Poll: Would a Batman movie with the Riddler have worked better than TDKR?

[Clive Howlitzer]

I must be the only person in the universe who was thoroughly unimpressed with Ledger's Joker and the Nolan Batman films in general.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

The thing makes the DCAU Mad Hatter so special is that he avoids falling into the two types of villains that Batman usually fights. On one hand you got Dent, Isley, Crane, etc. who are damned by by their psyches and have little choice in becoming bad guys, while on the other hand you got small-time crooks who at the end of the day lack the capacity for malevolence to become truly evil. DCAU Hatter on the other hand places himself somewhere in the middle in that his actions are abhorrent and disgusting, yet his motivations and personality make him unnerving and pitiful at the same time.

I think the key to Mad Hatter is that he would rather live in his Wonderland than reality. If he was part of a movie the writers would have to start from that point and work from there. I am gonna have to sleep on this on though.

The Riddler´s character I think is at its best when you focus on what makes him tick, rather than what makes him who he is. How he became the Riddler is not as interesting as what puzzles he can conjure up.

True true, I guess you don't have to over think it really, just have Hatter take over the building and turns it into wonderland using the mind control devices.


Definitely Riddler is better when heard and not seen.

I must be the only person in the universe who was thoroughly unimpressed with Ledger's Joker and the Nolan Batman films in general.

I am pretty much with you, while I think they are good films I am not sure they are good Batman films, and I liked Ledger's Joker just not as Batmans Joker...sorry guys Mark Hamil is the only Joker for mmmmEEEEEEEE!

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Don't think so.

For the most part, Riddler is a campy villain. His whole motif is teasing Batman that he is smarter than him. Haven't seen TDKR yet, so I can't tell if Bane is handled better...

Off topic, but I was just looking at photos of Joffrey from Game of Thrones.. then I see your avatar..


OT: Hell no, it's not anticlamtic enough.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

The Riddler is just too much like the Joker. It might not be a good idea to make a movie about logical traps and difficult decisions when that's exactly what the Joker did in the last one.

 

[tthor]

now that I think about it, the riddler could work pretty well! A psychotic, egotistical genius trying to show up batman via terrorizing the city could work pretty well, although it would need some more villains in the cast as well for it to work. The one big problem is that it would seem a bit too much like what the joker did in the previous film, so it might seem a little bit repetitive in that regard

 

[Siege_TF]

No, Riddler would have been cirtisized as a Joker knockoff. Best to put him in an early movie where Batman is still trying to get his footing, because of Riddler's compulsive need to leave clues behind.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

However I did not like Bane. I just do not think he worked very well and his voice was beyond irritating (even worse than Bale's Batman voice).

The part where Bane is choking Batman and Bael uses the Bat-Voice was hilarious. I didn't like DKR but the Bat-Voice has never been that hilarious.

As for The Riddler, I think he could have fit well into the Nolan-Verse but the problem is that I see Riddler in those films as being a sort of Son of Sam style murderer: he would leave bodies and, notes and, riddles but the scale of his attacks would just be too small. DKR was striving to be this huge epic thing just like the trilogy as a whole so in that respect, Riddler wouldn't have been a good fit for the grand finale. I think he would have been better suited to Batman Begins or a theoretical movie between BB and DK, working alongside Zsasz (or at least working at the same time as Zsasz) who was in Begins for all of 3 minutes.

Now that I think about it a Batman movie featuring Hush and Riddler could be brilliant if they did their murders in a similar enough fashion to just fuck with Batman's pointy head...

 

[rob_simple]

I doubt it would have made a better film. As you said, Nolan goes for realism in his Batman films, and the Riddler would be almost impossible to take seriously as there isn't much particularly threatening about a crook whose entire MO is leaving brainteasers lying around.

Oh really?

Ah dammit you got me there, although since we already have a Zodiac film starring Iron Man maybe it would have been redundant to stick him in Batman

 

[Nazulu]

This may or may not be answering your question, but I have to say it.

It depends on how they make the character, who plays him, and what they do in the film. Even a character as silly as the penguin can actually work effectively (realistically or just made awesome) if thought out well. That's the great thing about art, any thing is possible and there is always a way to improve on ideas.

So my answer is: it doesn't make a difference who they choose, it's how they present them.

