Is it me, or is the Prequel hate based on a whole lot of double-standards?

LOL! It's worse than that! In Nolan's world, even when you're horribly burned (more like: you look like you swallowed a stick of dynamite), you can apparently refuse pain medication. In reality, you'd be put under without a choice in the matter. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Fans may argue that this happens in the film (Dent appears to wake up when the movie cuts to him in the hospital, as if he's waking up from an induced sleep), but I still don't think you'd be in any kind of physical state to refuse further treatment. And he merely has some gauze bandage on his face??? Really??? I can more easily buy Jack Nicholson's quack surgeon fixing up his crazy grin in Tim Burton's "Batman" -- "Mirror! MIRROR!" -- than I could ever buy that.

I forgot to list another gripe in the "violence" department: the amazing indifference shown by other characters to violent events and imminent death. It goes beyond a whimpering (and, as you said, quickly-composed) little urchin who suddenly aged ten years in six months -- just so he could have a gun pointed at his head and have a monologue recited to him by a dad who's more concerned with the ascendant nobility of an anonymous rubber-clad vigilante than the welfare of his own son, apparently. But I digress.

When Harvey is almost shot dead by that mobster he's got on trial, he's out of that court room prancing around like Captain America while his lawyer girlfriend practically gushes wet love on the marble floor (if you catch my meaning). It's amazing how much zip Rachel Dawes has in her step all of a sudden, given her extremely serious nature in the previous movie. Your boyfriend is now a major target of the mob, they JUST TRIED TO KILL HIM, and you're thinking about how much it tickles your petal? Why is there no protection for this man? No aides? No bodyguards? No handmaidens? Then there's the hare-brained scheme of Gordon's -- still a "Lieutenant" at that point (who's filling in for the recently-deceased "Commissioner Loeb"?) -- apparently orchestrating and authorizing a prodigiously-flawed plan to capture The Joker. It only means faking your death(!), then personally driving (!) a SWAT truck while this wanted terrorist you're planning to snare in a protracted game of cat-and-mouse blows some of your officers and half the city to hell, along with your gadget-loving, pyro-maniacal bat friend exploding parked cars and shooting his way through open shopping malls and side alleys. Finally, there's that hapless cop outside the hospital who radios his cop buddy ("Davis? Davis!"). We see him running back to the hospital, clearly concerned (presumably for both his buddy and the important man he's meant to be guarding). But when the film cuts back, he's merely walking down the corridor at a fast pace. He doesn't even have his gun drawn, despite the fact that his buddy is nowhere in sight. Naturally, he opens the door and is promptly shot. *face palm*

Watching a Christopher Nolan film for a realistic look at law enforcement, and, well, anything, is like expecting Sarah Palin to drop her right-wing allegiances, tell us it was all an act and start publicly ruminating on the finer points of Russian literature and how much she loves "The Brothers Karamazov".

 

Oh, do you want to know the worst part? The thing that's disturbed me since I first saw the scene in question in '08?

Are you ready for this?

Rachel's previous boss, the DA in Batman Begins, was shot dead. Shot. Dead.

Yet suddenly, this same woman jabs her lover with, "C'mon Harvey, if you're not being shot at, you're not doing your job!"

Seriously, what happened to Katie Holmes? And why does her replacement have all the compassion and decency of, yes...Sarah Palin.

 

Or, it's black humor. If you live in Gotham City, you'd need plenty of it. And she has a point.

 

