Re: The Dark Knight Rises
Which is amazingly shortsighted and removes one of the key aspects of the character itself. Batman was always the man amongst Gods who could not only hold his own amongst them but beat them and to have him exist in a vacuum and not even reveal that portion of the character's history and being really always bugged me. You didn't have to have a cameo in every flick or stockpile DC characters in his films but at least an acknowledgment of a greater universe or even an off-hand remark about "dealing with the Kryptonian's problems" or "helping the yahoo with the ring" would go miles to establish it instead of Nolan simply wanting to paint in one color.
As for the jump-off point, I guarantee you he could have easily made his films but left the door open for Batman to be amongst others when he was done, it was a conscious choice to do Batman alone and he even told and said he'd help reboot another Batman who could be in a film DCU because of it. Who is to say that a Nolan story couldn't have set the tone for the rest of the DCU? Instead we're getting something that is bottlenecking the rest of the universe because we have to wait until 2014 to get things going (if recent rumors are true and Cavill's Superman will be vacuumed like Nolan originally stated)
While Batman is a JLA member in the comics, I'd argue that is not a key aspect of his character, and he was not always a man among the gods (super-powered heroes). At his core, the defining aspects of the Batman character are that he's a guy motivated by the great personal tragedy of witnessing his parents murder, to train to the limit to fight crime and strike terror in criminals dressed as a bat. Being one of the few totally human heroes in the comic-book-universe is
not an intrinsic quality of the character himself. In fact when Batman was first published, even though it was under the same imprint as Superman, they didn't exist in the same "universe".
I completely agree with you that Nolan
could've made his films a jump-off point for a larger DCU and he made a conscious choice not to do that. We're only in disagreement about whether it was a good idea. If the goal is to set up a large DCU movie franchise in which all the superheroes and villians exist in the same universe, then not even mentioning the others in passing makes no sense, of course. But that was never Nolan's goal.
It would be shortsighted if he didn't consider it as a possibility, but as stated in interviews, he did think of it, and purposely avoided that. It wasn't a mistake in any sense of the word....it wasn't an unplanned accident, and it wasn't an action that caused failure. In fact, going his way lead to great critical and box office success. His focus was Batman, and only Batman. As I said before, if WB wanted to lay the groundwork for a grand plan JLA movie set up, ala Avengers, they should have hired a different director.
Did GL fail because of Nolan's universe neglet or do you think Nolan did an "I told you so" to WB.
I know there were mentions of Metropolis and Superman in the Schumacher movies, and in Singer's Superman Returns there is a mention of Gotham, but none of these movies have anything added to their internal plots by mentioning the larger DCU, and none of these mentions was strategically planned as a set-up for a separate in-universe movie featuring other DC characters. So no internal benefit to the movie itself and no external benefit to a series of linked DCU movies (which never materialized). At best, it's a wink and a nod to the audience, at worst it's just forced, afterthought, throwaway dialogue.
Im happy about it, Burton did the same, no problem there, spiderman did the same, I mean, I know Avengers is cool and all, but I like my heroes separated from each other, Unless the story is combining them,
I would hate to see something related to superman in a batman movie, Unless they are doing Justice league, then leave
them alone,
i know comics have them cross all the time, but seeing green lantern or superman in batman and is not a justice league movie for me it would suck. It would take away from batman, it would just suck, i mean in a batman movie.
arent the batman cartoons the same? batman alone?
does superman or wonder woman appear in Batman: Arkham City? i mean, is it necessary?
I think movie Spider-Man can't appear in the movie Avengers' universe because the character movie rights are licensed to different studios. You are right regarding focusing on the character at hand and avoiding crossovers or setting up for crossovers--- Burton did do the same, and before him Richard Donner didn't allude to Batman or Gotham City in his
classic Superman films.
Which Batman cartoons are you talking about? Animated Timmverse Batman meets Superman eventually, and even before the Superman cartoon, he crossed paths with at least one other DCU character, Zatanna. In every Batman animated series since (and probably before, I'm not sure) he teams up with Superman / Justice League / DCU characters at some point.
If Man of Steel takes place AFTER the events of TDKR (for the lowbrows this means he won't be appearing at all, whatsoever in TDKR nor be mentioned or hinted at in it), it would be entirely feasible to include Nolan's Batman (beit Bale or JGL) in future DC releases without tarnishing or altering Nolan's trilogy. Let me know if you guys need me to break this down into single-syllable words. 
