Riddler Out for Batman 3

[JointStrikeFighter]

I was talking about The Dark Knight you fat sack of shit

[Batman]

I was talking about The Dark Knight you fat sack of shit

You might have been a bit more elaborate about that then, given it looked like you were talking about the upcoming movie.

[JointStrikeFighter]

I was talking about The Dark Knight you fat sack of shit

You might have been a bit more elaborate about that then, given it looked like you were talking about the upcoming movie.

Maybe of you have the comprehension skills of a braindead trout.

[Shroom Man 777]

But he's supposed to be the World's Greatest Detective. Stop relying on the Bat Computer, Bruce.

[Faqa]

JointSTRAKFighter, you sort of ignore the fact that Batman was winning the fight against crime until the Joker came along - criminals were afraid of him. Now, they'll be even moreso. Frankly, if Batman-caliber villains don't show up, you could plausibly say that Bats could clean house on Gotham.

I agree that the movie should be about Batman, as the previous two were, and Batman being hunted is a vital part of that. But to tie the package together, you ALSO need a villain for him to fight.

That's why, BTW, I could support someone like the Penguin - as I understand it, he's a 'legitimate businessman'. Even better if you could show him being a philanthropist alongside his Evil Plans.

Alternately, though, you could make the movie about the police trying to track down Batman.... and actually getting on the right track? Cut this together with Batman and Gordon burying that line of inquiry by the end of the movie for Deep Symbolic Reasons by Doing Morally Gray Things.

[Stofsk]

The idea that Batman has to take down a dangerous villain at the same time as having to avoid the cops hunting him is my best bet. Maybe there will be an outsider like an FBI guy heading a task force because Commissioner Gordon doesn't seem able or willing to Do What It Takes to bring the batman into custody By Any Means Necessary. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[Lurks-no-More]

My favorite fan theory is the return of Ra's al Ghul - in the form of Talia Ducard, coming to avenge her father.

That said, after Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Inception, I'm trusting Nolan to turn out an excellent and gripping movie no matter what.

[Crossroads Inc.]

The idea that Batman has to take down a dangerous villain at the same time as having to avoid the cops hunting him is my best bet. Maybe there will be an outsider like an FBI guy heading a task force because Commissioner Gordon doesn't seem able or willing to Do What It Takes to bring the batman into custody By Any Means Necessary. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

That was why I was such a big supporter of The Riddler / The Penguin mix up.

You could have The Riddler, in the form of a crazed FBI obssessed with tracking down Batman. That would provid a thrust for the story on the tracking down Batman and him always having to stay ahead of the FBI agents. While on the other side you have Batman himself trying to take down the Penguin, who would indeed set himself up as a 'legitimate businessman'.

I guess part of it is that the next movie may be Nolans last, and I'd really REALLY like to see Nolan do the Penguin in his own crazed style. The Penguin has always been one of my favorite villians in Batman largerly because he is happy to "do his own thing" He isn't a villan for the sake of villny, he isn't out to kill puppies or steal candy from babies or something but actually has more dimension to him.

[Stofsk]

Well, he could always bring in Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow for another amusing appearance.

[Ryushikaze]

Scarecrow, I think, might serve as a constant, but not as the big villain of the piece.

If they do go the FBI hunting Bats down, then they really do need to go with Edward Nigma as the profiler. Maybe not as 'the Riddler', but Mr. Nigma himself is the perfect sort to obsessively hunt bats, track all the clues, and go mad because of it.

[Stravo]

Because Nolan tries to root his Batman in the "real" world as much as possible it would make sense that the Federal Government would have to get involved in the apprehension of Batman after all he has kidnapped Chinese nationals out of Hong King utilizing pirates out of Pyongyang - imagine what that would do to US-Chinese relaitons? He has killed several police officers and a DA (remember these were pinned on him at the end of Dark Knight) and the city can't seem to do anything about it. He irridiated legal tender notes, he bugged everyone's cell phone in a city and going back to the earlier movie - he was involved in a terrorist act that destroyed a neighborhood in Gotham, he destroyed a city transit hub, he has damaged numerous buildings, highways and police cars in a televised high speed chase - incidentally using a vehicle initially designed for the Army Corps of Engineers so maybe someone in the Federal Government even recognized that design.

In any "Real" world there would be a Federal task forced set up to bring him in. But it seems that Gotham resides in some limbo world where cities are the be all and end all.

Regarding the potential Nolan villains it would have to be an iconic villain. Not someone only comic fans would recognize.

[JME2]

Regarding the potential Nolan villains it would have to be an iconic villain. Not someone only comic fans would recognize.

Which is why I wish Two-Face had been saved for the third film as David Goyer had outlined in his original treatment. The only remaining iconic villains like Penguin or Catwoman would be difficult to pull off in the Nolan-verse -- difficult, but not impossible.

Anyway, the government task force is something Brian Azarello dealt with in Batman/Deathblow: After the Fire a couple of years back, that even Batman was wary of bringing Federal/CIA attention to his operations.

[Jim Raynor]

Christ this thread is an exercise in fatty nerds completely missing the point of the fucking movie.

