Yeah, I enjoyed Batman Begins but for some reason I couldn't get into The Dark Knight as well. Hopefully Batman 3 will be better.
Dark Knight - dumb? SPOILERS
- Thread starter A beaker full of death
- Start date
Yeah, I enjoyed Batman Begins but for some reason I couldn't get into The Dark Knight as well. Hopefully Batman 3 will be better.
The childish way superhero/supervillain confrontations end in fisticuffs simply is not the same thing as thuggery or vigilantism. Subduing a villain by force just isn't the same thing as brutalizing a villain.
Despite all the elaborate analyses of the Batman/Joker confrontation in the interview room---how does the Batman/Maroni scene jibe with these apologies? And there's "Swear to me! Sorry, no, I don't think Batman at the edge is what this stuff is all about. It's pretty much exactly what it looks like, pleasure in the bad ass motherfucker living up to his name and kicking ass while being a real motherfucker. That's why the Joker becomes a secondary hero.
The real Batman/Joker confrontation, at the skyscraper, becomes anticlimactic. The interview scene falsifies the outcome. The same Batman in the interview room would have killed the Joker. A lot of all this is simply groupthink---at some level, people are thinking, we (the US) have to be ruthless to rule the world. So they want to daydream about heroes who can be what the times demand. The Joker in the interview room represents a fantasy about the triumph of the will.
Does anyone really think that Batman reproving Dent for trying to brutalize one of the Joker's minions is a dramatic irony? It's a foreshadowing of Dent's total failure, which is the failure of law and democracy, redeemed only by Batman's noble sacrifice. Except that the real climax of the Batman story was unintentionally funny. That is one reason why Dark Knight Returns just isn't all that good. Part of what made this movie more watchable than Batman Begins was that there were two storylines. Neither were very good but switching back and forth simulated drama.
The intersection of the two plots was in the Joker/Dent confrontation. All that ostentatious foolishness about Batman and Joker being the same misled viewers who enjoyed the cruelty and wanted Batman and Joker to be the same. It was Dent and Wayne/Batman who were the same. So, the confrontation between Dent and Joker had all the thematic weight of the film. Nolan's Batman pretty much is just a dumb thug and of no adult interest at all. The problem for Dark Knight Returns fans is that the scene is deeply weird---not very convincing dramatically with no feeling of truth whatsoever.
Despite all the elaborate analyses of the Batman/Joker confrontation in the interview room---how does the Batman/Maroni scene jibe with these apologies? And there's "Swear to me! Sorry, no, I don't think Batman at the edge is what this stuff is all about. It's pretty much exactly what it looks like, pleasure in the bad ass motherfucker living up to his name and kicking ass while being a real motherfucker. That's why the Joker becomes a secondary hero.
The real Batman/Joker confrontation, at the skyscraper, becomes anticlimactic. The interview scene falsifies the outcome. The same Batman in the interview room would have killed the Joker. A lot of all this is simply groupthink---at some level, people are thinking, we (the US) have to be ruthless to rule the world. So they want to daydream about heroes who can be what the times demand. The Joker in the interview room represents a fantasy about the triumph of the will.
Does anyone really think that Batman reproving Dent for trying to brutalize one of the Joker's minions is a dramatic irony? It's a foreshadowing of Dent's total failure, which is the failure of law and democracy, redeemed only by Batman's noble sacrifice. Except that the real climax of the Batman story was unintentionally funny. That is one reason why Dark Knight Returns just isn't all that good. Part of what made this movie more watchable than Batman Begins was that there were two storylines. Neither were very good but switching back and forth simulated drama.
The intersection of the two plots was in the Joker/Dent confrontation. All that ostentatious foolishness about Batman and Joker being the same misled viewers who enjoyed the cruelty and wanted Batman and Joker to be the same. It was Dent and Wayne/Batman who were the same. So, the confrontation between Dent and Joker had all the thematic weight of the film. Nolan's Batman pretty much is just a dumb thug and of no adult interest at all. The problem for Dark Knight Returns fans is that the scene is deeply weird---not very convincing dramatically with no feeling of truth whatsoever.
As Lapis indicated, the character was always changing and evolving, even in the "good ol' days". There's very little similarity between the noir vigilante of the first few years and the space-hopping, Bat-Mite plagued guy with the big grin in the '50s, or between the latter and the grimmer and more down-to-Earth version of the '70s that was a deliberate attempt to bring back the core elements of the early stories.
It was definitely a good movie but it's about a man who dresses up as a bat to fight crime, it's sort of inherently dumb.
