yeah, AA, "Bat-Man" had a gun in only the first few issues before the censors at "Detective Comics" snuffed that element out

after WW2, the religious types in the US thought that comic books were "evil" and the Comics Code Authority was established and forced Batman to not only never kill anyone but the whole mood of the series got a "make-over" into a version best remembered as the '60's TV show and movie with Adam West and Batman was no longer considered a vigalante but a respected crime-fighter

this changed (slightly) however when Frank Miller penned the short serial "The Dark Knight Returns" which had a decidely darker treatment than the TV series and reignited interest in the character to the point that Warner Bros. decided to make a film after the project to do so had languished for many years in development hell

and the rest is history...

Yes, yes, Hal; there were like a few issues in the first year or two when he had a gun, but even the writers themselves realized this was out of character and stopped doing it on their own (the comics code didn't force them they stopped before that)

Interesting, I didn't know that bit of trivia. Batman had a gun?

Oh, and the TV show with Adam West in it was hilarious! I watched a 90s rerun when I was six or seven, and I loved it! POW! THUMP! BAM! It was quite a classic.

very briefly; in the same sense that once he had a moon-rocket. The 30's they were really figuring out comics.

The same way that Superman was once meant to be a bad guy but was changed over to a good guy because they realized that no one would like a near-invincible bad guy?

Naturally, Batman is a far more interesting character than Superman, and a far darker one.

sort of; really he only briefly had a gun in like the first year of the comic before they realized it just didn't make sense


***********seriously, most people only read D.C. Comics for the Batman stuff (or Batman-related stuff, Teen Titans comes to mind)

But I mean "Superman"? Too childish. Never got into that.

***I was deeply upset at "Superman Returns" because it resulted in us getting 2 bad movies: Superman Returns, and because Bryan Singer left X-Men to do it, we got a mediocre X-Men 3.

um....there's this "I'm a Marvel, and I"m a D.C." video on youtube that elaborates on this better than I could: its Spiderman and Superman arguing about "Superman Returns" vs the Spidey movies.

Basically, Spidey points out all of my criticisms of Superman Returns: it was obviously a "fanwank" of sorts...that is...no....its the people that made it were giant Superman fans who made the film almost as masturbation, acting out how geeky fans they are of the 70's superman, as opposed to actually trying to make a film people would want to watch.

So...the movie was a sequel/pseudo-remake to Superman I and II, ignoring the later bad sequels while pretending to still be the same continuity. Okay, there's no problem with ignoring bad sequels to be honest, but>>>>its that it was basically a pseudo-remake of the original Superman film, made by uber-fans of it, and the entire film was FILLED with little in-jokes and references that you'd only get if you saw Superman I and II. That's years before I was even born! And they just RE-USED Lex Luthor as a villain.

So the two arguing action figures in the video, Superman says "well it educates the audience on required pop culture knowledge"....while Spidey then says "uh....Marvel movies like X-Men and Spiderman are geared towards being **accessible to knewcomers, and old fans, alike"


So a running joke in these "I'm a Marvel/and I'm a DC" joke videos is that people only really read DC for Batman, or its their only successful title, and the rest are total failures.

Yeah...and while it did fairly well at the box office this was due to people getting duped into watching "a new superman film". Do you see Superman permeating pop culture again? No. Batman does. So ***hurray, they originally planned to make a sequel to Superman Returns, but now they're really going "why bother?" :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av6fWfmugds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvFjo5TTY6c&feature=related

But YES, Batman is great. Because his villains aren't just "wow, I'm a giant robot"......they're all Psychological and mirrors/dichotomies for Batman.

This Joker was the most true to the MODERN comics I've ever seen:

He's this living embodiment of Chaos, the yang to the yin of Batman's belief in Order and Justice. I mean....even to the point that Joker's comments kind of make half sense about how "I'm just a mad dog, chasing a car, I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. I just do things"....that is, it was the MOB, the mafia bosses, who plan all of the crime in the city and such. They've got plans. Joker has no plans, he has no goals; he destroys all "Order" be it the police or ultimately the mob. He's madness.

The Joker isn't scary in this (or the comics) because he does wacky sadistic things; he's scary because what he does is an attack, a philosophical attack, on everything Batman believes in. The idea that in a evil and unjust world we can try to establish order and act civilized.

Also, I like the dichotomy that Batman uses all of these high-tech gadgets to fight crime (alright he uses his wits a lot too) : Ledger's Joker isn't the Jack Nicholson one who uses all sorts of flashy high-tech villain gadgets. Its like in that speech he gave about being "a man of simple tastes": he uses dynamite, gunpowder, and gasoline. I mean there's that line he says to Batman near the end of "look how much closer I've brought this city to Chaos....and with nothing more than some well placed gasoline and bullets". He just uses "off the shelf" technology, as opposed to Batman. And that's what's more scary: he didn't do anything beyond the reach of a present-day mobster. Even Batman's technology is like 5-10 years from now with proper R&D; Joker does stuff ANYONE could do right now; this makes him more scary.

