Yukaphile wrote: ↑Thu Dec 06, 2018 6:24 am
Siskel and Ebert? Not a fan of them. I think they were hacks, tbh.
They're kinda a household name.
SabreMau wrote: ↑Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:51 am
I recall this movie also having a good reveal of who the mystery guest star is.
This movie was pretty good. I just watched Batman Bad Blood last night and kind of like the villains in that a little better.
Wargriffin wrote: ↑Thu Dec 06, 2018 4:37 pm
There really is only one DC animated movie that can rival Mask of the Phantasm...
and it almost serves as a secondary commentary on Batman
cause in the end for all of Bruce's efforts... He ultimately failed
Only thing I found myself missing in this movie was Bruce Wayne. There's about one scene where he's out of costume, and it feels rather Justice League'ish.
Excellent alignment of rogues though. I love it when the story turns into a rogues party. Batman's the only franchise I can think of that does it and does it that well.
Independent George wrote: ↑Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:31 pm
If Bruce Wayne gave up Batman and put all his money into infrastructure and philanthropy, all he'd do is subsidize a bunch of mobsters while either bankrupting the company or corrupting it to maintain its operations. That's pretty much how organized crime works.
While he didn't have any philanthropic plots in the Nolan franchise, they did a great job with the first two movies establishing how he tackles crime systemically. It's not all about the fists.
Harvey Dent as a plotline of sorts is another facet to which Batman tries to clean up crime without pulverising criminals.
Eh, I think it depends on how we're defining Gotham City. My headcanon (based on all the various versions) is that Bruce Wayne has done a magnificent job of improving Gotham City as a whole and if not for the Satanic ill-will that keeps releasing his Rogues Gallery then Gotham City would have fallen into complete chaos by now.
Its basically, "Bruce Wayne is why Gotham City is New York during a rough patch than a much more violent Detroit."
CharlesPhipps wrote: ↑Fri Dec 07, 2018 12:03 am
Eh, I think it depends on how we're defining Gotham City. My headcanon (based on all the various versions) is that Bruce Wayne has done a magnificent job of improving Gotham City as a whole and if not for the Satanic ill-will that keeps releasing his Rogues Gallery then Gotham City would have fallen into complete chaos by now.
Its basically, "Bruce Wayne is why Gotham City is New York during a rough patch than a much more violent Detroit."
I tend to agree, though I'm not familiar with a story where city development is handled story-wise as a matter of dealing with crime. It's just kind of a Wayne Enterprises endeavor that fleshes out Bruce as a character.
"Household names" means nothing. "Hitler" and "Stalin" are household names too.
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
At 28 minutes, Chuck basically says (I am paraphrasing) "It's good that the stakes are low, because high stakes would detract from the character study and the human interest story."
He should have added "For some reason I feel compelled to mention that I am reviewing The Alternative Factor in two and a half weeks."
I really, really hope that Chuck mentions this part of his Mask of the Phantasm review when he reviews The Alternative Factor. Because it really explains why I hate that episode SO much.
"You say I'm a dreamer/we're two of a kind/looking for some perfect world/we know we'll never find" - Thompson Twins
It is a pretty low-stakes story I think (re: what someone on page 1 said). While cops nipping at Batman's heels gave a unique tension that wasn't in the show, the adversarial element is more an introspection on heroism in conjunction with vigilantism. What is meant by not high-stakes is that Gotham isn't at odds here.
FaxModem1 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 06, 2018 7:52 pm
Turns out that chasing criminals in a bat costume rather than investing in the city's infrastructure and economy doesn't stop crime as much as you think it does, who knew?
That argument tends to fall apart when the Joker has nuclear weapons and other WMDs. The city is still standing so, Bat>Philanthropist.
Which Chuck mentions is why the story is so low stakes.
Plus, as has been mentioned before, Batman does invest in the city's infrastructure and economy. Also, at least in Batman: TAS, there's a sharp drop in the number of "Batman fights gangsters" stories in later seasons. His rogues gallery provide most of the threat to Gotham in those stories, suggesting that Batman has been rather successful at dealing with organized crime.
A competent police department with well trained snipers would do the trick against the Joker.
And as we see with Batman Beyond, Gotham seemed to stay a cesspool of violence, corruption and citizens living in terror even decades after his Justice League years. Bruce's biggest concern when he's not the Bat is that he wants to preserve the delipidated ghetto where his parents were shot.
A better city will help with the crime elements. It'll be hard for Two-Face to organize a bank robbery if all his old henchmen have a great job with health plans and 401ks from Wayne Industries.
That speaks of problems when he could be making the city better and working on doing what he could to make the city clean. Batman might be needed for organized crime, but Bruce Wayne is needed for all the costumed wackos.
Batman's superpower of hoards of cash have somehow not taken Gotham from being somewhat better than Bludhaven (why yes, a worse place than Gotham exists over the bridge!) to say New York level of crime, let alone a Metropolis level (keeping this to the upper eastern seaboard, as heck, even Metropolis has the extra supervilliany that Star City doesn't have to put up with). Wayne Industries can only do so much but Lexcorp somehow manages to do more it seems. Part of that would likely be the effect of organized crime over usual thuggery, as people paying protection expect protection from the other bandits and generally want the city ''working'' if corruptly.
What I'm trying to get to I guess with this ramble is that if we discount the fact that this is fictions and everything is as it is to make a place for Batman to do what he needs to do for the story is that possibly Batman disrupting the crime power structures again and again creates a power vacuum that creates this atmosphere of violence as different villains (and their henches/gangs) vie for different slices of Gotham, and hence makes the problem worse.
