Batman

crackerjack

Well-known member
Anyone seen the Dark Knight yet? Not generally one for comic book movies, but batman begins was the bollocks. I'm also impressed* by Bale's method

Batman star Christian Bale has been arrested by detectives investigating claims he assaulted two family members.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said a 34-year-old man had been arrested in connection with an allegation of assault, and remained in custody.

Mr Bale is alleged to have lashed out at his mother and sister in his suite at London's Dorchester Hotel on Sunday.

*unless this turns out be a serious assault, in which case i'm going to feel badly embarrassed.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Just been reading about this - nuts story. What with Heath Ledger the film is obviously cursed.
Batman Begins and now this - is it a totally separate series from the one that Tim Burton began in the nineties and that has had a million different people in the Bruce Wayne role or is it some kind of prequel to that or what?
I don't really fancy it either way to be honest although everyone seems to think it will be good.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Just been reading about this - nuts story. What with Heath Ledger the film is obviously cursed.
Batman Begins and now this - is it a totally separate series from the one that Tim Burton began in the nineties and that has had a million different people in the Bruce Wayne role or is it some kind of prequel to that or what?
I don't really fancy it either way to be honest although everyone seems to think it will be good.

A prequel but separate - I think the aim is to avoid the camp of the first franchise (obv you can't help but duplicate villains, Gotham, etc) and keep it dark.
 
D

droid

Guest
This and the last one seem to be loosely based on Millers' Year One in tone and rough story arcs, which is a great place to start.

The Tim Burton version was supposedly based on The dark knight returns, but apart from a very superficial resemblance, there was no real connection unfortunately.

Needless to say there is no link between these films and the 90s ones (thank god). Just try and pretend they never happened...
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I think the aim is to avoid the camp of the first franchise (obv you can't help but duplicate villains, Gotham, etc) and keep it dark".
Wasn't the first franchise (hate that word) supposed to avoid the camp of the tv series and keep it dark?
 

swears

preppy-kei
I think the two Burton ones are a good mix of camp and dark. Particularly Returns.
The Schumacher flicks are fucking awful, obvs. Begins is a trying a bit too hard to be "dark", watchable, tho.
 

swears

preppy-kei
Does anybody rate the Schumacher era? I'd actually quite like to hear a thought out defence.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Does anybody rate the Schumacher era? I'd actually quite like to hear a thought out defence.

I like the first one, though I have neither the time nor the inclination for a thought out defence - I just like it cos it's kinda fun, yunno
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Does anybody rate the Schumacher era? I'd actually quite like to hear a thought out defence."
How does that guy get to make movies? Everybody hates everything he does (except for Lost Boys).
 

swears

preppy-kei
My favourite thing about Begins is that it's Christian Bale playing Patrick Bateman playing Bruce Wayne.
 
I'm surprised by the ongoing popularity of all these superhero franchises amongst grown adults. admit it you cynical aspiritual motherfuckers have a shameful secret jones for the Perseusian ;)

maybe proves the concept of divinity is fundamental to human nature after all...

cc2.png
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
The trailer for the Watchmen film looks like it completely misses the point by going for slick effects and SUPER superheroes. I know Dr. Manhatten is about as SUPER as it gets but the whole thing was that they were regular people, flawed, ageing, reluctant heroes. It's the guy that did that 300 film isn't it? What was up with that? Wrong.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I'm surprised by the ongoing popularity of all these superhero franchises amongst grown adults"
Yeah, me too I'd say, I mean I can understand why people want some dumb action films every now and again but why does it have to be superheroes so often lately?

"This sort of rule-breaking drives many of the true believers crazy, and I'd be willing to give them a certain amount of sympathy because of it if they weren't still the same people waiting on line for days to see these movies."
He's got a point there - maybe that answers the question to a certain extent, comic geeks are so into it they have to go and see the film even if they know it will disappoint them, they simply can't help themselves. With this audience guaranteed and big budget promotional campaigns to top it up with casual movie-goers it's hardly surprising that these films keep rolling off the production line, I don't think you have to posit a "shameful secret jones for the Perseusian" or longing for the divine to explain it.