Saying that, Heath Ledger made an amazing Joker.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Nope. In a broad universe like a comic book or a show, where it can go on for a while, it would have been fine. But I feel like them making Riddler the main baddy would have just felt like they were trying to recreate Ledger's Joker. No matter how good it would have been, it would have failed in comparison. If you only have a limited amount of time to flesh them out, they would have both just boiled down to the same character.

Bane was a good choice.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

I think the Riddler would have worked better since he is just more interesting than Bane and while he wouldn't have been as good as the Joker he probably would have been better than Bane and possibly on par with Scarecrow...

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Probably not, I dont know.

What I do know is that Tom Hardy as Bane was just as goddamn amazing as Heath Ledger as The Joker, its a just a slightly more subtle performance, and Heath will automatically be thought of as better simply because he died right before the movies release.

(Not saying that his performance was bad, it was incredible, its just that people feel that simply because he died , nothing could ever match him)

 

[babinro]

I've not seen the newest Batman...that said.

I don't like the trend of multiple villains in a superhero movie. Bane and Catwoman (who probably played villain/hero roles) seems inherently less successful than just one villain.

People probably would have preferred the movie if it was just one iconic villain be it the Riddler OR Catwoman.

 

[Vault101]

the Riddler is kind of seen as a "poor mans joker" and while that may not been the case it would have felt too much like a rehash of TDK villan-wise....or at worst trying to capitalise on the popularity of Ledgers Joker

 

[Vault101]

This is the internet, despite TDK being a good film and the Jokers performance being pretty great, everyone will say until the end of time that they are perfect. I've learnt to just ignore anyone who thinks that way.

and everyone will be saying they were awful

its ok to belive the films were absolutely brilliant (or perfect) and even ok to think they were horrible (though if somone were write them off as horrible without actual valid cirticsms....well)

love/hate balance each other out..somtimes you just ignore it completly, because its nice to enjoy things without hearing the screaming of thousands of fanboys/anti fan haters...

...still that part is my fault

..just can't stay away

 

[xbox hero]

I don't know if an obvious "the riddler is the villain" aspect would have been good, but him being in the background would have been a better motive for bruce wayne to get back in as batman. They could show different murders and other heinous crimes with baffling riddles showing on how hes always 2 steps ahead of the police and a step ahead of batman to get him back in the game. Essentially they should have had the riddler as a secondary villain instead of catwoman. I think it would have made for a more interesting side plot. Essentially, they should have given him a presence the same way he was given a presence in the batman arkham games.

*SPOILER REMOVED FOR QUOTE PURPOSES* Im sorry for the spoilers,but I didnt put them on intentionally! I have no idea how he made a movie where bane is the enemy that long!

Spoiler tags god damnit, I've not seen the movie yet. How can you say "sorry for the spoilers" and "you didn't put them on intentionally" when you literally just wrote them? Did your fingers magically become self-sentient, type out the whole sentence, then break off your backspace key?

On Topic: Movie Riddler (Batman Forever) was campy BECAUSE it was Batman Forever. Batman Forever and Batman & Robin managed to make Riddler, Two Face, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and Bane all camp villains. If we're talking Riddler in Nolan's Batman world? Honestly I can see that working, but I'm not sure if could carry the movie by himself.

It'd probably at best be a good secondary character to the movie in the way Two Face was to Dark Knight's Joker. The angle with him being a savant hired to hunt down Batman is pretty good to be honest; but perhaps Nolan felt that there was already enough psychological back and forth going on in Dark Knight so this time we needed a "meaty" Batman villain. The usual whack-em-up rogue's gallery (Croc, Clayface, Freeze, etc) would have been harder to implement then Bane who is really just "Brick Shithouse".

Final thought: I think Nolan wanted to spread the three tests of courage across all 3 movies but did them in totally the wrong order. The first movie tested his 'heart' (determination, not killing, etc), the second movie tested his 'mind' (not going nuts despite everything going on), and now this third movie seems to be testing his 'strength'. The normal progression is supposed to be Strength -> Mind -> Heart so the hero can see if despite everything else he can still keep sight of what he set out to do, as opposed to coming into his own right from the start then proving the other points as the years went by.

Well first off,I meant to say that i intentionally didn't want to put on the spoiler tags on because that is pretty much why Bane exists!