The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
#201
After watching this for the 4th or 5th time, I have a problem with it. It's not something I just noticed, it's just something I just thought about... there's no way the citizens of Gotham would demand that Batman reveal himself. People wouldn't give into a terrorist because "people are dying" I mean, seriously people die everyday. How they could blame Batman and not the pathetic, inept police department is just ridiculous.
The ending reveals that Gotham may be even worse off...Harvey Dent is dead...Batman is a murderer while the Joker is alive and well. But I guess it works in the Gotham City that Nolan has created where the people act irrational and focus their blame in all the wrong places.
The ending reveals that Gotham may be even worse off...Harvey Dent is dead...Batman is a murderer while the Joker is alive and well. But I guess it works in the Gotham City that Nolan has created where the people act irrational and focus their blame in all the wrong places.
#202
DVD Talk Godfather
It seems pretty rational to me, especially when Batman is a vigilante and people have their opinions on whether that should be allowed or not, such as Bruce's date at the beginning of the film. Plus, like the Joker told Harvey in the hospital, if things are expected and "part of the plan" people don't have a big a problem with it, but if it's unexpected people are quick to get worked up and would easily accept putting the blame on Batman.
As far as the police, I'm sure the city has been so shitty for so long, especially after all the mob involvement, that corruption has been expected.
As far as the police, I'm sure the city has been so shitty for so long, especially after all the mob involvement, that corruption has been expected.
#203
It seems pretty rational to me, especially when Batman is a vigilante and people have their opinions on whether that should be allowed or not, such as Bruce's date at the beginning of the film. Plus, like the Joker told Harvey in the hospital, if things are expected and "part of the plan" people don't have a big a problem with it, but if it's unexpected people are quick to get worked up and would easily accept putting the blame on Batman.
As far as the police, I'm sure the city has been so shitty for so long, especially after all the mob involvement, that corruption has been expected.
As far as the police, I'm sure the city has been so shitty for so long, especially after all the mob involvement, that corruption has been expected.
#204
To me, it's not so much that they don't like Batman, it's that they are easily willing to give into a terrorist's demands. Also, the part where they have to protect Coleman Reese, from nearly everyone. Including a cop that is willing kill him... just rings very false. People wouldn't act like that, IMO.
If someone in this day and age, killed a judge, multiple cops, wannabe vigilantes, nearly killed the mayor, stages a full scale assault on a police convoy, gets the DA nearly killed and the assistant DA killed, escapes from jail, and then threatens to blow up a hospital unless a specific person isn't killed in an hour, you don't think people would have lost their minds by then?
#205
Really?
If someone in this day and age, killed a judge, multiple cops, wannabe vigilantes, nearly killed the mayor, stages a full scale assault on a police convoy, gets the DA nearly killed and the assistant DA killed, escapes from jail, and then threatens to blow up a hospital unless a specific person isn't killed in an hour, you don't think people would have lost their minds by then?
If someone in this day and age, killed a judge, multiple cops, wannabe vigilantes, nearly killed the mayor, stages a full scale assault on a police convoy, gets the DA nearly killed and the assistant DA killed, escapes from jail, and then threatens to blow up a hospital unless a specific person isn't killed in an hour, you don't think people would have lost their minds by then?
#207
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FINALLY got around to seeing the movie. Missed it in theaters. I don't know if it will take repeat viewings or what but I thought it was above average but not FANTASTIC.
Maybe all the hype and talk boosted my expectations. Or maybe the fact that Rachel totally had a face lift. Or the fact that Dent did a quick personality 360 holding children hostage and somehow survives with no skin. Bruce seemed more detached from everything, not sure if this was Bale, the writing or intentional. And his Batman voice teeters on the edge of hilarity at times.
With all that said, I'm reminded that it's definitely just a comic book movie. I liked it though, just not to the epic extent most seem to. Ledger MADE the movie, if not for him then meh.