About being shot at? Her preceding remark suggests she's only half-kidding: "The fact that they're trying to kill you means we're getting to them". I'm in agreement with drg here. She sees his attempted murder as a good thing because it validates their crusade against organized crime. Yet she should be frightened -- in my opinion -- because, as drg notes, her previous boss was offed by a powerful criminal element in the last movie. Why would she have any reason to think the mob are fooling around? And where is Dent's protection? They didn't even just try and kill Dent in some back alley somewhere, either. A mob goon snuck a carbon-fiber gun into court and blatantly tried to blow the newly-elected District Attorney of Gotham away while the court was in session, in front of multiple witnesses. That's brazen. If these characters were human beings and not cyphers (as Nolan presents them, in my opinion), they should be deeply disturbed at this turn of events. But they're not. Not even close. Nolan even has Rachel propositioning her paramour for sex, swooning around him like a horny college girl, suggesting that they take the rest of the day off. Again, whether she's being entirely serious or not is beside the point. They seem to show no regard for their own lives. That's not heroic. It's stupid. Of course, this *is* just my personal take. However, George Lucas gets skewered for things not even 1/10th as outrageous as this, while I am one of the only people to even bring this issue about a billion-dollar-grossing movie up. Tons of people have seen it. It was a massively-marketed, heavily-hyped, super-praised and ultra-talked-about film on release, yet look at the major disparity in griping over TDK versus ANY of the prequel films, let alone the prequels as a whole. Lucas gets hit with everything. He can do no right. Nolan, on the other hand, receives little criticism of any kind. In fact, when Armond White shot to fame with his negative review of TDK, he was BLASTED every which way but loose for daring to air a disdainful perspective. Other negative reviews of TDK were more guarded in their comments, perhaps, but the writers of those also were blasted. The complete opposite happens with Lucas and the PT (and Indy 4). If someone writes positively about these films, they're normally set upon with sarcastic broadsides and (sometimes) vicious barbs, generally meeting a level of calumny and character assassination society traditionally reserves for murderers, rapists and thieves. It's an interesting contrast.

 

Its funny. I enjoyed The Dark Knight immensely when I first saw it in the cinema. While I also enjoyed the PT films on first viewing, I also had many private reservations. Yet, the more I've thought about the PT, the more brilliant each of the films has become, and the more I've thought about The Dark Knight, the less enjoyable and more ridiculous its seemed.

While I still think Batman Begins is the near perfect Batman film, for my money, with The Dark Knight, Nolan essentially ended up making a parody of the world he had so brilliantly set up in the film before. Just one example - The Joker (seen by many as one of the great movie villains) is a ludicrous character. Sure, he's great enough entertainment on a mostly shallow level, but if you're gonna think about things for even any short length of time, he requires a suspension of disbelief that is simply off-the-chart. The exact schemes he comes up with and the apparent foreknowledge of particular events he must have to make things work the way they do is beyond baffling. Its complete nonsense, in fact. It can only remove you from the experience. There are so many things wrong with the film, yet it is celebrated as a masterpiece. I do wonder where people's heads are at sometimes. Are any of the PT films masterpieces? No, I dont think so. Are any of them truly great on their own, individual merit? As much as I love them, I can't say they are. And is The Dark Knight a bad film? No. Its a hugely confused one though. Some parts are brilliant in isolation. And there is a consistent style and tone that should involve and leave people entertained as a result. But to actually analyse whats going on and try and understand the logic of any of it, its found wanting.

There is a point to be made here. Certain people make hugely popular internet films, riddled with double-standards and fallacies, which celebrate how bad the PT allegedly is, while this other film dominated by confusion and littered with absurdity is celebrated en masse. There is a gulf here that I simply can't make sense of.

 

Yes. Character actions are very contrived from everyone, in my opinion. Somehow, Bruce Wayne pulls invisible finger prints off improperly-depicted bullets, which it's implied The Joker set up knowing full well (somehow) Batman would run with this amazingly improbable method and hit the jackpot, taking him to a certain place at a certain time. Gordon has has aforementioned plan to capture The Joker, involving the battiest (pun intended) mouse-trap scheme ever conceived; and other fun stuff, like deciding the easiest way to get a threatened man out of a building with a raging mob outside is to go out the front instead of immediately heading for a rear or side exit (!) (indeed, he only does this after the man they're rushing to the front entrance is shot at). Even Morgan Freeman behaves quite strangely in this film, arming Batman with lethal gadgets left and right, but mounting an ethical objection to spying on people. I dunno. So much dicey stuff in this film, in my opinion.

