The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight.

When this movie hit the theaters, a lot of people were calling it the best “comic book movie” made and talked about how it transcended the genre. It wasn’t just a comic book movie, it was a really good movie that happened to have these comic characters in it.

Better late than never for me, but I did finally see it recently. That being said, it was a pretty good movie, it dealt with some interesting issues. It had big explosions and you could tell that director Christopher Nolan wasn’t just trying to make explosions and chase scenes, he wanted something more.

And yet…

There were things there that just didn’t quite work for me. While Nolan did strive for something more than a dumb summer movie, I feel some parts of the movie could have been done better.

First off, the Batsuit. I suppose much of the credit/blame for the rubber armor suit can go all the way back to Tim Burton’s movie, but it’s just a little too much. Yes, we’ve come a long way from seeing Adam West’s Batgut sticking through some thin blue tights and I don’t want to see Adam West’s Batgut sticking through those thin blue tights in a major movie like this, but there has to be something in between. The suit is too clunky and stiff and so limb movements become restricted and stiff as well. And where are these limb movements needed the most? Uh, in the action scenes, the fight sequences, the hanging off the truck sequences. On top of that, they lampshaded the fact that they improved the armor’s movement by having Bruce Wayne ask Lucius Fox to redesign the suit specifically so he can turn his neck. Yes, Batman is supposed to have the gadgets, I know that. He’s not supposed to be Iron Man though.

The Joker. Somehow, the consensus was that Heath Ledger’s Joker was the greatest thing since that last greatest thing. I will give him props for the blowing up the hospital sequence, from what I understand they needed to do it in one take, the explosions didn’t correspond with his button mashing on the remote detonator, and he ad-libbed the rest. It was brilliant, but the rest of him just didn’t seem right to me. The character itself seemed like Ledger was channeling French Stewart from 3rd Rock From the Sun. The Joker doesn’t need to be some cackling circus clown, but he is a clown. While giant sledge hammers and acid-squirting flowers aren’t necessary, the Joker seemed a little too calculating and brooding in all of his actions. Hey isn’t Batman supposed to be the calculating and brooding one in this dynamic?

Finally, the movie was just had too much going on. Bruce Wayne’s side trip to Asia, the Wayne employee who figured out Batman’s identity, the fact that Bruce Wayne had to save him as Bruce Wayne and not as Batman, the countless absurd, over the top, incredibly intricate schemes that the Joker, the improvisational agent of chaos implements, the switcheroo with Harvey Dent stepping forward as the Batman, all of the extra Batmen, and the long chase through Lower Wacker Drive, er I mean through the Gotham streets. So much extracurricular happenings occur that we don’t have time to develop the things that should be there. Rachael Dawes is there and both Dent and Wayne would do anything for her, I think, but there was no room to explore that, apparently. And Dent gets the rawest deal of the whole movie. (Just about) everyone knows he’s destined to become Two Face, you know it’s coming but he flips from bad to good too easily. Well, my face is half burned and the Joker here says that it’s not his fault. Guess it’s time for my heel turn. So he’s the bad guy, he captures Gordon’s family and we get a drawn out scene where he’s threatening Gordon’s son and then he plunges to his doom (come on Hollywood, stop endangering children. It’s too easy of a way to declare someone is officially evil).

Like I said earlier, The Dark Knight isn’t a bad movie; I just think they could have done better. It does hold up pretty well as you watch it and a lot of the action and intensity works, but there were just some things that make you go “Huh?”

Like say for instance, why did Batman take the heat for what Dent did at the end? If they wanted to protect Dent’s work, couldn’t they have blamed it all on the Joker?

Holy nudity Batman!

The creator of this blog seems to like controversial subjects, so here we go. A Charlotte North Carolina woman bought some comic books for her kids at the local library. In those comics was included a copy of Batman Confidential#18.

Ans she discovered a a surprise inside.

Batgirl, and Catwoman had a nude battle inside. Well semi nude because all of the naughty bits are covered. Here's where she made her first mistake: She assumed that comics were for kids and didn't look inside. "I just went through the bins and took the ones with the nicest covers that looked least scary,” she said.

If she had looked on the first page she would have seen this.

It takes about oh, say ten seconds to look through the art of a comic book, and I guess she didn't want to take that time. Huh. I hope she doesn't do the same when her kids watch cable TV or go onto the Internet, because there's far worse out there in both mediums.

One of the things she said was they try to "trap you with the Batman name." While yes bats was mostly marketed towards kids in the 1960's the Adam West show became a double edged sword in a way.

While yes it did cause the wave of Batmania, when people became tired of campiness Batman's comic sales took a nose dive. It didn't help that around that time Marvel comics was born with it's real life problems type of superhero that was appealing not only to kids, but the teens and college crowd as well.

Batman had to go back to his roots to survive, he had to once again become the Dark Knight.it started in the 70's with Denny O'neil, and Jim Aparo, and continued through the 80's with such graphic novels as Alan Moore's Killing Joke and Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns.

Batman was popular among comic readers again after taking a darker more mature approach. But I can see why someone wouldn't know this besides comic book readers, but you'd have to have been living under a rock to not know Batman wasn't just marketed to kids anymore.

The Tim Burton movies were dark with disfigured freaks, and murder. And the most recent Batman begins, and the Dark Knight had plenty of murder, and mayhem.