The same way that Superman was once meant to be a bad guy but was changed over to a good guy because they realized that no one would like a near-invincible bad guy?

I didnt know this, if he was the badguy, who was the hero of the story?

okay, i finally saw it. and indeed, twas fuckwin.

seriously, best superhero/action-film i've seen in a while. the whole attitude of the movie was near-flawless.

Defectron wrote:I didnt know this, if he was the badguy, who was the hero of the story?

The bad guys? :P

Saw Batman yesterday. It was like a klondike bar, crunchy, action packed fight scenes sandwiching the creamy mind games that made up the middle of the movie.

LOVING it!! They should carry on with these....make a third one!!

What wait.. you talking about the wanime or the live action movie with clonazepam-suicided Heath guy?

This is about the film with the late Heath Ledger as the Joker and his kick ass pencil trick.

"TA DA!"

In other news, I'm hoping to see this with my stepsister the next time she visits.

It was awesome. It also infuriated me, because we will never see Ledger as The Joker again. He's probably the best on-screen Joker there has been, but Mark Hamill's joker had a better laugh. Harvey was also really good.

Zkh wrote:It was awesome. It also infuriated me, because we will never see Ledger as The Joker again. He's probably the best on-screen Joker there has been, but Mark Hamill's joker had a better laugh. Harvey was also really good.

oh the laugh thing: I personally liked it; but the thing Ledger explained was that Jack Nicholson's Joker-laugh was so good, almost too-good, that it became iconic. And he was trying to distance himself from everything that came before and be his own new take on it; so he said he intentionally tried to come up with a new, very good and scary joker-laugh, which at the same time didn't sound like Nicholson. I mean the problem is Nicholson got it 90% "perfect" the first time; so how to you try to avoid sounding too similar to what was really good the first time?

Nonetheless I really liked the joker laugh Ledger made up.

I watched it with some of my friends on IMAX, and it was...um, all I need to do is to quote teh awesome MICHEAL CAAANE!

MICHEAL CAAANE! wrote:If Heath doesn't get that Oscar I'd like to see the performance that does.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:kick ass pencil trick.

QFMFAKSRT!!!!!1111oneoneoneoen

quoted for the motherfucking ass kicking Shinji raping truth

I ate up all of the Joker's stories about how he got his scars. I got angry at my friend when he commented on the Joker's second story (cut his face to make his WAIFU feel better）:

friend wrote:It [the movie?] was so stupid; so now they're [the directors?] are trying to say that the ugly facial scars are pretty?! That's bullshit!

I didn't think that was the point, but at least I got my money from him

I think if the series ended here, it would've been fitting, but I hear Christopher Nolan is interested in introducing The Riddler in the possible next movie...

What I really liked about The Dark Knight is its depthness in most of the characters. Not impressively developing characters like, say, NGE, but they had 2 and a half hours and that is a short amount of time, Unless you want something like Lawrence of Arabia in length. The Joker actually seemed logical in his reasoning that chaos is ever-present, and that order is temporary. I've believed in something like this for a loong time, but the Joker really broke the camel's back and gave me confidance in my conclusion. Maybe I'm a little distorted, maybe not. But I do see some truth in Heath Ledger's Legendary Joker. And the laugh didn't have to be perfect

Legendary Joker wrote:It's about sending a message

This movie also genuinely scared me, and that is a milestone for me. I haven't felt scared for a while. I sympathized with the character in The Grudge that caused the deaths, so I didn't really have many nightmares...but something about the Joker's voice...Mr. Ledger hit exactly on the spot, and his complete lack of empathy and fear of death interest and inspire me, respectively. Leaving the theater I had a strong urge to find out this Joker's origins, but I understood that this time perhaps I shouldn't, because Joker would probably lose his affect.

Great job, all good things must end, and I will be looking foreward to add The Dark Knight to my DVD collection.

Just a question, are they planning a third one or is this it?
And if they do plan one, is it all the same people working on it? As long as they continue using all the people for this movie, think it'll be good....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tex5z9ztnQ&feature=related

reagen wrote:Just a question, are they planning a third one or is this it?
And if they do plan one, is it all the same people working on it? As long as they continue using all the people for this movie, think it'll be good....

nothing has been confirmed, but there is a wheels-off rumor that either Rupert Thorne, Penguin or the Riddler would be played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Filliam H. Muffman?!