Anyone who thinks that making another movie in the Nolan Bat-verse, John Blake as Batman, or a fourth Dark Knight film, or, hell the best option of the three, a Selina “I’m not called Catwoman” Kyle movie, is a good idea should be dealt a swift “hammers of justice” beatdown!!! But whatever, I am not going to stray off on this rant, I’ll try…maybe. Bottom line is: I DON’T WANT ANOTHER NOLAN(verse) BATMAN FILM, PERIOD!! The Dark Knight trilogy mesmerized a lot of us and hypnotized some of us. The TRUE Batman fans should be quite disappointed in themselves, and I would willingly, without remorse, slap a person if they were to say “Man! That was a great Batman movie!”. SLAP! ARE YOU THINKING STRAIGHT NOW? I would rather have Tim Burton come back and do it, but not Joel Schumacher. No. I’m going to save that one for a “Far Back Friday” write-up!
I heard a great quote the other day, I think it was off of Gail Simone’s Twitter, yes it was, here:
“The Batman films spend nine hours explaining how Batman could exist. Avengers takes ten seconds to say, superheroes exist, here we go.”
Let me put it this way, I’m OK with Superheros existing in my “real” world, being EXTRAORDINARY, and Superheros existing on all different levels of powers and existence, my simian brain can comprehend this, I’m in my thirties and I still have a pretty damn decent imagination, I can deal!! Batman is a real person in the comics, HE HAS NO SUPERPOWERS, DC came up some BS saying he was a meta because of how smart he is! Disregard that meta talk because it doesn’t matter! The Batman is about as close as you’ll get to a superhero that “could” exist. Don’t waste my time showing me how. What bothers me even more than all of this rubbish, is the way Nolan treated the character of the Batman, and people were ok with it. Are we are just so effin numb when we watch movies that FACTS don’t matter?! Batman is a detective….make him do detective stuff. I’ve been watching the first season of Grimm, a show that is half crime drama half fantasy, and the formula only gets better as the season goes on. If it works on a TV show why the hell can’t you make it work on the big screen. You want gritty, watch CSI sometime, have those images running through Batman’s head, INTERNAL ANALYSIS/INTERNAL DIALOGUE. Enough of that, what about this film played out well? The action scenes. YES it was cool to see Gotham fall under Bane’s rule, YES it was awesome when there was war ravaging the streets of Gotham. But are we ignoring the signs right in front of us? When did it all become about the action? Why couldn’t Batman do some crime scene analysis, show the AUDIENCE how intelligent he truly is! Nolan spends so much time on shock and awe in TDKR, from beginning to end, that the only character development is a crybaby butler, and a broken Bruce Wayne, who limps outta retirement (Batman gave up for 8 years…sure he did) only to be broken again. Hey Nolan, thanks for that totally anti-climatic back breaking scene. Great work on those camera angles buddy. Nolan made Batman so real that he wasn’t believable anymore. Which is the most ironic statement I’ve made today. Bane on the other hand I give him credit to actually making me care what the origin was. Maybe, PROBABLY, it was also because I was excited to see where the League of Shadows story line took us, how Liam Neeson was going to show up. But then Nolan took another dump on my face with both Ra’s and Talia!
So here’s my thought, its time for a Batman TV show, not a nationally syndicated one, but on paid cable. HBO, Showtime, whatever. Just do it, people will pay for it. You don’t have to go all “SUPERHERO” and “Extraordinary” (even though I wouldn’t be opposed if some other Superheroes showed up), but maybe Batman doesn’t belong with the “big” budget. I don’t think you need to spend that much to get the point across. Good martial arts and some detective work is all it takes, and a catchy theme song. Oh! Hey creator/director, whoever you end up being, remember! I like my Batman in blue and grey!
~CynicNerd