Let's All Watch The Batman Trailer

[TownTattle]

Bob you are the critic the internet deserves, but not the one it needs right now and so we'll flame him...because he can take it...because he's not a hero...he's a silent guardian, a watchful protector...the Dark Knight.

 

[gorfias]

Oh, Batman is ashamed of being a comic-book adaptation because he doesn't call his car by the ridiculous name 'batmobile'?

Say, how many times does Magneto call himself 'Magneto' or Xavier call himself 'Professor X' in X Men: First Class?

And how many shots of Thor and Captain America are without helmets? Thor goes into battle multiple times with no helmet! Hey, when he's being Batman, Nolan's Batman is fully geared up.

Some other observations: doesn't want to see anything gunlike in Batman's hands!?!? Half his tools look like guns (see kidnapping the calculator scene in TDK, which was awesome!) Guess the guy hasn't played through Arkham City.

I think it was Bob that tried to remind James Bond, he isn't Batman. We don't want everyone acting like Batman. But I love Batman acting like Batman.

I hope they don't kill off Batman. I think that'd be cheap and effect my view of the entire series. It'd be like when Shatner died in Star Trek Generations. Just unnecessary.

I do hope they reboot after this though. A movie can be fantasy AND realistic by not being silly (love humor, hate silliness) and being structured, logical and operating as it should for the given situation. I think Avatar was pretty "realistic" in that it followed the rules of its universe.

But I'd love a Batman series of films that capture what is great in the Arkham City game. Great iteration of the character.

His backs gonna be broken, calling that now.

Nope, first trailer has Gordon looking pretty beat up and hospitalized. Calling it: to throw back to the comic book without screwing up the movie, it'll be his back that gets broken.

It looked to me like the stadium was being blown up with regular explosives, then collapsing into a series of tunnels and chasms (maybe that Native American step thing), like the kind that run under Wayne Manor. Gotham is supposed to be riddled with those kind of catacombs isn't it?

Agreed. And it is interesting: professional football players tend to be in the 1%.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

As far as I know the Nolan films were heavily influenced by the characterisation and atmosphere of Year One and the Long Halloween.

In the latter Selina Kyle appears concerned about the fate of Gotham with Bats constantly asking her why she is becoming involved. I'm guessing that's where they have got her political agenda from.
It's not like Catwoman hasn't been a representative of political stances before, ie Conservation of wildlife in the 90's

Gordon's weary veteran turned cop character is directly lifted from those comics and damn does it suit Gary Oldman.

I'm guessing Bane will become huge as some point through CGI otherwise he's just going to come across as a superstrong dude which frankly is a bit boring.

 

[Guffe]

KILL BATMAN!!!!
please Nolan DO IT!!
Would be so awesome for someone to kill of a good guy sometime.
The world needs more bad guy seccession!!
The movie I will most likely watch, I don't tend to expect too much from movies/games because that just ruins everything.

 

[Guffe]

The pearl necklace Catwoman tries on is the same one Wayne's mother wore to the opera in the first movie:

You rememeber/watch movies way too closely buddy if you are able to pick out stuff like that!
Merry Christmas!

 

[Ubermetalhed]

Although I know the film will be good, the trailer makes it look like the film will be shit.

It looks like a rehash of the last two films and Bane being a wellspoken body builder is well...lame. I want the venom filled monstrosity! There is also an air of pretenciousness emenating from it aswell, like Nolan has gone a bit George Lucas with success.

But it is a trailer afterall, albeit a bad one. The prologue thing aswell wasn't too brilliant either but yeh...I have faith.

 

[TownTattle]

Although I know the film will be good, the trailer makes it look like the film will be shit.

It looks like a rehash of the last two films and Bane being a wellspoken body builder is well...lame. I want the venom filled monstrosity! There is also an air of pretenciousness emenating from it aswell, like Nolan has gone a bit George Lucas with success.

But it is a trailer afterall, albeit a bad one. The prologue thing aswell wasn't too brilliant either but yeh...I have faith.

George Lucas's prequels are not pretentious. I suspect you don't know what it means. If you want pretentious George Lucas, your best bet is THX 1138. I liked that film but you could easily accuse it of being pretentious.

 

[Daymo]

What I would pay for Nolan to replace all TDKR footage with Batman and Robin footage is almost unimaginable. Batman annoys the shit out of me, he is the go to guy for anybody when a comic comes up and yet he is more broken and unrealistic then superman, I would love for Nolan to troll every single Batman fan out there.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Er.... where, in that entire paragraph, did I mention special effects? So why is your response all about special effects?

