Everything Wrong With The Dark Knight Rises

I've decided to make what I'm sure will be the first of many posts on this much-anticipated movie a kind of list of reactions. Which are in no particular order. Make of it what you will:

SPOILERS AHEAD

 

1. Pacing.
2. Tone.
3. Maniacal supervillanry.
4. Doomsday devices.
5. Uncompelling action sequences.
6. A much, much too brief "re-training" period for Bruce. (Screen-time, I mean. 3 months in a few minutes? Cue sit-up montage.)
7. A much, much too brief parallel "under seige" period for Gotham.
8. Lucius Fox and Commissioner Gordon are side-lined.
9. "Get the President on the line," etc.
10. The old "fly away from the city, detonating the bomb and sacrificing yourself" trope (or should I say cliché) already used once this year by Avengers.
11. A half-assed romance with Miranda Tate that means nothing and goes nowhere.
12. "The Bat." That's a big one.
13. Political commentary.
14. Camp.
15. Cat-woman's goggle, ear, things.
16. Yet again, Bane is really just a tool.
17. Batman having gone into retirement period. Batman doesn't retire for 8 years, no matter how good it is. Come on.
18. No redemption for Gordon.
19. The trivialization of Alfred's mourning.
20. Alfred pretty much just showing up a couple of times to have rushed conversations that culminate in him saying something profound and insightful and then walking away dramatically.
21. The Bat Cave? Meh.
22. Everything, I mean everything about the ending.

Right after The Dark Knight came out I said that Christopher Nolan is gonna do another one, and it's going to be too huge, have nine million villains, in other words, fall into all the same "traps" the third installments in superhero series are famously plagued with. But for Nolan these wouldn't be traps. He would manage to unite it all into one cohesive story which hit at the heart of Batman and morality and all that stuff we love Nolan for.

The verdict? Nope. He couldn't do it. Pretty good effort I have to say. Not fundamentally flawed, I don't think, just poorly executed. Most of all I think it's pretty clear that Nolan didn't really wanna make this movie.

Marvel's Track Record, And What To Expect In The Future

I don't know if Marvel Studios were planning all this way back in 2003 when the atrocious Hulk debuted. Regardless of whether they were or not, and regardless of the fact that 2008's The Incredible Hulk only half-acknowledges the existence of Ang Lee's train wreck, it's still true, I think, to say that Joss Whedon's The Avengers is 9 years, 7 films, and a combined $1.1 Billion in the making.

At this point, it doesn't even matter if the movies were good or not; Marvel gets huge geek props just for trying.

Of course, with the exception of Hulk, they were good. Very good. In fact, if you ask me, of the 6 Marvel films in the Avengers Movie Universe produced so far (not counting Hulk):

     1 was second only to The Dark Knight when it comes to superhero movies (The Avengers),
     2 were amazing (Captain America and Iron Man 2),
     2 were very good (Thor and Iron Man),
     and only 1 was mediocre (The Incredible Hulk).

What's more, in one sense The Dark Knight is really an unfair comparison, not really qualifying as a straight "superhero flick," making The Avengers really the best there's ever been. That's a pretty impressive track record.

Here's the ambitious list of films in the same universe Marvel is already in the process of producing:

     Iron Man 3,
     Thor 2,
     Captain America 2,
     The Avengers 2,
     Runaways,
     Black Widow,
     Hawkeye,
     Nick Fury,
     S.H.I.E.L.D.,
     and War Machine.

More than that, here's the list of films Marvel have yet to confirm, but are believed to be in the early stages of development:

     The Warriors Three,
     The Winter Soldier,
     War Machine,
     Black Panther,
     Ant-Man, a spy movie,
     Iron Fist,
     Dr. Strange,
     Guardians of the Galaxy,
    and, finally, The Avengers 3 in 2017...

...most likely to be based on the Secret Invasion, which will have been set-up in previous films. If they can maintain the same ratio they've been able to thus far for the 19 or so films on the way that would make for a grand total of roughly:

     4 films almost as good as or better than The Dark Knight,
     8 or 9 amazing superhero movies,
     8 or 9 very good movies,
     and only 4 mediocre ones.