"This word yields a total of four results from the google."
I'm guessing it means something along the lines of "of or relating to Perseus" (and by extension, the dynasty of Greek heroes that followed) the hero who killed Medusa. But it is very much a guess.
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
i liked the first two burton batman films. like someone else said, i thought they did a good job of bringing the darkness back to batman after the tv series (isnt every new batman film said to be 'darker' or a better depiction of the comic than the last one?!) but still keeping it somewhat playful. never thought they were that camp. but the last one with bale in it, took it self far too seriously i thought. also seemed to introduce lots of more generic action movie type elements that didnt seem to fit that well with batman (or not as i know it at least). looking forward to this new one a lot though. hope it meets expectations.
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
I saw the new Batman at the weekend... it's good, but too long, and doesn't really have a pleasant story arc - a series of explosive, climatic sequences without the story as a whole reaching a proper climax.

I think if you're a Batman fan and know the canon, you'll probably enjoy it more than the casual viewer. There's a lot of Miller-esque elements from Year One and The Dark Knight Returns. Heath Ledger is great, Christian Bale is ok - I still hate his deep put on Batman voice.

The major problem I had with Batman begins is how dumb he plays the role - getting Morgan Freeman's character to do all the science/tech stuff, and shrugging his shoulders - they have too much of a Bond/Q style relationship, whereas I've always thought of Bruce Wayne as a polymath who does all his own forensic chemistry, builds his own suits and Batmobile etc.

The new film eases off on this a bit, but then is also nor particularly convincing when Bale does technical stuff on his own.
 

bassnation

the abyss
I'm surprised by the ongoing popularity of all these superhero franchises amongst grown adults. admit it you cynical aspiritual motherfuckers have a shameful secret jones for the Perseusian ;)

maybe proves the concept of divinity is fundamental to human nature after all...

cc2.png

i'm sorry but its utter nonsense to say that comic book heroes didn't have the odd moment of doubting their own existence, its safe to say the person who wrote that hasn't read marvel comics in any depth whatsoever.

spiderman, hulk, swamp thing, etc etc - each of those characters were tortured, lost, doubting and dark. even back in the early incarnation of each. sure theres been some utterly crap movies, but a lot have stayed suprisingly true to marvels vision.
 
IdleRich;143554 He's got a point there - maybe that answers the question to a certain extent said:
have[/I] to go and see the film even if they know it will disappoint them, they simply can't help themselves. With this audience guaranteed and big budget promotional campaigns to top it up with casual movie-goers it's hardly surprising that these films keep rolling off the production line, I don't think you have to posit a "shameful secret jones for the Perseusian" or longing for the divine to explain it.

superhero comics are secular myths. the fans have already bought into them. i honestly find it pretty piquant grown, educated men are seduced by these ridiculous ubermensch fantasies. of course heroes in public life are in short supply these days. times are jaded.

perseus was on of the greek heroes- ie half man half god. people usually invoke prometheus when superheroes are under discussion but i'd think the creation of mankind would be a bit of a stretch even for batman...

i'm sorry but its utter nonsense to say that comic book heroes didn't have the odd moment of doubting their own existence, its safe to say the person who wrote that hasn't read marvel comics in any depth whatsoever.

spiderman, hulk, swamp thing, etc etc - each of those characters were tortured, lost, doubting and dark. even back in the early incarnation of each.


it isn't safe to say that, as peter bagge has done a spiderman comic for marvel. i've taken the end of the piece out of context but you've misread it. he says "make jokes regarding the absurdity of their existence"- this NEVER happened in the comics. he isn't talking about the endless pages of wordy introspection which he covers earlier in the article- but a jokey self awareness, a breaking of the fourth wall if you will. the conclusion of the article is very similar to yours


sure theres been some utterly crap movies, but a lot have stayed suprisingly true to marvels vision.


peter bagge said:
still it's amazing how slavishly true these big-budget Hollywood flicks are to the superhero source material.
 
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