The Dark Knight

[polonyc2]

here is the brand new trailer for The Dark Knight (Batman Begins sequel)

The Dark Knight

whysoserious

WOW!! that was amazing...Heath Ledger is spot on as The Joker---perfect casting...puts Jack Nicholson's version to shame

[TQ]

Not that I am in any way less excited about this film but I thought the trailer fell short of really selling it.
I'd also say that Heath Ledger's Joker has yet to still prove himself. I didn't get much of his portrayal from the trailer.
During the casting I was really hoping for Crispin Glover to be cast as the Joker. But, like I said...I am still excited about this movie. Batman Begins was phenomenal and I expect the sequel will be at least as good.

[Shadow_Raven]

So the Joker is a guy who wears make-up? No swimming in toxic chemicals and coming out with white skin and green hair - just a bad guy who puts on white make-up and paints a large red lips on his face (and no green hair). Doesn't look good to me.

I had a problem with Batman Begins as well - they half screwed up his origin. Instead of leaving Gotham city and travelling around Europe under different identities and learninig skills from masters, instead they had him get locked up in prison fighting other prisoners???? That one large mistake ruined the movie for me (well that and the very ugly Bat-tank thing that was suppose to be the racing car Batmobile).

[SupDawg]

yeah.. I was disappointed in the trailer too.

[zsaz1029]

Very well said TQ, I agree with everything you said.

[TQ]

Originally Posted by Shadow_Raven

So the Joker is a guy who wears make-up? No swimming in toxic chemicals and coming out with white skin and green hair - just a bad guy who puts on white make-up and paints a large red lips on his face (and no green hair). Doesn't look good to me.

I had a problem with Batman Begins as well - they half screwed up his origin. Instead of leaving Gotham city and travelling around Europe under different identities and learninig skills from masters, instead they had him get locked up in prison fighting other prisoners???? That one large mistake ruined the movie for me (well that and the very ugly Bat-tank thing that was suppose to be the racing car Batmobile).

Ah...well. Let's address this, shall we? Director Tim Burton of the first and second Batman movies took massive liberties with the Batman canon.

First, in the comics, the Joker wasn't disfigured (or made insane) by a deep dip in a pool of toxic chemicals, nor was he in any way connected to the death of Bruce Wayne's parents.
That was Burton's take on it and one one of several bad choices he was to make as the director of the first two films.
Normally, Tim Burton is one of my favorite directors but his two Batman films were abortions. I'm willing to let directors have their own take on comic canon (Sam Raimi did a wonderful job with Spiderman) but Burton's vision was sewage, especially the stunningly bad "Batman Returns".

(Don't even get me started on the excremental nature of Joel Schumacher's two Batman films...)

The Joker, as played by Heath Ledger in the trailer for The Dark Knight is exactly like the Joker from the comics, just without the makeup applied quite as gracefully. This "interpretation" looks quite logical to me and I have no problem with it. I simply preferred Crispin Glover as the choice to play the role but I wasn't in charge of casting.

As far as the Batmobile...another logical and brilliant choice. Having a heavy SUV tank makes much more sense than some phallic rocket car for so many reasons plus it's exactly like the Batmobile from Frank Miller's "Dark Knight" comic from the 1980's. It's right out of Batman comic canon.

I also had no problem with director's Christopher Nolan's interpretation of what Bruce Wayne went through to become The Batman, including his prison time. Remember, Wayne is driven to beat up criminals and, at the time, was consumed by an unfocused rage. What better place to find enough criminals to pound than in The Pokey?

I thought Nolan's take on Ras Al Ghul was also brilliant. In the comics Ras is an immortal who replenishes his life from a sacred pool. That's a bit too fantastical in my opinion. What Nolan did was make Ras appear to be immortal with a kind of shell game that left you guessing as to his identity.

Like I said, I'm all for directors to interpret comic canon, it's just that the choices they make be good ones as in the case of Nolan and Raimi. Frankly, I thought Raimi's decision to flesh out the characters of Dr. Octopus and The Sandman were very good ones because it gave the them depth and made them interesting. In the comics they were just two-dimensional thuggish killers. His take on The Goblin and the Hobgoblin were just as brilliant, though they didn't stray far from the actual characters themselves.

