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Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White Jo and me once again as mister Chris Stashue.
You're worship be born in the dark. I was brendident. I can't do brack from space Ghost coast to coast very well.
Unfortunately, couldn't even do that line very well.
Actually, well neither could Tom Hardy.
Yeah, I was about to say, what was that one term where it's like I was going off of my remembrance of the movie.
Oh okay. Also back in the booth is mister Spencer Parsons.
I'm a big believer that all aren't aspires to the condition of Batman.
This week we are looking at Christopher Nolan's third film and his Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, released in twenty twelve. The film stars Christian Bale as the titular Dark Knight. Here he goes back to fighting the League of Shadows in the former of Razah Ghul's daughter and her Minion Baine played by Tom Hardy, on the streets of Gotham here recast as New York. We will be
spoiling this film as we go along. So if you haven't seen The Dark Knight Rises, which I know at some point I'm gonna slip up and call The Dark Knight Returns or the other two in Nolan's trilogy, go ahead and turn off the podcast. Come back after you've seen them. Really, if you just want to watch the first movie. Not even if you want to watch a second movie and then come back, you really don't need to see the third movie. I'm just gonna assume that
all three of us saw this theatrically, but will verify. So, Chris, when was the first time you saw The Dark Knight Rises? And what did you think?
I saw The Dark Knight Rises July twentieth, twenty twelve in theaters. Like I assume everybody did The Dark Knight For me, I guess the original one, but the film before this one, So the film that preceded this one. But I think the one that most people remember is a movie that made a lot of interesting choices that I think a lot of people really resonated with. Heath Ledger as the Joker obviously is a big one. Christopher Nolan's kind of take on Batman in that movie is
also a very interesting take on Batman. Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent. I'm not sure Aaron Eckhart has been as good in anything as he was in that movie. And thank you for smoking and in terms of visibility for most people, I think that's the biggest thing Aaron Eckhart was ever in is The Dark Knight For most people.
Enough cannot be said about Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, so that movie it hits on all cylinders, and it is a movie that I think, as much as I'm maybe not a fan of Nolan's take on Batman, that movie, I think, of the three is the one that has the most interesting things to say about the character of Batman. All of that to say, I watched this movie in theaters and I think, like pretty much everybody else who
saw it, was pretty disappointed. I did not resonate or vibe with this movie the way I resonated with the last film. I think, like I clearly already alluded to, I enjoyed the Last film when it came out, and I'm not anymore the biggest fan of it, having watched it subsequent times. It's just not my cup of tea anymore. But The Dark Knight Rises is really not my cup of tea. There are parts of it that I appreciate now having rewatched it for your show and having rewatched
it probably two times since it came out. It's not something that I go out of my way to watch. I've definitely seen The Dark Knight more, but when I watched it in theaters, I think that the overall sentiment from everybody who saw it was we waited.
Four years for this, and Spencer, how about yourself?
I would echo a lot of what Chris said, but I would add I was there opening night for it, and my laughter was loud enough that I was angrily shushed repeatedly while watching from barely not even five minutes in. As soon as that awful, I'll go ahead and just say that it's awful. The plane sequence at the beginning, it's not a good action sequence.
It sucks. From very early in the movie.
I was laughing and could not stop because the movie was visible. So as to be as fair as possible to the movie and to be properly armed to talk about it. I've now watched it two more times, and there are movies I genuinely like that I haven't seen three times. This is an interesting experience. I will say I still think it's as bad, but I appreciate it.
More than I did at the time.
I think, having rewatched all three of Nolan's Batman movies, I do believe that they are all three of them fairly precient in terms of spotting trends, vibes, things in the air that have manifested more clearly since with this particular film. At the time, just because of the accident of when it was released, it was around the time of occupy, so a lot of people connected occupy with the takeover of the stock market in it, which at the time, Yeah, obviously a lot of us had thoughts
about the stock market. I didn't think was actually a very useful or interesting connection. This time, I wouldn't say that connection got more useful, but thinking about where things have gone and the world of disruptors that have taken over our economy, you know, I didn't see Bane as any kind of legitimate occupy force. That didn't strike me as a very good analogy then and it doesn't now.
But I do think that there's something about the Silicon Valley crowd that controls our economy and also will use for all their anti woke kind of statements, they will also use a lot of social justice language to talk a populist game about how AI can make the world more democratic and stop all the gatekeeping and that kind of a thing. And so this time Bain came across as a little bit more interesting allegory, if not actually a.
Better character or a better performance, or.
A more purposeful villain within this particular film. All that to say more appreciation. Actually glad that I watched again. I think these are all interesting historical objects, including Dark Knight rises, but I wouldn't say that appreciation is the same thing as liking the film anymore.
I also saw this first weekend it was out. I loved the Dark Knight, really appreciated what they were doing with Heath Ledger's character, the Joker. I really appreciated that he was such a mysterious force and just a force of pure chaos. I loved the whole thing, how he kept changing his own backstory with the story about the scars.
I loved the whole idea of him wearing that custom made clothing, no labels, no fingerprints on any sort of files, no DNA on any files, just completely a man without a past showing up to cause havoc and doing it in just a glorious way, and just his performance is riveting. Meanwhile, with Bain, I was so glad that this is a different type of Bane than I had seen in one of the previous Batman movies. We must not forget that Bay and that was a I think he was part of Poison Ivy's group.
He's in Batman and Robin.
It was Batman and Robin where he was part of kind of Poison Ivy's crew of people. But mind you never had a single line in the film, which not necessarily canonically comic book Bain talks plenty in the comic books. Actually, Bain talks all the time, kind of like here right in terms of the way this character is handled as much more akin with more contemporary Scott Capulo type reimaginings of the character, where he's as smart as Batman, but he's also buff jacked and he's on In the comic books,
now it's he's on the venom. I don't even think they say what it is here. I think it's just he's on the he's on the Dennis Hopper blue velvet gas as far as we know, like, they don't really ever go into detail, thankfully, to be fair, Chris Olins movies are not really interested in some of that stuff anyways. Frankly, they run away from it at full tilt, kind of like those Daniel Craig James Bond movies. That's what these feel like.
If anything, I would really like to have known more about Bain, since they are not trying to make his past a secret, and they give a little bit. I mean, they kind of give his origin story. Though Batman here is dumb. He's really pretty dumb in this and the way that he just assumes things like as soon as they talk about a prisoner escaping from this crazy prison with no guards and very easily escapable, but we'll talk about that more later. As soon as they talk about that,
he's just like Baine, Oh yeah, yeah, that's Baine. That's gotta be Baane.
Yeah.
I mean he just says the word Bane. He's not giving all of the stuff that I'm doing, but he's just like, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I got everything solved.
Now.
It's like, no, you dumbass, you don't have it solved. And why do you just assume that it was Bane that escaped from this prison? Anyway? What's his story? I love his outfit, I love his look. I love that he's got this what is it like an Australian jacket, but it's styled more in the French Revolution. To bring to mind the whole idea of a tale of two cities and I was watching this film. I was literally offended by this film. I don't think that it was
too close to the Occupy Wall Street movement. As soon as they took over the stock market, I was like, Oh, okay, so we're talking about Occupy Wall Street. All right, I got this. And I just kept thinking to myself, this is the writer saying, look at this, liberals, this is what you want. You want mass chaos, You want a band. You need a band to come in and take over for you because you're so weak in an effectual Well,
this is what happens. And the whole idea of Catwoman later on, when she's in someone's house, this rich house and her girlfriend question Mark, which also seemed kind of weird because it seems like she swings both ways in this and it seems like she's being punished for going
both ways. It feels like this movie one of the trajectories of this is to basically heterosexualize Catwoman in this And once you give up this whole idea of being bisexual and get rid of Jen and go with Bruce Wayne, then your life will be much better and you can start over again. But until you give up this crazy notion of lesbianism or bisexuality. You are stuck in this world. This whole idea of her and Jen living in this
very posh place after the takeover. It so reminded me of a movie that we talked about together, all my good countrymen, and this whole idea of like the communists taking over and like being Okay, yeah, here you go, here's all this nice stuff. We're going to move you out of here, person that actually owns this house and move in somebody who is more quote unquote deserving of this. So yeah, I was offended then, and I'm even more offended now as time has gone on, and especially as
I've read more about the Tale of Two Cities. I tried my best to listen to that book, but it's a lot, and it's like fourteen hours worth of book, and it was just too much for me to handle at this moment. So I did watch the Thug Notes version of it, and thank God for Thug Notes. I love that guy.
Yeah.
Seventeen seventy five and Lucy Manee been thinking of pot Doc Manee been dead for a long ass time, but one day where come that he actually been on lockdown in Paris for the past eighteen damn years.
Taylor of Two Cities is actually short for Dickens, as I recall, I do remember that one. I haven't read it in years and years, but I remember it fondly from reading in high school. It was one of the ones that did work for me and really stuck with me. I thought, I is going to come in breathing the most fire about this movie because I really hate it.
I think we're all pretty much on the same kind of page.
I guess one thing that I would want to add to this, and this doesn't actually take away from my enjoyment of Batman Begins and The Dark Night, but both of those movies are pretty conservative in their worldview. This is the main kind of justice argument of those first two movies is pining for a better class of billionaires. That's what's really going to make the world better. And the sort of origin of Batman, which I caught this time in a different way from when I had seen
them before. I do think that it's really striking that this is an extremely British class system coded version of Batman. The mansion is very obviously like a Dalton Abbey style kind of thing, and that's not completely foreign from the Bruce Wayne thing, but the origin story that Nolan really filled in some gaps on this version sends Bruce Wayne to be trained, educated in far flowng dark parts of
the world to bring that knowledge back. It's a very a nobility engaged in colonialism to gain the best knowledge so that they can be the best people in charge. And that really is very much how Batman as a figure. Batman throughout all his superpower always is money, but very particularly and I think this is smart about these movies is that, like Nolan is onto the class relationships as class relationships, not just oh, the fantasy if he has a lot of money so he can buy all this stuff.
But this also comes along with a view of the of how the world is to be run by a kind of hatriarchal nobility. Of course, then the very idea of occupy or something like it, or of any kind of a left populist uprising is going to be seen as bad news within that kind of worldview. I'm actually willing to take that on its own terms, and those terms are better represented by Catwoman for a brief period of the movie, even as a wrongheaded, villainous kind of
response to class issues. She is a figure who genuinely is of the people. She is coming from the low background, and interestingly, the move over these three films in terms of crime and how it's represented. The first few movies really focus on how gangsters coded as being the underclass coming up into at least a moneyed upper class and
fighting with the billionaires and the police. Over the course of these couple of movies, the gangsters are representing the lower and working classes in a cultural class system or caste system kind of way. They get lots of money, but they have of course, they're lower class people who have come into that much money through crime, through perfidious behavior.
In this third one, it's really interesting to introduce Catwoman because in the previous to its organized crime, she is disorganized crime.
She is the wildcat.
