Synder's: The Dark Knight Returns? Will it happen?

[CelticPredator]

I've always preferred The Dark Knight Returns to Watchmen.

Say that in a comic shop.

 

[SwedishHeat]

Oh man, TDKSA was horrible.

Made my eyes want to puke.

Yeah, it just didn't make any sense. I've read that Miller intended it as an FU to people who worshiped DKR. Like, he sat down and intentionally wrote a crappy Batman story because people were expecting something great.

 

[Bloodsport]

Lets pray that if it ever does get made, Frank Miller is not the director.

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:chew

 

[Cap'n Cook]

I've always preferred The Dark Knight Returns to Watchmen.

Me too.

My message was too short?

 

[EVILFACE]

Say that in a comic shop.

Why, would you be jumped by a bunch of dorks?

 

[CelticPredator]

Yeah.

 

[GuruAskew]

I would love to see another "Batman" movie from a director like Zack Snyder who understands and appreciates the asthetics of a comic book rather than a director like Christopher Nolan who is ashamed of them.

Tim Burton and Bruce Timm both understand that you don't take Batman too seriously. Granted, the character himself is very serious but he should be in a very stylized and unrealistic world because the character is very unrealistic. I know most people tend to think that Batman is the most realistic comic book character but in my eyes he's the least-realistic character because he does all sorts of unrealistic things and you're supposed to believe that a mortal human being does them. Characters like Superman and Spider-Man take unrealistic circumstances and (in the cases where they're written right) present a character who deals with those unrealistic circumstances in a realistic way. Batman presents a realistic circumstance (it's not exactly common to have your parents murdered but it happens) and presents a character who deals with that in an unrealistic way. What you have left is a character who is literally invincible, all-knowing and psychologically and morally unwavering and that results in a boring character.

If you put Batman in a realistic setting like Nolan did you start asking questions that you wouldn't ask if the setting was more artificial and cartoony. Put Nolan's Batman in what is essentially Chicago and you start thinking of things like how impractical the cape is, how unrealistic it is that the scores of people who would have had to work on the Tumbler would figure it out (this was one of my big problems with Batman Begins and the way they addressed it in TDK was a total copout) etc. Put Batman in a setting along the lines of what Burton and Timm did and you can suspend your disbelief much easier. Putting such an unbelievable character into a more believable setting also has the unfortunate effect of making him seem ridiculous and that's arguably the biggest critique you hear about Nolan's films, especially in TDK. People couldn't get over Bale's silly growl.

Granted, the extreme opposite of Nolan's inappropriate seriousness is Schumacher's inappropriate over-the-top campiness but like anything there is a happy medium there. Burton got it right, Timm did it even better and I think a "DKR" could work very well in a style similar to what Robert Rodriguez and Zack Snyder did on "Sin City" and "300".

The one huge hurdle in bringing "DKR" to the screen is that problem I mentioned earlier with Batman being such a boring character. The brilliance of Miller's Batman is Miller's own writing. When Miller writes Batman the character becomes a vessel for Miller's own twisted mind (and his interpretation of the character is actually quite a bit more psychotic than other interpretations) and that might be difficult to bring to the screen because most of it is the form of the interior monologue in "DKR" and would need to be done via voiceover.

 

[barbelith]

I would love to see another "Batman" movie from a director like Zack Snyder who understands and appreciates the asthetics of a comic book rather than a director like Christopher Nolan who is ashamed of them.

Maybe we could grab a time machine and engineer a trade, because I'd like to see a Watchmen movie from a director like Nolan who understands and appreciates character and drama.

 

[CelticPredator]

Wait for the Directors Cut before you totally judge the film.


Just sayin.

 

[barbelith]

Wait for the Directors Cut before you totally judge the film.

Nah. The film is the film. A director's cut is a different animal.