But let's see if we can get a little bit more objective with this analysis. Also, let's give Marvel the benefit of the doubt and pretend Hulk never happened. There are a lot of ways to measure a movie's success: Worldwide Gross, Opening Weekend, Critical Reception, and so on. Let's take a look at how some of these numbers can help us understand the enormity of what Marvel have accomplished.

Consider sheer Worldwide Gross, for example:

The Avengers is projected to displace Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest for the #6 spot on the list of the highest grossing films of all time, putting half of the films in the Avengers Movie Universe in the Top 100 highest grossing films of all time.

But how do these numbers compare with actual profits earned? It doesn't matter how much money a movie brings in if it cost too much to make:

Incredibly, at 1.1 Billion, The Avengers is itself expected to gross more than the combined budget of the entire franchise, turning every dime grossed by the other 5 films into pure profit. This is what Marvel knew all along, and why they were willing to expend so much time, effort, and cash to get The Avengers made. Somebody finally figured out that geeks have money. And their favorite thing to do with said money is spend it on geeky stuff.

In other words, as hard as it may seem to accomplish, if you can pave the way for a quality super-blockbuster like The Avengers, which exists within a consistent movie universe, utilizing the same actors, it will all pay off in the end, because you will have managed to do something no one thought possible. And people will come to see it. Like Apple and Target, Marvel have discovered that the best way to get people to buy your stuff isn't to make it cheap, it's to make it good and exciting.

Sheer box office gross is relatively easily tainted by environmental factors like competing films, a bad economy, and the like. Probably the best indicator of how excited fans are to see a film are the opening weekend results. Considering that every film opens on a different number of screens, though, to get a fair read you need to consider the per theater averages for the opening weekend:

When you compare those numbers to the adjusted-for-inflation, per theater averages of Jurassic Park at $29,138, The Return of the King at $23,186, and kind of amazingly, what was supposedly "the most anticipated movie of all time," Star Wars: Episode 1 at $28,283 (averaging only 60% per theater what The Avengers did), you start to realize the league these movies are in.

But money isn't everything. If they were smarter the studios would understand that in a (geeky) venture like this, it's not so important that each individual film make loads of money. What's important is that the whole series continues to be well-received by the public. As long as they can maintain a relatively high standard for the films in the series, and pave the way for more super-blockbusters like The Avengers, the potential for money to be made off this franchise is almost endless. 

So how do you measure lasting public opinion objectively? Let's look at the (surprisingly unfavorable) results from three major review sites:

It seems the general population doesn't agree with me about the quality of these movies. Maybe, though, this sample is too objective. After all, as I suggested above, it's not really fair to compare Iron Man with The King's Speech. Let's see how they stack up against the same average reception ratings of some other big genre movies:

I happen to think Nevertheless, it is clear these movies rank amongst the best genre films of all time. Even more germane to our purposes is the following chart which breaks down the same information as above by genre franchise:

The Avengers Movie Universe comes in fourth in this list, behind three franchises which I would argue are not "genre" films per se and are perhaps inappropriate comparisons for these Marvel superhero movies. And yet, even if that is not the case, to have created the fourth-best genre film franchise of all time is no mean feat.

All of this is to say that the folks at Disney/Marvel have really accomplished something special with these movies. And there are more to come. If they can maintain a similar level of average quality across the remaining films in this franchise (however many that will end up being), we're looking at a truly revolutionary and historical film-making event. And they're about superheros.

Godspeed Marvel. Godspeed.

What If Warner Bros. Were As Smart As Disney?

In 2013, a Superman reboot entitled Man of Steel is set to be released. It's directed by Zack Snyder of Dawn of the Dead, 300, and Watchmen fame, written by David S. Goyer who helped Christopher Nolan pen the first two installments of his Dark Knight Saga, and produced and "grandfathered" by Christopher Nolan himself. It's also been announced that Nolan and Goyer will cooperate similarly on a Batman reboot to be released in 2015, The Dark Knight Rises being the last in Christopher Nolan's personal Bat-verse.

