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Post by pacino on Nov 14, 2014 19:12:34 GMT -5
This HAS to be fake. Please???
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Post by wamphari on Nov 15, 2014 10:16:05 GMT -5
It's coincidental that the announcement of Doom as an angry blogger created so many angry bloggers
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Post by wamphari on Nov 19, 2014 14:42:43 GMT -5
In all seriousness the real problem is that Fox really doesn't have any idea why anyone would like comic books. Even the best of x-men films seems to be at least a little ashamed of their comic book roots. It's really insulting to both creators and fans of the genre. Everyone seems to love Brian Singer (though I really fail to understand why) but the man does everything he can to soften the "comicness" of both the charaters and the situations. They simply cannot learn the lesson that Avengers is successful because, even through some changes, celebrates what comics are and why we love them. Even Avengers has flaws, but they are so easily ignored because they are so unabashed and unashamed. Fox seems to be saying "I know this is from a stupid comic, but don't worry, we took a bunch of that comic shit out," while disneys movies say "Wanna see an asgardian hit a giant green monster with a hammer?"
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saintfu
Fearless Defender
Posts: 13
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Post by saintfu on Nov 19, 2014 15:08:47 GMT -5
I have a terrible suspicion that Fox’s reason for making this movie is not that they think that it will make Fox half a billion dollars, it’s that they know that it would make Marvel/Disney more than half a billion dollars. They’d like for it to make a profit (whatever that means in Hollywood), but the main purpose for the production is, like the fabled Corman production, to fulfill the terms of the license and keep Marvel from getting hold of it.
I think that there’s a very good chance that after the movie is finished, it will go through a cycle of missed release dates, reedits and reshoots (possibly by a different director) before finally getting a limited theatrical/simultaneous VOD release.
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Post by Tony on Nov 19, 2014 17:07:15 GMT -5
In all seriousness the real problem is that Fox really doesn't have any idea why anyone would like comic books. Even the best of x-men films seems to be at least a little ashamed of their comic book roots. It's really insulting to both creators and fans of the genre. Everyone seems to love Brian Singer (though I really fail to understand why) but the man does everything he can to soften the "comicness" of both the charaters and the situations. They simply cannot learn the lesson that Avengers is successful because, even through some changes, celebrates what comics are and why we love them. Even Avengers has flaws, but they are so easily ignored because they are so unabashed and unashamed. Fox seems to be saying "I know this is from a stupid comic, but don't worry, we took a bunch of that comic shit out," while disneys movies say "Wanna see an asgardian hit a giant green monster with a hammer?" 100% agree. Fox is and has always been guilty of severe comic book shame, and what we're hearing about this new FF sounds like they're doubling down on that. And I agree, too, that Marvel/Disney's lack of comic shame, the color, the costumes, the unflinching characterizations, are exactly why they're getting it right, while the rest continue over and over and over again to miss the point and utterly disappoint. The impulse of these studios and directors and producers to meddle with the look, feel, and fundamental cores of the characters either to make them "more palatable for a mainstream audience" (X-Men, FF) or to "put their own stamp on it" (Man of Steel, Nolanverse), or to just meddle for meddling's sake (Amazing Spiderman) is the #1 thing that turns me off with these things and disappoints me so much, and it's the reason why the only MCU movie that I will continue to rip apart ruthlessly at every opportunity is Iron Man 3, because it wasn't an Iron Man sequel in any way other than the title, but rather it was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 2 with significantly less Michelle Monaghan and fat-Val Kilmer. There are bits and pieces of some of the other MCU movies that I don't particularly love, but on the whole they get the spirit of it right, the look, the fun, the core elements, while IM3 played like a Sony superhero movie, to me; it swung and missed on just about everything in a similar way that The Amazing Spiderman films have, and it also qualifies as meddling-to-satisfy-the-ego-of-the-creator; it was Shane Black's Iron Man, not unlike Chris Nolan's Batverse, or Zach Snyder's Man of Pewter. When these things embrace the source material, I tend to like them and have a lot of fun. When they don't, I tend to feel like they're trash garbage. It blows me away that the other studios still haven't figured out WHY Marvel/Disney's entries are doing so well so consistently, even with sequels and relatively obscure properties. It seems so obvious.
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Post by thegiaimo on Nov 20, 2014 5:31:27 GMT -5
Why does it seem like everyone is so down on the Dark Knight trilogy? I'm not asking as a challenge but a genuine curiosity. It just seems that one second, everybody was NUTS about them, and then the Avengers came out and these movies seemingly instantly stopped getting any love. I don't think that The Dark Knight Rises was anything special personally, but its two predecessors were absolutely exceptional and the only Marvel movie that even comes close to that level of filmmaking, in my opinion, is Captan America: The Winter Soldier. Is it that Man of Steel left such a bad taste in everybody's mouth? Yes, the Marvel movies are balls of fun and exciting and have good humor for the most part, but Batman is SUPPOSED to be a darker story. We ALL remember what a bright, upbeat Batman movie looks like, don't we, Joel Schumacher? But I find it really interesting that, in the modern cinematic world, the Dark Knight movies are the reason why the larger audience takes comic movies seriously, yet we treat the Marvel movies with a certain level of flaw-forgiveness that no other studio making these movies gets. While the Marvel heroes are getting exceptional treatment in the movies, they have yet to truly develop an interesting villain outside of Loki who, in my opinion (and at the risk of online crucifixion), is interesting but also tremendously overused.
That being said, these FF rumors have to be a hoax, right? Maybe to garner online attention for the property that otherwise wouldn't exist because of how underwhelming those first two movies were? Yes? Maybe? Possibly? Like they're setting the bar super low so that when the trailer is released and it actually IS loyal to the source material, it will knock our socks off completely? This is my hope anyway. Otherwise, I'm at a complete loss for words.