I guess they weren't naked though, the Joker shoved a pencil into a man's eye but they were fully clothed the whole movie.

people that know me in real life say I'm cynical, and they have a point, which explains kind why I think this lady just wanted her picture in the paper. Especially when said picture instead of of being a look of anger or disgust at the "offending" comic came out looking hammy, and over exaggerated.

Okay I'm going to step off the soapbox now.

Zombie Micheal Jackson

I never saw Thriller the mini-movie length video clip. My mother forbade me to go watch it and even though my best friend's Mum and Step-Dad had a video store, I still never saw it.

My reason for mentioning the "greatest entertainer of the last 30 years" isn't because of his recent death. Its beacuse he's a zombie. Thriller was right!
Micheal Jackson's IQ even when he's dead is 110. Now thats either very bad grammer or Thriller was merely Jackson telling us the truth. He's a zombie***.


But back to Thriller the mini-movie. Now MJ's Youtube channel has the whole 18 minute masterpiece up there, but embedding is only by request. Unfortunately, I'm too old to get anything from Micheal. Whoops! Too early?

It begins with a disclaimer for the right wing religious that.
Thats nice but its about horror movies and Zombies. Lets go to a sometime reliable resource, like wikipedia to see what they say about Zombies.

According to the tenets of Vodou, a dead person can be revived by a bokor, or sorcerer. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombi" is also another name of the Vodou snake god Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kongo word nzambi, which means "god".

So, Zombies come from Voodoo or Voodun depending on where you're from. Now, if I'm right (and sometiemes I am) Voodoo is considered by most Christian and Muslim organistations as the occult. Hmmmm! Oh well its just a video clip about the dead coming back to life wanting brains. Who can say in this day and age that this is a bad thing. Also, who can say anything BAD about Micheal Jackson.

So yeah now Micheals a zombie and has an IQ of 110***

Just thought I'd tell you that. So for fun here's video of something on how to survive zombies



*** of course Micheal Jackson is not a zombie, there are no such things.

Dum devil

Daredevil was in post production when Spider-Man hit the screens. People loved spidey and the earnest Tobey Maguire who played Peter Parker. The special effects were spectacular and the script was almost geek proof.

Script Cleaning move #1 - Dump the talking chin man.

So Marvel thought they were on a winner and realised they had to up the special effects in Dareveil its a pity they got the casting wrong. Obviously when they said to get the guy from Good Will Hunting they must have meant the short guy with the blonde hair. Not the big guy with the big jaw. Really who'd think that Mr Affleck could play a character who was physically blind? Druged out of his gourd blind of course but why, oh why, oh why!
Mat Damon showed us he could act without speaking, show the internal emotions and thoughts just by looking down the camera. Affleck is almost as wodden as Keanu Reeves in this movie. Message to Mr Affleck - just because Matt Murdoch has a cane doesn't make him lame, it makes him blind.

Of course there's a female lead in this movie too. Don't think the problems in this movie lie in only one casting failure.

Script cleaning move #2 - Get rid of the girl next door

Jennifer Garner she was on Alias (cancelled cause of too much Eostregen and Hallmark wanted their writers back) so that meant she knew how to do the fight scenes. Garner is a good actress, she's bubly and cute, she can do confused and angry, but Electra? Honey don't know how to do badass. Electra is a one woman killing machine, she can shishkaba you three ways from sunday and then take on ninja's. In fact why weren't their more ninjas in this movie? Also lets just remember that Electra is Greek, her dad is the Greek ambasador (one of the few Dareveil facts that were in this excuse for a comic movie) and that he gets killed and Electra's supposed to make a deal with the Kingpin to go after Bullseye. Now when I look at Jennifer I see girl next door and maybe young fresh FBI agent. I don't see a Greek killing machine out for blood and revenge.

Actual positives - For some reason they cast decent villians.
Micheal Clarke Duncan as Kingpin was a great idea. Who says the Kingpin has to be white? Duncan is just such a big man he easily fills the shoes. He has the menace and the size and he has done this kind of role before. Then we get to Bullseye played by Colin Farrel. Who can bring the badass in this movie these two can, in fact if it weren't for the two casting failures this could have been an okay movie. It could have been on par with the Hulk re-boot or the Stargate movie, nice well done but not spectacular.

I just couldn't beleive that a character that has such pathos and honour in the marvel univers would be given such a movie like this one. Where was Guy Pierce? What happened? I suppose we'll never know.

Welcome to Script Cleaners

Here we'll discuss and come up with the solutions to those annoying plot holes and poor casting that have plauged movies. Believe me you'll come to see it our way. Or else we'll just have to send Lindsay Lohan over to kill you. Believe me she's just crazy enough to do it.

I'm your host Captain Koma I've been very dismayed at certain movies of the past few years and have often thought what every geek has thought. I could do better than that. And guess what I'm angry and frustrated enough to show it. This blog is my declaration of war on these hollywood hacks who don't undertand the characters and concepts they are dealing with.
I've invested so much more time and money in these characters than those idiot directors and writers. If anyone knows how to make these films right its gotta be geeks.

So join me on this quest for justice and righteous indignation, as me and my fellow geeks clean the scripts that fandom rejected.