Maybe all the hype and talk boosted my expectations. Or maybe the fact that Rachel totally had a face lift. Or the fact that Dent did a quick personality 360 holding children hostage and somehow survives with no skin. Bruce seemed more detached from everything, not sure if this was Bale, the writing or intentional. And his Batman voice teeters on the edge of hilarity at times.
With all that said, I'm reminded that it's definitely just a comic book movie. I liked it though, just not to the epic extent most seem to. Ledger MADE the movie, if not for him then meh.
Last edited by MJG87; 01-04-09 at 02:25 AM.
#209
DVD Talk Ultimate Edition
Maybe one of the deaths could be related to the 6th replicant in Blade Runner?
#210
DVD Talk Limited Edition
This film is still a standout for me. After repeat viewings (about 3) I notice that I'm actually sympathizing with Bale. I actually "feel bad" (in movie terms) that he is basically just back as batman - but no matter how good a director, no matter how good an actor, this is always how it's going to be and that's why I thought Nolan was brilliant for using the ending that we see in the film.
During my first viewing I kept the thought in the back of mind the whole time that I wanted the film to end with all focus on Batman - and obviously I had a huge smile on my face when I got what I wanted.
The film is solid all around. I'm not too wild about the two face scenes but I AE performance and acting really makes you care for his character.
Also, and I don't know if anyone else dug this about the film but I was really feeling the jealously vibe between Bruce, Harvey, & Rachael - I dug it a lot and I'm not sure why as I always feel like passing on that sort of thing in my films but here, it fits well.
The more I think of it the more I realize how big a feat Nolan pulled off story wise - how do you go from feeling the pressure of getting the Joker right, to using him perfectly in the film, giving time for another big Villian in the series (two face), to focusing the attention back to the hero - he did a very good job with it and watcing this film gets me excited for where he'll go next with it - there are so many routes to take.
During my first viewing I kept the thought in the back of mind the whole time that I wanted the film to end with all focus on Batman - and obviously I had a huge smile on my face when I got what I wanted.
The film is solid all around. I'm not too wild about the two face scenes but I AE performance and acting really makes you care for his character.
Also, and I don't know if anyone else dug this about the film but I was really feeling the jealously vibe between Bruce, Harvey, & Rachael - I dug it a lot and I'm not sure why as I always feel like passing on that sort of thing in my films but here, it fits well.
The more I think of it the more I realize how big a feat Nolan pulled off story wise - how do you go from feeling the pressure of getting the Joker right, to using him perfectly in the film, giving time for another big Villian in the series (two face), to focusing the attention back to the hero - he did a very good job with it and watcing this film gets me excited for where he'll go next with it - there are so many routes to take.
#211
DVD Talk Legend
Unrelated to this movie but Pat Hingle, Commissioner Gordon in the 80s and 90s Batman movies, has died.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/articl...dies_at_age_84
http://www.starnewsonline.com/articl...dies_at_age_84
#212
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
I think the problem with the movie, is the same thing that makes it great -- it's realistic. In reality, the President would act, he would send whatever Gordon needed to fight the mob and the Joker, be it National Guard or whomever. Gotham's problems would be America's problems.
The actions and reactions of the citizens of Gotham are no less plausible than the entire premise of a rich orphan dressing up as a bat to fight crime.
#213
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Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
I still have to shake my head when I hear people call Batman Begins and the Dark Knight "realistic." These are comic book movies with a gritty, more grounded approach, but they're hardly realistic.
The actions and reactions of the citizens of Gotham are no less plausible than the entire premise of a rich orphan dressing up as a bat to fight crime.
The actions and reactions of the citizens of Gotham are no less plausible than the entire premise of a rich orphan dressing up as a bat to fight crime.
#214
Suspended
Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
Interesting review of The Dark Knight by American intellectual and novelist Jim Kunstler ( http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.c...rk-knight.html ).
I find it remarkably similar to my own review on IMDb, which I wrote after seeing the DVD and never reading Jim Kunstler's review: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/usercomments-2940
I tried to stress the link between the craving for sadistic horror and right-wing political views.