She is the individual from a lower class who is making her way up and is presented in a much more sympathetic light than any of the gangsters in the first couple, and we get a kind of quasi romance getting going. The real problem here is bane within the story. It's not a particularly great Tom Hardy performance. It's limited. As you mentioned, he looks great. The design is great. The mask looks awesome. The way that Tom Hardy walks
and stalks through the movie is actually riveting. But there's just a lot of tools taken away from him as an actor. All we get front for his face is eyes, and the role is not very well written.
And in addition to that, the.
Voice that he has throughout the movie is pretty poorly altered in post I would say there are a lot of tricks, especially talking through a mask, that you could do to take all that adr and make it sound more like it's within the space with everybody else.
It's like they did a better job of adr.
Ing the villain in Madam Webb than they did in this movie, with much more talented people involved in making it happen. But Bain doesn't really he doesn't really track, He doesn't really make sense with this world. And one of the things that's really striking to me and riffing off of what's to you about it, and it's also offensive to me, there's so much talk about the city and the people of the city and they're not represented
at all. Christopher Nolan can't imagine the people of the city, even within a plot that provides opportunities that we could have characters who more represent the people of the city. Catwoman on the straddling the line, but basically it's all superheroes and billionaires or super villain's superheroes and billionaires.
That famous scene of being addressing people and talking about I give it back to you the people. I kept saying, who the fuck is he talking to? Because I rewatched that scene several times and there's like a line of reporters across the street, And first off, he's not using any sort of microphone or anything. I'm just like, how do they even hear him?
They can hear him because the adr is magic.
It makes his voice more present in every situation than it should be.
Well, do you guys remember the teaser trailer where no one could understand a word he was saying, and the whole like everybody everywhere online was just like, what the hell is going on? We can't hear a freakin word this guy said. And so they like went the other way and just were like, Yeah, we're gonna clean this up and we're going to place this. I mean, it's
like Arnest Schwarzenegger's Hercules type of dub over it. Even with that, where's your kind of muffle for a shutter storing and it's like, okay, great, who are you?
It doesn't matter who we are.
What matters is our plan.
No one cared who was put on the mask.
No one cared who I was, and I put on the mobs.
If I pull that off, will you die?
It would be extremely thankful.
You're a big guy for you.
If I pull that off, will you die?
It would be extremely painful. You're a big guy for you.
Getting caught part of your plan was getting caught part of your plan.
Of course, when I watch Batman begins, I was just like, he's basically joining al Qaeda, like the League of Shadows is basically he's being radicalized. He's over in another country. He's basically that guy who left the US and went over to Afghanistan and joined al Qaeda, you know.
And it's like, right, American Taliban, Yeah.
American Taliban is just like what the hell? Like, he learns all their skills and then he breaks with them at the very end, and then he decides he's going to do battle with them, and then he comes back over to the United States and he's like, oh, you know, I'm gonna do this whole thing. I'm going to become Batman, and he relies on all of Wayne Enterprise's secret military contracts because poor Lucius Fox is like stuck someplace and they're like, oh, you're not even on the books anymore,
like he is. It's the darkest of dark ops that you could possibly have, and he's using all of this military grade equipment in order to take care of quote unquote take care of the criminals of Gotham. And it's so much like And I know that Ferguson was twenty fourteen, this is still twenty twelve, but it so reminds me of the beginnings of the talks of the militarization of police.
Here we are in twenty twenty five as we're recording this with fucking National Guard out on the streets, you know, doing god knows what in fucking ice go our own homegrown ss out on the streets. It's like, okay, yeah, this say is so prescient around that stuff as well.
I mean, there was a great article that I read and this author was quoting another author who said Wayne Slash Batman is nothing more than a neoliberal tyrant, a faux philanthropist only too happy to redeem the military contracts taken on by Wayne Enterprises by righteously using various weapons technologies to protect quote unquote Gotham's imperiled citizenry. To illustrate that the point Toe toh is, the author of the original quote, points to the film's fetishistic investment in Batman's
militarized tech. I gotta get me one of those grin's and awestruck Sergeant Gordon Gary Oldman after witnessing Batman's humv esque vehicle and action. I mean, this is totally the militarization of the police, or in this case, militarization of a vigil lante.
Contrast that argument two thousand and let's say eight right, Dark Knight, with the other film that came out that year, Iron Man, which is exactly the same thing. And yet I wouldn't think anyone would be making that kind of statement against Iron Man as a film because of the way the character holds himself in the movie. Because Robert Downey Junior as iron Man and as that character as Tony Stark, you understand that he understands, at least in
the first movie. Now you make the case by the time age of Ultron rolls around, and we essentially have what we're talking about, what happens in the dark night with the cameras, the kind of big brother camera eye in the sky. Now there is a little bit.
Of that I want a suit of armor around this world.
That's essentially what Tony Stark talks about in Age of Ultron. But it doesn't seem so unpalatable when it's Robert Downey Junior, because they think Robert Downey junr As Tony Stark the character versus Bruce Wayne, the character. Tony Stark is a lot more aware of the ramifications of what he's doing in the greater world, at least in that first Iron Man movie, again only commenting on the movie that comes out in two thousand and eight. Bruce Wayne is not
like that at all in that two thousand and eight Batman. Subsequently, in this film, by the end of this film, he's been knocked down all the way back down to nothing, and he comes back with a literal jet that he's flying around in like we have the ultimate militarization of Batman by the end of this movie. Having a car is one thing, and we know Batman has a batwing, so it's not like this is a thing that we don't know about, or that's some sort of new creation
not in the comic books. But this version of it is really I wouldn't say it's unpalatable, but just it's not what has aged well in a time where this is now just the way things are. And I'm not sure seeing Batman coppaganda really feels great. It didn't feel great at the time, I'm sure, but it was more of a we're getting there, not we're there now, and this is just a reinforcement of that kind of over and over.
I was thinking of Iron Man while I was watching The Dark Night when there's that moment of Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent and he says, I'm the Batman, and I'm just thinking like, okay, you know, because that movie's all about fake outs and stuff, and there's the ultimate fake out at the end when they say, oh, Harvey's at this address, and Maggie Joeen Hall's at this other address, Rachel is at this other address, and then they purposefully say that one's going to one place and the other's
going to the other. But then they lie to us. And I don't know why the film has to lie to this. I've watched that scene many times. I'm just like, wait, he says he's going to take care of Rachel and sending Jim over to take care of of Harvey. So why do they switch? Like there's anyway, small potatoes.
He knew who he would choose, so Poker is just double blinding him. Yeah.
I read that as the Joker wanting to hurt him more in that way that the Joker is lying in order to give that extra pain. And also in a way what Batman is doing at that moment is personally oriented rather than civically oriented. It's a punishment for him
to give into the personal over the civic. But all this can sound like beating up on all three of the movies, and I think there's good reason too, if you really like ideologically this stuff is it does not represent all the ways that I believe or ideally see stories that said I'm enough of an adult to like look at this and go, Okay, this is a really interesting potent myth delivered on the first two movies twice in ways that I don't necessarily agree with, but that
I find entertaining interesting and also is articulating a politics that is very real, and that needs to be acknowledged. That the neoliberal take on how to solve our problems, how to solve crime using crime as a proxy for politics more generally in these films.
That's a purpose of storytelling, that's a purpose of movies.
And I can appreciate this stuff well disagreeing, but the third one, it's incoherent. And to go back to this business of Bain making that speech about I'm gonna return Gotham to the I'm not gonna try to imitate him.
We take Gotham from the corrupt, the oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you, the people. Gotham is nors, none shall into Finn do as you please.
It's not even a lie, it's not even an interesting lie. It's an incoherent grabbed out of the sky, a bit of animus against against a kind of populist movement, because there's really there's nothing about Baine that represents such a point of view. Yeah, he comes from low origins, but
the low origins are also fantastical. This like the deepest, darkest prison in the far away place, which then somehow is what just outside of town in the third act where Bruce Wayne is stuck there and then once he climbs out, he's able to get back into Gotham like really quickly. But that last season, in the last couple of seasons of Game of Thrones, where people are getting across the world really fast and time doesn't make sense
anymore after a certain point. But what bugs me is that it's incoherent, and it's incoherent in a context where
the first act really sets us up. Bain's appearance is notwithstanding, really sets us up for something that could be an interesting battle between the neoliberal and the populist if we were just focused on Batman and Catwoman, and even more than that, really interesting to sexualize that kind of relationship, or at least romanticize it, have the two of them in battle when they've got a kind of romance going on.
And why can't Catwoman be the big bad of this movie?
Why can't Catwoman rate the stock market on, behalf of the people the people?
Why can't she do those things?
Because Christopher Nolan can't imagine an ordinary person like within these stories, He cannot imagine an ordinary person who could become a genuine threat to the status quo.
You can't even imagine a genuine person being involved in this story to begin with. Look at Joseph Gordon Levitt, who I don't really comprehend his involvement in this movie other than they were like what they were doing the whole Benedict Cumberbatch is totally not gone of this movie, and they knew there was never anything like that was ever going to happen. And it just seems so strange
to me. And it's and again, like Chris Nolan, I just don't Chris Nolan works best when the pieces are big, and the stage is big, and the moves are broad, and he's making big, broad choices. Look, he is no different than someone whose foot is permanently now apparently in his mouth, Quentin Tarantino. He works best when the choices are big, the pieces are big, the stage is big,
and he's the one moving the pieces around. And you know what, there's something to be said for a director who knows that and is that way, because not everybody is wants to be or can be. And just because these guys are doesn't mean I'm I bemoan that or pooh that or look down on that. But that also means the decisions that they make are so specifically their own that I sometimes just go probably made sense to you,
but I'm not sure it makes sense to me. And that's again subjectivity versus objectivity perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned, as long as you can explain away why you've made the choice.
First off, Catwoman can't be the big bad of this movie because the Nolan brothers and Goyer cannot write female characters as we see by her as well as Talia al Ghoul Like, they just can't do it. Second off, I want to go back to Iron Man real quick, because Iron Man at the beginning of the movie is at that whole like, well, that's how Dad did it, you know, Like he's so beholden to his father, and he's so beholden to his father's legacy and all these things,
and he is hoisted on his own Patard. I mean, he's blown up by something from Stark Industries. And I can't say he has a change of heart because he basically has no heart at the end of the movie. It's all like replaced by mechanics. But he has a change of heart and wants to go back and he wants to get his burger King cheeseburger. Nice product placement there, and then says, okay, Obadiah, I need to tear down the walls of this whole place. We are not doing
this whole weapons thing anymore. And Batman doesn't have that change of heart. There is no, he's not very much much a dynamic character. He basically makes that idea to change very early on, and Batman begins and then just kind of stays the same character for the rest of it. And when it comes to even like his redemption arc in this film where he gets literally broken by Bain
and gets thrown into that prison. Yeah, half a world away, and then comes back half a world again, like I don't know why Bain has to take him back to that prison, make sure that the prison has closed circuit television so he can watch what's going on in Gotham at all times, gets this spine realigned by Tom Conti, and then easily climbs out again. It's like all right, anyway, when he comes back, he doesn't have a new plan.
