Warning: There are spoilers for The Dark Knight Rises within.
As I mentioned in last week’s column, we now live in a post-Dark Knight Rises world. We’re already seeing articles pop up across the Internet about “what’s next” for the Batman movie franchise before we’ve even really had a chance to let Christopher Nolan’s conclusion set in. While that’s the nature of the beast these days, I suppose – done, done, onto the next one – I find myself mulling over the importance of The Dark Knight trilogy as it pertains to superhero movies as an entity and why it proves my oft-spoken theory that straying from the comics isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
As has been stated so many times before, superheroes are modern myth. Myths, by design, are stories passed down by generations and reinterpreted as the years press on. While adapting a specific storyline to the screen is technically “reinterpreting” by nature of its change of medium, Christopher Nolan’s Batman films are the only superhero movies (so far) that have truly spit into the wind of expectation and formed a very specific vision of the character.
Movies should strive to champion the creative vision over the institution of the character itself.
By contrast, Marvel has gone the complete opposite route – which is fine, too – by aligning their universe to be in line with what comic book readers expect, pandering to the established fan while keeping things accessible. That’s not a slight on their part, either, as I love most of the Marvel movies and appreciate their success. But at the same time, my stance on the superhero myth is that they were built to be reinterpreted, not just repeated or adapted. Just as comic books are given new creative teams that define new eras of a given character, so too should movies strive to champion the creative vision over the institution of the character itself. For all intents and purposes, I wouldn’t expect the director shake-ups on the upcoming Marvel sequels to change a whole lot. There’s a larger force at play there, and ultimately everything is going to have to stick to a certain tone and vision.
Nolan’s trilogy is the first and only example of a filmmaker giving a superhero his own distinct, personal spin. Burton’s movies were more interested in the villains and visual motifs that surrounded Batman, while the Joel Schumacher sequels were built as toy commercials. However, with his seeming free reign of Batman’s world, Nolan was able to construct a new vision for the Dark Knight in a way that told a complete story and reinforced the thematic strong points of the character by breaking down every expectation we ever had as established fans.
There are elements borrowed from the comics, certainly; particular storylines like Year One, No Man’s Land, Knightfall, etc., but none are beholden to “being like” the comics and the movies are better for it. There are certainly fan service moments in these movies as well – Bane breaking Batman over his knee, the Joker card at the end of Batman Begins, and Blake’s real name being Robin, to name a few. But most importantly, this is a vision of Batman as an entity that had never been done before in which we get to see something we’ll probably never get to see in another superhero movie series or even in the comics: an end.
By constructing these movies as one story, Nolan crafted a new vision of Batman – one with a beginning, middle, and conclusion. Comics, by nature, can only give what amounts to vignettes of the character in different stages of their existence, no matter how much we might like to fool ourselves into thinking that their history is linear. With 75+ years of continuity that is often revamped or just done away with, the character is chiseled down to their essence for future generations instead, leaving readers to pick and choose the things they like best.
For example, 30 years from now, the continuity “problems” that the DC relaunch brought to Batman are going to be inconsequential. Just as you wouldn’t go back and read the thousands of Batman comics in their order of release today, readers in 30 years aren’t going to trudge through thousands more to get Batman’s entire history in a straight line. The seminal works will stand tall, as they do today with any superhero character, and that’s what readers will turn to for their take on the Dark Knight.
Some fans are extremely continuity-centric, but I find that these characters are meant, again, to be personally interpreted by creators and readers alike, so continuity is really only what you make it. But with The Dark Knight trilogy existing in and of itself with a definitive conclusion to Bruce Wayne’s story, Nolan lets us see a complete portrait of Batman and his relationships to Gotham City, his allies, his loved ones, and his enemies. Never before has a superhero series been able to give us such a well-rounded and complete take on a character and his world.
While I’d argue against The Dark Knight Trilogy being the best of all time, it’s absolutely the greatest series of superhero movies. Marvel’s cinematic Avengers Initiative is a fantastic, fun achievement, but most of those movies sacrifice character for coolness and are in service to the larger universe at play. A universe that, I might add, clearly worked out very well for them. However, Nolan’s movies put character first – most importantly, Bruce Wayne, which no Batman movie had ever done before – and constructed a self-contained story rife with heavy themes that leaves you thinking about the films long after the credits roll. By comparison, when The Avengers ended, I threw away my bag of popcorn and went home, pleased with what I saw but otherwise emotionally and intellectually unchallenged.
As much as I would of course love to see Superman and Batman side-by-side on the big screen, I’m more partial to WB taking a different approach that isn’t just a carbon copy of what Marvel is doing. I’d love to have a go-to cinematic definition of the DC heroes that isn’t predicated on their ties to one another, but instead focused on giving the most complete depiction of the individual character that they can.
It’s a pipe dream considering the kind of money Avengers brought in, but a guy can dream.
Source : feeds.ign.com
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