Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

What'd you think of the movie?

Its my least favorite of the three. It's not terrible but I felt like if you're going to use social inequity then it shouldn't be a smokescreen for a villainous revenge plot.

That's pretty much my hypothesis in this string of discourse!

Though in this kind of case I don't really try to rewrite the premise so much as divert attention. What you're saying brings things together for me since I haven't seen the movie in ages and I only saw it probably several times. Though bringing it all together, the antagonist premise is a bit ambitious with the reveal at the end. I think Bane's motivation itself is kinda shallow and kiddie pool. Like his elaborate execution of the whole thing outweighs his own motivation.

Wasn't fond of Dark Knight Rises myself. To be fair I didn't really go in to the movie open minded since I was still pissed off by the ending of The Dark Knight and the fact that the beginning of Dark Knight Rises essentially began by stating that crime was stopped in Gotham City without Batman, that Batman was essentially superfluous in a Batman movie just rubbed me the wrong way.

Can you cite the circumstance of his inadequacy more specifically?

Just going off what you're saying, crime in general fills a motif for Batman's persona stemming from his upbringing. It's something that's technically never solved as far as I can tell, but the main stage is villains with their own backstories and meddling with Gotham opposite Batman. And the main idea is that the crime might have been stopped, but it was critically fallacious. The crime substantiates the darkness in Bruce's tunnel, and the Joker technically snuffed the bead of light out at the end of it.

[FaxModem1]

Wisecrack actually brought up the issues that Dark Knight Rises endorses. That of the Noble Lie. As in, it's better for people to live under a lie than to have to face the truth. And the film utterly endorses it, by saying that things would have been better if Gordon and Bruce had kept the wool over Gotham's eyes the whole time.

The other problem is that, well, DKR shows that there's only three types of people in Gotham, the cops, the rich, and the criminals. So if you're making a big hullabuloo about how Gotham is socially unequal, it's probably not the best idea to conflate being poor with being a criminal, and saying that you should leave the rich in place, no matter what, because the other outcome is worse.

[CharlesPhipps]

There's a lot of weird in the DKR.

One of the things is that Batman went into retirement after the Dark Knight but by that point, Harvey Dent's demise meant that his activities as Two-Face could be used as a way to invalidate his RICO act against Gotham's organized crime. He was a holy martyr. That meant the judges threw the book at the organized crime syndicates which were:

1. Bankrupt due to the Chinese banker stealing what wasn't stolen by the Joker or confiscated by the government.
2. Tied to terrorist activities committed by the Joker.

So, with no supervillains in Gotham City, and the organized crime in the city thrown in Guantanamo Bay--Batman has won.

That's honestly a pretty interesting movie by itself as it's clear Bruce Wayne has no idea what the hell to do with himself as a result.

However, there's just TOO MUCH in the movie.

1. Catwoman
2. Class warfare
3. Bane
4. Talia
5. The consequences of the Dark Knight
6. Batman getting too old and too beaten up for this shit
7. Fusion energy

It easily could have been two movies and not lost a thing. Maybe even another three.

[Darth Wedgius]

To be fair in The Dark Knight Rises it wasn't just people openly siding with those protesting wealth inequality, it's people openly siding with a powerful and armed group protesting wealth inequality and with a habit of killing people after a show trial. That's happened more than once in history.

But it was my least favorite of the trilogy too.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well again, what bearing did Selina Kyle have on that social landscape when she prophesied to Bruce in the ballroom? Was it just her leading Batman to Bane? That works as an example to Bane's influence, but it's rather anecdotal. Like, I don't remember regular people siding with Bane, but it works in the manner of Bane breaking the Bat when he reads the letter. He's just being a bully and that makes sense by the end.

And it's all pretty much there. If Bane wants take control of Gotham, then that's fine with me. I don't think that ties the movie to a message of passivity on social issues. Only problem is the hidden premise that he's just doing it for Talia. His execution of the plan and her motives are very clear, but her reveal spins the whole thing dry for me. Like, it's not a 180 twist, it's a 360 twist that just changes the premise. I think it undervalues Talia's abilities as an active on-screen adversary. And I thought what Talia the villain has with Bruce/Batman is supposed to be real kinda. Here she's just sleeping with him as a sham.

[CharlesPhipps]

Well, we saw people partying in houses.

We also saw people going along with Bane to an extent.