Dark (K)night
The most striking thing about the new Batman movie, now smashing the all-time box office records, is its emphasis on sado-masochism as the animating element in American culture these days. It must appeal to the many angry people in our land who want to hurt others, even while they themselves feel deserving of the grossest punishments. In other words, the picture reflects the extreme depravity of the current American sensibility. Seeing it all laid out there must be very validating to the emotionally confused audience, and hence pleasurable, in all its painfulness.
The rich symbolism in this spectacle represents the tenor of contemporary America as something a few notches worse than whatever the Nazis were heading toward around 1933. We like nothing better than to see people suffer and watch things get broken. The more slowly people are tortured (including the movie audience) the more exquisite the pleasure derived from the act. Civilization offers no consolation. In fact, its a mug's game. Thus, civilization is composed only of torturers and their mug victims.
Gotham City, the setting for all these sadomasochistic vignettes, is a place devoid of comfort. (The suburbs are missing completely.) Even the personal haunts of "the Batman," a.k.a. zillionaire Bruce Wayne, are hard-edged non-spaces. His workplace (cleverly accessed via a dumpster) is an underground bunker the size of about three football fields with a claustrophobic drop ceiling and a single furnishing: the megalomaniacal computer console that is supposed to afford him "control" of the city, but which appears to be, in fact, a completely impotent sham piece of techno-junk, since it can't even outperform a $300 GPS unit in locating things. By the way, Hitler had a brighter sense of decor in the final days of the bunker. Bruce Wayne's personal apartment is one of those horrid glass-walled tower condos beloved of the starchitects, which, in its florid exposure to everything external practically screams "no shelter here!"
At the center of all this is the character called "The Joker." Judging by the reams of reviews and reportage about this movie elsewhere in the media, the death of actor Heath Ledger, who played the role, adds another layer of juicy sadomasochistic deliciousness to the proceedings -- we get to reflect that the monster on screen may have gotten away, but the anxiety-ridden young actor who played him was carted off to the bone orchard before the film even officially wrapped, (and therefore deserves extra special consideration for America's greatest honor, the Oscar award, while the audience deserves its own award for recognizing the lovely ironies embroidered in this cultural phenomenon.)
The Joker is not so much as person as a force of nature, a "black swan" in clown white. He has no fingerprints, no ID, no labels in his clothing. All he has is the memory of an evil father who performed a symbolic sadomasochistic oral rape on him, and so he is now programmed to go about similarly mutilating folks, blowing things up, and wrecking everyone's hopes and dreams because he has nothing better to do. He represents himself simply as an agent of "chaos." Taken at face value, he would seem to symbolize the deadly forces of entropy that now threatens to unravel real American life in the real world -- a combination of our foolish over- investments in complexity and the frightening capriciousness of both nature and history, which do not reveal their motivations to us.
By the way, forget about God here or anything that even remotely smacks of an oppositional notion to evil. All that's back on the cutting room floor somewhere (if it even got that far). And I say this as a non-religious person. But the absence of any possible idea of redemption for the human spirit is impressive. In the world of "the Batman," humanity at its very best is capable only of being confused about itself. This is perhaps an interesting new form of dramaturgy -- instead of good-versus-evil you only get befuddlement-versus-evil. Goodness has lost its way in the dark night of the American psyche, as might be understandable considering the nation of louts, liars, grifters, bullies, meth freaks, harpies, and tattooed creeps we have become. The best we can bring to this predicament is the low-grade pop therapy that passes for thinking nowadays in educated circles. Any consideration of the heroic is off the menu here. We can't ask that much of ourselves. It's too difficult to imagine. Meanwhile, The People -- that is, the citizens of Gotham City -- literally banish even the possibility of heroism from town at the end of the movie -- they take an axe to it! -- perhaps indicating that they deserve whatever befalls them or, shall I say, "us."
