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

[Space Spoons]

You have to remember, The Dark Knight Rises is a summer action flick. The Riddler is a great villain, and stories involving him can be interesting, but they typically tend to focus on Batman's skill as a detective and a lateral thinker. Nobody wants to go to a theater and watch a man in a bat costume solve puzzles for two hours- they want to see him beat people up and explode things with his flying car.

 

[Furioso]

Yes, it could have been far better, maybe show off more of Batmans brilliance and detective work, but for the much more important reason of I WOULD ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT HE IS SAYING

 

[OriginalLadders]

Definitely not. The Riddler is one of the Batman villains who just wants to beat Batman. Like the Joker, but from an intelligence angle rather than insanity. He would have been too similar and so it would have felt repetitive.

 

[Deshin]

*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.

 

[8bitmaster]

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.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I don't know how well Bane works because I haven't seen TDKR yet but I do think that the Riddler could've provided an awesome villain. How? Instead of Carry-style silliness make him some sort of Moriarty. That's how I envisioned a Nolan-esque Riddler anyway.

I really wished that Harvey Dent didn't die so quickly. I would've loved to see him team up with the Riddler and try to discredit Batman, that sort of thing.

 

[Dethenger]

Because peoples obsession with what they would have preferred is annoying and pointless.

Thinking in the hypothetical is not the same as wishing things were different. For example, the question posed could have been: "What if Bane in TDKR was played out more similarly to how he is in the Arkham games and the animated series (as a thoughtless brute as opposed to an intellectual powerhouse)?" I don't want Bane to have been a mindless tank, I'm just wondering. Same thing here; there were a few rumours that TDKR would feature The Riddler; now that the actual thing has come out, there's no harm in thinking about what could have been.

I don't even think The Riddler is a good character from Batman, not to say Bane is but the last two films have no been about Batman as detective but Batman as cypher for sudden change. The Riddler would be out of place and disjoined which is something all multi movie franchises suffer from at the best of times.

Now, this is what you should have posted to begin with, not "Well Nolan didn't think so, so no."

Is that enough justification for you oh so high standards? or did you just want to join in the circle jerk of "Wahh, i didn't like Bane, he talked funny, i couldn't understand" because there aren't enough of those threads here already.

High standards? You completely sidestepped the entire discussion of the thread to talk about some fabricated notion that everyone here just wants to hate on Bane.

 

[Siberian Relic]

The Riddler could have worked. I would've been confident in Nolan's capability to bring that character to the screen in a reliable way, just as he did in restoring dignity to Two-Face and Bane, and in all but blowing Nicholson's Joker out of the water.

I don't think he would've fared better than Bane, and he may have been perceived as worse. He's an intellectually-equivalent, physically inferior character for Batman to face, and Bats has faced that roughly four times in two movies.

The backlash I'm seeing for Bane has to do with him being the follow up to the Joker. Heath Ledger, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, it doesn't matter who plays the Joker. He's Batman's most iconic and popular foe; you're not going to top him, least of all with Bane. But Nolan wasn't trying to top the Joker and neither was Tom Hardy. Had the movie actually been about Bane, then I would join in the chorus of disgruntled fans. But the story was about Bruce, and it's meant to conclude his arc and restore Batman's willpower in order to defeat someone he can't physically tackle. And that couldn't happen after he'd spent eight years stewing about idly.

If I have a problem with any villain in The Dark Knight Rises, it's who Bane's been protecting.

 

[BeeGeenie]

hmm... interesting question. The Riddler can be played straight as a psychotic Narcissist trying to outsmart people (comparisons have been made to Jigsaw). He doesn't have to be just a goofy Joker knockoff. He's only wacky because that's how Frank Gorshin chose to portray him in the (already campy) Adam West series.

So Yes, the Riddler could have worked as the villain in a Nolan Batman movie.

 

[TheNaut131]

I found Bane to be one of the three enjoyable things in the movie. The other one was the new cop and the cat burglar. Bale as Batman was again boring as fuck and I could not care less when he was in a scene. Maybe the movie would've been better if we would have a better Batman.

Like Adam West?

Spoiler

 

[Froggy Slayer]

I think that the Riddler isn't really grandiose enough for the finale that was DKR, but that if they were to do another trilogy with Blake as Batman, the Riddler could be a good villain. Hell, you could have a double up villain thing going in with Riddler as the 'thinking' villain and another as the 'fighting' villain.

 

[pilouuuu]

I think Daggett character could have been the Riddler. He could be a rich men that wants to take control of Wayne's industries. He then makes fun of Bruce's loss, by sending him riddles about how to recover his money, just to show that he's smarter than him. It wouldn't take much to add him as a secondary character. Also Oswald Cobblepot could also have a cameo as a rich men trying to get control of the company.

I also was surprised Bruce didn't have to use his information machine again as a last resource. Oh, I wish this movie was even longer to add all that stuff.

 

[pilouuuu]

I found Bane to be one of the three enjoyable things in the movie. The other one was the new cop and the cat burglar. Bale as Batman was again boring as fuck and I could not care less when he was in a scene. Maybe the movie would've been better if we would have a better Batman.

Like Adam West?

Spoiler

If I'm totally honest: Yeah, Adam West would be better because then Batman would be at least funny.

Haha I think Bale is an alright Batman. He is somewhat boring as Bruce Wayne, but I liked him in TDKR. Michael Fassbender would be an amazing Batman and Bruce Wayne!

 

[annoyinglizardvoice]

No. While I was disappointed at the time that the story about David Tenant as the Riddler turned out to be just a rumour, I feel he might have ended up too similar to the Joker to make quite the same mark. I thought Bane actually worked quite well as the previous films hadn't included much of a physical threat to Batman, so his presence was a good change of pace.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

The animated batman has a every calm and serious Riddler so yes he'd work a lot better than Brain....er.. Bane...(even tho that's not Bane.... >> still a good film but I like Burtons batman more)

 

[Hjalmar Fryklund]

The animated batman has a every calm and serious Riddler so yes he'd work a lot better than Brain....er.. Bane...(even tho that's not Bane.... >> still a good film but I like Burtons batman more)

Too bad the Riddler episodes were nothing better than mediocre.

 

[the doom cannon]

I would have loved a movie with The Riddler, but I can't seem to come up with an actor who could shine in that role. Which is probably why it wasn't done. And btw the Riddler is not just a bunch of wacky riddles. He is a legitimate villain with a very very odd way of doing his...umm, villaining?