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Post by wamphari on Nov 20, 2014 8:02:01 GMT -5
Why does it seem like everyone is so down on the Dark Knight trilogy? I'm not asking as a challenge but a genuine curiosity. It just seems that one second, everybody was NUTS about them, and then the Avengers came out and these movies seemingly instantly stopped getting any love. I don't think that The Dark Knight Rises was anything special personally, but its two predecessors were absolutely exceptional and the only Marvel movie that even comes close to that level of filmmaking, in my opinion, is Captan America: The Winter Soldier. Is it that Man of Steel left such a bad taste in everybody's mouth? Yes, the Marvel movies are balls of fun and exciting and have good humor for the most part, but Batman is SUPPOSED to be a darker story. We ALL remember what a bright, upbeat Batman movie looks like, don't we, Joel Schumacher? But I find it really interesting that, in the modern cinematic world, the Dark Knight movies are the reason why the larger audience takes comic movies seriously, yet we treat the Marvel movies with a certain level of flaw-forgiveness that no other studio making these movies gets. While the Marvel heroes are getting exceptional treatment in the movies, they have yet to truly develop an interesting villain outside of Loki who, in my opinion (and at the risk of online crucifixion), is interesting but also tremendously overused. That being said, these FF rumors have to be a hoax, right? Maybe to garner online attention for the property that otherwise wouldn't exist because of how underwhelming those first two movies were? Yes? Maybe? Possibly? Like they're setting the bar super low so that when the trailer is released and it actually IS loyal to the source material, it will knock our socks off completely? This is my hope anyway. Otherwise, I'm at a complete loss for words. I think this is a valid question as I, for one, have been much harder on the nolan series than I was when they came out. So here is my opinion that most others WILL disagree with and a second that some might agree with. Batman is a bad character. Really. I think that the character himself represents many things that wrong with the country. He is a libertarian dreamchild and a spoiled rich kid who thinks he knows better what gothon needs than anyone else. Bruce Wayne definitely read Ayn Rand when he was growing up and in my jaded liberal eyes he's basically the comic book representation of John Galt. Now that particular rant aside, Batman Begins was a fairly ho-hum movie. Didn't garner much notice nor make a ton of money. I think were it not for the second film, the Begins would be viewed not much differently than Superman Returns (I did a review of this in the rate a movie post). Dark Knight was clearly a very good film. I take nothing away from it, Ledger's performance was as amazing as it was surprising and even the smaller parts were played to perfection (though gylenhal as rachael dawes wasn't my cup of tea). And finally Rises... This film was right alongside Begins, a fairly mediocre overblown take on the bat. Tom Hardy was excellent as Bane, but really couldn't save what amounted to a confused and confusing scattershot film. The final act reveal of an Al'ghul was one of the least impactful "surprise endings" I've seen in a long time. So overall I view those movies not so much as bad, but as OK with a few really breakout perfomances. As far as tone, I do understand that bats does generally have adarker tone, but it doesn't have to and it hasn't always. I think what a lot of people would like to see is the detective that we've gotten in the cartoon and in the comics. The Nolan films really painted the picture of a rich bully, not a master criminologist. Batman should be more riddler and less killer croc. Oh and if I even see frank miller's racist, sexist, homophoboic, jingoistic name next to a batfilm, I'm out. That being said I don't begrudge anyone's enjoyment of any of these films.
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Post by henrythemorerecent on Nov 20, 2014 20:29:53 GMT -5
Why does it seem like everyone is so down on the Dark Knight trilogy? I'm not asking as a challenge but a genuine curiosity. It just seems that one second, everybody was NUTS about them, and then the Avengers came out and these movies seemingly instantly stopped getting any love. I don't think that The Dark Knight Rises was anything special personally, but its two predecessors were absolutely exceptional and the only Marvel movie that even comes close to that level of filmmaking, in my opinion, is Captan America: The Winter Soldier. Is it that Man of Steel left such a bad taste in everybody's mouth? Yes, the Marvel movies are balls of fun and exciting and have good humor for the most part, but Batman is SUPPOSED to be a darker story. We ALL remember what a bright, upbeat Batman movie looks like, don't we, Joel Schumacher? But I find it really interesting that, in the modern cinematic world, the Dark Knight movies are the reason why the larger audience takes comic movies seriously, yet we treat the Marvel movies with a certain level of flaw-forgiveness that no other studio making these movies gets. While the Marvel heroes are getting exceptional treatment in the movies, they have yet to truly develop an interesting villain outside of Loki who, in my opinion (and at the risk of online crucifixion), is interesting but also tremendously overused. That being said, these FF rumors have to be a hoax, right? Maybe to garner online attention for the property that otherwise wouldn't exist because of how underwhelming those first two movies were? Yes? Maybe? Possibly? Like they're setting the bar super low so that when the trailer is released and it actually IS loyal to the source material, it will knock our socks off completely? This is my hope anyway. Otherwise, I'm at a complete loss for words. This. In every way THIS. Couldn't agree more. The flaw-forgiveness for Marvel is seriously making me feel bitter about them as a company. I have enjoyed every movie they've made, but they are in no way perfect. And this sudden hate for everything Nolan and Dark Knight and DC has come from nowhere. My theory is (and its just a theory) its comic readers faults. The "comic book buy" stereotype has always been the sarcastic hate-it-all. Then you get a juggernaut success that is the Marvel-Disney franchise wih non-comic readers walking out saying "Hmmm, I want to read comics now". So they do, but what are new readers often met with? Judgement from the comic book guy. So they have come into this new hobby/interest thinking "Oh so to be part of this I need to have a harsh opinion about things" and because they have come from the Marvel movies, it is instantly turned on DC. Because it has always been Marvel vs DC. Which is so stupid. It shouldn't be anything vs anyone. Nobody is doing anything better than the other. They do what they do. Take the movie slate announcement. Yes the Marvel one was exciting. But the DC one was too. Yet the attitude has been "The DC isn't as exciting because we we've seen what Marvel can do". But isn't it more exciting that we're getting something we haven't yet seen 10 times over? We know what Marvel can do. I'm way less excited for that because there's a formula to that now. It's expected. DC are doing things unexpected. And regardless of taste, it's in the very least interesting. Because this stuff only ever always comes down to personal taste. I for one love both so, so much. But I am constantly met with such harsh critisism for reading, watching and enjoying DC properties just because its not Marvel. Its an absolute load. Nobody should have to defend themselves for enjoying different art than someone else. For as long as I've loved movies and comics and music, I've never understood this desire people have to just critisize everything they hate to the finest detail. I rarely hear anybody speak positively. Nobody can just enjoy what they enjoy. Look at this forum. The longest discussions are basically civil arguments and disagreements. Why is there that need to reply to someones post about how much they enjoyed a comic/movie with a slightly longer version of "IT WAS STUPID AND I THINK YOU'RE WRONG". Nobody is wrong in this community. No reason to get instantly defensive. But there is one fact: EVERY SINGLE MOVIE/COMIC/ALBUM/BOOK/PERSON/SANDWICH/CAKE EVER MADE HAS FLAWS.
