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Census Rate Batman films 1-8

Discussion in 'Community' started by Jarren_Lee-Saber, Sep 11, 2013.

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What is your favorite Batman film?

  1. Batman (1989)

    7 vote(s)
    7.6%
  2. Batman Returns (1992)

    6 vote(s)
    6.5%
  3. Batman Forever (1995)

    1 vote(s)
    1.1%
  4. Batman & Robin (1997)

    1 vote(s)
    1.1%
  5. Batman Begins (2005)

    11 vote(s)
    12.0%
  6. The Dark Knight (2008)

    50 vote(s)
    54.3%
  7. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

    8 vote(s)
    8.7%
  8. Batman (1966)

    8 vote(s)
    8.7%
  1. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    Nicholson's Joker also had the gimmicky deadly weapons

    [​IMG]

    But I agree with those that say he was too much like Nicholson doing a version of himself. Ledger was unrecognisable unless you knew it was him doing the role, Nicholson looked like himself in silly makeup and behaved as he often does.

    Still, there are worse villain portrayals in Batman movies than his. Tommy Lee Jones tried as best he could to do well with the Two-Face he got given, but it was too inconsistent to fit the character properly (tossing a coin repeatedly until he got the outcome that he wanted rather goes against the point of tossing the coin, it's chance and you have to accept the outcome). Mr Freeze in B&R didn't get the justice he deserved as a character either, and Bane was weird.
     
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  2. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Jones just copied Nicholson.
     
  3. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    Maybe so, but he wasn't playing Joker.

    At least they were both threatening characters, Carrey's Riddler and everyone in B&R I never took seriously as a threat. Villains you see as a credible threat to the hero are a big part of making the movie effective. All of Nolan's villains were credible threats to Batman that you would take seriously, even the flawed ones like Bane.
     
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  4. Darth_Invidious

    Darth_Invidious Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 21, 1999

    I guess an actor can only do so much with what he's given for any given role. But what is "perfect" when you consider The Joker? What is enough randomness or psycopathy when a sane writer tries to write the role of an absolutely insane character and a sane (?) actor under a not-quite-sane director tries to do such a performance? Anyway you look at it it's gonna come off as fake because who can really put himself into such a state of mind convincingly enough without doing some serious drugs or giving him/herself serious brain damage?

    All things considered, Jack Nicholson has proven to do crazy well enough and his Joker was good enough in that regard. That the interpretation (and for that matter, the whole movie) could've been better? Undoubtedly. As much as I liked Heath Ledger's performance and interpretation of the character, what's the point of having an "ultra realistic Joker" that hasn't bleached skin, green hair and blood red lips due to a dip in a chemical vat when he's a crazy person that somehow manages to cook up convoluted plots within plots (within even more plots) that rely on near superhuman omniscience?

    Regardless whether it's only voiceover work, I think Mark Hammill has the distinction of having given us one of the best interpretations of the character yet.

    Now, as for the animated YEAR ONE and TDKR...I really can't rate them highly. I think I've read those books so much that my copies are nearly falling to pieces, but read them enough to say with conviction that the animated versions are so watered-down that you could squeeze them and give yourself a decent shower with both. So in this case, I'll keep reading my copies, thank you very much.
     
  5. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2004
    He kills people in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, alleged "exceptions". Something doesn't add up. I guess the films will never get the "real" Batman - who wouldn't kill one person even if it were necessary to save millions of others, and who coincidentally bears little to no resemblance to the original comic version of the character.

    A lot of movies have plot holes, while not every movie provokes such laughable RLM-like attempts at finding them. But I thought this was about being hugely inaccurate toward the character, not plot holes. Keep the focus on things like Batman and Catwoman getting together, because that's just wrong.
     
  6. drg4

    drg4 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2005
    I've heard the "Nicholson was just playing himself" critique, but after reading the definitive "Laughing Fish" story from the 70s, I came away with the impression that Jack Nicholson playing Jack Nicholson just so happens to segue into Jack Nicholson playing the Joker. He nailed the role.

    Honestly, I loved each and every one of the major Joker performances, from Romero to Ledger. Comparable to Count Dracula, insofar as every performance promises something distinctive.
     