Yes. I think it all comes down to emotional investment and emotional satisfaction. A film that emotionally satisfies people -- all of us, in general -- is a film that doesn't get attacked, but actually aggressively defended should it come under any attack. I suppose, in a way, this is what we all do with the PT. Or whatever it is that pricks our fancy. On the other hand, I think some people are far too snotty about their beliefs. If you believe that TDK is a reasonably realistic, let alone a super-realistic film, fine. I don't. Similarly, if you believe the prequel movies are riddled with holes and gaps in logic, fine. I don't. People should watch for cultism and cult leaders like Mike Stoklasa. They'll end up walking their brains over a cliff. Thinking for oneself, even in the heady emotional world of art, is almost always better than following a herd, or reacting on impulse. I've just been having some delightful experiences with people on IMDb. That's sarcasm,

 

I know this is the wrong forum for this, but I think you can make a case for many similarities for The Joker and Palpatine as villians (awesome ones IMHO). We don't really get the backstory for either one (just hints). Both devise plans within plans within plans. Both corrupt a good guy, turning them evil. Both threaten the loves of the hero (in Palpy's case more as a consequence of his scheming than directly like the Joker does.)

The interesting contrast between them is Palpy seeks control of everything through his plans and The Joker uses his plans to create chaos.

Also, the Dark Knight is a masterpiece, just based on Ledger's performance.

 

Y'see this is another thing I'm skeptical about. I think Ledger produces an interesting and very competent performance... but nothing outstanding. The look of the character (which had little to do with him) made for much of the impact, in my opinion. And a lot of the other touches he added I found to be fairly unoriginal and heavily borrowed from very clear sources. Most of the time its like watching Tom Waits riffing on old, drunk/drug-induced, beat poet types circa Big Time, 1988. In terms of the voice, I think he's almost doing a direct Tom Waits impersonation at times. This is why I've often commented - if Ledger can earn an Oscar for The Joker in TDK, I think McDiarmid was robbed of at least a nomination for his work on ROTJ.

And one single performance really can't make a masterpiece. Never. One cannot reasonably acknowledge that any otherwise average to poor film, riddled with plot-holes, inconsistencies, technical errors, or moderate performances, could be elevated up to "masterpiece" distinction based on one excellent performance alone.

Yes there are similarities between Palpatine and The Joker. But in completely different types of movies and in very different circumstances. Much of the schemes Palpatine adopts to gain and manipulate power are based on real historical figures and known incidents. Much of what he achieves is tangible, and many other elements beyond that are defendable by the very genre and stylistic Star Wars operates in. What The Joker does for much of TDK defies sense or credibility.... and that movie is meant to be (and is indeed marketed as) an uber-realistic Batman, made for modern times and mature minds.

Well I'm not sure it doesn't come down to fashion somewhat as well. Lucas has become such an easy target for people (most of whom I think underestimate him, and really fail to grasp the complexities of what he's doing), whereas Nolan has gathered a credibility for making darker, more adult-orientated pictures. Switch it round and put Lucas' name on TDK, I don't think the acclaim would have been quite so strong. And equally, put Nolan's name on ROTS for example, and I think many would have perceived it better than any of the original Star Wars movies. Certainly, the supposed flaws of the latter might not have been so talked about, and in equal measure, the story elements and execution of the former would have likely come under a great deal more scrutiny.

 

I believe you can make a very strong case, indeed. And you're right about that key contrast. Funnily enough (because, as a guy once said: "it's a funny world we live in!"), they both fall for the very thing they appear to draw strength and nourishment from. Palpatine gives into his own "Dark Side" in attacking Luke, and The Joker is felled by the chaotic outcome of the ferry scenario, which he then childishly tries to subvert to his own "plan" ("it's all part of the plan"). They are essentially betrayed because they betray themselves. I would have to say that The Emperor is far, far more cunning and patient than The Joker, however. He turns a Republic into an Empire, corrupts a prodigy under the noses of his own teachers and masters, and almost completely wipes out an entire religious order. By contrast, The Joker is just a silly kid playing with firecrakers.

 

Tom Waits? Really?

It occurred to me about a year ago, that Ledger's Joker was Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice with the voice of Sylvester the Cat. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they both introduce themselves to women by licking a comb and dragging it through their scraggly hair?

 

Search out Brandon Lee from cult classic "The Crow":

[image=http://www.filthyandcomplicated.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/brandon-lee-the-crow-photograph-c10104025.jpeg]

[image=http://www.comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/8073/the-crow-brandon-lee.jpg]

[image=http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/sidjames/405/crow49a.jpg]

Pretty Ledger-Joker-esque, I'd say.