You mentioned Micheal Bay a multiple amount of times, and he's known for either his overuse of special effects or terrible camera work. His stories sure aren't great, but that's not exactly the first thing anyone would jump too.

Plus my main complaint was with you talking about how the "Occupy" and all the imagery of protesting was to bold or overplayed, to which I'm still trying to fathom is even a valid complaint. It's just such a... (I apologize, but there's no other word for it) stupid thing to whine about. I just don't get it, and I need you to explain how it's overplayed, and why that is even a bad thing. I feel that you saw Bob jokingly remark about the "1%" imagery, and you somehow gathered that it was a bad thing.

I'd understand if you weren't interested in something like that, but saying that it's come off as overplayed just legitimately make no sense to me.

Keep in mind it's a trailer, and this is a pretty logical step the story can take.

I don't care if he blows up a football stadium with CGI, I just want a good story. Michael Bay uses great special effects himself - it's the stories that are garbage. That's what I'm worried about here.

I really still don't understand where Micheal Bay somehow manages to relate to this, but I thought the trailer did a good job of explaining what the story was gonna be.

Batman sacrificed his image so people would see Harvey as the hero in the last movie. People are now turned on him

Now there's less crime in Gotham, so the rich and the powerful have taken control, leaving nothing for the poor folk in Gotham. Now everyone has turned on both Bruce and Batman, so he has nowhere to turn. The dialogue with the Butler shows that he is out of options, and in doing what he did, he may have made the city even worse off than it was.

Bane is pissed about something that will no doubt be explained in the movie, and it seems that he has turned Gotham against them.

It thought it was brilliant. And just by the trailer, it's got a better story than either of the Batman movies.

 

[ElectroJosh]

The trailer was interesting but those first 5 or 6 minutes they showed at the beginning of MI4:Ghost Protocol interested me more. Bane's voice was still difficult to make out in it. However the "incindent" (I will try to be spoiler free here) strongly indicates there is some big scheme being planned.

As for the "dark and gritty batman". I think people need to put this into perspective. The Batman comic has been around for so long and been written in so many ways that pretty much all the Batman films, the various animated series, and the old tv show are faithful to the comics. This is because the comics have varied in tone and style over the years. This has been due to trends in comic book story-telling, comic-book code imposed guidelines and the direction the various writers wanted to take the stories in.

I agree that it is annoying that superhero films of today are trying to what the comics did in the '90s - make everything realistic and dark - but some of them work better with this sort of treatment. Simply put I prefer the darker more realistic Batman films just like I prefered the Batman comics that had that approach. Batman just suits that sort of thing much more than, say, Spiderman.

 

[lolmynamewastaken]

next week can we have Prometheus? im considering hibernating until this is out.

 

[Mr Dizazta]

All I want to know is if Bane is going to be using his trademarked venom.

 

[Callate]

"Gee, it sure would be ironic if turned out that peacetime makes Gotham lower its guard and fall prey to evil, thus teaching everyone the lesson that peace can only be won by leaders who are constantly ready/eager for war, huh? Nolanverse Batman: your source for uncomfortably positive imaginings of the Cheney doctrine since 2008!"

... huh? Where the hell did that come from? TDK wasn't right-wing, and I highly doubt Christopher Nolan or his brother are anything close to Republicans.

Welcome to the world of over-analysis. A certain segment of critics chose to interpret Batman's use of the cell phones of Gotham City to pinpoint the Joker as some kind of endorsement of the Bush/Cheney/TIA "we spy on you because we care" policies.

It's an incredibly facile bit of analysis, not least because the plot makes a point of the technology being destroyed after its maiden use because it's simply too powerful and dangerous to allow anyone to control it. But far be it from me to stand between a critic and a shitty metaphor.

I'll pitch in the 'Give it a rest with the sarcasm' crowd here Bob.

For one thing, it makes you come off as a bit of an hypocrite since you were outraged (and even made an entire escape to the movie episode on it) that Dark Knight didn't get an Oscar nomination. Than a bunch of zany, campy super hero movie come out and suddenly you're basically begging Nolan to re-introduce the Bat Dance...