  7. Boba_Fett_2001

    Boba_Fett_2001 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Dec 11, 2000
    I don't know why you keep on insisting that he took eight years off solely because of Rachel's death. It's made pretty damn clear that because of the Dent Act he's not needed as much as he once was. And just because the film takes place eight years after TDK doesn't necessarily mean he's been out of action for that long.
     
  8. Souderwan

    Souderwan Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2005


    Yes. Yes. And yes. (We keep this up, Ender, and people might start talking).

    I also loved Epilogue (I think it might have been a Justice League episode? Where we learn that Terry has Bruce Wayne's DNA. Wasn’t a fan of the concept, but the story was pretty brilliantly told, I thought. More importantly, they got the essence of Batman "right").

    In a lot of ways, Rises reminds me of TPM in that I remember that when I finished watching it, I decided that I must have liked it. That feeling in the pit of my stomach must have been indigestion or something. There were all these great moments, after all (Bane breaking Batman, for example). But subsequent viewings served only to reinforce the fact that the movie was a big disappointment. Still better than average, but certainly not I had hoped for. I think we tend to overstate how terrible some of these movies are because they were so disappointingly below the bar they had set.

    Anyway, I just happened to watch Year One again last Saturday with my son and I think it’s very good (but yes, a bit flat, I guess). But saying it or TDKR is “watered down” is like saying that the Harry Potter films are watered down. You can’t include everything in an adaptation but you can keep the essence of the story. I certainly believe this was the case in Year One and TDKR.

    I generally agree with you. I love Hammill's Joker--especially the later incarnations. But I'd put John DiMaggio's performance in Under the Red Hood right up there with Hammill's. Just brilliant.
     
  9. Penguinator

    Penguinator Former Mod star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 23, 2005
    *Hamill - he's Luke and the Joker and thus on this thread and in this board, let's get the dude's name right :p

    Anyways, Souderwan - completely agree with you about Rises, it's something that as a Batman fan, I know I liked at the time, but in hindsight I always find it to be one of the weakest Bat-films. As an adaptation of the comics, it effectively distills key ideas from (personal favourite) Batman stories, but something's lost on the way. It's not as exciting and open as Batman Begins, nor as epic and engaging as The Dark Knight - it's something, but it's hard to say just what.

    My main complaint with rises is that it doesn't effectively convey No Man's Land, Knightfall, or TDKR (yes, THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS) in such a fashion that you still feel engaged by the way things play out. Begins was Year One with a supervillain, The Dark Knight is The Long Halloween with more Joker, and Rises is...well, it's kind of three stories in one plus a supervillain's offspring and Bane and then it ends like some weird Tumblr fanfic. Seriously, there was no reason for Gordon-Levitt's character to be named something other than Richard, because that was some JJ Abrams-level "revelation."
     
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  10. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    To be fair, the movie pushed this notion pretty heavily itself. There was all the dialogue early on about how he hadn't been seen in public for years. When he finally showed up, he looked terribly disheveled. Even the wing of his own house that he chose to live in looked unkempt. Why was any of this the case? You don't have to have personal hygiene anymore when you stop being Batman? Then, after flirting briefly with a female robber, everyone commented on how reinvigorated he seemed, and how he was coming back to the world.

    I personally thought this one of the single most terrible aspects of the film. Retirement from boredom, disgust, success, or even physical wear were all perfectly acceptable. But they chose to frame things as if Wayne had slipped into a deep clinical depression. One that was brought on by the loss of a woman with whom he never actually had a single romantic encounter (just even a date, I mean). This was an implausible level of emotional immaturity for any character. Then it was compounded by the ease with which he shook of the feeling and came back to himself. It's not merely that they diminished the character. It's that they made him utterly inhuman and unrelatable with their awful portrayal of what I guess was supposed to be mental illness.
     
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  11. Boba_Fett_2001

    Boba_Fett_2001 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Dec 11, 2000
    And this is clearly shown with him walking around with a cane, the knee brace, the visit to the doctor, etc. I don't disagree that Rachel's death contributes to his reclusiveness but there's a lot more to it than just that. I never got the impression that the movie is trying to tell me that Batman isn't around anymore simply because he lost his girlfriend.