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Post by Tony on Nov 21, 2014 2:26:00 GMT -5
Why does it seem like everyone is so down on the Dark Knight trilogy? I'm not asking as a challenge but a genuine curiosity. It just seems that one second, everybody was NUTS about them, and then the Avengers came out and these movies seemingly instantly stopped getting any love. I don't think that The Dark Knight Rises was anything special personally, but its two predecessors were absolutely exceptional and the only Marvel movie that even comes close to that level of filmmaking, in my opinion, is Captan America: The Winter Soldier. Is it that Man of Steel left such a bad taste in everybody's mouth? Yes, the Marvel movies are balls of fun and exciting and have good humor for the most part, but Batman is SUPPOSED to be a darker story. We ALL remember what a bright, upbeat Batman movie looks like, don't we, Joel Schumacher? But I find it really interesting that, in the modern cinematic world, the Dark Knight movies are the reason why the larger audience takes comic movies seriously, yet we treat the Marvel movies with a certain level of flaw-forgiveness that no other studio making these movies gets. While the Marvel heroes are getting exceptional treatment in the movies, they have yet to truly develop an interesting villain outside of Loki who, in my opinion (and at the risk of online crucifixion), is interesting but also tremendously overused. Before I weigh-in with my personal opinion on NolanBat, I think you ought to consider right-off that maybe some of the "everyone" who's currently critical of the Dark Knight trilogy is not necessarily the same "everybody" who was nuts about them when they were coming out. I'm sure there's some overlap in that Venn Diagram, but maybe not as much as you would assume. I would wager that an awful lot of people who currently don't think much of the Nolanverse, haven't flip-flopped, but rather were never that impressed with it from the start, just as there's a segment of the population, like yourself, who loved those movies at the time, still loves them, and doesn't seem to think much of the MCU at all. Different strokes, and all that. Just a theory. Granted, straight-off, you clearly like those movies a whole lot more than I do, and it would seem that you also don't love the MCU series nearly as much as I do. So there's that, and that's fine; to each their own; it's all good. My perspective is that I think that the entire run of the MCU so far, other than Iron Man 3, have been heads and tails above the Nolan films (particularly the first and third) in every possible way relating to quality, entertainment, staying power/rewatchability, and most importantly respect for the source material. When I see Thor or Cap or Hulk on screen, I think, "That's fucking Thor, and Cap, and Hulk, man!! That's them! There they fucking are!!! How cool is that!? Look, there's Thanos!! Fucking Thanos, man!! Can you believe we're alive to see this shit?! This is incredible!!!" When I see Bale-Bat on screen, I think (and thought), "Yup, there's Christian Bale, bein' all growly. At least the suit looks a bit better than it did in '89, eh?" That's a major difference, and that hasn't changed over time. That has to do with portraying the characters faithfully, and it has to do with respecting the source material. Nolan/Bale Batman is similar to Burton/Keaton Batman in the sense that it's that director and that actor doing their own take on the character that doesn't necessarily have all that much to do with who or what that character has been on the page over the decades, and has more to do with the egos and styles of those directors and those actors at that time in history. You hire an auteur, you get a work in the style of that auteur. Marvel/Disney has decided that they'd rather make a more cohesive series of films that have more to do with being true to their characters as they've been established over the years, and bringing the page to the screen, than to hand the reigns of those characters over to a rockstar, heavily stylized, auteur director/filmmaker. That's simply a difference in paths that those two studios have chosen. Too, I don't think it's fair to say that people don't like them because they were dark. I mean, surely there are some people who would say that, but most of the criticism i've heard isn't from people who want Bats to be light and fun and Avengers-y; that's not at all what i've heard them most commonly criticized for, so I think that may be a bit of a misunderstanding of what most of the criticism is and where it's coming from. But don't take that to mean that I don't like the NolanBat at all. For me, the Nolan movies have been a fascinating study in how ones impression of a film can change over even a somewhat-short period of time, which does absolutely speak to your initial question, though that's just my own personal experience with my opinion of them, and not necessarily a trend that i've observed in my friends and family and such; I more or less fit into the aforementioned overlap on that Venn Diagram, at least to some extent. I'll try to be as concise and organized in my explanation as possible. This was my impression of those movies at the time of release: - Begins: "Wow, that was actually pretty good! The fight scenes are an irredeemable mess, and Katie Holmes can't act herself out of a paper bag, but otherwise, yeah! I didn't think that'd be any good at all, but hey, i'm happy to be wrong! Can't wait for the next one!" - Dark Knight: "Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooly crap, other than Christian Bale being completely, absurdly, ridiculously unintelligible and generally horrible that still might be the best fucking movie i've ever seen in my life, ohfuck, ohfuck, ohfuck, goddammit, Ledger, whyyyyyyyyyyy." - Rises: "Uhmmmm, yeah, alright, that was pretty cool. I mean, it didn't make any sense, but there were some really nice touches in there, and some of my favorite actors, and a few great scenes, and, man, I loved the Batman-Blue drape they had over the statue at the end, and . . alright! It's no The Avengers, but hey, nice bookend to the series, I guess! (Now let's see if The Avengers is still playing across the street; I wanna see it a fourth time if it's still out.)" Ok, so, pretty positive, yeah? Surprisingly enjoyed the first, adored the second, befuddled-by-but-still-enjoyed the third, at the time. Suffice it to say, those impressions have absolutely changed to some extent or other. Is the change due to my having seen The