 

Well not just Waits. I did say "heavily borrowed from very clear sources". I mean Waits own style has mostly been ripped off others and and remains a combination of many people. People seemed to think Ledger created some uniquely scary character. I dispute that. Its not a bad thing, but it does remove some authenticity from it. In the end (and it may have been the intent) it was more caricature than character. While no bad thing in itself, it hardly deserves an Oscar nomination in my book. And if you've seen Waits' concert film Big Time from 1988, his stage persona there isn't far removed from Ledger's Joker.

 

The Dark Knight is one of my personal favorite films, And even though Batman has always been very dark in nature, this is certainly the darkest and most grown up of the big screen versions. There is action, there are effects, and there are people in costumes, but the film somehow grounds us in a reality that seems very close to home, and no longer seems like ?just a comic book movie.? It is deeper, it is stronger, and it is powerful film making.

I see some find the Joker's "just as planned" moments to be rather far-fetched, and its easy to see why; the finger print part confuses me to this day. But to be honest, none of that far-fetchedness truly bothered me. I like this Joker because he seems like a demon that cannot be stopped; you have a hard time believing this guy is a person. There's also hints of a dark reality too. The thing that scared me a lot about the? Joker, was that in some way, he made a good argument. And at times, you found yourself agreeing with him. And that's terrifying.

For as much as I like the Dark Knight, I never really cared for the Rachel Dawes character. I'm not sure what it is. It was either the actress or screenplay, I don't know, but I was more sad when the batmobile blew up than when she did, though it did help me feeel bad for Dent.

 

Saga123456: The Dark Knight is one of my favorite films as well. I just find it curious that another one of my favorite films, Revenge of the Sith, has been so ruthlessly eviscerated by the fan community when its plot contrivances are no more numerous than those afflicting the most highly-lauded ?popcorn? movie of the past ten years.

The same people who complain about a fairy-tale queen dying of a broken heart are completely at peace with the conceit of the Devil?-and make no mistake, Ledger is playing the Devil playing the Joker?-terrorizing the citizens of a Michael Mann-styled crime epic. And this boggles my mind. I really think George Lucas is damned no matter what course he sets out on. The guy can't win.

 

I don't think that's implied at all. The window thing was to distract the police snipers. Batman wasn't really intended to be there.

 

You could be right. However, you've just pin-pointed ANOTHER striking example of both excessive violence and police stupidity. In the scene itself, an alarm clock goes off and a window blind partially rolls up. In response to this, a police officer/SWAT guy/sharpshooter immediately fires multiple rifle shots at the window/window area. Does anyone else see a problem with this? He could be shooting at anyone or anything. How does he know it isn't a janitor, or a painter or decorator, or a resident, just harmlessly rolling up their window blind? Of course, he doesn't. And that's proven by virtue of the fact that it's Bruce Wayne at the window in civilian clothing. But the police shooter can't see who or what it is. He just mindlessly fires. We know from both the look of the building, and previous dialogue, that Bruce has gone to a block of apartments. It's unclear if they're meant to be occupied or not. But is that just cause for a police marksman to unload multiple shots? He could be killing a dog and a little old lady. A pregnant woman. A middle-aged man. A child. Anyone. Now, granted, Bruce sort of looks like he's stationed behind a firearm mounted on a tripod (but, of course, it's actually a pair of binoculars). However, it strikes me as pretty insane to just open fire without getting some visual confirmation, which he would easily get if he waited a split second and used his scope. I can see how Nolan has tried to make it work, but, in my opinion, it's iffy. And don't get me started on the insanity of staging a memorial service sandwiched between a bunch of buildings with a bazillion windows. And what about those honor guard rifles? I don't think you're even meant to fire off blanks so close to buildings, people and horses. And is The Joker firing blanks there or not? What about the bullet that hits Gordon? This movie -- again, in my opinion -- is a knotted web of contradiction and convolution. But we only ever hear about the prequels and how they're oh-so-terrible and ridiculous and non-sensical. On the other hand, I suppose The Joker's speech to Dent somewhat accounts for this and balances it out. He tells Dent about the disparity in killing criminals or disdained individuals versus announcing that you're going to kill the mayor: "Well, then, everyone loses their minds!" Cute, perhaps. But I'm still not entirely riding with this film or its rhythms at present.

