JME2 wrote:Getting back to Talia for a minute, I liked how this version was different from the comics counterparts, mixing elements of both Bane's back-story and Ra's' estranged daughter Nyssa Raatko. It was not standard Talia and it was a nice consolation for already knowing 'Miranda' wasn't who she said. Part of me wishes 'Miranda' had been introduced in TDK so as to further sell the shock of her betrayal to Bruce, but I'll have to live with the business colleague of the past 3-years angle.
On a side note, I still think killing Nyssa was one of the biggest mistakes of the mid-2000's Batman books. Not as bad as evil Cassandra Cain or nuking Bludhaven, but still bad. I've really come around to Death and the Maidens in the last few years and part of me wishes it had been the last Ra's al Ghul story as Greg Rucka intended it to be.
Wonder if Talia really is dead? (A rather academic question, given that the next Batman film is likely to be a reboot).
She could have passed out or be faking it (wonder if the League of Shadows training, assuming she has it, teaches one how to survive crashes and falls like that. Batman did survive taking that dive off the building in TDK, but he probably had advantages Talia didn't).
And we only have Talia's word that Ras A'Ghul expelled Bane because of his (Ras's) guilt over the Pit. He could have very well kicked them out for something else.
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
Did I just see Batman break his no-guns and no-killing rule near the end? About 4-5 minutes before the bomb was about to go, Batman in his "Bat" aircraft hovers right in front of the bomb truck and fires what appears to be several armor-piercing rounds that end up killing the driver of the truck. That's a pretty clear-cut violation of his own personal rules to me (though IMO probably justified given the circumstances).
Pint0 Xtreme wrote:Did I just see Batman break his no-guns and no-killing rule near the end? About 4-5 minutes before the bomb was about to go, Batman in his "Bat" aircraft hovers right in front of the bomb truck and fires what appears to be several armor-piercing rounds that end up killing the driver of the truck. That's a pretty clear-cut violation of his own personal rules to me (though IMO probably justified given the circumstances).
Batman's been killing people since Ra's Al Ghul. Nolan has a Captain Barbossa attitude to the Batman Rule.
"I fight with love, and I laugh with rage, you gotta live light enough to see the humour and long enough to see some change" - Ani DiFranco, Pick Yer Nose
"Life 's not a song, life isn't bliss, life is just this: it's living." - Spike, Once More with Feeling
InnerBrat wrote:Batman's been killing people since Ra's Al Ghul. Nolan has a Captain Barbossa attitude to the Batman Rule.
He didn't really kill Ra's Al Ghul. He just didn't save him.
I realize that simply not using a gun to do the act as opposed to letting it happen is arguably a very superficial distinction but it was clearly important to Bruce Wayne. And he just outright did it.
Pint0 Xtreme wrote:He didn't really kill Ra's Al Ghul. He just didn't save him.
I realize that simply not using a gun to do the act as opposed to letting it happen is arguably a very superficial distinction but it was clearly important to Bruce Wayne. And he just outright did it.
My point is that he's making up these distinctions and he clearly doesn't care much about them (which is one of my biggest problems with the Nolanverse Batman, not to mention my problem with Grant Morrison's Batman). He doesn't think there's a difference between killing someone and letting them die in a way he could easily prevent. So why should he care about gunning down a truck driver?
Nolan's Batman only "doesn't kill" when it helps the storyline.
"I fight with love, and I laugh with rage, you gotta live light enough to see the humour and long enough to see some change" - Ani DiFranco, Pick Yer Nose
"Life 's not a song, life isn't bliss, life is just this: it's living." - Spike, Once More with Feeling
I'm fine with Nolan's Batman breaking the "no guns" or "no killing" rules if the situation calls for it. The way some people treat those rules, it makes Batman look like an idiot who clings to a ridiculous ideology without regard for the consequences. It's less a moral stand then, and more of a mental problem. I actually like a little bit of nuance, where Batman's distaste of guns is portrayed as having roots in his childhood trauma. But it's absolutely ridiculous to write a Batman who won't kill, ever. Such as when he's racing against the clock to prevent Gotham from being entirely nuked.
"They're not triangular, but they are more or less blade-shaped"- Thrawn McEwok on the shape of Bakura destroyers
"Lovely. It's known as impugning character regarding statement of professional qualifications' in the legal world"- Karen Traviss, crying libel because I said that no soldier she interviewed would claim that he can take on billion-to-one odds
"I've already laid out rules for this thread that we're not going to make these evidential demands"- Dark Moose on supporting your claims
Jim Raynor wrote:But it's absolutely ridiculous to write a Batman who won't kill, ever. Such as when he's racing against the clock to prevent Gotham from being entirely nuked.
Exactly. With literally minutes left on the reactor's clock, there was no room for moral superiority or ideology.
It is eminently possible to lose a lot of money very quickly messing about with derivatives - just check out Nick Leeson or that French guy last year for real-world examples. I am not sure that trading would be allowed to continue like that in a situation where the stock exchange had been physically invaded by armed thugs though.