You're a little abrasive, aren't you?

At the end of TDK batman is on the run; his public image is ruined, he is a criminal, everyone hates him for betraying them.

Even having a villain is stupid; the only 'villain' should be a faceless government agency [FBI, CIA, etc] hunting down Batman and how Batman handles this.

Tie into the existing thematic ideas of the Batman's enemies being representations of the dark nature of society [ps the joker represents anarchy] by making the government agency represent authoritarianism in their hunt for batman.

So how are you supposed to end this suggested movie then? Batman beats up the FBI, then what? You cannot beat up the FBI. The best Batman can do is prove his innocence...I'm guessing that's not the kind of resolution that the audience wants to see. People who go to a superhero movie want to see an awesome person doing awesome things and kicking ass. Even The Dark Knight, downer ending and all, provided that. Batman beat the Joker, and even the people stuck in the Joker's death trap showed that they wouldn't stoop to his level.

TDK called Batman's effectiveness into question, but it's clear that this movie series is on Bruce's side. He's "the hero that Gotham deserves." He's a "symbol" meant to "shake them out of their apathy." The movie's title will be The Dark Knight Rises. He's going to come out of this looking like the superhero that he is. The audience wants a supervillain, and it's a pretty damn good guess that they're going to get one.

EDIT: spelling

[Anguirus]

As much as I despise JSF, I think he has a point. I myself was wondering if this movie would need a "Bat-villain." (Though I think it would be fun to see Scarecrow again.)

There's a rumor floating around that Tom Hardy has been cast as Harvey Bullock. I feel like he could be the "villain" of the movie more easily than many of the other villains' names that have been brought up.

[Jim Raynor]

The movie needs a villain because the series is about Batman saving the people of Gotham from the city's crime and corruption. We saw Batman's debut and initial success, followed by the criminals escalating things and making things tough for him in the second movie. The logical end to the trilogy would have Batman overcome his challenges and accomplish what he's fighting for. I sure don't want this whole arc changed into some kind of anti big government statement in the third part.

Make Harvey Bullock your movie's "villain" and you're going to have a lot of disappointed people. You don't go from a city-destroying superweapon and a terrorist clown with no conscience to a fat policeman who's not even a real bad guy.

[hongi]

I don't want another supervillain. Nolan shouldn't be escalating things. How can you go one up from a city destroying ninja and a city destroying clown? Saving America? The world? The movie needs to stick to Gotham.

I said it when TDK came out: we don't even need a villain/evil mastermind. If this last movie is about Batman fighting yet another person who wants to blow shit up, the very last segment of TDK meant nothing and we're back to sqaure one. The end establishes that Batman is a hunted man, we need some kind of resolution instead of three recycled plots. Personally, I think we need someone who's after Batman yet isnt evil - you don't have to be a loony or evil to think that Batman needs to be brought to justice for those murders he supposedly committed.

[Jim Raynor]

I don't want another supervillain. Nolan shouldn't be escalating things.

The movies blatantly point whenever things are escalating. It's a direction that Nolan has clearly gone for. This is a direction that lends itself to big action scenes that the moviegoing audience wants to see.

How can you go one up from a city destroying ninja and a city destroying clown? Saving America? The world? The movie needs to stick to Gotham.

Apart from that one diversion in Hong Kong, they have kept things in Gotham.

I said it when TDK came out: we don't even need a villain/evil mastermind. If this last movie is about Batman fighting yet another person who wants to blow shit up, the very last segment of TDK meant nothing and we're back to sqaure one. The end establishes that Batman is a hunted man, we need some kind of resolution instead of three recycled plots.

Having an evil villain to opposed the hero is not a "recycled plot." It's a general thing that any normal action movie does. TDK was not BB recycled, so I see no reason why having another villain has to mean that the third movie is recycling TDK. The end of TDK does not have to be discarded just because there's a villain. Batman has dealt with cops and villains already, going back to the first movie.

[Bakustra]

Except that the ending features Batman undergoing a massive change, and ignoring that just to have him fight a grim n' gritty Firefly or Calendar Man will make TDK completely hollow. Besides, the forces that he's fought so far in the Nolanverse are larger than life. A league of assassins with a "immortal" head, a psychotic clown with uncanny abilities that verge on the magical.. City Hall, or the Feds, are well in the same league, and tie into the end of TDK. They also have been moral threats. Ra's al Ghul sought to purge the "guilty" and forced Batman to defend his mortal enemies, the Joker tried to establish chaos in Gotham... having a fascistic approach to the hunt for Batman, martial law et cetera would also establish that.

On a deeper level, Batman Begins was about pursuing justice rather than vengeance, and TDK was about maintaining morality in the absence of reinforcement and law. So let's have TDKR be about the idea that "better that ten guilty go free than one innocent suffer". Now we have a dilemma for Batman. He can turn himself in, and yet the guilty will go free and the innocent suffer. He can also remain out of Federal reach, and the same will happen, in this hypothetical scenario. The only escape, the only moral way through, is to find a way to redeem Batman in the eyes of the public and give the Feds what they want, and then the innocent will not suffer. But that's just my opinion. Nolan may well go for a different approach.

