Batman

IdleRich said:

I think you've mixed yourself up a bit there.
Anyway, my point is, various people have suggested various superheroes that fail to fit the mold but you've bent over backwards to include them or shrunk the field over which you are theorising to disqualify them from counting. Other people have suggested other types of heroes that fit the mold equally well and you've gone through the same distortions in the other direction to argue that they don't.

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i'm starting to resent your argumentative line so i think i'll leave it here. i've distorted nothing, nor "bent over backwards" or "mixed myself up". i've engaged with the discussion, even though it has gone round in circles, and i've had to repeat my basic points several times. as i've said before, they are far from controversial, but that doesn't mean they are part of some conspiritorial "orthodoxy" it is your remit to subvert.

IdleRich said:

A much better (as in more reasonable though obviously not as dramatic) position for you to take would be something along the lines of "a number of super hero type characters (and some non-superhero characters as well) follow narratives that show a strong similarity to some Greek myths - perhaps this says something about the way a lot of people are looking for the same thing in their fictions and it tells us a little about a small subsection of humanity".

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i seem to remember you taking exception to words being put into your mouth on forum recently so please don't tell me what would be a better position for me to take. my primary discursive function is not to please you and i have some knowledge of and personal investment in this topic. you have neither and at this point would seem to have little of interest to say on the subject and are attempting to score points, something you'd probably do better on a subject you cared or knew about.

"mixed myself up"

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Well, you wrote a sentence that didn't seem to make sense - if I've wronged you I'm sorry.

nor "bent over backwards"

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Well, you disqualify Bond because of the lack of the supernatural - but accept Batman because his gadgets apparently convey the aura of the supernatural (unlike an invisible car). Maybe that's not bending over backwards in your book but it looks like it to me.

"i seem to remember you taking exception to words being put into your mouth on forum recently so please don't tell me what would be a better position for me to take"

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You ought to be able to recognise the difference between erroneously asserting that someone has said something that they didn't and helpfully pointing out a way to salvage a misguided thesis.

"you have neither and at this point would seem to have little of interest to say on the subject and are attempting to score points"

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No not really, I just think that your generalisation is overly simplistic though not without some merit.

Tangental but also interesting -- Game theoretical approach to The Dark Knight

[NB: Spolier alert!]

Spiderman is the best superhero anyway, what with the wisecracks and hot redhead ladyfriend.

Always liked Batman & Dr Fate. Did have some Spiderman pyjamas though that were pretty rad.

Marvel UK published a big monthly anthology, "The Complete Spiderman" in the early 90s, so I got to catch up on the whole backstory from the first issue, while enjoying the new stuff too. I thought the first film was pretty good, the sequels less so. Only ever read Batman in graphic novel form, The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke are classics. Vs Judge Dredd is not as good as I remember at the time.

swears said:

hot redhead ladyfriend.

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those are great

anyone actually seen this yet?

i saw it today.

i hate batmans voice. wtf. it *almost* ruins the whole film, was bad enough in the last one but i totally forgot how problematic it is until today. sounds quite silly in its attempt to make batman seem 'tortured'. one of the more obvious signs of how nolans batman takes himself a bit too seriously. despite bale not exactly being riveting.

why cant they make blockbuster films with nice flowing narratives? does everything have to be so fucking choppy? seemed like various speeches on the nature of man were just being shoehorned in here. they were trying to do too much with too many characters overall, and not nearly enough about wayne/batman and his relationship to anyone else. he barely seemed to even care about the rachel character, and there just wasnt much time in this at all to contemplate anything, its so fast paced and slightly overstuffed.

something about this and the last one dont really feel very superhero comic book-y to me. they feel more like regular action movies starring batman (even down to the q/007 style thing between bale and freeman). lol@the batman in hong kong scene. this is batman. not fucking bourne supremacy.

too many things were too quickly resolved without much development or explanation at all, which was dissapointing.

if theyre trying to do 'dark' batman, id like them to just go the whole hog and make something that bombards you slightly less with action-action-action (although this is where the film actually is best). the joker was chilling in this (ledger WAS amazing and is easily the best thing in this, the rest is just decent), but id have liked them to go all the way with it.

i think the burton films are quite underrated. at least compared to the last two they are.

this film confirmed that i dont really like prequels. better to assume everything thats happened rather than trying to build up to it and explain how everything got started.

batman as bush:

http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB121694247343482821.html

Yeah I have to agree. I found it a bit unsatisfying too. The cinematography was great, the scenery was beautiful, the music just right, Ledger was great but I dunno...