 

Batman and Joker on a prequel haters' thread?!

 

The part that is Lucas' fault is the 16 year gap. That's way too long. Period. Not only did speculative backstory elements fully develop in everyone's mind, but there was a library of congress full of expanded universe literature published in that 16 years.

 

While I think you make a decent point, none of it actually relates to the quality of the movies themselves. Lucas has completed his movie series, designing them to be watched 1-6 predominantly by the new generations (unbothered by the gap between the making of the movies, and otherwise ignorant of any contradictory EU material). While an older fan can reasonably justify why they were disappointed by the new films simply because they did not follow the kind of trajectory they hoped they would, its not a reasonable argument for objective criticism. For example, one can't make the case that TPM was a bad movie because Qui-Gon found Anakin as opposed to Obi-Wan, or that Qui-Gon had been Obi-Wan's master and not Yoda (as had been assumed by the majority). The perceived problems created by the events you describe will be pretty much eradicated as time goes on. These films are rewarded by fresh, unbiased eyes. And quite rightly so, I don't think Lucas made them (or gives much concern) for those who can't see them in such a way. Therefore, I don't think he would consider it an error to have waited so long to complete the saga. In the end, he got to make the films he wanted to make. If you offered him a time machine, he might well go back to 1976 and lock the script for ANH in a vault, leaving it unproduced for another 20 years.

 

The interesting contrast between them is Palpy seeks control of everything through his plans and The Joker uses his plans to create chaos.


Unlike Palpatine, the Joker uses his plans to expose to the world (or Gotham City) that the world is chaos and any attempt to install some kind of order or pretend that the world is order is irrelevant. As much as I had liked "The Dark Knight", it had a lot more writing problems than any of the six SW movies . . . even "ROTJ".

 

Indeed. And its much more exposed by the realism the film is trying to project. Star Wars is shielded somewhat by its fantasy/fairytale origins. Visually, Two-Face would qualify for a Star Wars movie... whereas in The Dark Knight, he upsets and derails the style. With these movies, Nolan seems to want to have his cake and eat it. Batman Begins was much stronger, more calculated and consistent in my opinion. The Dark Knight might have benefitted greatly by being split into two films. It tried to be too clever, do too much and capture too many elements for my liking. It leaves it feeling disjointed and a little perverse in my opinion. I don't know how to explain it better, but its almost like its trying to consume itself It too often borders on the ridiculous. But hey... its fashionable again. Timing is everything. You release the PT in a different era and it'd fit the fashions and/or cravings of a massive audience. Equally, you release ANH at the wrong time (as Bill Moyers said in Empire of Dreams) and it wouldn't capture folks moods and imaginations to anywhere near the same degree. The Dark Knight was released in a cynical, brooding world (or to audiences which prefer a cynical, brooding portrayal of our world) and it fit the moods and fashions of the majority, for too long subjected to movies of a different kind. Its no coincidence that ROTS (its tone considerably darker than the other PT films) was met with a far better reception.

 

I see what you're saying, but I don't think he qualifies for Star Wars. Even alien characters like Jar Jar, Watto, Grievous, even Jabba, strike this viewer as more realistic.

Of course, it's all subjective, but all we ever hear about is TPM being "irrelevant", AOTC being too hard of a "switch", and ROTS being too "rushed". Other films that might change styles, re-cast parts, and have a laissez-faire attitude to violence and plot logic? Nah. They're fine.

Lucas has spoken about this himself, saying that some fans wanted something more gritty and violent, like "The Terminator" movies (the example he himself used), and are unable to accept -- perhaps hard-wired to reject -- more light-hearted or eccentric qualities that tend to dominate the surface of his art.

 

Although we may have merely read different interviews, I distinctly recall Lucas citing The Matrix. This is something I would remember, since my antipathy for that film was borderline pathological at the time of TPM's release. (The gun n' leather fetishism and stylized paean to redemptive violence nearly brought me to a state of despair.)