A few other striking elements of this spectacle deserve attention. One is the grandiosity that saturates the story elements, and the remarkable impotence of it all. The Batman possesses every high-tech weapon and survival implement ever dreamed up, yet they avail him nothing -- except a lot off sickening leaps off skyscrapers and futile hard landings on car roofs, shipping containers, sidewalks, and other human carcasses. I doubt the writers/director Chris and Jonathan Nolan consciously aimed to depict good old American ingenuity as utterly valueless in the face of chaos, but that's the effect. Otherwise, everything in the Batman's world is overscaled and out-of-whack from the size of Bruce Wayne's fortune (what an executive package his Daddy must have made off with, and from which investment bank?!), to the energy expended in so many car chases and explosions, to the super-sized doom-worthy towers of the gigantic, soulless city.
Finally there is the derivation of all this sadomasochistic nihilism out of a comic book. How appropriate, since we have become a cartoon of a society living on a cartoon of a North American landscape, that the deepest source of our mythos comes from cartoons. We're so far gone that real human emotion is beyond us. We're too far gone -- and even without shame -- to care how this odious movie portrays us to the rest of the world. It is already making a fortune out there.
August 01, 2008 in Commentary on Current Events
The most striking thing about the new Batman movie, now smashing the all-time box office records, is its emphasis on sado-masochism as the animating element in American culture these days. It must appeal to the many angry people in our land who want to hurt others, even while they themselves feel deserving of the grossest punishments. In other words, the picture reflects the extreme depravity of the current American sensibility. Seeing it all laid out there must be very validating to the emotionally confused audience, and hence pleasurable, in all its painfulness.
The rich symbolism in this spectacle represents the tenor of contemporary America as something a few notches worse than whatever the Nazis were heading toward around 1933. We like nothing better than to see people suffer and watch things get broken. The more slowly people are tortured (including the movie audience) the more exquisite the pleasure derived from the act. Civilization offers no consolation. In fact, its a mug's game. Thus, civilization is composed only of torturers and their mug victims.
Gotham City, the setting for all these sadomasochistic vignettes, is a place devoid of comfort. (The suburbs are missing completely.) Even the personal haunts of "the Batman," a.k.a. zillionaire Bruce Wayne, are hard-edged non-spaces. His workplace (cleverly accessed via a dumpster) is an underground bunker the size of about three football fields with a claustrophobic drop ceiling and a single furnishing: the megalomaniacal computer console that is supposed to afford him "control" of the city, but which appears to be, in fact, a completely impotent sham piece of techno-junk, since it can't even outperform a $300 GPS unit in locating things. By the way, Hitler had a brighter sense of decor in the final days of the bunker. Bruce Wayne's personal apartment is one of those horrid glass-walled tower condos beloved of the starchitects, which, in its florid exposure to everything external practically screams "no shelter here!"
At the center of all this is the character called "The Joker." Judging by the reams of reviews and reportage about this movie elsewhere in the media, the death of actor Heath Ledger, who played the role, adds another layer of juicy sadomasochistic deliciousness to the proceedings -- we get to reflect that the monster on screen may have gotten away, but the anxiety-ridden young actor who played him was carted off to the bone orchard before the film even officially wrapped, (and therefore deserves extra special consideration for America's greatest honor, the Oscar award, while the audience deserves its own award for recognizing the lovely ironies embroidered in this cultural phenomenon.)
The Joker is not so much as person as a force of nature, a "black swan" in clown white. He has no fingerprints, no ID, no labels in his clothing. All he has is the memory of an evil father who performed a symbolic sadomasochistic oral rape on him, and so he is now programmed to go about similarly mutilating folks, blowing things up, and wrecking everyone's hopes and dreams because he has nothing better to do. He represents himself simply as an agent of "chaos." Taken at face value, he would seem to symbolize the deadly forces of entropy that now threatens to unravel real American life in the real world -- a combination of our foolish over- investments in complexity and the frightening capriciousness of both nature and history, which do not reveal their motivations to us.