2011's Green Lantern was...lackluster, to be sure, but Ang Lee's atrocious Hulk and Louis Leterrier's mediocre The Incredible Hulk, didn't stop Marvel. Cleverly, they managed to move forward with the Hulk's story while only half acknowledging the existence of the first film. Warner Brothers could easily do something similar simply by recasting Hal Jordan if they didn't want to risk a pseudo-sequel along the lines of The Incredible Hulk.

Back in 2007, following the release of Superman Returns and Batman Begins, Joss Whedon was attached to direct a Wonder Woman adaptation to match the recently executed reboots of the other two chief Justice League properties. Eventually the project fell through. But, given the astounding success Joss Whedon brought Marvel's The Avengers, I have no doubt that Warner Brothers are looking at that Wonder Woman idea again (with or without Whedon himself), to coincide this time with the re-reboots coming in the next couple of years.

Clearly, Warner Brothers is within striking distance of following in Marvel's footsteps and bringing the Justice League together for the first time on the big screen. More than that, doing so under the oversight of Christopher Nolan.

After Man of Steel and the first film in the rebooted Batman franchise, the next step would be Wonder Woman and, if they attempted to follow in Marvel's Incredible Hulk footsteps, a Green Lantern pseudo-sequel (likely introducing the Sinestro Corps War). This is all the set-up needed for a Justice League film, potentially slated for release in Summer 2016. Justice League would introduce The Flash and Martian Manhunter in similar fashion to how The Avengers treated Black Widow and Hawkeye. The League's first villain would be Lex Luthor, as set up in Man of Steel à la Loki in Thor and The Avengers.

Justice League's success would pave the way for a Superman sequel in which he returns to Metropolis to fight another of his famous villains. Say, Metallo, or a Metallo-Parasite team-up. Brainiac might be the best choice. (Unless he's to be used as the Justice League 2 villain, as you'll see.) The Batman sequel would pit the Caped Crusader against a more serious of his villains than he faced in the first film. Perhaps, And, if they've learned anything from Nolan, the Batman sequel would not introduce Robin. Wonder Woman would probably not get a sequel. If a Green Lantern pseudo-sequel wasn't released before Justice League introducing the Sinestro Corps War, it would be now. The Flash and Martian Manhunter would get their own origin story prequels as well.

Leading to Justice League 2, which would either pick up where the Green Lantern pseudo-sequel left off with the Sinestro Corps War (if they went that route), or, if not, likely introduce Brainiac as the League's first major cosmic villain. This is very similar to what Marvel plans to do with the Avengers. The first film was just the team's origin story. In the sequel they will be forced to take their place on a more cosmic stage, facing off against Thanos. Brainiac is a good DC analogue for such a scheme. Justice League 2 would also introduce Aquaman, prepping him for a solo film of his own, though probably not his origin story.

After Justice League 2, Superman 3 would feature whatever major villain the Man of Tomorrow hasn't faced yet, or the return of Lex Luthor. Probably enough time would have passed in between The Dark Knight and the release of Batman 3 to attempt a post-Heath Ledger Joker. If all went well with Justice League 2, now is when they would start releasing solo films for more minor characters, just like Marvel is now doing for Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Nick Fury. I already mentioned Aquaman. We would likely see a Green Arrow film, also featuring Black Canary and maybe The Atom. There would also need to be a Green Lantern 3 to follow up with the Sinestro Corps War, assuming Justice League 2 didn't already do that. There's room for one more sequel. That would probably be whichever of Wonder Woman, The Flash, or Martian Manhunter made the most money.

Please let me see this movie.

Then follows Justice League 3 (adding Plastic Man, and maybe Hawkman and Hawkgirl, to the mix, though maybe not), in which our heroes would square off against their greatest enemy, Darkseid.