Avengers and the rest of the MCU? Sure, maybe a little bit. But I think my opinions of those Nolanverse movies would've changed in one way or another regardless of what else came out in the meantime, I think that's a thing that tends to happen with most movies over time and repeat viewings (thus the whole point of "rewatchability" as a quality that all films have, or don't have, to some degree), and anyways, the MCU started with Iron Man in '08, the same summer that Dark Knight came out, and the big, break-everyone's-minds landmark, The Avengers, came out only a short couple of months before Rises, so it's not like one of the series' happened significantly before the other; there is significant overlap, and to compare them to each other every step along the way is completely natural. Did the colossally heartbreaking shitfest that was Man of Steel have an effect on how I now view those Nolanverse movies? Maybe, a little bit, but I wouldn't say it's been a primary or major influence on why or how my opinion of them has soured to the extent that it has. True, my opinion of Goyer went absolutely in the toilet after seeing Man of Steel, and so that connection didn't do the Nolanverse any favors after the fact. But Goyer isn't really my major beef with NolanBat. More than anything, I think that the major influence prompting the degradation of my enjoyment and opinion of those movies is much more simple: time, repeat viewings, and the third (Rises) retroactively soiling my enjoyment of the previous two. Which is to say that the problematic aspects of all three movies were less apparent the first time through than they became once I had a chance to see them a few more times, apiece, and also that the problems that plague Rises made me think long and hard about how I really felt about some of what-I'd-previously-seen-as-smallish-cracks in the first two chapters. And that's natural to how one perceives film; I think that's a process that would've happened in a vacuum, so to speak, regardless of the MCU or of Man of Steel. Put more succinctly, I liked Rises quite a bit when I saw it in the theater. Less than a year later it was released on dvd/bluray/HBO/whathaveyou, and I watched it a few more times, and by at least the third viewing I wanted to turn it off before the halfway point, and by the fourth viewing I really started to hate it. Some movies hold up really, really well to repeat viewings, and more power to them. Others don't. For me, the Nolanverse belongs in the latter camp. The more I watched, the more I saw a yell-y, scream-y, "come at me, bro", Krav Maga-happy, unintelligible, ridiculous parody of Batman. The curtain was drawn back, as it were. Nolan's Batman is someone who retired for, what, eight years between the second and third movies? Really? Rachel dies and he just gives up? Even Kevin Smith, who's been on the record a thousand times about how unapologetically a fan he is of those movies, even he thinks that's ridiculous. It's the most un-Batman thing i've ever heard, one girl dies and he retires. There's no semblance of the Bruce or the Bat that we've come to know and love over the years in that character. Where's the perseverance against all odds? Where's the drive and the obsession and the willingness to do whatever's necessary to protect Gotham, night-in and night-out; to keep what happened to him and his parents from happening to some other kid? He debuted in Detective #27, right? The company is called DC? Ra's al Ghul calls him The Detective? Where's The Detective, in those movies? Where's the guy who went around the world to seek out and study from all those masters of the various arts, both martial and otherwise? That's not who we got. Nolan's Bat is a guy who stumbled around Asia aimlessly until he found Liam Neeson, learned some kung fu, and decided he was now good-to-go. That's fine, for what it is, but it's not the Batman that I know. It's not The Detective. It pales in comparison to the Batman we got in the animated series, let alone in so many of the comics over the decades. No, we got a guy who fixed his broken fucking back by doing pushups and hanging from the wall for a few weeks. We got a Bat who, when the city is on a timer and in peril of being blown from the face of the earth any minute now, took his sweet ass time repelling and climbing all the fuck around the bridge with a bunch of lighter fluid so he could stage a fire-Bat-symbol special effect because . . movies, I guess? It just doesn't hold water. It looks cool the first time you see it, but it doesn't hold up during subsequent viewings. We got a movie where the GCPD, led by much-too-much-plastic-surgery-face Matthew Modine, just run right at a bunch of Bane's guys even though it's perfectly clear that they're going to get mowed down by gunfire. What is this, Glory? Did I miss Denzel in there, somewhere? That's not heroic, or dramatic, or tense, it's just plain stupid, and it's bad, lazy writing. HE RETIRED FOR EIGHT FUCKING YEARS. Come on, that's just . . ugggghhhhh. I don't even know what that is, but I know it's not Batman. And, honestly, that's just the tip of the iceberg of criticism; I could go on. I'm not even going to go off about the criminal waste of Marion Cotillard, one of the finest actors on the planet right now, and one of the worst death scenes ever put on film. Notice, none of it had to do with the movie being too gritty, or too dark; it's not about that. Dark is fine; Gotham is supposed to be a nighttime city. It's about plotholes so big you could fly a squadron of Batplanes through them. It's about lazy writing. More than anything, it's about piss poor characterization. Why does the second movie still hold up so well? Ledger, Gyllenhall, and Eckheart. They were phenomenal in that movie. Unfortunately, none of them are in the first or third movie; it's a shame. Too, the movie isn't called, "Rachel, Harvey, and The Joker", it's called The Dark Knight. And he's a grumbley, growly, totally un-Batman, "Where is it!!! Tell me where it is!!" fucking mess in it! Bale tried his damnedest to ruin that movie, and fortunately for all of us he failed; it's the only one of the three that still holds up. So, ok, maybe "concise" isn't exactly the right word to describe that diatribe, apologies, but it's worth it if I even got a small portion of my perspective across. The first time I saw Begins, it didn't occur to me how egregious the sins in that set-up were; I didn't notice some of the things I would later go on to notice. That's how movies work, sometimes. Dark Knight . . well, I still like