By the way, forget about God here or anything that even remotely smacks of an oppositional notion to evil. All that's back on the cutting room floor somewhere (if it even got that far). And I say this as a non-religious person. But the absence of any possible idea of redemption for the human spirit is impressive. In the world of "the Batman," humanity at its very best is capable only of being confused about itself. This is perhaps an interesting new form of dramaturgy -- instead of good-versus-evil you only get befuddlement-versus-evil. Goodness has lost its way in the dark night of the American psyche, as might be understandable considering the nation of louts, liars, grifters, bullies, meth freaks, harpies, and tattooed creeps we have become. The best we can bring to this predicament is the low-grade pop therapy that passes for thinking nowadays in educated circles. Any consideration of the heroic is off the menu here. We can't ask that much of ourselves. It's too difficult to imagine. Meanwhile, The People -- that is, the citizens of Gotham City -- literally banish even the possibility of heroism from town at the end of the movie -- they take an axe to it! -- perhaps indicating that they deserve whatever befalls them or, shall I say, "us."
A few other striking elements of this spectacle deserve attention. One is the grandiosity that saturates the story elements, and the remarkable impotence of it all. The Batman possesses every high-tech weapon and survival implement ever dreamed up, yet they avail him nothing -- except a lot off sickening leaps off skyscrapers and futile hard landings on car roofs, shipping containers, sidewalks, and other human carcasses. I doubt the writers/director Chris and Jonathan Nolan consciously aimed to depict good old American ingenuity as utterly valueless in the face of chaos, but that's the effect. Otherwise, everything in the Batman's world is overscaled and out-of-whack from the size of Bruce Wayne's fortune (what an executive package his Daddy must have made off with, and from which investment bank?!), to the energy expended in so many car chases and explosions, to the super-sized doom-worthy towers of the gigantic, soulless city.
Finally there is the derivation of all this sadomasochistic nihilism out of a comic book. How appropriate, since we have become a cartoon of a society living on a cartoon of a North American landscape, that the deepest source of our mythos comes from cartoons. We're so far gone that real human emotion is beyond us. We're too far gone -- and even without shame -- to care how this odious movie portrays us to the rest of the world. It is already making a fortune out there.
August 01, 2008 in Commentary on Current Events
I tried to stress the link between the craving for sadistic horror and right-wing political views.
5 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
The superhero in Bushian times: A relentless and sadistic symphony of horror for moral degenerates, 9 December 2008
Author: Benoît A. Racine from Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I used to feel nothing but contempt for film adaptations of comicbooks. I felt they were aimed at a public so illiterate and lazy, they preferred to have their little superhero stories read to them to the sound of big things blowing up. I was right of course but little did I suspect the depths of depravity this genre (representing, along with films about hired killers, roughly 90 % of the current US box office) could sink to. This film hires competent actors and competent special effects teams to tell a story of sadism unparalleled in the archives of degenerate entertainment. It's one gruesome act after another for two and a half hours.
But it's not just escapism for the dumbed-down, atavistic, high-fructose corn syrup-fed diabetic video game generation. It has a political message that faithfully reflects the mood of Bush's America, pre-Obama. Batman, the unelected people's hero, commits every imaginable unethical act imputed to Bush: illegal invasion of privacy, torture, lying, betrayal, cowardice, multiple cover-ups, manipulation of information, you name it. He's a hero for our times. The authorities are corrupt or corruptible. No one cares about human life. Everyone is told to "stay the course" in their war against profiteers, terrorists, maniacs and mobsters, whatever the cost. The question of torture comes up often, as does the torture itself. Everyone is fallible. Everyone is tempted. No one is admirable. Every one is contemptible and no one is saved. It's the realization of one sadistic and spectacular adolescent revenge fantasy after another. The Joker is the only approximately "moral" character of the lot because he doesn't care about money. Like a Muslim terrorist, he only cares about blowing things up real good and getting his rocks off. Every attempt at showing the "human side" or the "moral dilemmas" of the protagonists in the course of those mostly muddled and incomprehensible two hours and a half fails because it just feels tacked on and there is simply no room for such subtlety. This is not what the blood-hungry teenage ghouls who paid good money want to see. They want blood, torture porn, revenge, guts spilled on the sidewalk, dismemberment, broken bones and disfiguration. God pity America in its more dire hour of moral decrepitude!