He just punches Baine harder. There's not any sort of like, well, I'm going to do this thing in order to weaken Baine or do anything. Basically, it's I'm going to punch Baine in the face as hard as I can. I'm going to break that mask. That's his plan. That's his wonderful plan that he has. And I don't understand Talia al Ghoul's plan either, because, first off, I don't know if it's a neutron bomb or a nuclear bomb, because I swear they say both, and there's a big difference
between those two. Either way, everybody's dying, including the people that are driving around with this fucking bomb, including you know, having Talia al Ghoul and Bane on the same island and we have I can't say it's a ticking clock because it seems to speed up towards the end. You're talking about how time has no meaning in this. It's like, okay, it's going to this bomb is going to detonate in
approximately five months. We cut ahead. I don't know how quickly they do that, but they're like, okay, now it's twenty three days. Now, it's a day. Now, it's five hours, now, it's ten minutes. And I'm just like, what the fuck is going on with this thing? Like what is this weird ticking clock that you have? And why do you want this bomb to go off while you're on this island? You have no escape plan, Talia, You're gonna go up with this thing, But.
Her reasoning doesn't oh because this was Raza Gul's plan at some earlier point, and which makes its own sort of sense. In Batman begins, We're gonna do this again, but there's no better reasoning behind it than my dad meant to take out this city. Bain's populist talk is just talk for a period of the movie, while they then do this strange thing of kicking the rich people out of their houses and catwomen can take over one.
These elements don't cohere, they don't make sense, and within the context of larger Batman, they don't necessarily always have to. And then here's probably my hottest take on this movie. Anne Hathaway is the only good thing about it. You're right, Mike, these guys can't write a female character. But Anne Hathaway has shown up. She know what this movie actually is, which is absurd, and she plays a kind of fun
quasi camp absurdity as the character. I think she's a pretty great catwoman she's the most riveting presence for me in the whole in the whole film, But she seems to understand that what we've arrived at is the kind of incoherence and absurdity that you can do in a Tim Burton Batman movie and get away with it, because that's more psychological. That's also not realism. That's about the like bouncing off of each other of crazy people. Here's
another hot take. I think Batman Forever is maybe the second best Batman movie, the first of the Joel Schudenmacher's. The second one is terrible, but on this level of just being like embracing the fun of absurdity and not asking us to take it particularly seriously. The first two Nolan movies earn a fair bit of the seriousness and earn a fair bit of their quasi realist Batman aesthetic. Tim Burton obviously is on his own aesthetic path, one
kind of psycho sexual horniness. Joel Schumacher takes up from there and does his own little version of more candy colored psycho sexual horniness with Batman.
And you don't have to have a whole lot of logic.
I don't want to come off like a cinema sins kind of guy talking about this movie. But the style and the faux seriousness or the real seriousness that they're asking of us is not matched in the way that like the plot and allegory are being carried out, and so then it's just not as fun. And then on top of it, the action sequences in this movie are not very good.
They're just they're not as good as in the other Batman movies.
It's I feel like Nolan's pretty much out of ideas for what to do with the premise. The only one that kind of visually has some real half does the football game where the field collapses under everybody.
That's and that one that one.
Feels a little bit more in the crazy yess world of Tim Burton or a Joel Schumacher Batman like conceptually as a thing to happen. It's not the beautiful, clean chase that we get in in the dark night in Lower Whacker that then comes out and we get a real eighteen wheeler ass over tea kettle on a major
street that is beautiful, beautifully executed. I've read criticism of, oh, they're crossing a line in these parts of it, and it's no, Nolan has actually set up that sequence so cleanly that we understand where we are every time it quote unquote crosses the line you're being a patant about this kind of thing. Nolan is capable and has shown us big action sequences in the other ones, and this
one doesn't even have particularly good action sequences. The biggest idea is one that like might actually be better executed by Joel Schumacher. Bigger, more ridiculous, funnier with a football game, more homo erotic, bring the fun.
But this is a movie where it's absurd and bad ways. But yeah, I would.
I'll just come back to Ann Hathaway as Catwoman, and I'm not an Ana Hathaway super fan, but in this movie, she's the only thing that's fun, and she's the only one who seems to get that the absurdity is something that you can you can dance upon.
So she's playing this meek, meek maid at the beginning when we first see her, and then when Bruce Wayne catches her stealing those pearls and he says like, oh, blah blah blah, this uncrackable safe, her face does this little change from I'm the meek maid to I Am Catwoman, and it's so well done and so nice. Ah, I love it. And though I have to say, while I love this shot, the shot of her bending over her bike is so gratuitous and so male gaze, I'm just like,
I feel a little dirty for watching this. I mean, I appreciate as a man, as a heterosexual man, I appreciate that a lot, but it just was a little much. It was just like almost like bending over towards the camera and pushing her boobs together or something. I was just like, wow, oh, all right, And I have to say that this movie isn't really even that well made. And yeah, again I don't so first off, sorry to stop the whole show here. I don't like to pick
on movies. I think we've only ever done one movie where I kind of knew it was bad, and that was Battlefield Earth. But I tried my best to be as fair and not judgmental as I possibly could. It was kind of impossible with that movie and this one. It's like, I'm sorry, but I feel like we're kind of loaded for a duck right now, and it's like, eh, I feel a little bad, but I've been mad about this movie since twenty twelve, So I guess the other
one was Contact. I kind of did this with Contact, and at least with this one, I don't have, like the producer, one of the stars, all these people on here for them to get offended by me ripping apart the movie. But I've wanted to talk about this and I'm so glad to be in a room full of like minded people to discuss this right now. So I appreciate that guy. So just audience at home, I'm sorry,
this is just the way this one's shaken out. Hopefully you're enjoying this discussion as much as I am, because it's so refreshing to be able to talk so openly about this movie because so many people are just like, oh, yeah,
it's so good. Bain's so good. But anyway, going back to the actual nuts and bolts of the film, there's some weird things in like The Dark Night, Like the whole death of Michael Jay White is very very strange in there, and I guess there's a whole scene where he had a scar but instead he just kind of flops over. And in this one, after Catwoman blow was up that wall that I guess is keeping the police, all of the police except for like four people. All
the police down in the shoers. Like she blows up a wall. The camera just lingers on that for like the longest time, and I'm just like, are we supposed to be seeing something?
Like?
What the hell's going on? This just feels kind of sloppy and not put together very well. Like I was talking about the confusion around the timeline. I don't need I don't need fucking Dunkirk subtitles to come up and tell me how time is moving slowly, and I don't need this movie to run backwards or something. But I'm just like, I would like a little bit more knowledge as far as how much time has passed, in a much better way than random things about when this bomb is going to mysteriously go off.
I think the best way to tell the story is by starting at the end briefly, then going back to the beginning the periodically returning to the end, maybe giving different characters perspectives throughout, just to get a good bit of dynamism. Otherwise it's just sort of a linear story.
There's a lot of editing in this that feels like they maybe they just didn't have time to finish, maybe the release date that that happens. There are bigger problems with this movie than that, But there there are a lot of There are a lot of fade outs that are awkward, that.
Are what's that's how we're going to get to the next scene. There's the awkwardness right out of the gate the very beginning.
We kind of open in the midst of Harvey dent funeral and we get out very quickly, and then go to Bane and the plane and all that kind of stuff, and then come back to another Harvey Dent event years later and the first one. If Harvey Dent isn't coming back from the dead as the major villain of this film, why is this the opening gambit? Why is this the first moment of the film. They're going to talk about them a whole lot, but why is this the most
important thing to open with? That doesn't track, That doesn't make sense on a screenwriting level. This it feels to me like at minimum a hat on a hat that, like Batman has disappeared for eight years, and also the Bruce Wayne has become for the past eight years in between the films, a recluse, and it sets me wondering Oh, if Bruce Wayne has been a recluse for the last eight years while Batman has been completely gone, how is it that nobody but Joseph Gordon Levitt could figure out
that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same guy. So not only does it feel to me like a first draft scripting doubling up of one idea and you got a Jennison one or the other of them. Obviously because of the continuity from the first the one to Jennison is Bruce Wayne being a Howard Hughes type recluse to everybody thinks has eight inch fingernails.
So that's the one that you get rid of.
But it raises really big plausibility questions out of the gate, and there's plausibility within the entire series where there are people in.
Each one of these that figure out who Batman is.
Where it really does make me wonder why doesn't everybody know who Batman is?
They don't seem they don't see that much.
Smarter necessarily than everybody else, And somehow they've seen through in it, particularly in the Dark Night, there's that guy, the like flunky within Wayne enterprises who figures it out, and then Lucius Fox shoots him down with do you really want to take on this big billionaire? And that guy's part of the plot seems like it doesn't really work out very well, a flaw within within Dark Knight.
But it's like one of those things that runs through all this and becomes the most sort of silly and absurd.
In the third one out of all of them. And there's just a lot of writing that's like that.
Again, it's weird to it's weird to point to Tim Burton's Batman Returns, which has multiple villains, or the Schumacher Batman Forever, which has multiple villains. Those are movies that are not expecting as much of the world as a kind of social field to be realistically rendered, and so then having too many villains here, and there are so many villains. Matthew Modine in a way as yet another villain. I don't know why he's in this movie. I don't know what his character as the follow up to Oldman
as Commissioner Gordon. I don't get what that really buys us in the scheme of things. I don't think that
he's necessary. He's the kind of character again that you jettison a couple of drafts into it, and so we have this, we have this script that feels like a first or first and a half after studio notes kind of draft that they've then expensively shot, and then they got into the editing room and they didn't spend enough time, and there's all this there's all this kind of janky cutting and janky structural decision making that makes it weird and difficult movie to follow, while also being like two
hours and forty five minutes long.
I know that superhero movies are now.
Our form of opera, and so they're gonna run long. They're like Shakespearean tragedy within our culture. We can draw our conclusions about what that says about us. But nevertheless, that's the thing. But it really does feel like an excessively long two hours and forty five minutes, overstuffed in most respects and then underfed wherever it counts, and it
makes it a tough thing to wrestle with. I guess I've just been picking on it and trouncing, So I'll just say with that, I don't know, Maybe they are interesting aspects of it that bad are good, are like more exciting to wrestle with than just bad movie.
Chris, you talked about, you know how big Nolan swings, and you compared them to Tarantino. I would say that Christopher Nolan is the Michael Bay of the New Yorker crowd. You know, it just feels like he's a lot of times, this whole I'm going to tell the story backwards type of thing just feels like obfuscation. I mean, especially when you come to something like Tenet, where you're just like, what are you doing? Like this really does not add
anything to this story. I would say that Dunkirk does the same thing, where it's just like, I don't care that you're stretching out time over here and condensing time over there. Learn to tell a better story.