it. It has issues, Bale being the primary one, but like I said, Ledger and Eckheart and Gyllenhall (and, ok, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman, because: of course) are so damn good, and some of those shots are just ridiculously skillful, that the issues are largely paved over. And i'm not surprised! Why am I not surprised? Because Chris Nolan's a damn-fine filmmaker, that's why. Rises is garbage compared to everything else he's ever made, Insomnia included, but everyone's allowed that, yeah? No creative ever bats 1.000; that's part of the game. My general opinion of him hasn't lessened, really; I can't wait to finally go see Interstellar this weekend with my brother, and I look forward to seeing and enjoying his movies for decades to come. So that's a small slice of how my opinions of that trilogy have deteriorated over the years. Short version: there's plenty of stuff that bothers me about them, primary being the characterization and deviation from the source material, and a lot of that stuff wasn't super-apparent the first time I saw them because Chris Nolan has skills. Period. If we're comparing them, still, with the MCU, i've had substantially fewer gripes about each of those movies, Iron Man 3 being the shit-tastic exception, and when I go back and rewatch those movies, from Iron Man 1 to Winter Soldier (and the two times I went to see Guardians), i've found my enjoyment has more or less held up; there are fewer cracks to plaster over. But again, that's just personal opinion; art is, by its nature, subjective. That's my 2 cents.
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Post by thegiaimo on Nov 21, 2014 4:06:07 GMT -5
Why does it seem like everyone is so down on the Dark Knight trilogy? I'm not asking as a challenge but a genuine curiosity. It just seems that one second, everybody was NUTS about them, and then the Avengers came out and these movies seemingly instantly stopped getting any love. I don't think that The Dark Knight Rises was anything special personally, but its two predecessors were absolutely exceptional and the only Marvel movie that even comes close to that level of filmmaking, in my opinion, is Captan America: The Winter Soldier. Is it that Man of Steel left such a bad taste in everybody's mouth? Yes, the Marvel movies are balls of fun and exciting and have good humor for the most part, but Batman is SUPPOSED to be a darker story. We ALL remember what a bright, upbeat Batman movie looks like, don't we, Joel Schumacher? But I find it really interesting that, in the modern cinematic world, the Dark Knight movies are the reason why the larger audience takes comic movies seriously, yet we treat the Marvel movies with a certain level of flaw-forgiveness that no other studio making these movies gets. While the Marvel heroes are getting exceptional treatment in the movies, they have yet to truly develop an interesting villain outside of Loki who, in my opinion (and at the risk of online crucifixion), is interesting but also tremendously overused. Before I weigh-in with my personal opinion on NolanBat, I think you ought to consider right-off that maybe some of the "everyone" who's currently critical of the Dark Knight trilogy is not necessarily the same "everybody" who was nuts about them when they were coming out. I'm sure there's some overlap in that Venn Diagram, but maybe not as much as you would assume. I would wager that an awful lot of people who currently don't think much of the Nolanverse, haven't flip-flopped, but rather were never that impressed with it from the start, just as there's a segment of the population, like yourself, who loved those movies at the time, still loves them, and doesn't seem to think much of the MCU at all. Different strokes, and all that. Just a theory. Granted, straight-off, you clearly like those movies a whole lot more than I do, and it would seem that you also don't love the MCU series nearly as much as I do. So there's that, and that's fine; to each their own; it's all good. My perspective is that I think that the entire run of the MCU so far, other than Iron Man 3, have been heads and tails above the Nolan films (particularly the first and third) in every possible way relating to quality, entertainment, staying power/rewatchability, and most importantly respect for the source material. When I see Thor or Cap or Hulk on screen, I think, "That's fucking Thor, and Cap, and Hulk, man!! That's them! There they fucking are!!! How cool is that!? Look, there's Thanos!! Fucking Thanos, man!! Can you believe we're alive to see this shit?! This is incredible!!!" When I see Bale-Bat on screen, I think (and thought), "Yup, there's Christian Bale, bein' all growly. At least the suit looks a bit better than it did in '89, eh?" That's a major difference, and that hasn't changed over time. That has to do with portraying the characters faithfully, and it has to do with respecting the source material. Nolan/Bale Batman is similar to Burton/Keaton Batman in the sense that it's that director and that actor doing their own take on the character that doesn't necessarily have all that much to do with who or what that character has been on the page over the decades, and has more to do with the egos and styles of those directors and those actors at that time in history. You hire an auteur, you get a work in the style of that auteur. Marvel/Disney has decided that they'd rather make a more cohesive series of films that have more to do with being true to their characters as they've been established over the years, and bringing the page to the screen, than to hand the reigns of those characters over to a rockstar, heavily stylized, auteur director/filmmaker. That's simply a difference in paths that those two studios have chosen. Too, I don't think it's fair to say that people don't like them because they were dark. I mean, surely there are some people who would say that, but most of the criticism i've heard isn't from people who want Bats to be light and fun and Avengers-y; that's not at all what i've heard them most commonly criticized for, so I think that may be a bit of a misunderstanding of what most of the criticism is and where it's coming from. But don't take that to mean that I don't like the NolanBat at all. For me, the Nolan movies have been a fascinating study in how ones impression of a film can change over even a somewhat-short period of time, which does absolutely speak to your initial question, though that's just my own personal experience with my opinion of them, and not necessarily a trend that i've observed in