There is nothing wrong about having 1 dark and gritty super hero franchise. It happens to fit Batman very well. It happens to be very successful. And trying to 'balance' things out by being overly cynical about it really doesn't make you come off well.

Amen to that. This went from "critical" to "snarky" all the way across the meter to "bitchy" in nothing flat, to the detriment of anything resembling either analysis or humor.

I don't think Nolan is some kind of director-god-come-down-from-on-high. It's not impossible that his Batman trilogy will end on a sour note. But on this particular subject, Moviebob has consistently found the most trivial, inane, and ridiculous points on which to direct his ire, to the point where whatever (debatable) flaws the series may actually have, I can only sing hallelujahs that at least the series is in the hands of someone like Nolan rather than a "the lack of eye-blistering four-color-comic visuals is spitting in the faces of the real comic lovers" devotee like Bob.

(Yes, that's an over-simplification of Bob's point-of-view; so is "Nolan can do no wrong" as a dismissal of anyone who disagrees. And having seriously suggested that Nolan should add Robin to the franchise, I'm just about ready to discard MB's take on Batman out of hand.)

 

[Ariseishirou]

You mentioned Micheal Bay a multiple amount of times, and he's known for either his overuse of special effects or terrible camera work. His stories sure aren't great, but that's not exactly the first thing anyone would jump too.

No offense to you, mate, but I think that's not even remotely true. Michael Bay is mostly panned for his terrible, nonsensical stories, and that's absolutely the first thing most people would jump to with a Michael Bay comparison. That is the most common complaint about the Transformers movies. (He's also known for gratuitous shots of Hollywood starlets, but that's neither here nor there.)

Plus my main complaint was with you talking about how the "Occupy" and all the imagery of protesting was to bold or overplayed, to which I'm still trying to fathom is even a valid complaint. It's just such a... (I apologize, but there's no other word for it) stupid thing to whine about.

Don't worry, I'm not going to report you to the mods, but there are certainly more intelligent ways to discuss something with someone who doesn't share your opinion than calling them "stupid" because you don't understand, and if you keep it up I will.

I just don't get it, and I need you to explain how it's overplayed, and why that is even a bad thing. I feel that you saw Bob jokingly remark about the "1%" imagery, and you somehow gathered that it was a bad thing.

No, I posted about this on my FB days before Bob's analysis came out. The "Occupy" imagery is pretty obvious. But it makes zero sense for Bane to be able to use the movement and its sentiments to "take over" Gotham, because the movement isn't about "taking over" anything - it's about sitting in the street to get media attention. None of those people are armed, and none of them are violent. For Bane to use a non-violent awareness-raising sit-in to beat up cops and wealthy folks (who to this day have been the ones pepper-spraying and beating the protestors, not the other way around) is just mind-bogglingly ludicrous. It's like Lex Luthor riling up Gandhi to go put the beat down on Superman.

It's like something Michael Bay would come up with. Combined with the over-the-top special effects, plus the overblown American jingoism (national anthem, rich versus poor, football stadium), and one can only wonder if, as in Bay films, the camera is at some point going to pan around gently waving American flag in slow motion. It's ridiculous. And the comparison is entirely apt.

I really still don't understand where Micheal Bay somehow manages to relate to this,

Well, now you know.

It's baffling, coming from Nolan. I loved Inception; it wasn't like this at all. Nor was Batman Begins. TDK had a bit of it, but nothing to this degree. I sincerely hope it's not as awful as it looks.

 

[A Curious Fellow]

Bob, we all wish it was ace reporter Clark Kent.

Yes, yes we do.

On track, I want to be with you and call nuts to that if the League of Shadows is MIA or if they don't actually Knightfall the Knight like we all really want them to...

But the last two batman movies were so good that if this film turns out to be the worst of the three, it's still likely going to be a smash out of the park.

I don't "trust Nolan" because that's inane, but I am mildly proficient at pattern recognition. A lot of hero movies fumble the third because they try to cram too many villains and storylines in (see Spiderman three, or better yet don't) and Nolan doesn't appear to be doing that. This baby of his looks focused, even if Bane and Catwoman have shitty costume design.

