Good points. This movie can only work if it brings something new and up to date to the audience. We've had Superman for many decades, we've seen pretty much anything there is to see about Superman's powers. Superman flying, punching and lifting things in different scales won't make this new franchise long lived.
Big battles with giant robots and aliens from outer space? Nope, done and done. Cool for fans, passable for everyone else.
But Nolan knows this all too well.
Begins was a hit because Nolan understood how important Bruce Wayne is to the Batman mythos, something Tim Burton never approached. People tend to just want to see Batman, but Batman is secondary. He speaks little, he fights the baddies, he has the cool gadgets. But Batman by himself is all action, little story. Without Bruce Wayne, he is a cookie cutter hero, perhaps with one or two breaches of morality. That's why villains used to steal the show.
There was nothing exceptional in Batman Begins other than the journey into Bruce Wayne's mind, his trauma, his fears and hopes. And that alone made a great movie. Kudos to Nolan for understanding that Batman is about little exposition, and focusing on the psychological thriller of the man behind the mask.
Moving on to Dark Knight, Nolan asks again the right questions. What if this guy, with all the resources he has available, can't outmatch someone smarter and even more destructive? What if he had a civilian match, would there ever be a need for a vigilante? He's pushing more internal conflicts like pieces on a chessboard.
So how did Singer's script fail? Never once does he ask the right questions. What if Superman had a son? Who cares? What if Lois was married someone else? Who cares. What if Lex Luthor was hoping to create a whole new continent to sell land? Wait, what?
The only thing that could've gone right there was "What if the world lost Superman, would it ever be the same?" Probably yes, since Superman is shown spending his time chasing bank robbers and lifting stray cars. Now had they shown him unsucessfully trying to end wars in the Middle East, famine in underdeveloped nations and trying to prevent global warming...you have a plateful of morality issues for the modern audience.
And that's exactly what I predict Nolan is going for. Maybe not so literally (I guess no one wants to see Superman lecturing against pollution), but not trailing too far from a real conflict, a real challenge that is meaningful to the audiences, and not just Superman and the people of Metropolis. Everything else we've seen before.
Big battles with giant robots and aliens from outer space? Nope, done and done. Cool for fans, passable for everyone else.
But Nolan knows this all too well.
Begins was a hit because Nolan understood how important Bruce Wayne is to the Batman mythos, something Tim Burton never approached. People tend to just want to see Batman, but Batman is secondary. He speaks little, he fights the baddies, he has the cool gadgets. But Batman by himself is all action, little story. Without Bruce Wayne, he is a cookie cutter hero, perhaps with one or two breaches of morality. That's why villains used to steal the show.
There was nothing exceptional in Batman Begins other than the journey into Bruce Wayne's mind, his trauma, his fears and hopes. And that alone made a great movie. Kudos to Nolan for understanding that Batman is about little exposition, and focusing on the psychological thriller of the man behind the mask.
Moving on to Dark Knight, Nolan asks again the right questions. What if this guy, with all the resources he has available, can't outmatch someone smarter and even more destructive? What if he had a civilian match, would there ever be a need for a vigilante? He's pushing more internal conflicts like pieces on a chessboard.
So how did Singer's script fail? Never once does he ask the right questions. What if Superman had a son? Who cares? What if Lois was married someone else? Who cares. What if Lex Luthor was hoping to create a whole new continent to sell land? Wait, what?
The only thing that could've gone right there was "What if the world lost Superman, would it ever be the same?" Probably yes, since Superman is shown spending his time chasing bank robbers and lifting stray cars. Now had they shown him unsucessfully trying to end wars in the Middle East, famine in underdeveloped nations and trying to prevent global warming...you have a plateful of morality issues for the modern audience.
And that's exactly what I predict Nolan is going for. Maybe not so literally (I guess no one wants to see Superman lecturing against pollution), but not trailing too far from a real conflict, a real challenge that is meaningful to the audiences, and not just Superman and the people of Metropolis. Everything else we've seen before.
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great post, I'm sick of hearing Nolan wouldn't allow this or that its Zak Snyder's movie
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