In cinematic terms: Except as a useless metaphor of America's moral and financial decline, it's the end of cinema as an ethical medium - monkey "Saw", monkey did, monkey started throwing feces back at the spectators. To speak the language of the scriptwriters: Everyone involved in this film deserves an end like Heath Ledger. To speak in Freudian terms: With the sheer amount of firepower and cars in this film, can you imagine the lilliputian endowment of the people who actually enjoy this kind of entertainment? In physical terms: If you have the slightest thread of decency in you, this film will make you feel like the innocent starlet wiping the cocaine and the body fluids from her face after being defiled by a mob of slimy Hollywood producers. In musical terms: This film is one continuous, distinctly unheroic ode to fear. P.S.: Maggie Gyllenhall is one cold, ugly, talentless broad and Batman's asthmatic voice was embarrassingly ridiculous, lending the only note of "humour" to an otherwise stomach-churning odyssey.
The superhero in Bushian times: A relentless and sadistic symphony of horror for moral degenerates, 9 December 2008
Author: Benoît A. Racine from Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I used to feel nothing but contempt for film adaptations of comicbooks. I felt they were aimed at a public so illiterate and lazy, they preferred to have their little superhero stories read to them to the sound of big things blowing up. I was right of course but little did I suspect the depths of depravity this genre (representing, along with films about hired killers, roughly 90 % of the current US box office) could sink to. This film hires competent actors and competent special effects teams to tell a story of sadism unparalleled in the archives of degenerate entertainment. It's one gruesome act after another for two and a half hours.
But it's not just escapism for the dumbed-down, atavistic, high-fructose corn syrup-fed diabetic video game generation. It has a political message that faithfully reflects the mood of Bush's America, pre-Obama. Batman, the unelected people's hero, commits every imaginable unethical act imputed to Bush: illegal invasion of privacy, torture, lying, betrayal, cowardice, multiple cover-ups, manipulation of information, you name it. He's a hero for our times. The authorities are corrupt or corruptible. No one cares about human life. Everyone is told to "stay the course" in their war against profiteers, terrorists, maniacs and mobsters, whatever the cost. The question of torture comes up often, as does the torture itself. Everyone is fallible. Everyone is tempted. No one is admirable. Every one is contemptible and no one is saved. It's the realization of one sadistic and spectacular adolescent revenge fantasy after another. The Joker is the only approximately "moral" character of the lot because he doesn't care about money. Like a Muslim terrorist, he only cares about blowing things up real good and getting his rocks off. Every attempt at showing the "human side" or the "moral dilemmas" of the protagonists in the course of those mostly muddled and incomprehensible two hours and a half fails because it just feels tacked on and there is simply no room for such subtlety. This is not what the blood-hungry teenage ghouls who paid good money want to see. They want blood, torture porn, revenge, guts spilled on the sidewalk, dismemberment, broken bones and disfiguration. God pity America in its more dire hour of moral decrepitude!
In cinematic terms: Except as a useless metaphor of America's moral and financial decline, it's the end of cinema as an ethical medium - monkey "Saw", monkey did, monkey started throwing feces back at the spectators. To speak the language of the scriptwriters: Everyone involved in this film deserves an end like Heath Ledger. To speak in Freudian terms: With the sheer amount of firepower and cars in this film, can you imagine the lilliputian endowment of the people who actually enjoy this kind of entertainment? In physical terms: If you have the slightest thread of decency in you, this film will make you feel like the innocent starlet wiping the cocaine and the body fluids from her face after being defiled by a mob of slimy Hollywood producers. In musical terms: This film is one continuous, distinctly unheroic ode to fear. P.S.: Maggie Gyllenhall is one cold, ugly, talentless broad and Batman's asthmatic voice was embarrassingly ridiculous, lending the only note of "humour" to an otherwise stomach-churning odyssey.
Last edited by baracine; 01-11-09 at 08:57 AM.
