Article: "DC Failures Brighten 'The Dark Knight' Trilogy Brilliance"

[The Dark Knight]

To me, it shouldn't be a matter of Nolan being better than Snyder or vice versa. They're both Batman. Just different Batmen. But if someone else wants to play this stupid game over which one is more sophisticated, Nolan isn't the clear champ that some of his cheerleaders might want to believe.

Indeed. Viewing Nolan's films as popcorn entertainment is the way to enjoy them. But as you say, they weren't made with that thinking in mind. Honestly, I think the way people speak in the TDK Trilogy sours my enthusiasm. Especially in BB and TDK. Repetitious, unnatural and annoying. I don't really find that same problem in MoS or BvS.

[The Laughing Fish]

It's true. Christopher Nolan's masterwork isn't dark; it's cool and it's escapism. In Nolan's Batman, you can indulge in the fantasy that is Batman without any of the repercussions. You can watch Bruce Wayne blow up a monastery full of ninjas, but because you never see their bodies burning, them screaming in agony, and them maimed and dying it's okay. Batman can ram through a trailer in a chase scene, and because Nolan never showed their bodies, it's okay. Catwoman can shoot Bane with a high powered rifle and kill him, but because the movie doesn't dwell on it and she says a one-liner, it's okay. All of these examples remove the consequences from the heroes' actions. It allows you to indulge in the fantasy and think these heroes are great, but that feeling of elation you get is disingenuous as the films just pretend that people aren't dying.

How the hell did I miss this?! We saw the fake Ra's al Ghul's dead body and ninjas being blown by explosions during that monastery scene in BB. Did the blogger, like everybody else, forget about that?

"Third-grade philosophy Snyder throws into his DC films"...right, as if Nolan is any better here.

Can't believe I missed this in the OP.

But it is true. One thing that drives me up the wall about The Dark Knight is how the Joker uses "chaos" interchangeably with "anarchy". It's like he doesn't know the difference between the two. By extension, I think this applies to the Nolan brothers as well.

In brief, anarchy is extremely limited law and extremely limited government. It's hard to point to a functional model of anarchy because anarchy is one of those rare forms of government which has arguably never been attempted (although I would argue Occupy Oakland came damned close). But that's the theory of it, at least. Your "government" may be the guy who is the "mayor" of your city block. The idea is to put power as close (by proximity) to the people as possible.

Chaos is completely different. Anarchy is microscopic government. Chaos is no government, no law, no nothing.

Now, one could reasonably hypothesize that chaos is the end product of anarchy... but, as above, there's no case study anybody can point to where anarchy has ever been attempted so that point is impossible to prove via evidence.

This may seem like a trivial complaint. But I don't think it is. The Joker as presented in TDK would understand the difference between anarchy and chaos. He would (or should) know better than to use them interchangeably with each others. It drags me out of the movie every time.

Nolan wanted to create sophisticated, literary films with his trilogy. Minor slip-ups like that are egregious for a film series which claims to dot all the i's and cross all the t's in it's themes, morality and philosophy.

People are welcome to say anything they want about Snyder but I see no real attempt at such pretentious thinking. And the philosophy it attempts to illustrate is done so consistently -- and without the pop-political science goofs, I might add.

To me, it shouldn't be a matter of Nolan being better than Snyder or vice versa. They're both Batman. Just different Batmen. But if someone else wants to play this stupid game over which one is more sophisticated, Nolan isn't the clear champ that some of his cheerleaders might want to believe.

Despise Tom Hardy's Bane had a lot of holes in his plans to seize Gotham, it sounds like he was more of an anarchist than TDK's Joker was.

The problem is whenever it comes to TDK's Joker, people don't really care about these sort of details because, according to them, his random acts of violence and lying about his past makes him a compelling villain. Well, I don't. Sorry, but if you need to ignore his conflicting actions or his plans relies on tons of plot conveniences because he's just "an agent of chaos", that's not very good storytelling to me. I can't comprehend how people continue to overlook the holes in Nolan's Joker and Bane's plans, but think Eisenberg's Lex was a mess. Lex at least was a real manipulator who anticipated everything in advance, as we saw in the UE where he had that African witness killed. If there was anyone who relied on a lot of dumb luck, it was TDK's Joker.