my friends and family and such; I more or less fit into the aforementioned overlap on that Venn Diagram, at least to some extent. I'll try to be as concise and organized in my explanation as possible. This was my impression of those movies at the time of release: - Begins: "Wow, that was actually pretty good! The fight scenes are an irredeemable mess, and Katie Holmes can't act herself out of a paper bag, but otherwise, yeah! I didn't think that'd be any good at all, but hey, i'm happy to be wrong! Can't wait for the next one!" - Dark Knight: "Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooly crap, other than Christian Bale being completely, absurdly, ridiculously unintelligible and generally horrible that still might be the best fucking movie i've ever seen in my life, ohfuck, ohfuck, ohfuck, goddammit, Ledger, whyyyyyyyyyyy." - Rises: "Uhmmmm, yeah, alright, that was pretty cool. I mean, it didn't make any sense, but there were some really nice touches in there, and some of my favorite actors, and a few great scenes, and, man, I loved the Batman-Blue drape they had over the statue at the end, and . . alright! It's no The Avengers, but hey, nice bookend to the series, I guess! (Now let's see if The Avengers is still playing across the street; I wanna see it a fourth time if it's still out.)" Ok, so, pretty positive, yeah? Surprisingly enjoyed the first, adored the second, befuddled-by-but-still-enjoyed the third, at the time. Suffice it to say, those impressions have absolutely changed to some extent or other. Is the change due to my having seen The Avengers and the rest of the MCU? Sure, maybe a little bit. But I think my opinions of those Nolanverse movies would've changed in one way or another regardless of what else came out in the meantime, I think that's a thing that tends to happen with most movies over time and repeat viewings (thus the whole point of "rewatchability" as a quality that all films have, or don't have, to some degree), and anyways, the MCU started with Iron Man in '08, the same summer that Dark Knight came out, and the big, break-everyone's-minds landmark, The Avengers, came out only a short couple of months before Rises, so it's not like one of the series' happened significantly before the other; there is significant overlap, and to compare them to each other every step along the way is completely natural. Did the colossally heartbreaking shitfest that was Man of Steel have an effect on how I now view those Nolanverse movies? Maybe, a little bit, but I wouldn't say it's been a primary or major influence on why or how my opinion of them has soured to the extent that it has. True, my opinion of Goyer went absolutely in the toilet after seeing Man of Steel, and so that connection didn't do the Nolanverse any favors after the fact. But Goyer isn't really my major beef with NolanBat. More than anything, I think that the major influence prompting the degradation of my enjoyment and opinion of those movies is much more simple: time, repeat viewings, and the third (Rises) retroactively soiling my enjoyment of the previous two. Which is to say that the problematic aspects of all three movies were less apparent the first time through than they became once I had a chance to see them a few more times, apiece, and also that the problems that plague Rises made me think long and hard about how I really felt about some of what-I'd-previously-seen-as-smallish-cracks in the first two chapters. And that's natural to how one perceives film; I think that's a process that would've happened in a vacuum, so to speak, regardless of the MCU or of Man of Steel. Put more succinctly, I liked Rises quite a bit when I saw it in the theater. Less than a year later it was released on dvd/bluray/HBO/whathaveyou, and I watched it a few more times, and by at least the third viewing I wanted to turn it off before the halfway point, and by the fourth viewing I really started to hate it. Some movies hold up really, really well to repeat viewings, and more power to them. Others don't. For me, the Nolanverse belongs in the latter camp. The more I watched, the more I saw a yell-y, scream-y, "come at me, bro", Krav Maga-happy, unintelligible, ridiculous parody of Batman. The curtain was drawn back, as it were. Nolan's Batman is someone who retired for, what, eight years between the second and third movies? Really? Rachel dies and he just gives up? Even Kevin Smith, who's been on the record a thousand times about how unapologetically a fan he is of those movies, even he thinks that's ridiculous. It's the most un-Batman thing i've ever heard, one girl dies and he retires. There's no semblance of the Bruce or the Bat that we've come to know and love over the years in that character. Where's the perseverance against all odds? Where's the drive and the obsession and the willingness to do whatever's necessary to protect Gotham, night-in and night-out; to keep what happened to him and his parents from happening to some other kid? He debuted in Detective #27, right? The company is called DC? Ra's al Ghul calls him The Detective? Where's The Detective, in those movies? Where's the guy who went around the world to seek out and study from all those masters of the various arts, both martial and otherwise? That's not who we got. Nolan's Bat is a guy who stumbled around Asia aimlessly until he found Liam Neeson, learned some kung fu, and decided he was now good-to-go. That's fine, for what it is, but it's not the Batman that I know. It's not The Detective. It pales in comparison to the Batman we got in the animated series, let alone in so many of the comics over the decades. No, we got a guy who fixed his broken fucking back by doing pushups and hanging from the wall for a few weeks. We got a Bat who, when the city is on a timer and in peril of being blown from the face of the earth any minute now, took his sweet ass time repelling and climbing all the fuck around the bridge with a bunch of lighter fluid so he could stage a fire-Bat-symbol special effect because . . movies, I guess? It just doesn't hold water. It looks cool the first time you see it, but it doesn't hold up during subsequent viewings. We got a movie where the GCPD, led by much-too-much-plastic-surgery-face Matthew Modine, just run right at a bunch of Bane's guys even though it's perfectly clear that they're going to get mowed down by gunfire. What is this, Glory? Did I miss Denzel in there, somewhere? That's not heroic, or dramatic, or tense, it's just plain stupid, and it's bad, lazy writing. HE RETIRED FOR EIGHT FUCKING YEARS. Come on, that's