#215
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Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
Baracine, what did you think of Andrew Klavan's WSJ editorial about Batman's similiarities to Bush?
http://online.wsj.com/public/article...343482821.html
http://online.wsj.com/public/article...343482821.html
#217
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Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
" But the absence of any possible idea of redemption for the human spirit is impressive."
Interesting, did he watch the movie? No redemption? What about the prisoners and elite not blowing each other up, despite both knowing (but being wrong) that it will mean their own deaths? Plus, remember when Batman let Ras Al Ghul die in Batman Begins? When presented with the same choice again, he makes a different decision.
"By the way, Hitler had a brighter sense of decor in the final days of the bunker."
Yeah, like the florescent light bathed batcave. It was like how much blacker could it be, and the answer is none. None more black.
Interesting, did he watch the movie? No redemption? What about the prisoners and elite not blowing each other up, despite both knowing (but being wrong) that it will mean their own deaths? Plus, remember when Batman let Ras Al Ghul die in Batman Begins? When presented with the same choice again, he makes a different decision.
"By the way, Hitler had a brighter sense of decor in the final days of the bunker."
Yeah, like the florescent light bathed batcave. It was like how much blacker could it be, and the answer is none. None more black.
#218
Suspended
Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
Baracine, what did you think of Andrew Klavan's WSJ editorial about Batman's similiarities to Bush?
http://online.wsj.com/public/article...343482821.html
http://online.wsj.com/public/article...343482821.html
Andrew Klavan and Jim Kunstler both noticed the film's fascistic elements. Except Klavan - who liked the film - thinks Batman is an improved version of Bush and Kunstler - who hated the film - thinks Batman is the slightly repulsive, immoral hero people who voted for Bush deserve.
Last edited by baracine; 01-11-09 at 11:01 AM.
#219
Suspended
Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
" But the absence of any possible idea of redemption for the human spirit is impressive."
Interesting, did he watch the movie? No redemption? What about the prisoners and elite not blowing each other up, despite both knowing (but being wrong) that it will mean their own deaths?
Interesting, did he watch the movie? No redemption? What about the prisoners and elite not blowing each other up, despite both knowing (but being wrong) that it will mean their own deaths?
#221
Suspended
Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
P.S.: We're not talking about life here, but about films. There is still a difference.
Last edited by baracine; 01-11-09 at 12:27 PM.
#222
DVD Talk Godfather
Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
Then why position your review in such a way that you insult the audience of the movie and those that like it, rather then the film itself?
#223
Suspended
Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
I don't "position" reviews, I write them as I see them. Any unfavourable review of a popular film is bound to displease a large part of the viewers who happen to read it. But you would have to be unbalanced to take it personally. Do you think Jim Kunstler "positioned" his commentary piece to insult anyone? (Wow!)
#224
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Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
Batman is clearly the anarcho-libertarian ideal (non-pacifism branch). For all the film's lip service to law and order, Batman is a criminal vigilante who commits assault each time he takes to the streets. He was initially viewed by the authorities as such a criminal, enjoyed a brief respite when he prevented a catastrophe they couldn't, and is now once again on the run for his life. This is a man who is willing to follow his belief that ethical does not equate to legal to the bitter end.
I suspect that the fascism hounds among the ideologues use the f-word to garner attention for themselves, as vigilantes who spend their nights running from corrupt authorities are not what most people have in mind when they speak of fascism.
And in case any other intellectuals (though how one could be an intellectual sans middle initial, I can't understand) harbor the belief, the Joker almost certainly was not scarred by his father.
I suspect that the fascism hounds among the ideologues use the f-word to garner attention for themselves, as vigilantes who spend their nights running from corrupt authorities are not what most people have in mind when they speak of fascism.
And in case any other intellectuals (though how one could be an intellectual sans middle initial, I can't understand) harbor the belief, the Joker almost certainly was not scarred by his father.
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Re: The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2) Discussion - Part 3
Interesting review, Baracine. However, it does bring up the question:
What is it like to have no joy in your life?
What is it like to have no joy in your life?