Basically, Selene is meant to represent the "angry poor" that resent Bruce and the other Old Money types.

The movie is very clearly against this kind of conflict and Selene being completely wrong that the poor taking "back" being justified.

[Jonathan101]

Wisecrack actually brought up the issues that Dark Knight Rises endorses. That of the Noble Lie. As in, it's better for people to live under a lie than to have to face the truth. And the film utterly endorses it, by saying that things would have been better if Gordon and Bruce had kept the wool over Gotham's eyes the whole time.

The other problem is that, well, DKR shows that there's only three types of people in Gotham, the cops, the rich, and the criminals. So if you're making a big hullabuloo about how Gotham is socially unequal, it's probably not the best idea to conflate being poor with being a criminal, and saying that you should leave the rich in place, no matter what, because the other outcome is worse.

Hmm...I don't agree that TDKR endorses the Noble Lie.

I think TDK seems to endorse it, but TDKR implies that Gordon and Batman relying on it led to a lot of their trouble in this movie, and the one time Gordon tries to defend himself Blake shuts him down.

Batman Begins talked a bit about the poor and how they are the real victims in all of this, so I don't think it's fair to suggest that this or any of the movies show that there are only three types of people in Gotham, or that the intended Aesop was "leave the rich alone". It really did seem like something that just interested Nolan, something he honestly wanted to talk about and explore (since he was inspired by "A Tale of Two Cities"), and unfortunately he chose a Batman movie to do it in, with a somewhat muddled message given that Bane is the guy who talks the most about these socio-economic issues and yet that is just part of his deception- nobody digress with his point, but disagreeing with his methods would be irrelevant since his true goal is very different.

So, I'd rather say less that TDKR had the wrong message, and more that what the hell the message was (if there even was one) is rather unclear.

[CharlesPhipps]

I thought the message was, "The Rich and the Poor have to work together to make the world a better place."

Which is....such a simple and somewhat asinine message that it doesn't really work well.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Hmm...I don't agree that TDKR endorses the Noble Lie.

I think TDK seems to endorse it, but TDKR implies that Gordon and Batman relying on it led to a lot of their trouble in this movie, and the one time Gordon tries to defend himself Blake shuts him down.

Batman Begins talked a bit about the poor and how they are the real victims in all of this, so I don't think it's fair to suggest that this or any of the movies show that there are only three types of people in Gotham, or that the intended Aesop was "leave the rich alone". It really did seem like something that just interested Nolan, something he honestly wanted to talk about and explore (since he was inspired by "A Tale of Two Cities"), and unfortunately he chose a Batman movie to do it in, with a somewhat muddled message given that Bane is the guy who talks the most about these socio-economic issues and yet that is just part of his deception- nobody digress with his point, but disagreeing with his methods would be irrelevant since his true goal is very different.

So, I'd rather say less that TDKR had the wrong message, and more that what the hell the message was (if there even was one) is rather unclear.

Yeah I don't think TDK endorses it. Batman and Gordon represent two different sides of moral justice. It's clear that Dent and Batman house a light and dark duality, but Batman and Gordon are more complementary and go hand in hand. Gordon doesn't want to go through with it at all. As a second movie it works nicely as a tragedy.

The three types of people in Gotham is a critique of The Dark Knight Rises on its own as a film. We're not shown everything. I think perhaps if we did then it would make it more of a socialism piece, whereas fascism is always a perversion of socioeconomics, so that's what we're shown. Really though I felt like the somber Gotham just made the movie feel like a play with limited ambiance embellishment.

Though we do agree that Nolan is a film and effect guy more than a message with vindicated morals. And agreeing with you I say again that you can't say revolution=bad because we know Bane's the bad element. We don't actually see the people that he persuades, but we take it as a given, in effect undermining such condemnations.

The message has to do with Bruce cleaning up the mess he made trying to control everything. He let his life rot because he took responsibility over Gotham when he shouldn't have and didn't let go. It replaced the part of him that allows him to feel fear which is the point of him getting out of the pit. I suppose the pit as an allegory for Ra's feeding off of controlled fear or something, idunno.

[Admiral X]

I still don't get the insistence that what Dent did as Two-Face would somehow invalidate what he did prior? Considering what happened to him, it's very straightforward that he went crazy because of that and anything that happened afterwards was a result of that.