The thing that just keeps reminding me so much of these movies are those late and again I wouldn't say No Time to Die so much, but definitely this movie really reminds me of Specter. You go from something like Skyfall, which I'm not a huge fan of. I know that there are people that are huge fans of Skyfall. I'm not as big of a fan of the Dark Knight as I used to be, but there are people that are still huge fans of it still love it. So I look at Skyfall, I look at The Dark Knight
as similar movies. Then I look at this movie as the follow up to Skyfall the way Specter was, and this movie is the follow up to The Dark Knight. And neither of these movies do anything to serve that narrative set down in the movie before, and in a lot of ways, it corrupts what was so good about
the franchise, at least the better parts. Ultimately, this movie even goes as far as to say the Talia al Ghoul character, who is not revealed to be Talia al Ghoul until the third act of the film, is essentially the and the League of Shadows have been the villains this whole time, and not even in the last movie.
But there's they're the overriding villains throughout all of this because again it follows the Scream three rules, and we're gonna go back in retcon some things and make some things again work here that wouldn't have necessarily worked it. They didn't plan in the first movie that the third movie was going to have a return to form or a return to Rozel Ghoul. There was no need to return to the Rozel Ghul story, frankly, and I guess
that's my issue. Is in Inspector we have that same thing with Christoph Waltz being like, I am the author of your pain, James, and everything has been my kind of doing here. And it's even they do it worse there they go, even Mad's Michelson and even Javier Bardem's character and the character the villain from Quantumus Olus. Yeah,
all of them are. They're all Quantum, but that's actually Specter and it's been me this whole time, Like this movie has shades of that, and it's just I don't know why we have to keep doing the thing that a movie from the early two thousands as a horror movie pointed out that we are ret cunning our own franchise, our own rules, our own history, and there's no need, There's nothing is gained. Frankly, all it does is hurt the series overall. Even look at the most recent Star
Wars film, Emperor Palpatine is back. Why Why somehow Palpatine returned somehow? And it's the same thing here. It's like, why is Talia al Ghoul? Why is rozoh Ghoul? Why is any of that being brought up in this third movie when it's been clear that we don't like with the last movie, we don't need some and again I think it's probably that most apt comparison with the James Bond of it all. We don't need a James Bond
level threat with Batman. Batman is at his best for me when he's fighting someone who is dangerous to him specifically, not the city at large. And that's the thing. I know that this is based off of the Nightfall storyline, which is about Gotham being essentially isolated from the rest of the world. That's what this storyline is. However, that works in a comic book. In a movie, it's kind of hope key James Bond and Batman. While yes they are both smart and charming and debonair, I guess Bruce
Wayne is maybe not so much Batman. The villainization of a James Bond character into a Batman villain doesn't really work because Batman doesn't need to be a world ending threat, not unless he's part of the Justice League. And this version of Batman would not work with any other version of Superman other than the one that we get created by Chris Nolan and pals for Zack Snyder. We didn't get a sequel to this movie, but we technically did because the tone of this movie and these Nolan movies.
Everybody wants to say it's Zack Snyder's fault, it's actually Chris Nolan's fault too. Man of Steele's tone is actually more influenced by this that it's influenced by anything else. And again, I feel like the self serious James Bond Casino Reyal worked Quantum Osolas works for me. Beyond that, it doesn't Batman. Batman begins in Dark Knight Rises. Dark
Knight works for me. Dark Knight Rises doesn't, and anything past Dark Knight Rises doesn't work for me either, which includes Man of Steel and all of those other DCEU movies, because again, the tone of Man of Steel comes from this movie, and the tone of those movies comes from that Casino Reale movie that made so much money, and being so self serious with these fun things can work. I just don't think Chris Nolan is the right person
to tell that story. I think that there are other people who could tell a serious story with Batman that doesn't betray the character completely. And that's how you get something like the Batman film that Matt Reeves directed and wrote. That's more akin to what this should have been. If you're going to talk about the world, if you're gonna talk about the community of Batman and the world of Gotham.
The new Batman film really leans into it in an interesting and fun way, and it talks about there is a little bit of the kind of us versus them, the one percent versus the ninety nine percent. There is some of that in the new Matt Reeves Batman movie. This movie can't figure out how to do it well because these writers don't really have the capability to understand the nuance necessary to tell that story. And that's always been the case with Chris Nolan. Similarly to Quentin Tarantino,
you work better in big strokes. The smaller strokes don't really work because that's not really your forte. Your forte is telling a big story with big choices, big decisions, and this movie makes a lot of big choices and big decisions. Not all of them work. Frankly, most of
them don't work. The last movie, a lot of the big choices did work, and even at the end of the movie where we at the end of the last movie where we have the kind of back and forth on the boats and we're gonna blow up who's gonna blow up the boat as one boat gonna blow the other one, the criminals or the people like oh, and
the society is good on both sides. Like even that, looking back on it is so heavy handed and preachy, but it's better than anything this movie ever does in terms of approaching having something interesting or unique to say about the situation that Bane has put Gotham. I just think Chris Nolan, like so many other tours, he's good in small doses and he's better when he's doing his
own things. Because trying to do something like this with a character that already has a really strongly established set of ideas and a narrative kind of constructed around him, like it's you don't need to do so much to change the character to make him your thing. Write a story that works that is more your thing. It's just a lot of things that don't work for me, and the self seriousness is one of them. But also just the not understanding of the character is another.
Well, I think that was the marketing campaign, right, Why so self serious? Wasn't that It for this one. I agree with you what you're talking about with all of the James Bond stuff, by the way, and especially yeah, this whole like we have to tie stuff back together. You mentioned you know somehow Palpatine has returned. This for me, is bringing back the League of Shadows, is building another Death Star. You could have done without that. And they
knew that. They didn't really have a good idea coming into this. They're just like, well, we don't even know what we're going to do. There was talk about while The Dark Knight was being made or shortly thereafter, they're like, oh, yeah, we're going to do another one of these, and we're going to have the Joker back and it's going to
be the Joker's trial and all this. And similarly to foil Ado, that was going to have the whole Joker throwing acid and Harvey Dent's face, but then they read con that and they said, no, we're going to put that the whole Harvey Dent thing in the second movie. So yeah, they didn't know. I mean, this suffers from the same problem that those Star Wars sequels suffer from, which is they didn't have a plant. They were like, oh, we're making these one at a time. We don't have
an overall arc to this whole thing. So what this becomes is attacked on third act that really didn't necessarily need to be there, and yes, to have two hours and forty five minutes to stretch the sucker out for all of this. It's like, just because it's doesn't mean it's grandiose. It really doesn't have to be that way.
Like we Yes, we have the beginning with Alfred talking about you know, oh, I have this fantasy of me going to you know, Italy or whatever, and you're there, and then they relive it in the last part of the film as they're closing up all of the stories, and it's like, yeah, that's clever and everything, but I almost forget about it because it was two hours and forty minutes ago that you talked about that, so it
really goes on for a long time. And yeah, you were talking about too many villains, Spencer, and I completely agree, because not only is there Tali al Ghoul and then Baine, but then you have the characters like the and you mentioned Chris Foley, the Matthew Modine character, but I'm thinking of like Burne Gorman and Ben Mendelssohn. It's like these guys are just kind of along for the ride and
Killian Murphy. Yeah, because you also have like the the whole group that goes on with uh with Baine, and then you introduce somebody like a uh Brett Cullen as the congressman who's in there for like two scenes, and I thought for sure he was going to be a much bigger player in this. And that whole scene of her getting the fingerprints back to burn Gorman, it's completely unnecessary,
Like you can just eliminate that whole thing. This movie can be really like, I actually looked for a fan edit of this just to see what would a shorter version of this movie look. There is there is one out there, and I did not have a chance to download it. Couldn't find a file of it. I hate fan edit dot org these days because there's no fan edit dot info anymore, and fan edit dot info was the only place that you could find the places to
download the files. And fan edit dot org they're so high and mighty that they're just like, well, there are all these things called fan edits, and here are all these people that are doing them, but we will not allow you to ask where can I download a copy? And it's just like, well, then you.
Because they don't want to get in trouble, which is you know, that's fine. At the same time, though I was gonna I was gonna make a joke about it, if you wanted to just make a fan edit of the amount of time that Batman is in this movie, I think it's like twelve minutes, which if you want to just watch Batman in a Batman movie, then two hours and forty five minutes is a lot more than the twelve that he's in it. This is barely a Batman movie. This movie is it is barely a Batman movie.
And I think that if Chris Nolan was going to make this movie this way, why not just make it with something else, like some other kind of characters, some other kind of ip. If there needed to be one, just go make Tenant. I don't know, this story doesn't need Batman. And you guys mentioned the Nolan brothers not
being able to write female characters. Joe Nolan and his wife can write a good female character with Delores in Westworld, but I don't think the two of them together can no, and I think that they can't really write Batman either. We've mentioned it's the Nolan brothers who wrote this movie, but we have to remind ourselves that the story by is still David S.
Goyer.
He's still involved, which is surprising because you would think that, oh, maybe this movie didn't have Goyer involved, and that's why the story is kind of all over the place. No, Goyer is in fact involved in this movie. And I don't know how much of what Goyer brought to The Dark Knight or Batman Begins allowed those movies to be better than this movie. With Batman Begins, Goyer has a screenplay by credit as opposed to just story by.
With the last two with Jonathan Nolan or Jonah Nolan. I was so confused when I was reading in you.
No, I think his name is Jonah and Joe. I think that's how you say his.
Question Jonathan and his credits right, I.
Think so or something to that effect, because on all the West World stuff they always talk about it and they say it really Jonah Nolan, I think or something that Jonathan.
I was ringing an interview with Christopher Nolan or Chris to his friends, and he kept talking about Jonah and so This was a printed interview, and so they were spelling it like the person that was inside of the belly of a whale. But then when you see his credits, it's always you know Jonathan. But anyway, whoever, this person is Chris Nolan's brother. He was the person behind the show Person of Interest, which was a very interesting show. I really liked that one a lot, and that basically
really feeds into the end of The Dark Knight. This whole idea of a machine that can see everything, hear everything, pinpoint where people are. You know, we're talking about how this movie just pulls from the zeitgeist. It is so Patriot Act. I mean that one coming out in two thousand and eight, then the Patriot Act having been passed
a few years before that. I mean, I like that Lucius Fox is like, whoa, you are crossing a line, like he I'm surprised that Lucius is back for this movie after what Batman pulled in the last movie, just because he was dead set against that of like, you are crossing the line here. You've made my invention into this weapon that you can now see and hear and spy on everybody in Gotham and Batman's just like, oh, you know, ends justify the means.
You know.
And by the way, watching all three of these movies in a row, I forgot he doesn't use the voice. In the first movie, he talks like a normal human being, but by the time the second one comes, he starts to sound like Robert F.
Kennedy Junior.
You know.
It's just like, what the fuck man? So he's just like, basically, the ends justify the means. I need to find the Joker. I've turned your machine into a weapon. Fuck you very much, Lucius. You can stop it at the end, you just type in your name.
One of the things that animates Batman Begins and The Dark Knight that is interesting about them within this very this highly conservative kind of politics that I don't really agree with, is that there's there are actual arguments about the nature of justice and what's right that are made through dialogue but also played out.