To sum up:

Man of Steel - Summer 2013
Batman (and it will probably be called that) - Summer 2015
Wonder Woman - Christmas 2015
Justice League - Summer 2016
Superman 2 (perhaps Man of Tomorrow) - Christmas 2016
The Flash - Spring 2017
Batman 2 - Summer 2017
Manhunter - Christmas 2017
Green Lantern 2ish - Spring 2018
Justice League 2 - Summer 2018
Aquaman - Christmas 2018
Green Arrow - Spring 2019
Superman 3 (maybe Last Son) - Summer 2019
Green Lantern 3ish - Christmas 2019
Wonder Woman/The Flash/Manhunter 2 - Spring 2020
Batman 3 - Summer 2020
The Atom - Christmas 2020
Justice League 3 - Spring 2021

But none of this will ever happen, because Warner Brothers will never see this post, and will never understand that I'm smarter than any of them. As a friend recently pointed out, if anything, they're most likely to make a Robin spin-off of the Batman reboot. Pathetic. Pull it together guys.

Flaws In Jim Krueger And Alex Ross’ Justice

In Justice, Lex Luthor and Brainiac team up and devise a plan to defeat the Justice League once and for all, by striking at various members simultaneously. A good premise in theory, but the specifics of their plan turn out to be rather uninspired and poorly calculated, leading to a somewhat convoluted and confusing plot. For example, an exploration into the mayhem that would ensue should a villain or group of villains get hold of Batman’s files was executed fantastically in Tower of Babel. It’s use here comes in at a distant second.

The authors betray a fundamental misunderstanding of Batman as a character. For a start, included in the last pages of each volume is a collection of “Bruce Wayne’s Files from the Batcomputer.” It seems pretty basic Batman to know that Bruce Wayne doesn’t have any files in the Batcomputer. Batman has files in the Batcomputer. Bruce Wayne and Batman are two totally distinct characters, partly for security, partly for the effectiveness of Batman as a crime fighter. Bruce Wayne is a man. Batman must be more than a man; he must be a principle, an idea, as made explicit by Ra’s al Ghul in Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins. He must be more than a man because he must be able to make the kinds of decisions men are not able to make. He must avoid Hector’s mistake, remaining objective, distant, free from the lower concerns of family and friends. For example, as evidenced in The Dark Knight and pointed out by Alfred, Batman must be able to concede casualties in the name of the larger goal—establishing Justice and Peace.

Second, in the introduction, Jim Krueger says explicitly that it was one of his goals “to reinforce the friendship between Batman and Superman.” I agree wholeheartedly with Frank Miller on this issue. Batman and Superman would never, never be friends. I admit that, in their later years as they are presented in Justice, Batman and Superman would have found a way to work amiably with one another, but they would not be friends. This is shown cleverly in the three-part cross-over episode of Superman: The Animated Series “World’s Finest.” Luthor and The Joker team up, so Bruce Wayne finds an excuse to visit Metropolis for a couple of weeks. In that time, he and Lois Lane fall for one another, much to the chagrin of Superman, of course. It’s ironic, but true, that Superman (Clark Kent’s true self) and Bruce Wayne (the façade) would definitely be friends, and Clark Kent and Batman might get along, but never in any other combination.

In addition, Hal Jordan is portrayed as an irresponsible, foolhardy jerk. While he certainly exhibits these characteristics in some measure, they do not hit at the heart of who he is. It could also be argued that these traits fell more and more by the wayside as he grew older and wiser. Presented as he is (somewhat middle aged), they should be mostly absent.

Don’t get me wrong, Doug Braithwaite’s pencils and Alex Ross’ painting are inspired. It’s worth buying just for the art. The characterization of many of the primary and especially secondary players (e.g., Captain Marvel) is first rate. Overall, I’d say Justice is thought-provoking and ranks up there with other great Justice League ventures like Tower of Babel, New Frontier, and Identity Crisis, even though it bears imperfections.

Batman Characters As Reflections

One of the things Christopher Nolan has done amazingly well in his Batman Trilogy is to push along Batman's struggle with his identity and mission. This is, after all, the heart of any work of literature, the protagonist's inner struggle to come to terms with himself. As an Epic hero, however, this is not just Batman's struggle, but Gotham's too.