Given the macho, testosterone driven atmosphere of your typical stock exchange, I'm surprised no-one decided to try and be a hero and have a go at Bane during that scene...
Pint0 Xtreme wrote:He didn't really kill Ra's Al Ghul. He just didn't save him.
I realize that simply not using a gun to do the act as opposed to letting it happen is arguably a very superficial distinction but it was clearly important to Bruce Wayne. And he just outright did it.
My point is that he's making up these distinctions and he clearly doesn't care much about them (which is one of my biggest problems with the Nolanverse Batman, not to mention my problem with Grant Morrison's Batman). He doesn't think there's a difference between killing someone and letting them die in a way he could easily prevent. So why should he care about gunning down a truck driver?
Nolan's Batman only "doesn't kill" when it helps the storyline.
Batman in the series didn't seem to have a clear cut no killing rule until the second third of Dark Knight, where it existed solely to let the Joker tempt him. It was simply an aversion to it at first since the targets weren't right or someone beat him to it and then he realised it did more good to send people like Falcone to jail and strengthen the legal system and give people hope. It's not an ironclad rule as it is in the comics I think. And it may be a matter of opinion, but I like that he killed when necessary.
I'm with Garth Ennis on this one, the idea that superheroes should stick to pointless rules no matter what is silly. It makes sense with the Comics Code Authority at your shoulder, but it removes a lot of tension imo, especially on a moral level. Contorting oneself to provide reasons why Batman won't kill people trying to kill him to save millions or to save a child in Dent's case just comes off as forced.
Scrib wrote:It's not an ironclad rule as it is in the comics I think. And it may be a matter of opinion, but I like that he killed when necessary.
Its fairly ironclad in the comics. Its the one major thing that Superman and Batman probably have in common at the end of the day. It makes some sense in the comics - explaining how the police can tolerate his vigilante war (he never kills anyone).
It was not always so of course. In the hardcore Golden Age, when nobody gave a crap about the rights of the accused he killed a few people. In his first appearance he punches a criminal into a vat of acid and proclaims "A fitting end for his kind!"
-A.L.
"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence...Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." - Calvin Coolidge
"If you're falling off a cliff you may as well try to fly, you've got nothing to lose." - John Sheridan (Babylon 5)
"Sometimes you got to roll the hard six." - William Adama (Battlestar Galactica)
I get the feeling that Nolan probably took more inspiration from the 80s/90s Batman films in regard to the "no killing" rule, in that while Batman never actively seeks to kill anyone, he doesn't really give a shit if any criminals end up getting themselves killed while battling him. Funny how the only live-action Batman films that fully played to the rule were the 1966 Adam West one, and that Batman film whose name shall na'er be spoken.
Did anyone else see the IMAX version? I did and it looked pretty spectacular, though it did kind of clue you in as to when a big action sequence was coming up, since the picture would suddenly become a whole lot sharper and the depth-of-field more pronounced.
Uh... Burton's Batman straps a bomb to a dude, smiles, then kicks him down a hole.
It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.
Hit it. Blank Yellow (NSFW)
Havok wrote:Uh... Burton's Batman straps a bomb to a dude, smiles, then kicks him down a hole.
Not only that, but in the same movie he torched someone with the afterburner of the Batmobile.
And in the first Burton Batman movie, Batman uses the Batmobile (on remote control) to machine-gun and ram its way into Axis Chemicals (which has a number of Joker's thugs inside at the time), then dropping explosives literally at the feet of the people inside. Then they go boom.
Havok wrote:Uh... Burton's Batman straps a bomb to a dude, smiles, then kicks him down a hole.
Not only that, but in the same movie he torched someone with the afterburner of the Batmobile.
And in the first Burton Batman movie, Batman uses the Batmobile (on remote control) to machine-gun and ram its way into Axis Chemicals (which has a number of Joker's thugs inside at the time), then dropping explosives literally at the feet of the people inside. Then they go boom.
Also at the end of that film he was more than willing to give the Joker two vulcan cannons worth of lead from the Batplane, and it was only a poor targeting computer that made him miss.
Would have been an interesting ending if he had made the shots and the Joker simply disappeared in a cloud of red mist. Cue credits
Pint0 Xtreme wrote:Did I just see Batman break his no-guns and no-killing rule near the end? About 4-5 minutes before the bomb was about to go, Batman in his "Bat" aircraft hovers right in front of the bomb truck and fires what appears to be several armor-piercing rounds that end up killing the driver of the truck. That's a pretty clear-cut violation of his own personal rules to me (though IMO probably justified given the circumstances).
Batman's been killing people since Ra's Al Ghul. Nolan has a Captain Barbossa attitude to the Batman Rule.
I'd just like to take a moment to commend you for an awesome cross movie reference.
Η ζωή, η ζωή εδω τελειώνει!