Particularly in Batman Begins.
That's one where we go through a number of different ideas. And one of the things that made me like that movie the first time that I saw it was that there was a good twenty odd minutes where I was getting ready to go because I was like, this movie's full on fascist, and I know that's the thing. It's a superhero movie, it's a Batman movie. It can definitely go full on fascist. But then it turned to this core in terms of its approach to what is good,
what is right, how's the society supposed to work. There's
a real push and pull there. This is a movie where the push poll is Alfred telling Bruce Wayne that he should just get out and touch grass and no, don't be Batman, and then we faint in the direction of, oh, you're taking over the stock market, but ultimately Bain is taking over the stock market to benefit this other guy on the board of Wayne Enterprises, so that there's a lot of maneuvering, but none of it is actually like working through problems of what is the right thing to do,
even though I'm not I'm actually really not crazy about the very ending of The Dark Knight, the decision for them to tell a quote unquote noble lie as the end of the movie Batman actually killed Harvey Dent, so that then Harvey Dent can be held up as a hero and therefore crime whatever. This doesn't all really track
totally for me, but they work through a thing. They're like making decisions about what's supposed to be right, and honestly, the very end, and one of the reasons why the movie ends up working for me is at the end is Batman sort of banished from society, riding off into who knows what, and the choice doesn't play as particularly happy.
They make an argument that this is a necessary choice that I don't necessarily agree with, but I also see somebody who is making a sacrifice at the end, and things are not necessarily better for him, and I don't necessarily know at the end that things are going to be so much better for Gotham either. That ambiguity, which yeah, they're setting up for a sequel, but that ambiguity makes a lot of what comes before in the arguments over what's right and Lucia's Fox saying no, you've gone too
far with the surveillance state kind of stuff. In the context of a celebration of weaponized policing, militarized not just weaponized, but like militarized policing, militarized vigilanteism. That's interesting stuff for us to have an argument over as a result of a movie. That's interesting, good stuff for me to think about even in the act of.
Disagreeing with it.
But yeah, we got we got a thing here where it's it's more incoherent and it's not working out. But I guess so here's a question that I want to steer towards. These movies are the high water mark of realistic superhero that no one comes in and he's going to add a lot more realism, and we can question
where is the realism applied. But the idea of a more realistic version of Batman Dark Knight returns I don't consider realistic, but maybe Batman you're one Frank Miller's Batman, you're one that's in the comic books, adding a level of a kind of street level reality to the idea of this comic book character and some of the more
fantastical elements that we've that we've experienced so far. And for instance, when we get the Scarecrow as a character in he's in all three of the movies, but we don't see him as the Scarecrow.
Here.
The Scarecrow has a scientifically worked out how to of issuing a drug along with having this mask that is going to become a particular kind of a thing that takes it a little bit out of the world of being the fantastical version of there is the Scarecrow from like earlier comics, and is making this sort of more
real world plausible. Additionally, with Batman, yeah, he's always been a billionaire and so he can buy the toys, but in this case he's buying the toys from his company's weapons operation, and so that makes things much more quote unquote realistic a world for Batman to exist in, and the villains in general, even the Joker is the most fantastical, but the Joker seems to have more elements that suggest a reality behind him that is more like our everyday
reality in order to make this happen. Is this a good idea for comic book movies? How far have we gone with this particular notion? Is it a good idea for James Bond? Because I think, yeah, parallel thing has happened with James Bond. With these kinds of fantastical characters, what do we really get from.
Bringing in the Nolan style realism?
I think for me, as someone who grew up with essentially none of the trappings of anybody a similar lya to y'all, none of us grew up with a serious version of these characters in film. This was only in the last fifteen years that this has become so prevalent and a thing. Looking back on it now, looking at it as maybe it's over finally, maybe this trend has finally willed itself out of the system and it's finally gone.
I feel like, for me, what have we learned? That there might be an audience for this, and there might be a place for it. But I think people tend to forget that you can tell these kinds of stories in a comic book and it doesn't have to be on the big screen, and in it not needing to be on the big screen, you can enjoy all kinds of different versions of these characters. The whole argument of Zack Snyder having Superman kill people or kill Zod at the end of Man of Steel, I think comes into
mind when Superman wouldn't do that in the comics. It's like there are all kinds of versions of Superman in the comic books, including a version of Superman that landed in the USSR, and so he became the Soviet version of Superman as opposed to the American version of Superman. This version of Batman is not for me. This version of Batman's trilogy is not for me. I think if anything is gleaned from all of this, it's that there
are people that this is for. I just don't think it's long term sustainable in terms of being entertaining, because I think after a while, if you reject the fantastical for too long with these kinds of things, you work yourself into a corner where you can only tell certain kinds of stories. And these kinds of characters don't really work with certain kinds of stories, and by certain kinds of stories, a lot of different kinds of stories, these
kinds of characters don't work with. Really, there are some things that Batman could solve so easily, so quickly, with so little interference an issue. That's why he can't deal
with it. That's why you have to make some of these threats worldwide or global threats, because it's like Batman, like we've already alluded to it, even in this version of the story, is a multi billionaire playboy, and in this one he's essentially got a small military's worth of gear that he can have created or create for himself. What fucking threat would be a real threat to this guy if he were not. Essentially in this film, Coded
is moron. He's the world's greatest detective, and Talia al Goole works for his come He's the world's greatest detection.
It's a CEO.
I know there are parts of this version of Batman that are interesting, and then there are parts of the version of Batman that are really poorly thought out. And the character of Batman, I think, to your point, Mike is not interesting. I think the character of Batman here is not interesting, and he's a very static character. Bruce Wayne, on the other hand, I think is actually rather well represented in the first two movies, not so much in the third one. But that's not necessarily the case in
some of the other Batman movies. I know people to have their issues with Keaton or Kilmer, but I think Christian Bale's pretty good as Bruce Wayne.
I think uh Clooney Halari Clooney.
Cloney truly might be the worst. He's probably the worst Batman ever.
They brought him back though at the end of that flash movie. Remember they were like, this is a thing that the world wanted. We want more of this. If anything has learned for me, it's just that we it's not that we don't need this. I just don't think after a while, you have much room to cover other than the ground you've already covered. There's not a lot of interesting places and spaces to go. I think that's the big takeaway for me.
All right, let's go ahead and take a break and we'll be back right after these brief messages. Looking for something superior to streaming, a place with more than five times the selection available on all the streaming services combined, check out Scarecrow Videos Rent by mail service. Select from an unparalleled collection of over one hundred and fifty thousand films, then get blu rays, four k's and DVDs delivered directly to your door. Get in on it now at scarecrow
dot com and rediscover the wonders of physical media. All right, we're back, and we're talking about the Dark Knight Rises. And at the crux of the Dark Knight Rises is this machine. This machine that they turn into either a
neutron or a nuclear bomb. It's a fusion machine. And I still don't know after watching this movie quite a few times now, I still don't know why they don't turn it on is it that it's dangerous because they say, like you should turn on the machine, like you've poured all your money, Like he's almost in danger of not
being a billionaire. He might be a quadrillionaire after this, but like not being a billionaire because he poured all of his money into this R and D project of a fusion reactor, which I'm guessing is going to power the entire city. Again, very much a James Bond type of thing, like oh, you know Scaramunga with his son
Ray that can you know? Or what was the Tomorrow Never Dies whichever one night had the diamond faced guy where it's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to use this at the end of the day, die another day.
Thank you.
I'm going to use this beam and I'm going to be able to put sunlight in places where it's normally dark, and then we're going to be able to raise crops there. Blah blah blah blah blah. So here's Bruce, like, Oh, I'm going to power the entire city. You know, I'm going to do a Martin and come up with like a little fusion reactor that powers this entire place.
You know, behold the power plant.
Of the future today to cold and sterile whish the hot, but it.
Really generates power.
It's letting this room right now.
Really the danger of this movie for Bruce Wayne is losing his superpower, which is losing his money. This whole takeover over of Wall Street is targeted at him. Like I guess he's one, maybe of a few people, but it feels like it's very much just targeted at Bruce Wayne solely, maybe because of Tali al Gould knowing who he is.
That's my assumption. It's just why not just make that the case from the beginning of the movie. Not this like Benedict Cumberbatch's con nonsense. Again they did. This was another thing they were doing. The Christoph Waltz is not Blowfeld. We promised, like everybody was, like, it's Talia al Gould. Tally al Gould. So you cast Marion Cottiard in your film, She's not gonna just play nobody. That's literally not how
it works if it's announced ahead of time. This is not Brad Pitt in Deadpool two where he shows up for fifteen seconds and nobody knew that ahead of time. She was cast. We knew it. Her character's name was announced it was a very obviously like fake character sounding name. What was it, Star Trek? It was con was John Smith or something to that effect. Yeah, it's oh who could he? Whoever could he be? Like why would you? I don't know. I hated that they've stopped doing that, thankfully.
Just work it into the script. It doesn't have to be a surprise. You can do surprises other ways.
I feel like the SEC probably would have canceled the whole transaction that takes place with Bruce Wayne's fake fingerprints anyway, so it feels like there is no real threat here any way. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, no, he's going to lose the company. I'm like, no, he's not.
Like that.
That whole transaction was invalid, Like we have footage of this, I would think, or maybe we don't, because like you're saying, you know, going back to that speech that Bain gives. Yeah, other than a few reporters, we basically see like police line the streets or thugs from this prison that they liberate aka the best deal. And I'm sorry, but the whole idea of like Bain living underground and Batman has the bat Cave and you know, yeah, you just adopted
the darkness. I was born in it. There's a huge hole in that prison that just light lets sunlight in probably at least twelve hours of the day. I'm just like, this is not a dark prison. This is not the deepest, darkest hole like Alfred is talking about. You can almost escape from this prison as long as you can jump twelve feet. And I don't know why all of the people that are in this prison just don't work together in order to build a better bridge and just go out.
It's like, because, like I said, there's no guards in this prison. Okay, everybody seems to be eating well, everybody seems relatively healthy. I don't know how they're getting food in this prison. And I'm sorry again, like I don't want to Cinema sends this thing either, but it's like, if you present me with this whole idea, I want to look at it, and I'm gonna be like, well, yeah, I can see the sun right there, Like what is this whole thing?
You know?
I would have rather like I like how the Joker and Batman, especially the Joker even says it in the previous movie, and even Jack Nicholson says it. You know, you created me, I created you, Like are we going to go back and forth like this?
You know?