Indeed. Viewing Nolan's films as popcorn entertainment is the way to enjoy them. But as you say, they weren't made with that thinking in mind. Honestly, I think the way people speak in the TDK Trilogy sours my enthusiasm. Especially in BB and TDK. Repetitious, unnatural and annoying. I don't really find that same problem in MoS or BvS.

I thought MOS had its share of expository dialogue and can be repetitive sometimes, but BvS was an improvement. I'm glad that BvS established Bruce's fear and prejudice towards Superman using visuals AND dialogue, but doesn't overdo the latter.

[Dagenspear]

Source: http://www.themovienetwork.com/article/dc-failures-brighten-dark-knight-trilogy-brilliance

Forgive me, but I need to rant. What a load of crap, but typical from hordes of hypocrites who defend TDK.

There's a lot of drivel from this article that makes me laugh. "Then when Superman did die, Bruce still talked about having hope even after the first 99 percent of the movie laughed off that notion altogether, in the absolute height of hypocrisy." This is absolutely rich, considering that this author conveniently forgot that Batman framing himself for Dent's crimes so the poor masses don't lose hope over the truth, totally contradicted his belief that "people are ready to believe in good" at the end of the boat scene.

It wasn't a contradiction.

Besides, what he said about BvS in that regard isn't even true. If he had paid any attention, he'd realise that despite all the prejudice and misguided hatred people had for Superman, he still sacrificed himself to save the planet; further inspiring Batman to regain hope and carry on his legacy. But somehow, this "brilliant" author missed that.

That doesn't come across as hopeful for humanity at all. People need someone to die saving them to make them change doesn't seem to make a good case for humanity, like the movie attempts to.

"Third-grade philosophy Snyder throws into his DC films"...right, as if Nolan is any better here.

I also think it's very rich to complain Eisenberg's Lex and his plans was nonsensical, while trying to justify TDK's Joker as "brilliant or logical". You mean like that whole Gordon faked death subplot that nobody could've anticipated? Or Joker says he hates plans despite the fact every he does is based on some planning and calculation? Or Dent would actually buy into Joker's idiotic monologue and suddenly become a cold-blooded killer...while at the same time, sparing Joker even though he ruined his life?! Yet people think they can complain about the Martha moment? Give me a break.

You always ignore the fact Harvey Dent is an insane man who, by his very character, is supposed to be insane being written to be insane. Gordon's faked death had nothing to do with anything. Joker never says that he hates plans. He says that he tries to show the schemers who try to control their little worlds how pathetic their attempts to control things are. The Joker, as far as he's concerned, doesn't do that. He doesn't have set plans or schemes to control things, to him. He, to him, just does things and goes with whatever happens. The Gothamites not blowing eachother up barely fazes him because he didn't have a real set plan that depended on that.

Hell, I don't even agree that Nolan knew exactly what he was doing with the Joker, since the Joker doesn't even get a proper conclusion, and there's no way he'd sit by and let the Dent cover-up take place. I didn't care for Suicide Squad that much and one of the reasons is because it had too many characters than it needed to have. But most of the characters in Nolan's films come across as plot devices, and poorly constructed ones at that.

That's not a problem in the movie.

Yeah, I know I'm repeating myself here, but I got to say it again: the most disturbing thing, and this writer isn't the only has said this, is TDK is described as "hopeful" and "uplifting". How?! It's a film that contradicts itself in every step of the way. There's nothing at all hopeful that Batman does, after all the fuss over his "one rule", he kills Two-Face to save a kid, which not only makes the whole moral dilemma with the Joker meaningless, but he could've spared Gotham so much trouble. The boat scene is nothing more but lip service, which Batman himself doesn't even believe in because he makes a cowardly decision that gives the entire town a false sense of security, which only allows Bane to take advantage of years later and uses it to subject the entire town into more misery. That's hopeful?! If TDK wanted out that message, it would've had Batman defeat Joker by revealing the truth about Harvey and people moving on, reinforcing that they ARE ready to believe in good. Otherwise, no they're not, and the message is hollow, and Batman taking the fall undermines every heroic thing he has ever done.