just . . ugggghhhhh. I don't even know what that is, but I know it's not Batman. And, honestly, that's just the tip of the iceberg of criticism; I could go on. I'm not even going to go off about the criminal waste of Marion Cotillard, one of the finest actors on the planet right now, and one of the worst death scenes ever put on film. Notice, none of it had to do with the movie being too gritty, or too dark; it's not about that. Dark is fine; Gotham is supposed to be a nighttime city. It's about plotholes so big you could fly a squadron of Batplanes through them. It's about lazy writing. More than anything, it's about piss poor characterization. Why does the second movie still hold up so well? Ledger, Gyllenhall, and Eckheart. They were phenomenal in that movie. Unfortunately, none of them are in the first or third movie; it's a shame. Too, the movie isn't called, "Rachel, Harvey, and The Joker", it's called The Dark Knight. And he's a grumbley, growly, totally un-Batman, "Where is it!!! Tell me where it is!!" fucking mess in it! Bale tried his damnedest to ruin that movie, and fortunately for all of us he failed; it's the only one of the three that still holds up. So, ok, maybe "concise" isn't exactly the right word to describe that diatribe, apologies, but it's worth it if I even got a small portion of my perspective across. The first time I saw Begins, it didn't occur to me how egregious the sins in that set-up were; I didn't notice some of the things I would later go on to notice. That's how movies work, sometimes. Dark Knight . . well, I still like it. It has issues, Bale being the primary one, but like I said, Ledger and Eckheart and Gyllenhall (and, ok, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman, because: of course) are so damn good, and some of those shots are just ridiculously skillful, that the issues are largely paved over. And i'm not surprised! Why am I not surprised? Because Chris Nolan's a damn-fine filmmaker, that's why. Rises is garbage compared to everything else he's ever made, Insomnia included, but everyone's allowed that, yeah? No creative ever bats 1.000; that's part of the game. My general opinion of him hasn't lessened, really; I can't wait to finally go see Interstellar this weekend with my brother, and I look forward to seeing and enjoying his movies for decades to come. So that's a small slice of how my opinions of that trilogy have deteriorated over the years. Short version: there's plenty of stuff that bothers me about them, primary being the characterization and deviation from the source material, and a lot of that stuff wasn't super-apparent the first time I saw them because Chris Nolan has skills. Period. If we're comparing them, still, with the MCU, i've had substantially fewer gripes about each of those movies, Iron Man 3 being the shit-tastic exception, and when I go back and rewatch those movies, from Iron Man 1 to Winter Soldier (and the two times I went to see Guardians), i've found my enjoyment has more or less held up; there are fewer cracks to plaster over. But again, that's just personal opinion; art is, by its nature, subjective. That's my 2 cents. Okay, let me start off by saying that when I said "everyone" I obviously didn't MEAN "EVERYONE." I can't stand it when people talk in absolutes, and there I am doing it myself. So apologies there. But beyond that, I think my question still stands. I agree that Dark Knight Rises was underwhelming on a GOOD day, as I stated in my original post. Nolan had a plan for the third movie that fell to pieces after Ledger's passing. Personally, I think he should have scrapped the project after that fell through and just left the series as is with the two movies. Now I'm not gonna' try and talk you out of your perspective because it's yours and it's great that you own it. But I do think my question still stands. You're right when you say that EVERY movie has flaws. I just find it strange that the spotlight has been shining quite heavily on the DC movies while we, as a comics community (and with exceptions of course), tend to forgive the ones found in the Marvel movies. To your point of the Detective, we saw those things in the first two movies. Obviously hours of screen time were not paid to it, but it was there. In Begins, you saw him with the photos of the corrupt judge, which he gathered off-screen, to present to Rachel's character. You saw him investigating the drugs going into the narrows, questioning the corrupt Flass. In Dark Knight, you got him investigating the shell casings of the bullets, looking in on the bank after the opening robbery scene, dialogue insinuating off-screen investigations... Yes, there's not a lot of time dedicated to it, but as these are movies, you can't really spend too much time on the procedural. There's a story to tell and so on... But that's fine. Again, your opinion is your own. Like I said in the previous post, I AM a fan of the Marvel movies. Okay, MOST of the Marvel movies. I thought Iron Man 2 & 3 were pretty much trash and Thor 2 wasn't very great... but that's neither here nor there. I just don't understand why we -- and this doesn't mean YOU specifically, Tony... just the collective we -- can't embrace both film lines and the potential that both have. Why does it seem that in order to PRAISE the MCU, we have to Dog the DCU? Each of these movies, despite whether they are part of a larger cinematic universe or not, still has to stand on the merit of its own running time. Iron Man 3 is no better or worse because of what came before or after it, just like the Dark Knight Rises shouldn't impact one's opinion of the Dark Knight proper. They are stand alone movies. So when Ledger won best supporting actor, it wasn't for the Dark Knight TRILOGY, it was for the Dark Knight. When Scarlet Johansson was treated as nothing more than window dressing and flashy, sexy, look-how-I-can-whip-my-hair action poses in Iron Man 2, it in no way impacted her 3-dimensional performances in the Avengers and the Winter Soldier or the damn Nanny Diaries. That's not to say that we HAVE to enjoy every movie that the DCU puts out and criticize every one that the MCU puts out or vice versa. But I don't think that in order to say that Guardians of the Galaxy was a funny and fun popcorn flick, we have to point out that Man of Steel was a 2 1/2 hour joyless destruction flick. One criticism in no way informs the other. I guess, ultimately, that's what I meant. I didn't intend, Tony, for it to be or to be taken as a direct attack on your opinions, and I'm sorry if you took it that way.