But I digress...Christopher Nolan's version of The Batman as portrayed in "Batman Begins" was, to me as a lover of the comic, perfect.
That rarely happens these days when comics make it to the big screen and it made "Batman Begins" my favorite movie of 2005.

This new trailer feels rushed, like they needed to get something out. It doesn't feel or look particularly exciting. I believe as we get closer to the summer we'll see much better examples of what this new film will bring.

[Shadow_Raven]

Hmm. You brought some interest points but I disagree on most of them. I have been reading comics for about 35 years now (currently down to about 3 marvel books - Spider-Man and the New/Mighty Avengers). Ever time I see a comic book movie, I almost hate it as they really screw everything up. The only comic book movies I like are Superman 1 and 2 and Superman Returns. Batman Begins, and a few other others, I found to be so-so. Most I just plain hate. I always argue that if you are going to make a movie from a comic book, then you should get someone who has read the comic for years (like 20 years) and knows the main character, the supporting characters, the stories, etc. Make very little changes and SMART changes. I always find the person in charge always makes too many changes and most of those are very stupid changes and that's what kills it for me. As for casting - I want them to cast people who actually look like the characters in the comic (do not change the race/sex of the characters). Do not change the background of the characters or the main story they took from the comic.

(Say for Superman - lets change his costume to green, make his hair blond, change his name to Gus Simpson, he works for the WGKI tv station and comes from the planet Malmak. It's going to make a killing at the box office!!)

I waited 20+ years for the Spider-Man movie and what I got was Raimi's crappy version - I gave it a 4 out of 10. There were several parts in the movie where I was cringing in my seat - he butchered it. I'm really glad that he is gone for Spider-Man 4. I hope they get it right this time. I'm not sure how the Iron Man is going to be. From the trailer, it looks they got his origin right.

[TQ]

By all accounts Sam Raimi is a big Silver Age Spiderman fan. About the only complaint I have about Raimi's Spiderman is that he totally left out the running jokes during the fights. This is so essential to the Spidey/Parker character and I was mystified that none of the humor was there.

I didn't know Raimi was off Spiderman 4. This does not bode well and sounds like the studio is having even more of a field day with storyline than they did with Spiderman 3. With S3 it looked as if they were trying too hard to get as many marketable characters (read: toys) in the film as possible. I wasn't an eighties/nineties Spidey fan and blending the Venom storyline with the Sandman really didn't work for me, but that's what Raimi's marching orders were and I think he did the best one could with them.
Too many characters muddied up the broth in Spiderman 3 but I did like the movie very much, though I still think Spiderman 2 and Batman Begins are the best to date comic book based films.

I was also a fan of Spawn and liked that comic book movie very much.

Daredevil was unbelievably bad sputum and Elektra was worse, as impossible a task as that was to accomplish.
The Fantastic Four was so bad I didn't even see the sequel. Yagh.
I did like Superman Returns, but curiously have no desire to see it again. I hated the Christopher Reeve Superman films, with the possible exception of II, if only because I liked Terence Stamp as Zod (he was perfect) but the rest of it (Margot Kidder, argh) was painfully trite.

I've been reading comics myself since I've been able to read. My first super hero comic was Spiderman #28 "The Molten Man". When I first caught a glimpse of Steve Ditko's beautiful black, black cover with only the red outline of Spidey's costume visible juxtaposed with the gold figure of the Molten Man (and no word balloon! ) I was hooked for life.

I can look immediately to my right even now and see a recently read copy of the Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely "All Star Superman" comic.
It, too, has beautiful cover art and no word balloons!