    So what? They've been close friends since childhood. Are you saying he can't be upset about it because they were never a romantic couple?
     
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  12. Darth_Invidious

    Darth_Invidious Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 21, 1999

    I guess we'll have to agree to disagree in regards to the Year One and TDKR adaptations. And even more so in regards to DiMaggio vs. Hamill. I think DiMaggio was trying too hard to ape Hamill. And TBH, when I think DiMaggio I think and hear Bender or Marcus Fenix, definitely not the Joker.
     
  13. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    I'm not making the argument. The movie did. Whatever Bruce's emotions were, they were only really dealt with through two moments in the film. One in which he has sex with Talia. The other in which he finds a new potential (then actual) girlfriend in Catwoman. Whereas there was absolutely no thought about what Rachel as a human being meant to him, what he valued from their friendship, or who/what replaced that role for him. It's pretty inescapable that we were supposed to see the whole thing as a commentary on Wayne's love life, rather than deal with the notion that Dawes as a human being had any broader value.

    As for the physical toll of being Batman, I enjoyed the scenes you mentioned, and thought they were one of the strongest elements of the new film. It was consistent with the attempted "realism" of the franchise and was simultaneously an avenue to create new challenges for the hero. But this was totally superceded by the histrionic, sustained reaction to Rachel's death. Namely, by letting his entire life collapse, they seemed to imply that he wouldn't have kept up being Batman even if he could have. Just like he didn't keep up doing. . .anything else at all, apparently, save sitting in his room and crying.
     
  14. Darth_Invidious

    Darth_Invidious Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 21, 1999
    Plus the whole Dent Act thing was a pretty idiotic idea. There is no way one single law (and one that was barely legal at that) could completely eradicate organized or even petty crimes to such levels that either the cops or the Batman were barely needed at all. And here I thought this particular series was striving for realism...
     
  15. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    No they got a wizard to get rid of all the crime. That's what the Dent Act entailed.
     
  16. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    Ah, yes, a shout-out to the classic 1949 serial Batman and Robin.
     
  17. Penguinator

    Penguinator Former Mod star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 23, 2005
    Well, I think it's about the physical toll of being Batman.

    [​IMG]

    It's a good thing they're such good sports, these hits aren't really connecting.
     
  18. Volderon

    Volderon Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 23, 2007
    When him and Catwoman are fighting on the roof one stuntman falls down by himself, check it out :p.
     
  19. Souderwan

    Souderwan Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2005
    That's fair. I suppose I was less talking about DiMaggio's voice (though I did like it quite a bit) and more about the darkness that we saw in that incarnation of The Joker. I loved him!
     
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  20. Penguinator

    Penguinator Former Mod star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 23, 2005
    DiMaggio is a totally worthy successor to Hamill, IMO. Hamill's Joker voice was getting far raspier as his tenure went on, and DiMaggio seems to naturally bring some of that, so it's not a wholly massive jump.

    I do wish DC's current animated fare could stand up to stuff like Mask of the Phantasm, though. The animation has been a bit hit and miss lately, and I honestly couldn't stand their adaptation of TDKR.
     
  21. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    I'm starting a thread for all things non-cinematic Batman. Seems a better discussion to have without people claiming OMG DARK KNIGHT RISES IS THE BESTEST FILM etc.
     
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  22. Frank T.

    Frank T. Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Sounder/Ender- TDKR animated is behind about 600 movies on my watchlist. So you've made some progress on getting me to watch it but you haven't made the difference yet. Not even Timm and Dini's adaptation of their own comic, Mad Love, for BTAS was as good for me.

    Jarren_Lee-Saber and others-TDKR is a comic/graphic novel. If you're aware of this and still abbreviate the movie the same way then you are being disrespectful to the Batman and comic fans that came before you or those that only care about the comics.
     
  23. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Frank, I've set up the new thread and put a question about TDKR vs Phantasm. Given your reference to Mad Love (such a great book) I believe this will be right up your alley. :D
     
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  24. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2004
    It's the sign of a true Jedi.
     
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  25. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    Right, it was the physical wear on his body that made him retire for eight years. I mean it clearly took a serious toll on his body. It's not like he could repair all that in less than thirty seconds of screen time or anything.

    OH WAIT