One of the chief ways in which Nolan has accomplished the task of pushing Batman to question himself is to confront him with characters which are mirror images of himself. Let's examine some of them:

Ra's al Ghul - Made Batman who he is. Nevertheless, as Batman himself says, there is something that makes Ra's al Ghul and his League of Shadows vigilantes while Batman remains a legitimate source of order and justice. That is the fact that Ra's al Ghul seeks to impose his own will on the world, his own idea of what's good for it, rather than freeing it up to do the right thing itself, first from the Mafia which had the city by its throat and then fromt he Joker's chaos. As Batman says, he hopes for the day when Gotham will no longer need him. As the opening sequence of The Dark Knight proves, his presence is preventative as well as punitive.

The Scarecrow - Uses fear to conquer his opponents. How is Batman different? The Scarecrow is a weak, calculating wimp who uses a gas to induce fear chemically. Batman is big and strong, and strikes fear into the heart of criminals by his very existence. Remember that in art, exterior attributes are never arbitrary, but illustrative of the interior realities of the characters. What this means here, I think, is that Scarecrow is a snake, a fraud. He uses a fake fear to get his way. Batman on the other hand, has more in common with the fear we should have for God. It is his very being which should be respected and looked upon in awe.

Commissioner Gordon - In one of the comic books that inspired Christopher Nolan, Frank Miller's Batman: Year One, you can almost split the pages up evenly between Batman and Gordon as you alternate perspectives on their parallel roles in the main plot and character development. Nolan has done the same thing in his films, drawing the comparison as often as possible. How they're alike? They are both keepers of the peace and ministers of order. How do they differ? Gordon operates inside the written law. Batman serves a higher law because he believes the lower law of men has failed.

Thomas Wayne - Like his father before him, Bruce Wayne seeks to work toward the good of his city and people. Unlike his father, Bruce got to witness first hand his father's lack of success. In Batman Begins, the Mob has made Gotham so afraid to go out that they won't use the train Bruce's father built for them, having left it to rot and decay from misuse and maltreatment. I think it's significant that the solution to impending disaster is the destruction of the train. Batman has established a new order, one in which such half-measures have been done away with.

Two-Face - Like Two-Face, Batman must play host to two personalities, one forever challenging the other for supremacy. Unlike Two-Face, Batman's decisions about who he wants to be (not to mention his decisions in general) are purely his own, settled on after thought and deliberation rather than the flip of a coin.

The Joker - "You're just a freak, like me." "You complete me." Notice how in the last Joker scene in The Dark Knight, Batman has him strung upside down. They are set in opposition to one another during their conversation. Yet, as it progresses, Nolan rotates the camera on the Joker so that he is upside-down from Batman's perspective, but cutting back and forth between the two of them, they appear to us as if they're both upright. It's a masterful visualization of how the two characters are a mirror for one another and also polar opposites.

The Catwoman - Of course we can't be exactly sure what Nolan's going to do with Catwoman, but we can at least say that she will mimic Batman's wits and cunning. The struggle with Catwoman is always her skewed intentions, viz., her own good rather than that of her city. She also threatens to seduce Batman into involvement in romantic affairs, which he must be bigger than.

Bane - Bane is Batman's equal in every way. In the comics he was even runner up as Ra's al Ghul's apprentice in the League of Shadows. He uses a substance called Venom to artificially elevate his strength in order to have an edge over Batman. In the recent trailer, Bane is shown in perfect parallel to Batman, only stronger. He is shown doing push ups to train in a prison, just like we saw Batman do. He is shown climbing out of a deep well, where Batman had to be lifted out by his father. Bane has the potential to be a hero, but hes eeks his own honor and glory, not the good of his polis and people.

The Dark Knight Rises Teaser Analysis or The Three Stages Of Epic Literature

I just don't know if enough has been made of the Dark Knight Rises teaser trailer which debuted before Harry Potter a few weeks ago. Maybe it helps that I saw it that very night on a digital screen in a theater with mind-blowing sound. I flipped the eff out. I think that was a warranted reaction, though.

