say that, of course, technically they can be incredibly interesting, since there are very clever people making the movie and of course have a lot of money they are throwing at it. But creatively, artistically, they are incredibly limited. It got bent out of shape that I was dissing Christopher Nolan, which just wasn't the case."

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayl...ic-movies-cant-be-high-cinematic-art-20130102

Credit to finding that in Nolan's DC thread.

 

[Snow Queen]

What he is doing is some very interesting technical stuff, which, you know, he’s shooting IMAX and in 3-D.

Hmm....

 

[Brother Jack]

Cronenberg is just flat-out wrong about superhero movies. A lot of them are bad, sure, but writing off the whole genre is tremendously reductive. What's ironic is that many said the same kinds of things about the horror genre before Cronenberg and like-minded directors put their artistic stamp on it.