The moral/politcal themes also made me go hmm... There's some interesting points made in the comments to this post (nb. spoilers galore).

I actually found Iron Man more enjoyable but maybe that's because I had no expectations from that.

i think it was a bit too over earnest/ponderous. and with too many narrative threads that i found unnecessarily complicated (but prob just to do with wanting to make things seem complex).

anyone else think there were some anti-chinese sentiments going on?

thats its guys, im going back to see The Dark Knight again, take notes, and write a 40,000 word thesis about it as an Ontological Anarchist manifesto.

Referencing Hakim Bey, RAW, Walter Benjamin, Confucius, Mencius, G.I Gurdjieff, the Aghora tradition of the indian subcontinent, its parallels with Gothic and Punk culture, and others

come on, all that hankering over Chaos and Reason, the nature of Agency and Action and the State, all that stuff

plus it really left me with thoughts about the reclaiming of urban space from the State, the nature of Action. It shows how those with the balls to embrace chaos over the filtered notions of state-created Order are the ones who get their power back.

etcetera etcetera

thoughts ?

haha

Yep

swears said:

Spiderman is the best superhero anyway, what with the wisecracks and hot redhead ladyfriend.

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Too bad they missed that lil' tibit of info for the films. That is the most underwhelming version of Mary Jane Watson in history. Gwen Stacy shouldn't be THAT gorgeous in comparison to Mary Jane. *Shudders*

Oh..."The Dark Knight" was phenomenal.

One.

crackerjack said:

Bushite subtext: the don't-negotiate-with-terrorists stuff, the flexible attitude to torture,, eavesdropping on your own citizens, the "you point the gun at those responsible" speech to Harvey Dent. Quite surprising, given the climate.

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I don't reckon there was any agenda really - the morality of vigilante justice, surveillance, torture, terrorism etc is explored in the comics and in this film but it's not like there's ever a clear conclusion. Batman is blamed, rightly, for the deaths of innocent people, and Bruce Wayne's increasing reliance on batman as a character is developed a little.


a quick aside to those dismissing the film as a big budget blockbuster CGI-fest - one of the things I loved about batman begins particularly, but also this film, is the reluctance to rely on CGI. Batman Begins is full of models and most of the stunts were real. Virtually the only computer generated effects in the entire film are those panning shots of Gotham from above. An effort has been made to distance these films from most of the superhero action films in recent years, and I think they've pulled it off.

I really hated "the Batman Voice" in Begins but got into it this time. I guess because in this one I really got the impression that Batman is a lunatic and so it made sense that he would talk like that. Before I was questioning why Christian Bale thought Batman would sound like that, like did he think it was cool or something? But then this time it just seemed more like Bruce Wayne is some crazy rich guy that everyone kind of tolerates or helps because the overall result is better for Gotham than if he wasn't there. I figured that's why Gordan has that speech about results too. The fights with Joker really brought it out too for me, like these are not normal people by any stretch, him in his dress pants, Batman in his brand new body armour. Maybe that's a result of the whole realistic approach to super heroes, in the Clooney one (haha) I never gave any thought to why he would do anything, he was just Batman, so obviously he's gonna do it, so I could be misinterpreting their intentions but that doesn't really make any difference. It was a strange film anyway, but I really liked it.

I noticed the anti-chinese vibe too and thought it was strange, especially considering they filmed in HK.

actually i was going to post and make some of the same points you just did. saw it last night at the imax and it made more sense in a way, it was just so massive and overwhelming that i started to look at it as more unreal than i did when i saw it last week. still dont think its the best film ever of course but its really good for what it is, even if it has a few more narrative threads than are maybe necessary. watching it a second time there were quite a few things i didnt catch the first time.

anti chinese?? there just happened to be a seedy chinese corporation involved...

vimothy said:

Always liked Batman & Dr Fate. Did have some Spiderman pyjamas though that were pretty rad.

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my youngest son has a pair of those. he sometimes insists on wearing them out, but once i made the mistake of addressing him as spiderman. identity is very important, if a somewhat confusing concept, to a four year old. "i'm NOT spiderman" and then getting really upset. i thought all kids wanted to be a superhero.