I just came across a fantastic shot-by-shot breakdown of the amazingness that is this teaser, so you should read that, and I'll just add some stuff.

First of all, the author does a fantastic job of drawing the visual parallel between Batman and Gotham City as presented in the trailer. Batman is an Epic hero, like Achilles or Odysseus before him. Or Jesus for that matter. In Nolan's Bat-verse he follows the same pattern they all do point-for-point. The author of the article relates Nolan's Batman to Joseph Campbell's "hero's journey," which is entirely valid. The majority of what Campbell did in comparative mythology is good and true.

At any rate, an Epic hero is always defined by his polis, the city from which he hails, for which he fights, and to which he hopes to return as king (if he's not already). For Odysseus it was Ithaca, for Aeneas it was Rome, for Christ it's the New Jerusalem. Not only is the hero defined by his polis and vice-versa, however, their fates are so completely intertwined that one could almost say the hero is the city, or at least an extension of it. Likewise with Batman and Gotham City.

As we hear Ra's al Ghul repeat from Batman Begins, a hero must be "more than a man." He must "devote himself to an ideal." A hero is not a man; he is a principle. As Alfred points out in The Dark Knight, he cannot be bound by the concerns of ordinary men. This was Hector's mistake in The Iliad, putting family and clan before duty, honor, justice, and his polis.

Much of the teaser consists of Gotham buildings in the process of crumbling. This is because Batman too is crumbling. He is Gotham's savior and champion. If he falls, all Gotham falls. Throughout the trailer Batman himself is portrayed as weak and ready to break.

(Interestingly, Batman and Commissioner Gordon can also be identified with one another. Their journeys parallel each other perfectly, as they do almost page-for-page in Nolan's inspiration Batman: Year One. As Gordon says in the teaser, they "were in this together." With Batman and Gotham hurting, it only makes sense that Gordon would end up in a hospital bed too.)

The Epic hero's journey can be divided into three stages: The Battle, The Journey (in which the hero descends to the Underworld), and the Homecoming, at which point he (re)founds his city and establishes the peace for which he fought. These three stages mirror the Tragic and Comedic stages, Infernal (Hell), Purgatorial (Purgatory), and Paradisal (Heaven). It is in Batman Begins that Batman must fight for his very right to exist. He struggles against all reason to accomplish his goal: to establish himself as an effective source of justice and order in Gotham. By the end of the first film he has successfully done this and won a small victory.

In The Dark Knight, Batman descends into the Underworld of the Joker's chaos, as does all of Gotham with him (even its favorite son Harvey Dent). Batman must wade through the Joker's madness before peace can be reign. Like the journeys of Odysseus and Aeneas, Batman's is a journey of purgatorial suffering, a journey through the valley of the shadow of death. Fittingly, Gotham will be couched in the cold death of winter for portions of The Dark Knight Rises.

Batman and Gotham have not yet emerged from this valley into which the Joker cast them. The Joker made Gotham question the validity of Batman's role as King, to the point that Batman himself questioned it. Something we know he continues to do into The Dark Knight Rises from his conversation with Gordon.

Bane is here to kick Batman, Gotham City, and Commissioner Gordon while they're down. The Joker has left them tired and weak, and Bane wants to take advantage of the situation and usurp Batman's throne, exactly as he seeks to do in the comic books. It would not be insignificant or misguided to compare Bane to the suitors which attempt to usurp Odysseys' throne in his absence. I guarantee that the climax of The Dark Knight Rises will be Batman returning to his great hall to cleanse it of Bane's evil.

By the way, it should be clear that the perfect title for this last installment would have been Gotham City, as this is when Batman must "rise up" and defeat the evil outside and within once and for all, inaugurating an (as far as we know everlasting) era of peace and order in his kingdom. Understandably, though, they wanted to reference their previous blockbuster explicitly and went with the second-best choice.