You try to define the movie by the main character's perceptions. The message of the movie isn't trying to say that whatever Batman believes is a reflection of the movie. On the contrary, Batman misunderstands the point. He thinks Batman is a negative effect. That's not true. But he thinks that because of his guilt over the Joker's actions, Rachel's death and Harvey's psychotic break. The uplifting oart is that, despite darkness that movie has, though not dour like BvS, Batman tries to achieve something good at the end in the midst of his personal tragedy and what happens to Harvey as well. The 2 sides of situations are displayed throughout the movie. The dark and light sides of humanity, in corrupt cops, mobsters, clean cops and the people of Gotham in general. The good in humanity can't erase the bad in humanity. Fighting is all we, as humans, can do. Harvey loses that fight within himself. But that doesn't take away hope, good or make the choice Batman makes, that despite Batman believing the same that Harvey did, that the humanity in Gotham can fall from doing good, he doesn't break under the same pressure that Harvey does. He tries to use it for what he thinks is a greater good. He's wrong in his actions of course. That's apart of his character arc, understanding that being Batman is generally unhealthy for him as a person, hence the unhealthy throwing of himself under the bus approach he takes. Though lying to protect people isn't out of character for Batman. In the comics Batman kept the truth of Tony Zucco being alive from Dick to protect him. And on Gotham [spoiler=]Bruce just did the same in regards to knowing Selina's mom was conning her.[/spoiler] You may ask, why is self destruction and unhealthiness is okay to do with Batman and not Superman. Well, that's Batman's character. Guilt, anger, unhealthiness is in the character. It's the difference BvS misses. Superman doesn't have to be sunny or carefree, SV Clark and TAS Clark sure weren't, same SR Clark. But they also weren't stone cold in the way BvS was that is so hung up on its issues that it doesn't try to show Superman as a character nearly as often as it should. This is Superman's movie, but his character barely gets the time to really show his character as a more than 2 dimensional cutout for Batman to punch at the end and get Batman to wanting to get the JL. In the TC of course. I don't pay to see a movie twice anymore. I will say that Henry Cavill's scenes as Clark in the TC were the only times I felt he has dimension. TDKT achieved this with Bruce, not always perfectly, but did achieve it.

I'll just sum up this post, BvS is hardly perfect, and despite watching the UE, I still have my own personal gripes with it. I think it's too long, and I'll honestly say it can be a drag at times. But at least I can appreciate that movie for having heroes come to terms with their failures and redeem themselves in the end, and show bravery despite being treated with scorn and distrust. That's a lot more of positive and hopeful than anything I got from TDKT. You tell me which is more heroic: Superman charging at Doomsday with the Kryptonite spear despite knowing he could get killed and declaring his determination to protect a divisive world that mostly doubted or despised him...or Batman faking his death for no real reason, and decides to leave Gotham because it's a place that gives him misery; while at the same time, he gives the keys to the Batcave to someone else?

You misunderstand the point of TDKR if you think the point is to make Bruce look heroic. The point is fulfilling his character arc as a man who lets go of his misery and pain and moves on from his problems and is able to have a more stable life. The movie fails the Superman character in this way, not by failing to make him look heroic, but by trying to make him look heroic at the expense of story and his character. Superman doesn't have a character arc in this movie by sacrificing himself. He would do that always. Clark achieves no real character growth by this experience and his choice at the end doesn't reflect his character growth. He would always do that, because he's not evil. His character is just thrown to the wolves to have Batman assemble the JL.

There's a whole lot of rubbish in this article, but I've said enough. TDK's greatest legacy is you can never under-estimate how a cult-minded following can brainwash anyone. The fact it's considered to be some kind of masterpiece is a travesty.

That's intense and insulting to people. It's not perfect, no movie is, but your reasons against it seem to mostly be faulty. Have a very great day!

God bless you all!