What I'm saying is, though I have very high standards, I'm giving Rises a pass until it gives me reason not to, rather than the other way around. The series has earned it thus far.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

No, I posted about this on my FB days before Bob's analysis came out. The "Occupy" imagery is pretty obvious. But it makes zero sense for Bane to be able to use the movement and its sentiments to "take over" Gotham, because the movement isn't about "taking over" anything - it's about sitting in the street to get media attention. None of those people are armed, and none of them are violent. For Bane to use a non-violent awareness-raising sit-in to beat up cops and wealthy folks (who to this day have been the ones pepper-spraying and beating the protestors, not the other way around) is just mind-bogglingly ludicrous. It's like Lex Luthor riling up Gandhi to go put the beat down on Superman.

Okay then, it's not that similar to the Occupy movement. It's about rich versus poor, how in this case neither are right. How is that ridiculous? Like really, "Phht, Violent Protests. How unrealistic!" We're seeing stuff like this all around the world. Lebanon just went through something like this, Egypt overthrew their government, yet it somehow is a foreign and ludacris subject for a superhero movie?

Happened with the French Revolution, and that ended with people getting their heads chopped off. I just... don't understand how that somehow is "unacceptable" storytelling. It's not bigger of a jump than a clown with make up terrorizing a city while a guy dressed as a bat saves them, or a man who dresses like a scarecrow and dumps fear juice into the sewage system to get everyone in a city to tear it apart.

It's like something Michael Bay would come up with. Combined with the over-the-top special effects, plus the overblown American jingoism (national anthem, rich versus poor, football stadium), and one can only wonder if, as in Bay films, the camera is at some point going to pan around gently waving American flag in slow motion. It's ridiculous. And the comparison is entirely apt.

How is that ridiculous? You could just as easily be upset that the movie is set in the United States. I don't get where a child singing the National anthem somehow cries "Look at how American this is!", and when that somehow became insulting and caustic.

You know Gotham is a fictional city in the US right? This is what I'm talking about. I'm legitimately having a hard time finding out why this falls under stupid storytelling. If Bane was doing it just to shit on America, and he was a Nazi or Russian or something like that, I might be able to see where you were coming from. Barely.

But all it's shown is a football stadium getting blown up. Would you have preferred a Soccer stadium? Would that have been less Patriotic enough to count as reasonable? Should the kid have been singing a U2 song instead?

Also, I don't think "apt" is the word you meant to use. That's basically saying that you think it's appropriate.

 

[Ariseishirou]

It's about rich versus poor, how in this case neither are right. How is that ridiculous? Like really, "Phht, Violent Protests. How unrealistic!" We're seeing stuff like this all around the world. Lebanon just went through something like this, Egypt overthrew their government, yet it somehow is a foreign and ludacris subject for a superhero movie?

It's true, we do, so why use a protest that is entirely non-violent, unless one is doing to misconstrue the movement for political reasons, or just daftly misunderstanding it? This isn't the French revolution. It's Occupy. It really is like using Gandhi to punch out Lex Luther, when you could use less ridiculous freedom fighters who actually fought.

How is that ridiculous? You could just as easily be upset that the movie is set in the United States. I don't get where a child singing the National anthem somehow cries "Look at how American this is!", and when that somehow became insulting and caustic.

It's not "insulting", it's just heavy-handed, over-the-top, and melodramatic. Which is bad storytelling. There are subtler, more nuanced references to patriotism one could make.

Also, I don't think "apt" is the word you meant to use. That's basically saying that you think it's appropriate.

Yes, the comparison of this trailer to Michael Bay films is apt. I do think the comparison to Michael Bay is appropriate. You are correct, in that I was using apt to mean appropriate. Because I think the comparison of this trailer to Michael Bay films, which is both the topic of that paragraph and the thesis of my argument for this entire discussion, is both apt and appropriate. Are you even reading what I write?

 

[Jetsetneo]

Bob, when you go full-snark, you're just as bad as the fanboys you tend to either ridicule, apologize for, or set yourself apart from. This 'review' wasn't.

As for the actual movie trailer, I was sad at the lack of actual BATMAN. And the Bane voice thing, but at this point I'll just have to wait for the actual movie to judge.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I get shivers every time I hear Bane say "when Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die".

I want to see this movie so badly in all of it's IMAX glory. What can I say, I love Batman. And I'm not just saying that because it's mandatory to love Batman on the internet. I grew up surrounded by everything Batman related. I was groomed to be the ultimate fanboy.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I hope the film will be as good as first class, and that catwoman is not stupid like in the catwoman movie. That is all I hope for, Nolan has never disappointed me before so I doubt he will now.

Look at me talking as if I know Nolan personally, hehe