Article: 'Christopher Nolan made me hate comic-book movies'

[johnnygobbs]

http://decider.com/2015/04/22/christopher-nolan-made-me-hate-comic-book-movies/

I suspect a few regulars may sympathise with the sentiments expressed by the writer of the above article.

[The Dark Knight]

Good article.

[Edd Grayson]

You may think superhero movies and musicals don't have much in common, but think about it: the flair, the flamboyance, the utmost derision for "realism." In musicals, regular people burst into song and dance in order to express their emotions. In superhero movies, villains express their emotions by taking over large metropolitan cities — freezing them, attacking them with an army of penguins, unleashing large amounts of chemical gases. Why? It's exciting, that's why! It's a movie, not real life!

Indeed.

[Cobblepot4Mayor]

While I find myself understanding exactly what this article is talking about and I agree with what's being said, I must put in a sympathetic vote for Chris Nolan here.

His realism concept was an interesting idea when introduced in Batman Begins. It's just his particular style in how he feels comfortable making a Batman movie and while it isn't the most exciting approach, I found myself getting into it. I remember feeling how clever he was when I discovered his explanation for how Two-Face was going to retain his familiar two toned suit in The Dark Knight. Having it stained in the very same gasoline that scarred him. It's possibly one of the better examples of how to do things realistically and yet keep the iconic look of these characters. I commend him for doing that because you don't really get a particularly great, clear look at the Two-Face costume at all. It's something he really didn't need to bother doing in fact given how abstract it is in the finished shots. But it is there however for those wishing to pay attention. It's truly evidence of his wish to still keep the fun of Batman going. It's just the heavy emotional stuff around it that draws the attention away from such matters.

By Dark Knight Rises however I began to get a tad bored of it. Bane managed okay with his new mask, Catwoman suffered greatly. And when the most important female character in the Batman universe doesn't cut it in the look (and as it happens, casting) department you know it's time to end it. Having those goggles flip up into a pair of cat ears is a concept I just couldn't swallow. Having her have stupid spiked heels in place of Burton's deadly cat claws and a whip didn't make sense to me at all (how on earth is lifting her feet up to fight a believable means of defense than swinging a whip instead?). Choosing not to even have her be called Catwoman, but a burglar called simply "The Cat", was the absolute final straw. Things were getting messy and very very silly at that point. Thanking Christ we never got to The Penguin next! I started to disagree with Nolan's own opinion (chronicled in the "Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy" book) on the prior films. He felt the "comic book style" couldn't last beyond a dozen or so movies and this was possibly why the series had burned out on the fourth picture with George Clooney. He wasn't dissing their style of film. He merely believed in time it turned into a setback for them. For me however the realism concept has even much less life.

But we cannot truly blame Nolan for being the man most responsible for this age of chucking the fun, cool looking stuff out. Blame instead the rubbish director's like Zack Snyder and those wishing to clone Nolan's style again and again and again. There are a lot them out there right now. It is they spoiling all the imagination. Why else do you think there are endless reboots coming out of the walls these days? Filmmakers took one look at Batman Begins and believed chucking out history and starting from scratch with a darker, realistic style would work for any and every franchise (superhero and otherwise). And their all wrong. Nolan didn't tell them to do it after all. But his style ushered in a paradigm shift that was out of his hands as Star Wars had boosted for the fantasy genre back in the 70's. It's just this time we sadly got the lesser enjoyable end of the spectrum.

[The Laughing Fish]

His realism concept was an interesting idea when introduced in Batman Begins.

I don't find Nolan's Batman films realistic at all. Not the way the characters were depicted, and certainly not how the people of Gotham reacted to them. I didn't even buy the characters' limitations because I found them to be so inconsistent, e.g. Batman's body deteriorates because his weak armor can't withhold bullets and knives...but it can still somehow protect him from being splattered on top of a car right after he jumped off a skyscraper or car park platform? And the whole excuse that these movies make the characters face difficult moral challenges doesn't wash because every single of them do contradictory things – in each film and within them.

A lot of people try to argue that Nolan's so-called 'realistic' tone works because Batman is human. This bothers me because while there are millions of people in the real world who have witnessed their loved ones get murdered right in front of their eyes every single day, they tragically don't get to avenge their deaths; let alone becoming vigilantes based on whatever scared them when they were children either. The best Nolan could have at least done was make a film about a man who became so driven to fight crime as his way for avenging his parents by training himself to the peak of physical and mental condition, like how Batman is normally depicted in the comics. That's the reason why Batman is my favourite comic book character. But that doesn't happen with Batman in Nolan's films. He's a guy who is rather impressionable and his destiny happens by coincidence, not by obsession. If he had never met Ra's al Ghul, Bruce would've continued to rot in prison. If he had never met Fox, Bruce would never have become Batman. This gave me the impression that Nolan didn't get Batman and I just don't understand how anyone could find Nolan's Bruce Wayne to be more compelling than how he's normally depicted in the comics. Burton's first film never looked too deeply into his backstory, but it still made it clear that Bruce feels compelled to bring in some order to Gotham following the loss of his parents. At least that was the impression I got.

I remember feeling how clever he was when I discovered his explanation for how Two-Face was going to retain his familiar two toned suit in The Dark Knight. Having it stained in the very same gasoline that scarred him. It's possibly one of the better examples of how to do things realistically and yet keep the iconic look of these characters. I commend him for doing that because you don't really get a particularly great, clear look at the Two-Face costume at all. It's something he really didn't need to bother doing in fact given how abstract it is in the finished shots. But it is there however for those wishing to pay attention.

If you ask me, I thought Two-Face had far more problems than that e.g. the incredibly forced and illogical transformation from cocky lawyer to homicidal maniac in such a short period of time. I thought that always ruined the drama involving him in that film. And another thing I never understood is how come the characters got so watered down so much for the sake of 'realism', when Two-Face could still survive a deadly facial disfigurement like that. All of that is fine, but Batman being is own man and becoming the World's Greatest Detective without Fox's help is unbelievable? I never understood that.

By Dark Knight Rises however I began to get a tad bored of it. Bane managed okay with his new mask, Catwoman suffered greatly.

The way Nolan handled Catwoman never bothered me – I just took it as Nolan doing what he does best – watering down characters for some misguided sense of realism. What, Batman needs to be explained how each piece of equipment of his works – but we can't explore why Scarecrow or Catwoman become who they are and where they got their gadgets? I like how Nolan doesn't bother to explore the villains' methods or motives in any meaningful way. Only maybe Ra's al Ghul comes close as the only villain with an understandable agenda.

But we cannot truly blame Nolan for being the man most responsible for this age of chucking the fun, cool looking stuff out. Blame instead the rubbish director's like Zack Snyder and those wishing to clone Nolan's style again and again and again.

I don't call myself a Snyder fan, but the reason why I'm much kinder towards Man of Steel is because it poses the question of whether or not people might be afraid if they (or someone close to them) had powers that could change the rest of the world, both good and bad. Say whatever you want about Pa Kent in that movie, but he was afraid of the possible prospect that Clark would be looked up to as a God by many people desperate to worship something, or be persecuted for being inhuman by others. For better or worse, Pa Kent didn't want Clark to be pressured by religious fanaticism (i.e. Pete Ross's mother) or prejudice, and wanted Clark to forge his own path on his own terms one day. It's a complicated question that's something that I can't easily answer if I were in a situation like that. It's the only time I thought that Nolan and Goyer earned their supposed reputation for exploring themes with any sort of depth. Man of Steel is indeed an imperfect film, but I still thought it was a great improvement over Nolan's series.