And then Heath Ledger's like, I know you complete me, like there is no me without you type of thing. It feels like there should be that type of symbiotic relationship between Batman and Bain, and there's not. You know, there's just that one line about adopting the darkness while Bain was born there and again also a lie because it was Taliya Ghould I was born there, it wasn't Main, so again kind of throwing us off with this thing. So this movie just doesn't feel like it was very
well thought out at all. That you can just like keep picking and picking and picking and it just never comes to anything, and you're just like, I'm not following this, and like, yeah, it's great that you're making all these allusions to a tail of Two Cities, but I have to tell you when Bruce Wayne is dead, no he's not. When he's dead at the end and they're reading from a tailor two Cities, I'm just like, I'm sorry, but the only thing I'm thinking of right now is Spock
being dead. That death meant a lot to me, The death of Bruce Wayne means nothing, especially because you have two very pointed lines about the autopilot, even right before the finale of the film. It's just like, Oh, don't forget about that autopilot. I'm like, really, we're gonna go there, You're gonna remind me of that. Oh geez hey, Charles, what was the name of that sled that you had? Was that something like a flower?
I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see their lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous, and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts and in the hearts of their descendants generation's heads. It is a far far better thing that I do than I.
Have never done, far far better resting place than I go to I have ever known.
Is that a pot.
Something? Spot was trying to tell me you, okay, Jo, how do you feel?
Yeah?
So, Spock.
That's a classic thing where there was a fake out, but it took another movie to work it out.
And one may.
Like or dislike the Star Trek to Search for SoC I'm one of the fans of that one.
I know a lot of other Star Trek fans.
Don't like it, but it's a it's a near thing, and there's a drama to get there to get Spock back, And in Wrath of Khan, when Spock dies, for the characters in that moment, that is absolutely a real death, and to whatever degree the series is pulling a fake out on us, we got to build back up from there. This is a thing where it's a fake out, but it's a fake out without the fun of Marian getting in that truck in Raiders of the Lost Arc and it blows up and we never find out how she
actually managed to live. And Lucas and Spielberg were pulling a fast one there, and they knew they were doing it within that kind of flifhanger genre that they're inhabiting. But here it's at a point in the drama where we're built up to expect a real at minimum a real sacrifice from Batman slash Bruce Wayne, and in those moments, even when we're building up to think about the sacrifice, we've got to set up the fake out so the audience doesn't feel too faked out.
But the reason why you're.
Having to set up a fake out is because basically like the audience wouldn't accept it because it's phony and it's bad for Batman not to die saving the city at the end of this movie, and it takes away as you talk about, there's a lot of stuff that's really weightless, that doesn't seem like it adds up to much. But and then we get this like strange, long winded sequence with this nuclear device that's gonna blow up the whole city. At least let him sacrifice to save the city. Honestly,
that would make Alfred's earlier speech more meaningful. What Alfred's speech earlier on sets up for us is an ending where yeah, like Batman and Catwoman got away together in Italy. Just think about the emotional impact of Alfred going to someplace and redoing his vision from early in the movie. But there's no Batman there, there's no Christian Bale, there's
no Bruce Wayne. Alfred hoping against hope that he pulled a fast one doesn't get that, And we end on a moment of meaningful sadness and perhaps even like ambiguity. Just the act of going there and like wishing for it creates something. But we got to wrap it all up tightly, and James Bond at this point has done the sacrifice and has died. It's hilarious to me that they're having arguments over how do we bring James Bond back?
Hire another actor?
Do it?
James Bond? What sense did it make when Sean Connery left and Roger Moore took over.
None.
We won't fully own up to the implications of our storytelling, and we end up with these things that are weightless. And this especially presents as a problem. Again, I'm going to pick on the realism in a more realistic kind of setting and realistic set of expectations, the idea of this a more realistic world. Then yeah, Batman should die. If that's what you're building up to. That's the thing. So to the positive, not the positive about this movie, but to the positive in terms of cinema and.
Aesthetics and stuff. I think there are advantages.
The over reliance on trying to go realistic is weirdly at best, a backhanded compliment to.
A comic book aesthetics.
It's a backhanded compliment in that it's, oh, this stuff is actually important, and it's important enough to make it realistic, and I'm like, no, this stuff is important, and it's important enough to keep in its fantastical manifestations. It's important enough to do Burton's Batman Returns, which, because Christmas is coming.
I'm gonna watch this weekend. Batman Returns is great stuff.
And you know what's funny is simply because it went darker in its vision.
The previous Adam West Batman.
That was a certain kind of like sea change in how we could look at comic books. And of course it lagged several years behind Alan Moore's work and Frank Miller's work, that like really brought a kind of darkness, but the darkness of the Burton comported with a kind of wild Gothic imagination that is a bit fit with
this kind of logic. Burton deciding that it's really funny and perverse and perverted for people to dress up in skin tight leather as animals and run around a city and they might think that they're superheroes, are super villains, but this is perverted weirdness with people running around in skin in gimp suits throughout Gotham, and that's very much what he's going for. There's beauty and there is horror, and there is honor. In that kind of storytelling that
goes towards the fantastical and in a different zone. This is also a comic book thing, but related to how animation gets turned into live action. The most radical thing about the Wachowski Speed Racer is that it's a movie for children. Now, their minds overcomplicated. It did too much plot kids and follow all that. But the aesthetic, like the whole mode of address of the movie. The concerns of it are it's basically like a gen X lecture
on selling out, delivered squarely to eight to eleven year olds. Again, that's beautiful. I fucking love that movie. There is honor in that, there is a good way to tell those stories. And I just got to say the experiment and more realistic superhero stuff, yeah, it pays off a couple of times, But I just I don't think.
I don't think.
That it does what everybody thinks they wanted to do, which is to bring more seriousness and attention. The seriousness and attention is already there in comic books. They are worthwhile. No, they don't replace reading the Brothers Karamotsov. Sorry, I'm still better off because I've read both a lot of Batman and a lot of X Men and the brothers Karamotsov. It doesn't get you that kind of a thing. They're all good, but yeah, trying to trick it up with
quote unquote realism. I just don't know that that was particularly necessary. Maybe it can be done well again, but again, I feel like it's a backhanded compliment to a mode of art and a mode of imagination that doesn't need it.
When they don't want it to be serious, they're okay with it, but for the most part they want it to be serious. The ending of The Dark Knight Rises is so fantastical and bizarre and doesn't hang with the rest of the movie, because again, they want to be serious up into the last ten minutes, and then they just there's a nuke, and the nuke goes off and it's okay, fine.
And nobody in Gotham gets cancer.
Maybe Nolan and Snyder and all these people who do these serious films, they just I would never lower myself to something so silly as Batman, But if you want me to do it, I'll do it in my own way. And it was like when Tarantina was talking about doing a start movie. I'm good like you said, I read a lot of comic books. Comic books have a lot of serious, nuanced storytelling that gets ignored because of the medium through which it's being presented, just like video games.
Video games have some really serious, in depth, complex storytelling and it's not treated that way because of the medium through which it's being told. It's just like the genre problem of horror films never getting nominated for anything. With the Oscars, Oh my god, weapons might get nominated for Best Casting for the first time ever. Wow, that's really insane. Congratulations. It's the same thing here. If you don't vibe with what you're going to talk about, just don't make it.
Don't force this thing into a box that it's not willing to be forced into, because even if you force it into the box, when you take it out, it's still gonna have all these sharp edges that you can't really do anything with because again, you're not really interested in doing anything with it. Christopher Nolan is interested in telling a story he wants to tell and then putting Batman in it. It should be a Batman story, and then Christopher Nolan is telling a story with Batman, not
a story that just happens to have Batman. This is Batman. We're talking about a character who, for all intents and purposes, if you showed it to someone on the other side of the globe, they would recognize him. And that's not something that can be said for a whole lot of things, especially from Western culture anymore. To Spencer's point, like it works for a while, but look the way things have gone.
It's returned back to the thing, to a thing more akin to the way it was before, a little bit more fantastical, maybe a little bit more serious in the storytelling, a little bit more nuanced storytelling, but not so self serious that all of the fun has just been trained out of it completely and it's just some sort of like transactional deal level. His name is Robin, what's your name? Solo?
Spencer, You've brought up Batman Returns a few times, and that's the only other time that we've really dived into a Batman and movie was talking about Batman Returns on this show years ago, and I think about the scene of Selena Kyle and Bruce Wayne at the Masquerade ball and how they're speaking to each other about their secret identities but not actually speaking about their secret identities, And there's a little bit of that here where she asked
him like, well, who are you supposed to be? And he's like, oh, I'm pretending to be Bruce Wayne eccentric millionaire or whatever. And I'm just like, don't do that, because you are calling to mind a much better movie by doing that.
It's a raising costume for Kappa.
And yeah, who are you pretending to.
Be Bruce Wayne eccentric Jona?
You take off her customers.
I guess I'm tired.
To learn math me too.
The whole thing of of Selena Kyle in Batman or Turns was the employee who's been shit on and just like comes back for revenge and all you know, it's like she is so empowered in that movie. It's so great. And then here it's like they're just trying to like keep a lid on her. Like like I said, they're basically trying to team the cat through this movie. And it's like she's got this whole thing of like I want this clean slate program. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.
I got read in my ledger.
I'd like to wipe it out.
And again I keep thinking that she's talking about Jen as well as all of the other things that she's done, and I'm like, okay, yeah, first off that and somebody was writing about this movie and they kept they said like that was the mcguffin of the film, and I'm like, no, that's not a mcguffin of the film, but that is over with within like the first twenty minutes of the movie, Like they say that doesn't exist, and I'm like, okay, I don't know if it really does exist or not exist,
and they just tell her it doesn't exist. But yeah, they, like you said, they forget about it. And the real mcguffin is that stupid ticking clock that they have through this whole thing that just Baine sets this whole thing up at that football game where he's like, one of you, how's the detonator And it's like, okay, that doesn't become anything. They forget about that too, So it's like, okay, if that's the case, maybe we should find that person and
stop them. But instead it's like literally the last second as they are, you know, as Jim Gordon is disarming this bomb, but then yet there's another ten minutes on it and then yeah, Batman flies it off. We get the explosion, and yeah, I love that that piece. Earlier in the film, Batman says to Alfred.
If this man is everything that you say.
He is, and the city needs me, the city needs Bruce Wayne the resourcation, it doesn't need your body for your life. The time's past.
You're afraid that, So I go back out there, I'll fail.
I'm a fright did you punch you?
He should die. Batman should have made the ultimate sacrifice in this film, because you know what, Christian Bale as Batman is not coming back. We're not going to get another Christian Bale thing. I really kind of wish that, you know, when they brought back Batman in Oh God, that shitty flash movie that we're talking about, it's like that should have been the Dark Knight version. That should
have been the Frank Miller version of Batman. Like we've been talking for years about having that Frank Miller version of Batman on screen. They made a not very good animated film out of The Dark Knight Returns. But the Dark Knight, like the Frank Miller first book, the non overly fascistic one that he wouldn't make after nine to eleven.
You know that's a great book, and they kind of touch on that in the Dark Knight movie because they have those like I think they call him sons of Batman in the comic book, but they don't really have a name for them here. I kind of like that
that whole thing. And then when he has that line, which I know a lot of people make fun of, like, you know, you don't see me wearing hockey pads or whatever, that to me then calls to mind Frank Miller's Batman You're One, which Darren Aronofsky was supposed to direct that. I think he worked on a screenplay for it that never really came to fruition. And then Matt Reeves, I think that his The Batman really owes a lot to Frank Miller.