[Stark]

His acceptance of his fate and desire to play this role forced upon him makes any attempt to make a sequel 'Batman punches the guy in the costume' pretty jarring. Did people even pay attention to the climax of TDK? It -has- to be him, because he can take it. The drama must revolve AROUND him taking it, and what his personal cost is for this public benefit.

[Bakustra]

His acceptance of his fate and desire to play this role forced upon him makes any attempt to make a sequel 'Batman punches the guy in the costume' pretty jarring. Did people even pay attention to the climax of TDK? It -has- to be him, because he can take it. The drama must revolve AROUND him taking it, and what his personal cost is for this public benefit.

I wonder if what people really want is for Nolan to take somebody, say Clock King, and make him into, say, a sexually perverse cannibal. They seem to misunderstand why Batman's world is dark and what the darkness means. Still, you know that if they did make it "Batman punches guy in spandex", people would declare "10/10 perfect movie!" and such. I disagree slightly, but that's because I think that this should focus on more development of Batman, and facing the question of whether the scapegoat is really a moral idea.

[Stofsk]

I think what people really want to see is Nolanisation of other iconic Batman characters. Comic book heroes are cornier than Iowa. Yet when you watch Batman Begins and see Liam Neeson dressed as a ninja you go 'hey, this shouldn't work - but it does' and similarly, before TDK came out I was like 'no way can anyone replace Jack Nicholson' and then I watched it and holy fuck Heath Ledger stole the fucking movie. To say nothing of how other villains like scarecrow and two-face came off as well.

It may not need a villain but I'd love to see what Nolan makes of pretty much everything else from the comic, simply because two movies in he's kept me interested.

[Stark]

Batman takes the blame because Gotham needs hope; this is the core of TDK and a powerful sacrifice. Any movie that ignores that will suck, and I think the odds of Nolan making such a movie is very low.

Like JSF says, Batman not only has to run, he has to prevent the public discovering the deception. If Special Agent Fox Mulder shows up to investigate Dent's death and the circumstances around it, what will Batman do? How far will he go to inspire a city of the lost?

[Bakustra]

I think what people really want to see is Nolanisation of other iconic Batman characters. Comic book heroes are cornier than Iowa. Yet when you watch Batman Begins and see Liam Neeson dressed as a ninja you go 'hey, this shouldn't work - but it does' and similarly, before TDK came out I was like 'no way can anyone replace Jack Nicholson' and then I watched it and holy fuck Heath Ledger stole the fucking movie. To say nothing of how other villains like scarecrow and two-face came off as well.

It may not need a villain but I'd love to see what Nolan makes of pretty much everything else from the comic, simply because two movies in he's kept me interested.

His aesthetic could work with some Batman villains (mainly the Penguin), but not in the context of TDK. But overall, a lot of his portrayals depend on associating the character with larger-than-life phenomena. So I doubt that, say, Killer Croc would work as a Nolan villain. Ra's al Ghul worked as both a reflection of Batman and an incarnation of vengeance overcoming justice. The same with the Joker as both a reflection and as an incarnation of Chaos come into an unsuspecting world. While the Penguin might serve similarly, or the Riddler, doing so would be difficult without first dealing with the problem of Batman being a pariah on the run. (And the Penguin would be somewhat repetitive, since we've already had the institutionalized corruption of the Mob in the first two movies).

Batman takes the blame because Gotham needs hope; this is the core of TDK and a powerful sacrifice. Any movie that ignores that will suck, and I think the odds of Nolan making such a movie is very low.

Like JSF says, Batman not only has to run, he has to prevent the public discovering the deception. If Special Agent Fox Mulder shows up to investigate Dent's death and the circumstances around it, what will Batman do? How far will he go to inspire a city of the lost?

Well, I disagree somewhat, but that's only on a personal level and mainly from the title. But I think that we're convergent to some extent.&&;;

[Stofsk]

One point to consider, who was the guy who figured out who Batman was? IIRC he first tried to blackmail Morgan Freeman, then he was next seen later in the film when he was going to go public with it but something happened to change his mind (I think it was when Bruce Wayne crashed his car into Gordon).

I can't remember how the film resolved that loose thread, and unless it resolved it adequately it will need to be addressed in the next film.

[hongi]

While the Penguin might serve similarly, or the Riddler, doing so would be difficult without first dealing with the problem of Batman being a pariah on the run. (And the Penguin would be somewhat repetitive, since we've already had the institutionalized corruption of the Mob in the first two movies).

That's why the Riddler as a police consultant was such a seductive idea, because you don't have to force the plot to fit an antagonist. Anyway, I'm genuinely excited to see how Nolan figures it all out.

I think what people really want to see is Nolanisation of other iconic Batman characters. Comic book heroes are cornier than Iowa. Yet when you watch Batman Begins and see Liam Neeson dressed as a ninja you go 'hey, this shouldn't work - but it does'

To be fair, it was Liam fucking Neeson.

What do you think about a love interest? I hope they don't go that way, it's too soon after Rachel's death. Unless it happens a long time after the events of the second movie.