"Science is one cold-hearted bitch with a 14" strap-on" - Masuka 'Dexter'
"Angela is not the woman you think she is Gabriel, she's done terrible things"
"So have I, and I'm going to do them all to you." - Sylar to Arthur 'Heroes'
So I just saw it today. Kind of felt really unfocused and didn't flow from The Dark Knight for me at all.
There were what could have been a couple of small references to the Dark Knight Returns that I thought was a little nifty, and it was already once it got going at the end. But really the weakest film of the trilogy for me.
Batmna Begins was really a film about batman. TDK was more about joker and dent. This film.. I couldn't say who this film was supposed to be about.
J Ryan wrote:Also at the end of that film he was more than willing to give the Joker two vulcan cannons worth of lead from the Batplane, and it was only a poor targeting computer that made him miss.
Would have been an interesting ending if he had made the shots and the Joker simply disappeared in a cloud of red mist. Cue credits
Yeah miniguns and missiles, some of which seem to take out a few of Joker's goons. It's pretty clear Burton Batman has no problem with using guns (except hand-held) and heavier firepower against people.
Crazedwraith wrote:This film.. I couldn't say who this film was supposed to be about.
If it was the movie I wanted, the movie I felt it had the most potential to be, then it would be about Gotham City - about the thief who stood up to the people she was scared of, about the cop whose idealistic optimism shook his Commissioner down to realize the price paid has been too high. About a city being cut off from the mainland and safety and banding together - some with nobility, some with self serving and harmful interests. About that self same idealistic and brilliant cop realizing that Batman is just a symbol, a flag under which to unite Gotham.
Cause that's kind of what I like best about Knightfall and NML - Batman-as-symbol, Gotham-as-character.
I didn't get that, sadly. But that's what I think the movie ought to have been about.
"I fight with love, and I laugh with rage, you gotta live light enough to see the humour and long enough to see some change" - Ani DiFranco, Pick Yer Nose
"Life 's not a song, life isn't bliss, life is just this: it's living." - Spike, Once More with Feeling
So generally DKR was enough of a disappontment for me getting away with not watching it in theater?
'Next time I let Superman take charge, just hit me. Real hard.'
'You're a princess from a society of immortal warriors. I'm a rich kid with issues. Lots of issues.'
'No. No dating for the Batman. It might cut into your brooding time.'
'Tactically we have multiple objectives. So we need to split into teams.'-'Dibs on the Amazon!'
'Hey, we both have a Martian's phone number on our speed dial. I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt.'
'You know, for a guy with like 50 different kinds of vision, you sure are blind.'
Batman wrote:So generally DKR was enough of a disappontment for me getting away with not watching it in theater?
You were in it, don't you already know?
"I fight with love, and I laugh with rage, you gotta live light enough to see the humour and long enough to see some change" - Ani DiFranco, Pick Yer Nose
"Life 's not a song, life isn't bliss, life is just this: it's living." - Spike, Once More with Feeling
I'm in the comics. The movies are, and always have been, out of universe (or at least are until DC says otherwise).
'Next time I let Superman take charge, just hit me. Real hard.'
'You're a princess from a society of immortal warriors. I'm a rich kid with issues. Lots of issues.'
'No. No dating for the Batman. It might cut into your brooding time.'
'Tactically we have multiple objectives. So we need to split into teams.'-'Dibs on the Amazon!'
'Hey, we both have a Martian's phone number on our speed dial. I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt.'
'You know, for a guy with like 50 different kinds of vision, you sure are blind.'
Batman wrote:So generally DKR was enough of a disappontment for me getting away with not watching it in theater?
Here's my take. As it's the third and final act, some points are easily guessable and the film has its share of pacing and presentation flaws. But, I enjoyed the preceding installments and thought it was worth seeing on the big-screen.
My problem with watching DKR in theater is I'd have to watch it in 3D, especially if I want to watch it in english. Now there's nothing inherently evil with 3D and most people (including on this board) say it looks awesome, but I'd rather have a choice, and I seriously doubt a Batman movie seriously benefits from it. If you need to rely on spiffy 3D action to make the movie work, you already failed at telling the story.
'Next time I let Superman take charge, just hit me. Real hard.'
'You're a princess from a society of immortal warriors. I'm a rich kid with issues. Lots of issues.'
'No. No dating for the Batman. It might cut into your brooding time.'
'Tactically we have multiple objectives. So we need to split into teams.'-'Dibs on the Amazon!'
'Hey, we both have a Martian's phone number on our speed dial. I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt.'
'You know, for a guy with like 50 different kinds of vision, you sure are blind.'
Batman wrote:My problem with watching DKR in theater is I'd have to watch it in 3D, especially if I want to watch it in english. Now there's nothing inherently evil with 3D and most people (including on this board) say it looks awesome, but I'd rather have a choice, and I seriously doubt a Batman movie seriously benefits from it. If you need to rely on spiffy 3D action to make the movie work, you already failed at telling the story.
huh? Nolan specifically did NOT do 3D for the movies. He prefer the IMAX format.