I agree.
I wanted to ask something because this is again to go to this kind of idea of the stakes of the movie kind of being wonky, the characters not necessarily seeming like it all hangs together. Could this have all been also a symptom of Heath Ledger passing away and them having absolutely no idea how to follow up his permance? I assume, based on everything I've read and seen as well that he was going to be part of this.
I don't know how much of that is caused by this, because I understand plans interrupt us because of the biggest part of your last movie. I would even go as far as to say, maybe the best thing that any of these three movies have in them is Heath Ledger's performance. It is the thing by which this entire franchise is remembered. Christian Bale's great. Yeah, no one's gonna argue that he's one of the better Batman's. However, I don't think he's in the conversation for the best. I don't even think
he's in the conversation for top two. Coincidentally, for me, I think that he is fine. I think Heath Ledger as the Joker is so good. It's such a memorable performance. I don't want to say Joaquin Phoenix's Joker movie prove that you can just make a Joker movie, but it did so. Again. If you want to have someone just give a raucous, balls to the wall, completely out of control performance like what He've led your conjured with that character in the Dark Night, that's gonna be what the
entire thing is remembered for. Unless you rise to the level of that character. They wrote that character so well that nothing else in any of these things rises to that level. Maybe Harvey Dent in that second movie, But my god, I don't even know why you would try to make a third movie other than the obvious. And again, Chris, obviously it's because of money. Okay, thank you, everybody gets that,
that's not what I'm talking about. Why would you even try to do this movie the way that they did it when it's so clear and obvious that if it had just been The Joker, this movie might have worked three times as well, just because he'd Ledger's performance would have worked better with the message that they were trying
to get at in this movie. Yes, they would have had to make changes, Yes things would have been different, But I think so much of this movie stems from something that is outside, that was outside of their control. Yet they didn't really do anything to rectify the lacking in that performance. And so I wonder I put it to y'all, is how much of what this movie's kind of failures are is tied up in not being able to rise to the occasion of the Joker from the
last film. Also, just not even being able to have Heath Ledger in this movie.
I would say that that that makes sense here. We could blame the studio the most, but I just gotta say they could make a third Batman movie in the series without Heath Ledger, but the need to go and make it so quickly. The choices here speak ill. That's the excuse that because it couldn't be Joker, then that's
why the movie ends up falling down. I don't think that's a very good excuse, and I think that really speaks ill of everybody involved for needing to make more money, to milk more money out of it as a franchise. When a person has died, Yeah, then change your plan, spend another couple of years thinking about it, whatever it is that they might have had planned.
One way or the other.
One of the things that's interesting here is that this movie I believe came four years after Dark Knight, but they say eight years, and so it's like they've given this longer gap And there's really that's interesting to me because it speaks to the problem that maybe basically what they needed to do if they were taking this world seriously and they wanted to take it was an argument I think in good faith in the first two movies is an argument about justice, an argument about how it's
supposed to work, an argument about how power is used, how it can be used, and then spend the time that it takes to continue that good faith argument, whether or not somebody like me is going to agree with it, but to continue that sense of argument between these combating forces in the world, and a sort of engagement with the audience thinking about what they want a need from justice and from government. Again, not a bad thing and not a bad thing to do on a comic book level.
That doesn't only dump down and that doesn't only make it superficial. And as much as I disagree with the first two movies, I think they're for real. The thrill, the entertainment for me is in watching this back and forth. If they had just spent that time, then perhaps they could have gotten there. And if their plan was to have the joker, that really suggests, all right, back off, let's spend another couple of years before we do this.
We will still make money in six or eight years between movies, as we will with four years in between. And yeah, maybe Warner Brothers was going to go ahead and make another sequel without them. But what happened that got Joel Schumacher and Val Kilmer involved in Batman Forever?
The thing's broke down with Tim Burton. But they've done this, they've gone down that road.
Why not maybe somebody else should be at bat That's how the comic books work. The writers, the artists get replaced all the time, and that revivifies the mythology. I guess I'm on the side of go full comic book. That's my thesis for everything I've been saying.
It just doesn't honor the memory. Honestly, with the heat Ledger performance that this third movie just limps along, doesn't really do much, doesn't even reach the where the end of the last movie is. This movie doesn't even get there. This movie doesn't reach the highs of the last movie at all. But it doesn't even it's not even starting at the same spot that the last movie ended. Make this a comic book thing? Why are we so afraid to have a good time?
Jesus, Yeah, you're talking about the whole James Bond thing. I mean, the Dark Knight begins with basically James Bond sequence, with this whole idea of the Bank robbery, and really they should not have started with Commissioner Gordon or at the time Captain Gordon or whatever his rank is in this one. They shouldn't have started with Gary Oldman. They should have just done this cold open to introduce Spain, the same thing I think we saw in that teaser trailer.
That should have been your open, and then they should have gone on from there. But again to your point, I agree, it's not a very good action sequence. They never rise to that level of either of those set pieces of the Well, there's quite a few set pieces in the second movie, but like the opening with that bank robbery, that bank robbery is freaking amazing. I love that.
I love how it all comes together. I love all of the criminals killing each other this whole like you know, no, I'm supposed to kill the bus driver.
Thing.
William Fickner in there is just so fricking good. The reveal of the the of Heath Ledger himself is great. Just him standing there on the street with those slumped shoulders, holding that mask, that body language that he brings to that first shot of the movie is so great. You never come back to something like that, and this one you never come back to that semi stunt that they had.
It just yeah, feels so pale in comparison. I mean when they come to the big riot at the end, I mean, come on, guys, it's a group of however many hundreds of police officers on one side. It's a group of however many criminals on the other side. They have Batman's vehicles there, Like basically they have two or three batmobiles there. One fires off one shot Batman I guess takes that blast in the bat his jet that
he has, and then that's it. He fucks off. After that, I'm like, well, they got a lot more rounds than just one, Like they should just lay waste to those cops. Like this makes And again I don't want to just keep pointing out like logical flaws in this, but it's just like so at the end, basically you take all of your action figures in your right hand and all of your action figures in your left hand, and you
just start smashing them together because that's the riot. At the end of this, it's like, what are you guys doing, Like where's the nuance? You know, Like yeah, like you're saying, chrys the whole idea of the two boats and stuff. Yeah, that's basically just a you know, a trolley car exercise kind of thing. But it's like, yeah, at least that's something.
At least you got freaking debo there, Like taking the remote control and saying I'm going to do what you can't do, and I'm going to do what you should have done a long time ago, and throwing that out of the ferry. You know, it's like, yeah, there you go, that's your thing. And then disappointing the Joker that his plan didn't come through. I love that his big moment is a moment of disappointment.
There's nothing like that in this movie. Nothing even comes close. I don't understand.
Why abbloviating about the people and the city and all that.
In Dark Night it's small. I would say it's not sufficient, it's not enough.
But we get a character on the prison boat, we get a character on the citizen boat. There are actors that have to act these small roles representing ordinary people. Those kinds of roles should be bigger in that movie as well, but they exist and they make decisive choice within the film that then, yeah, brings disappointment to the nihilism of the Joker and quite frankly, the nihilism of a lot of the folks in the audience think that the Joker is really cool, and we know that, we
know that they're out there there. There were lots of those folks. That's good dramaturgy for the part of the audience. I'm not going to write those folks off. It's actually like a good thing to go through a drama where that kind of hardcore, dark, blackpilled, nihilistic view of the world is then thrown into disappointment. That's a good thing. That's a good thing that you can do for different portions of your audience. So yeah, we just don't have
anything that can arrive. They're clear enough. And we also like all the cinemasins kind of stuff that we've mentioned going along. It's because the movie doesn't embrace dream logic or the kind of fantasy where you can leave gaps the fantasy logic of Raiders of the Lost Arc, for instance, where you can cinemasins the hell out of that movie. But it's part of the entertainment, it's part of the fun, and it's a logic of the world that helps all the stuff come together.
And we just don't have that.
I do want to quickly mention, because you brought up the opening of the original Dark Knight, I'm not using this example to slag on that movie or how that's done. I am gonna say it is a masterful ripoff of a masterful sequence at the beginning of Andrea's Zulovsky's Lamore Brock Zulawski.
Who you might know who did Possession.
Everybody knows the Isabella Johnny meme from Possession, and a lot of people have seen that Lamore Brock a little bit more obscure film, but it opens with a bank robbery of guys in Disney character masks that has so many similarities to this opening. My only issue with Nolan stealing from it is he It would be nice if, in some interview somewhere or a commentary or whatever, had
acknowledged the Zulovsky got there first. And Nolan definitely bests that sequence in terms of grandeur and effects and everything. He's got a much bigger budget, but Julovsky was there first and did an amazing job, and it looks so similar I cannot but believe that there's a ripoff that was perpetrated.
A ripoff I approve of but a ripoff.
Nonetheless, I like Spencer, you're talking about the lack of dream logic in this film. Why not just have had Harvey Dent come back that was less rhetorical but more the movie answers it and you answered it as well, Spencer, which is, there isn't a need to bring someone back who you killed at the end of the last movie. But why did you insist upon killing him at the end of the last movie. That's the part that.
You could have put him in the archay.
Yeah, I will never understand why they don't lean into the trappings of Batman of the things that are obvious.
Yeah.
Put here's the thing. That's where the Joker went at the end of the last movie is he went to Arkham. But what's the point? What are we gonna do if he led Your can't go back as the Joker, We can't James Bond of the Joker, though again, we totally could have done that as well. There's a version of the Joker in the comics who literally cuts off his
own face and reattaches it with belt loops. There are plenty of ways to do this, but not if you refuse to even have dream logic or any level of fun or wanting to engage with the medium on its terms. It's like you, unless you engage it with it on my terms, I don't care, and I don't care about the things that I don't like. I don't care about the things that don't work within my scope and scheme of things because it's not my thing, and I feel like Nolan and a lot of these other directors that's
their thing. It's like, I just won't lower myself to the silly level of a guy in a bat outfit. It's got to be a conversation about the heroes and villains, and it can a hero be good and bad at the same time. It's like, oh, okay, all right, James Gunn did it better in super You want to have a conversation like that, There are ways to have that. There are ways to have that conversation that don't necessitate roping Batman or Superman or any of these other characters
into it. Say what you will about the MCU and it all feeling the same and having the same tone. At least, it all is acknowledging the fact that it comes from silly comic books. Marvel has elevated the MCU stuff and taking it more seriously than I think people fail to give it any credit for. It's just not self serious. It's not super serious. It's not serious in place of having fun like these movies are. These movies are barely even fun.
One of my favorite things about the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League is that completely bizarre last ten to fifteen minutes of.
It the best part of the movie, you mean.
Where it like goes a little bit into the future, and it's like Zack Snyder's dream of setting up a whole bunch of sequels that he's never going to get to do. And the thing is, it's completely surreal and bizarre.
I don't understand why the.