In terms of the character arc, the scene shows Bruce Wayne pushed to an emotional edge. Previously he has used force and drama with conscious forethought, but here he's not trying to scare Joker, he's just trying to beat an answer out of him, which represents a loss of rationality on his part. But the larger point of the scene is that in it the Joker describes the limits of Bruce Wayne's simplistic approach to the complex problem of crime. The problem with using force to subdue a villain is what do wyou do when you meet a villain that force cannot subdue? Joker laughing in the face of a beating ostensibly confronts Batman with the choices of either escalating brutality or surrender.
The scene with Maroni likewise describes Batman's limits. He says - you've met someone who'll go farther than you when it comes to striking fear into everyone. We're more scared of him than of you, so again, you have two choices - become more frightening than him, or give up.
Not if he is seeking a way to break the dilemma offered him. Which is why a similar dilemma is very explictly being played out against the scene in the skyscraper.
For someone who seems to speak with disdain of elaborate analyses of this movie, you have certainly offered a fairly elaborate one of your own. And since that was a sideswipe at my post, I must say - I don't consider my analysis all that elaborate, because the movie's points really aren't that complicated. There's a limit to how complicated any superhero story can get, and The Evil Dead pointed out why.
Batman and other superheroes are not inherently absurd because of the costumes. They are absurd because of the way they succeed, which is usually physically impossible. Batman, though, could be like the plot of a mystery novel, totally logical, set in everyday reality, yet still not the way things are. (Which has been a part of the appeal of the character for lots of people.) Nolan chose to make his Batman absurd. Apparently, when people say his Batman is realistic, they mean that he makes a man in a costume look cool.
Batman wants to get the truth out of Maroni. Since Maroni is not a secondary hero, Batman gets to cause grievous bodily harm to get the truth without Maroni getting to look good. That scene is not about limits. It's not like Batman didn't get the truth out of Maroni.
The Joker is subdued by force/ the terrorist is captured by violating the law. The ferry scene is unbelievable, if that's the dilemma referred to.
The sideswipe was
Also, Sherlock Holmes is remembered after all these decades because those stories are anything but dull.
Batman wants to get the truth out of Maroni. Since Maroni is not a secondary hero, Batman gets to cause grievous bodily harm to get the truth without Maroni getting to look good. That scene is not about limits. It's not like Batman didn't get the truth out of Maroni.
The Joker is subdued by force/ the terrorist is captured by violating the law. The ferry scene is unbelievable, if that's the dilemma referred to.
The sideswipe was
The bland assumption that they are is rhetorical trickery. In any event, the parallels between Two-Face and Batman/Wayne is pretty old hat. It doesn't fit with the terrorist-Joker plot but that's a problem with the writing.
Also, Sherlock Holmes is remembered after all these decades because those stories are anything but dull.
I don't think Batman was interested in a battle of wits with the Joker when the life of the woman he loved was on the line. We could also say that originally he was a thug in the comics to begin with. Also this scene is highlighting how powerless Batman really is against the Joker, there is no fear to instill in the mad man and is trying to show the futility of his strength more than anything else.
I think it's safe to say that you totally missed the point of that whole scene.
The point being, BTW, how even good men can be tempted to believe that torture, that violating human rights, can be justified by the ends -- and that when they do, they will invariably get screwed (as with the Joker switching Rachel's and Dent's locations).
Or vented on a BBS.
Batman
Where is he?
Maroni
I don't know, he found us...
Batman
He must have friends.
Maroni
Friends? You met this guy?
Batman
Someone knows where he is.
Maroni
No-one's gonna tell you anything - they're wise to your act - you got rules... The Joker, he's got no rules. No-one's gonna cross him for you. You want this guy, you got one way. And you already know what that is. Just take off the mask and let him come find you....
Or you want to let a couple more people get killed while you make up your mind?
That is all the dialogue between Batman and Maroni after Batman pushes him off the building. Batman learns nothing of any value and Maroni taunts him, even with two broken legs. I mean sure, Maroni tells him the truth, but only to throw it in his face. Batman finishes the scene no better off, and now with the knowledge that the underworld don't even fear him anymore. He has become less powerful by the end of the scene, not more.
Your analysis of The Joker as a "secondary hero" is off-base. We, the audience, love The Joker, because he's brilliantly written, brilliantly played and he's a great concept, and, most importantly, because its fiction. In real life we would fear, loathe and hate The Joker, but in the film we get swept along by him. That doesn't make him a hero, you still want Batman to win, it just makes him a villain that's fun to watch, because moral lines are blurred in fiction, as there are no consequences for what you're seeing. I can see what you mean, but I think your terminology is wrong.
Eh, I still think the fact that Maroni tells Batman the truth means something. Especially given the terrorist motif and current events. You're right that Maroni is taunting him. What does that mean? If a two bit gangster like Maroni can do it, then anyone can do it? I don't think it means much of anything, except that it's supposed to be fun watching Btman be hardass, and a minor character announces what we're to think about the Joker (and builds up the villain's fearfulness.)