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Post by Tony on Nov 21, 2014 6:27:36 GMT -5
I guess, ultimately, that's what I meant. I didn't intend, Tony, for it to be or to be taken as a direct attack on your opinions, and I'm sorry if you took it that way. Naw, man, I didn't take it that way at all; we're all entitled to our opinions, and we're all just fans, here, yeah? Much more in common than the average gaggle, the way I see it. This is a no-beef zone. We are 100% good. : ) I enjoy the discussion; I love the exchange of perspectives. Apologies if I came off too passionate; I get that way sometimes.
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Post by thegiaimo on Nov 22, 2014 7:02:12 GMT -5
Naw, man, I didn't take it that way at all; we're all entitled to our opinions, and we're all just fans, here, yeah? Much more in common than the average gaggle, the way I see it. This is a no-beef zone. We are 100% good. : ) I enjoy the discussion; I love the exchange of perspectives. Apologies if I came off too passionate; I get that way sometimes. Haha, no you're fine. I'm just new to the forum (and to forums at large and I didn't want my first real conversation to be one where I came off like a schmuck. But getting back on point, how about those FF rumors, huh?! What's THAT about?
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Post by tomoe on Nov 23, 2014 3:08:17 GMT -5
But getting back on point, how about those FF rumors, huh?! What's THAT about? I’ve got a couple of theories about that: 1) The guy hired to write it already had a script that had nothing to do with any kind of superheroes. It kept getting rejected because it wasn’t based on or part of a franchise. So once he was hired to write Fantastic Four, he pulled out his old script, made a few cosmetic changes, and slapped on the title “Fantastic Four”. 2) Because some studio exec heard the pitch “It’s like the Fantastic Four combined with Hackers, but without all that fantasy cosmic stuff” and thought that sounded awesome. 3) The studio heads made all the wrong assumptions about why the earlier FF films weren’t unqualified successes because they never watch movies (or read any fiction). 4) Someone in the studio was picked on mercilessly as a kid by his brother and his brother's comic book loving nerd friends. His brother’s favorite comic was Fantastic Four, so he’s come up with a movie designed to crush his brother’s very soul. He leaks information about the movie’s characters in piecemeal fashion as a form of slow torture for the Fantastic Four fan. I envision him sitting in an office somewhere stroking his long-haired white cat and gloating as the comic book geeks go into convulsions and have apoplectic fits on Internet forums.
Or … 5) They really don’t want to be seen as imitating (poorly) Marvel or DC and they may not want to compete in the “who can destroy the most urban real estate” contest. So they are choosing to distance themselves from the other studios' approaches. Rather than celebrate the superhero (Marvel), or showcase over-the-top destruction and super-powers (DC and Marvel), or revel in obsessed people driven to truly bizarre and twisted lengths (Batman, Batman’s villains, anyone who shows up in Gotham…) , they are going to go with a bunch of people altered in bizarre ways, which results in them being alienated, ostracized, confused, belligerent and desperately trying to figure out where and how they fit in. Basically, a teenage angst movie but without the vampires and with comic book science thrown in the mix.
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Post by sammiecassell on Nov 23, 2014 13:12:59 GMT -5
So my question is this, is it because of this movie that Marvel has cancelled the beloved first family? Or is it Marvel's way of saying ok Fox, you guys don't want to play ball and not sell us back our characters then how are you going to feel making a comic book movie no longer based on a comic book (which by all descriptions it's not anyway). And is Fox pushing back and saying, here, we're gonna screw up one or maybe two of your prime properties? So two warring studios are going to deprive comic READERS of FF and XMen (since from what I hear, all new characters will be Inhumans NOT mutants). Will Marvel go far enough to cancel all the X-titles?. Move Wolverine to the Avengers and destroy the rest....No More Mutants??? Again?
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Post by thegiaimo on Nov 23, 2014 13:44:32 GMT -5
So my question is this, is it because of this movie that Marvel has cancelled the beloved first family? Or is it Marvel's way of saying ok Fox, you guys don't want to play ball and not sell us back our characters then how are you going to feel making a comic book movie no longer based on a comic book (which by all descriptions it's not anyway). And is Fox pushing back and saying, here, we're gonna screw up one or maybe two of your prime properties? So two warring studios are going to deprive comic READERS of FF and XMen (since from what I hear, all new characters will be Inhumans NOT mutants). Will Marvel go far enough to cancel all the X-titles?. Move Wolverine to the Avengers and destroy the rest....No More Mutants??? Again? I really don't think this is the case. The studio execs at Marvel clearly know what they're doing when it comes to making a buck on both the movies and the comics side. I can't imagine that a) they would be so petty to pull a stunt like this knowing full well that it would have virtually NO effect on box office sales, and b) they are not going to cancel the X-titles. They would not have their most arguably famous writer working on it as the X-architect if this was the plan. Granted, people are of two minds on Bendis. They either love him or hate him. But he is also known for world-building, as he basically single-handedly resuscitated the Avengers line and brought it to the forefront of importance in the Marvel universe. If their plan was to get rid of the X-books, I seriously don't think they would "waste" Bendis in this way as to throw us off their trail. I think, in regard to the FF book being canceled it is more likely that either Robinson had a finite story to tell or that sales numbers (I don't really follow sales, so this is an ABSOLUTELY UNEDUCATED theory) just aren't high enough to keep it going. And the FF are NOT going to be gone long. Remember a few years back when they announced that they were ending the Uncanny X-Men during Kieran Gillen's run? They made this big to-do about it as it was, at that time, the longest running Marvel title that had never seen a reboot. They made a big deal about it and then re-released it with a new number one a month later, STILL written by Gillen and equally as unimpressive? I'd say things are going to fall more in line with THAT than anything else. I'd expect a Fantastic Four new #1 in the months following its cancellation. Then again, I could be completely wrong.
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