Joker has suddenly popped up Martian Manhunter. The end of the movie is I'm Martian Manhunter and then he flies away.
Who can imagine such things?
This is total utter craziness, and I'm actually here for it. Unfortunately I have to be here for it after four hours of the rest of that goddamn movie. But I will say one other part of the Zack Snyder Justice League there are moments in it that I genuinely love. I will say the Zack Snyder Justice League, but Wonder Woman beheading the main villain with a giant sword? What how did we get here? How did we imagine this?
I'm here for it. That's great. The crazy flash sequence where everything goes super slow and all the lot like hot dogs and buns are flying through the air in slow.
Motion on the babies and the babies.
So completely batshit crazy. That's some fun.
Yeah, Zack Snyder not my favorite filmmaker, but genuinely has a passion and imagination for this stuff.
Totally.
Two points of Excess is into a whole weird, grim
dark thing that I don't fully understand. Oh, Batman versus Superman has one of my favorite bizarro I don't understand what this is kind of sequences where all of a sudden, Batman comes out with a machine gun and he's like shooting a bunch of people and then they're flying villains and shit, and then he wakes up out of a dream, and then the Flash appears to him on a computer screen and yells a bunch of shit that nobody can possibly understand, and then Batman is asleep and wakes up
a second time out of a dream.
Amazing, you just explained why I love that movie so much. Fence, I'm kidding, I'm joking.
Obviously, I love that part, and I actually love the casting of Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor that now talk about appreciant that turned out to predict the future of the world. Casting a Zuckerberg a character as Lex l Luthor that is imaginative politics in a movie. That was a good move to me. Yeah, those movies are super all over the place. They're crazy. But when I watched Batman versus Superman on a plane, people around me noticed when that like crazy dream sequence happened because I could
not contain myself. And if any of those folks on the plane are recognizing this, I sincerely apologize.
That sequence, the dream sequence. There's a group called the Oral Knots and they basically redid that sequence and they had a whole rap song.
Proof, Oh Flash you from the future. The lyricy fresh, specially with the face and like the face, well, it's greatest. The tech dude can't stay on my case, yam, I'm running in place, so keep up if you can.
I've brought it so fast and I'm my whole hype man who sold is it up, Bruce.
Shit's about to get real, like smooths running circles around the Man of Steam and dark Side.
Is coming, so we gotta prepare.
You gotta get your lazy ass out out of the chair.
But before I pass out.
From speed fatigue, I'd like to introduce you to.
The chaste smooth, the first running nets coming from the deep Head.
It's your boy on Coleman, the Vicious Member four friend.
The Black Herman, Lader, Files Dice and his creator. He doesn't think you're real, Mamill explained it to him later. Woman's here, which you already knew.
So why the hell did you ask?
Damn?
I just brought the Fourth Walk. Can't you track of at all?
I'll come Zack Snyder recall.
And they also did a whole thing of Batman The Dark Knight Rises, where they went through and redid all these scenes of Bain talking about the importance of fiber in your diet, or did you have folk breakfast?
Answer him, I was asking you.
A bagel with cream cheese.
Have you heard the phrase you are what you eat? Because when I look at you, guess what I see. I'll tell you bagel and cream cheese. What did you eat a frownie biscuit?
Then they did a whole thing where at the stadium he has Doctor Pavel there and he's just like, who was the only man who could beat me in freestyle? And the guy goes, you know, only me, and then he cracks that guy's neck and then he goes DJ drop a beat and then he raps for like five minutes until somebody yells out, you suck Bane, and they just like kill them all.
It is so good.
So some good art did come out of this movie. Let's as we wrap up, let's accentuate the positive. The Dark Knight rose so that we can have these amazing cultural gifts.
They knew the best parts of this movie because that was one of the things they included in the promotional materials for this film was the football stadium scene. They knew what they had. They knew what they had. They didn't have much else.
It's the only really visually spectacular scene of the movie. I mean, even the chase on the motorcycles is really cold soup compared to anything else.
How about Bane and Batman fighting on the steps of town hall. Oh my god, this is the yeah, you're putting me to sleep here, And then again we have the always fun goofy visuals of having a character light something on fire to create a symbol of their iconography. It always just reminds me of John Travolta being dragged behind a car in The Punisher and then you seeing the Punisher's skull from the sky as John Travolta is being blown up on the ground and lit on fire.
So I was like, who was seeing this? Who is this for? How did he even know? That's a little bit more fantastical than this. This is just the entire bridge is on fire. But again it's just you don't like Spencer. You said like you don't want to acknowledge how silly this is until you do. But you do it in the most milk toast kind of nah in like halfway in, halfway out way, And it's like, okay, so you know that this is silly, and I know
that you can acknowledge that this is silly. You just don't want to, So go make the Odyssey, Then go make Dunkirk, Go make something else that's actually exciting to you. Don't go I don't have any real interest in making this movie, then don't make it.
I was watching a video about this earlier today and was like, oh yeah, and then he went off and he did Inception and that was a huge hit. I was like, yeah, so many people I know watched that movie, and I'm like the whole argument of original ip versus an established property like a Batman. It's like, yes, of course you blew the doors off when you were making those movies. And so many people saw them because the first two pretty decent movies, especially that second one. It's like,
people will go see your stuff. People did go see Tenant even though it was during the pandemic, and I'm sure yeah, a lot of people are probably going to go see The Odyssey. It's like, yeah, you can actually do some original stuff. You don't have to rely on the superhero films unless you make them yours, which I feel like he did in those first two films, and then just really crapped out on this third one.
I think the second one is genuinely a great film, a well made film. It's not again to go further. It's not just a good comic book movie. It transcends comic book film and it's a good film. It as an Oscar winning performance, it has amazing visuals, It has decent enough performances. Look, you cast Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and he was played Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.
We get it. The second movie is really the only movie where they even traffic a little bit in that which again, don't pretend like those of us who don't know cinema language don't know that's what you were also doing here, like at least partially going well, that's a thing that could totally work, because it's already worked for me. That second movie is outside of everything else, Like it's
almost like Raiders of the Lost Arc. I'm not saying it's a perfect movie, but I think the second movie is definitely up there for one of Nolan's best, if not in the conversation for Nolan's best movie. And look, this movie made so much money. This movie wasn't financially unsuccessful. That's the crazy thing. Like this movie made a ton of money. This movie, I think, oh my god, I think it's like the second highest grossing Batman movie ever made.
It made like so much money that again, like you would be shocked because it doesn't seem like it would be successful given how not great the film is. But it still made one point two billion dollars. Effectively, a quote really bad movie doesn't make one point two billion dollars, even if I'm not a fan of the movie. And again, this movie has its problems, but this movie just doesn't need to exist other than for the singular purpose of
making money. Nobody shows up for this franchise the way they did in the second movie, So just still make another movie. Look, Keith Ledger passed away. It's really sad, it's really unfortunate. And that kind of gives you almost like an out. They didn't have to make Black Panther three. They chose to get or two. I guess get why they did, but they didn't have to. You really didn't have to make a third movie here. And if you are,
then bring back Aaron Eckhart. Do something else. At least give a little bit more of what you gave in the second movie. Don't just go completely all over the place once again, pretending like you're not in a superhero movie even though you clearly are.
All Right, guys, we're gonna take a break and play a preview for next week's show right after these brief messages benefice Dune bad.
That's why he said he'd like to begin with him with smooth skin with the blank. And it's surprising how it's progressed.
From the hope he will rope enough, he'll be dope enough to marry me.
We'll see.
We as super playing every now and again.
You will make it.
Plain you appreciate the pains were taking making fee, so we swear and we stream entertain.
Mister cath was the first to realize mister Sloane's potential.
What a smooth skin you have on you, I entertained, missus Lang. I'm give him the benefit of your experience.
But Dad, I wasn't at all keen on entertaining mister Sloane.
You who told you to take in lodgers, Well I needed a bit extra.
You know what they say about landladies.
And then ruther Ed saw the light.
That must have been a rotten life again, been an orphan.
Don't take any money from him.
I'll pay.
It's going to work for me.
Can I buy a shirt?
Clothes?
Making yourself look ridiculous?
Entertaining mister Sloane became a fiercely competitive struggle.
Quite imminent about the waist has I expect you've noticed.
Women are like banks boy breaking an entrance as a serious business.
And mister Sloane, if you take your trousers off with me behind.
Your boy you.
Mister Sloane had his own ideas of entertainment enter Mister Sloan, starring Beryl Reed, Harry andrews, Alan Webb, Peter McHenry as mister Sloane.
I'm going to the place.
You bring this on yourself, you know.
So this was also a part of mister Sloan's entertainment er. Mister everybody wanted to entertain mister Sloane, and mister Sloan is waiting to entertain you.
That's right.
We'll be back next week with a look at entertaining mister Sloan. Until then, I want to thank my co host christ and Spencer. So, Chris, what are you up to these days?
Just working on things over at weirdingwaymedia dot com where you and I have a podcast network where our friends get to sit and talk about movies and TV, and then we also do podcasts about movies and TV and other various pop culture things. All that can be found at weirdingwaymedia dot com other than our show Ranking on Bond, which we do over at patreon dot com slash culturecast and patreon dot com slash Projection Booth where we talk about James Bond once a month and speaking to Daniel Craig.
We're charging through the Daniel Craig movies right heading towards the end of this whole project. So if that's the thing you want to hear because you didn't enjoy enough grim dark analysis with this movie, that's where you can go and find it and spencer about yourself.
I'm going to start listening to your cull Shack the night Stalker podcast because I've just been rewatching all of those and.
The best TV show ever. I love it. I love it so much. I am gearing up to teach an intro class at Northwestern.
Winter and I'm working on the syllabus right now, and it's an intro level class I haven't taught in about ten years, and prepping for it is kicking my ass right now.
So that's the big thing that I'm up to.
Thanks again, guys for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening. Do you want to support physical media and get great movies in the mail, head over to scarecrow dot com and try Scarecrow Videos incredible rent by mail service, the largest publicly accessible collection in the world. You'll find films there entirely unavailable elsewhere. Get what you want, when you want it, without the scrolling, and of course
they have the Dark Knight Rises. If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth check, I got some of the other shows that I work on. They are also available over at Wadingmamedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community.
If you want to.
Join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the Projection Booth take over the world.
That's great, Gotham, How are your feet to the lyrical flow of faith? I braid, Yes, that's my name. You hear the name Ben. I guarantee the bad I'm coming after you.
Bruce White, I'm stronger Smart Kennedy and said, I'm braid that's my name? Was Wade in the the same I broke his back dot combat Smart, Then I crack my twenty brook champd oh likes hip hop.
I had Gotham City was all right, I'm made, Yes, it's a shape and declare us alone. You all come I laugh.
When you ask why I wear the marsh, I'll explain it's because I'm paid.
Yes, that's my name. You saying it to watch the name becomes the name, of course.
Something I plancks gain if you say it to my face. Old pressure lad.
When I say no, you say survivals.
No No.
When I say no, you say it the vibon no no, I breathe, breathe bad. Stop the music.