[Shadow_Raven]

The Spider-Man humour is one of the main character traits of Peter Parker, I don't know why they cut it. I think it wasn't until the clone storyline, where Peter Parker/Ben Reily stated that they use the humour as a way to deal with the stress. They're going into battle with a bad guy (usually a super-villian) and there's a good chance that they can get killed, so they crack jokes to deal with it. It also has the effect of driving the bad guys crazy. There's been a few times were the bad guy snaps after listening to Spider-Man's wise cracks causing them to make mistakes (and get caught). If you seen some Bruce Lee movies, I guess this the reason he makes those weird sounds, to distract his opponents and get them to make mistakes.

When Raimi announced "no webshooters, he's going to have organic webbing", that caused a huge uproar. What I don't get, if Raimi used the origin from Ultimate Spider-Man, then why didn't he also use the Ultimate Spider-Man's explaination for the web formula? I have no problem that Peter Parker invented his webshooters, as they're nothing more then high-tech squirt guns. Raimi's problem was that this (genius) teenage kid came up with the web formula himself.

Raimi also chose to throw out Mary Jane's background/history and rewrote it for the movie. Likewise, he changed Norman Osborn's role in OsCorp, how intead of creating the Goblin costume and gear, he stole them, and his whole Goblin persona. The part that the Green Goblin was a split personality that Norman Osborn talked to was taken from the Fox Spider-Man Animated series!!! There was many other changes that Raimi made that all of it just screwed it for me. To me there was no reason, whatsoever to make these changes. If he had kept it the same from the comic, then it would have been excellent.

As for the 2 Fantasic Four movies, Dr Doom is one the finest comic Super villians ever - and they screwed him up! Likewise, they screwed up the Silver Surfer and made Galactus into a space cloud! Many other problems with these 2 movies. I agree that Daredevil and Electra were bad (as was the first Punisher movie. The second was much better). I hated Ghost Rider - they combined Ghost Rider 1 and Ghost Rider 2 as well as screwing up the backstory. The Hulk movie was so-so. I've heard that for Hulk 2 it's going to be a reboot - Hulk 1 never happened. Hulk 2 will also have the origin with the villian being the Abomination. Looks good.

I wish Marvel would do a Nova, the Human Rocket movie as well as Rom, the SpaceKnight. Those would be cool.

[TQ]

I can certainly see where the organic webshooters would be an issue for some but I thought it was very "spider-like" (after all, spiders internally create their own web building materials) and was keeping in tune with Parker getting his spider-powers genetically instead of being bitten by a "radioactive" spider.
We now know here in these modern times that most likely had a spider been exposed to radioactivity it would have given Peter cancer instead of conveying special powers upon him. The genetic story idea is just more modern, as was his ability to create webbing internally. I had no problem with it and found it a refreshing update to Spidey's origin.
Like I said earlier, I missed the whole eighties/nineties Spiderman canon and didn't get back into reading him until J. Michael Straczynski took over (who is doing a fantastic job on the rebooted Thor, by the way).
You're right on the money with the Hulk movie. Lord, that was a snoozer. I'd forgotten it. Not bad, just boring. I'm sure the new one will be much better and I'm excited to see it, having just finished the World War Hulk series last month.
Marvel is really on a roll comic-wise these days. You mentioned the New Avengers...I just finished their first trade and enjoyed it quite a bit.
In fact, I've got to head down to visit my friendly, neighborhood comic store (Austin Books and Comics) today to see what's new and to bring Brad (the store owner) his annual Christmas gift of beer.

[RaiNMaN00001]

I think they got Batman's personality very good in these new movies.
I personally love them, especially because they feel way more realistic than the first movie series.

Originally Posted by Shadow_Raven

If you seen some Bruce Lee movies, I guess this the reason he makes those weird sounds, to distract his opponents and get them to make mistakes.

AFAIK in martial arts the screams are used to gain a higher strength of impact when you hit your opponent or something like that. Has something to do with CHI or how it is spelled. Also the fact that you expel the air from you lungs while screaming is part of this strength enhancing effect.

[TQ]

I usually just drop my pants to distract them.

[polonyc2]

sexy new Dark Knight poster...everything about this film has been perfect so far--the trailer, casting, posters, etc...great marketing campaign...hopefully the film will live up to the hype