In the context of the discussion of Batman over the edge with the Joker in the interview room? Either Batman was over the edge with Maroni, i.e., always out of control, or he habitually uses brutality (i.e., thuggery, which despite claims to the contrary has not been a universal constant in the character---it's an esthetic choice, albeit a poor one.) The scene with Maroni just isn't compatible with the interview scene. Or at least the analyses that somehow fit it into some (largely imaginary I think) Batman character arc don't fit in with it. And of course we haven't even touched upon the much greater brutality with which Batman treats Maroni than the Joker!
But I suppose you may well be right about the term "secondary hero." Perhaps antihero would be better? Except that the antihero is much more entertaining, in a lowbrow, meanspirited way, than the alleged hero. Which is the sort of thing that makes me think raving about Dark Knight Return's excellence is kind of nuts. (And I guess Dent would be the antivillain?)
PS I can't claim any personal highbrow tastes. I too found it more entertaining to watch Heath Ledger's Joker than Christian Bale's Batman. As far as the meanness goes, I must admit that I tend (wrongly perhaps?) to cut some slack to the outre, which plainly has nothing to do with this world. Michael Keaton's Batman was much more ruthless than Bale's (and more believably disturbed in my opinion.) But Burton's other world just made it seem less relevant. The boringly quotidian backdrop in Nolan's universe insists on taking nonsense seriously. To me, nonsense should always be taken lightly---anything else is a serious artistic error.
PS The weirdass psycho-cum-nihilist terrorist Joker, forgive me, is not a great concept.
In the context of the discussion of Batman over the edge with the Joker in the interview room? Either Batman was over the edge with Maroni, i.e., always out of control, or he habitually uses brutality (i.e., thuggery, which despite claims to the contrary has not been a universal constant in the character---it's an esthetic choice, albeit a poor one.) The scene with Maroni just isn't compatible with the interview scene. Or at least the analyses that somehow fit it into some (largely imaginary I think) Batman character arc don't fit in with it. And of course we haven't even touched upon the much greater brutality with which Batman treats Maroni than the Joker!
But I suppose you may well be right about the term "secondary hero." Perhaps antihero would be better? Except that the antihero is much more entertaining, in a lowbrow, meanspirited way, than the alleged hero. Which is the sort of thing that makes me think raving about Dark Knight Return's excellence is kind of nuts. (And I guess Dent would be the antivillain?)
PS I can't claim any personal highbrow tastes. I too found it more entertaining to watch Heath Ledger's Joker than Christian Bale's Batman. As far as the meanness goes, I must admit that I tend (wrongly perhaps?) to cut some slack to the outre, which plainly has nothing to do with this world. Michael Keaton's Batman was much more ruthless than Bale's (and more believably disturbed in my opinion.) But Burton's other world just made it seem less relevant. The boringly quotidian backdrop in Nolan's universe insists on taking nonsense seriously. To me, nonsense should always be taken lightly---anything else is a serious artistic error.
PS The weirdass psycho-cum-nihilist terrorist Joker, forgive me, is not a great concept.
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Well I'll accept that -- but Batman doesn't seem to recognize that at any point. What kind of protagonist is he when he doesn't change or get affected by what, I gather, is his fatal flaw? Or is it just meant to be political allegry without regard to the characters or plot (to the extent there is one)?
or outwitted his opponent?
Sorry, but watching a verbal chess scene between such characters is far more compelling than watching a beat-down.
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Siwilliams
Fleet Captain
Well.....Batman could have caused the Joker to get a paper cut...............ouch
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
Rewatching the movie today, surely Batman killed the garbage truck driver during the chase scene. It's roof was smashed in and it flipped. Guy's dead. Batman broke his rule.
I disagree. I think that Batman realized that his willingness to descend so closely to the Joker's level, his willingness to torture, was ultimately the mechanism that the Joker used to bring about Rachel's death. I think the film decided not to have any sort of melodramatic, "OMG? What have I done?! I've become the monster I sought to battle!" moment out of a willingness to trust that most audience members would get the point: That that kind of descent into violence is exactly what the Joker wanted to provoke, not only from Batman but from everybody who believed in decency -- the abandonment of principles, of human decency, of the rule of law. That's ultimately what Dent represents: Liberal democracy that has fallen, that has completely relinquished its own beliefs in the name of its righteousness and anger. And the fact that people need to believe in the rule of law, in those principles, in human decency, is what Batman realizes and what drives him to allow himself to be made the scapegoat to preserve people's belief in Dent.
This article articulates it fairly well in another way, too.