Batman/Christopher Nolan rant

I recently thought about the Dark Knight Rises again, and realized how stupid it all is. First, the whole narrative arc is derailed by having Miranda Tate being the mastermind of the whole plot instead of Bane. Second, the stupid pit sequence was just stupid stupid stupid; and since what we thought as Bane's backstory was Tate's, we have almost no idea of who Bane was anyway, other than just some random guy in the pit (talk about bait and switch). Third, have they come up with the technology of a clean nuclear bomb in this universe, because even if Batman were to fly the bat jet a far enough distance, how much radiation would have reached Gotham city and gave everyone radiation poisoning or cancer? they wouldn't put up a Batman statue if so many citizens slowly died of radiation sickness (much like Hiroshima/Nagasaki after the atomic bombs were dropped). Fourth, why are the Al-Guls even the focus in this movie and the Batman Begins? That to me was a fatal misstep on Nolan's part to include these villains in his 'realistic' Batman series and then have some weird secret society there. Fifth, did anyone notice the blaring continuity errors and plot holes that takes most people out of a movie?

Nolan is just a big fish in a small pond. He gets praised as the next Kubrick when in reality he would have been dismissed as a hack and sent back to England had he worked in Kubrick's peak years.The only reason fanboys praise him is because the bar for American films has been set so low that when barely competent people make a movie, they are seen as the next big thing by people who have never heard of the great directors. Just look at his films: Memento is just a gimmicky film (what if we shot the film backwards?), Inception just piles on dreams within dreams to distract us from the plot, and is a didactic lesson on film criticism; and how would we see the Dark Knight if Heath Ledger was still alive today? It would be nothing more than political commentary shoehorned into an average superhero movie. You don't see the director of The Crow getting this kind of praise just because Brandon Lee died mysteriously.

Anyways, let's see how his next film turns out, if TDKR was just a fluke (yeah right), or the success went to Nolan's head and he doesn't even realize his shortcomings are stating to add up as time goes by. 

If only we had a general Batman thread this could have fit in.  Or a thread devoted especially to TDKR.  Or even just a general movie critic thread where we can enumerate, in seriousness or in jest, our displeasure with popular films.

If only...

If only we had a thread for pulling the leg of generalfrevious or two....

While I have no love for most of his movies, I don't think Nolan is a hack. Grossly overrated, yes, but not a hack.

I'm sorry, but I'm still dwelling on the whole nuclear bomb subplot of TDKR, because it completely took me out of the movie. Is Nolan that stupid that he is ignorant of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the fallout from nuclear tests in Nevada and the Pacific, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima? Gotham was screwed no matter how far Batman could have driven out the bomb with his batwing; Talia and the League of Shadows had already won if the rules of reality took effect. But no, this whole subplot makes me think that Nolan is a fucking idiot and/or he hated the Batman franchise at this moment and wanted to sabotage the third film. And for a trilogy that focused on a realistic take on the comic book character, having it end where a human being can survive a nuclear explosion (KOTCS anyone?) and nuclear fallout does not exist (so Wayne enterprises made a perfect cold fusion reactor that would not produce any radiation? WTF), it breaks the spine of the whole fucking trilogy! This is bad writing that is not only offensive, but an insult to the audience and should be a capital crime. Because of Nolan, we have twice as many terrible Batman movies as we would have had they buried the franchise with Schumacher. I feel sorry for fans of the comic book character, who have seen their hero fail seven times in a row. This is Nolan's Phantom Menace, hands down.

Is off topic still about hate? Because I hate this thread.

I don't. You don't mess with nuclear weapons in this kind of movie. If Nolan did not want to piss off the audience, he would have stuck to the rules of physics. Hell, I would have liked it if the superhero actually failed to save the city in this film, and that he died and the city is destroyed. It would have made fanboys angry, but at least I would respect the man for taking a big risk (which BTW is nonexistent in Hollywood nowadays), and IMO it would have been an interesting take on Batman and add depth. As time passed, he would have been seen as the true visionary that people claim he is, instead of the turning point into mediocrity.

I've kind of had enough will arguing the merits of TDKR, for the most part people don't listen. I actually didn't even read all of what you said before because I didn't want a headache. I did read this^ post though. Yeah, killing Batman and having him fail would be extremely ballsy and original. And yeah, it would piss off the audience. Not because it wasn't a happy ending, but because it would mean Bruce's character arc and the film's thematic meaning was never resolved. Which would be dumb and would make it a bad film.

I will leave this threat now forever.

DominicCobb said:

I've kind of had enough will arguing the merits of TDKR, for the most part people don't listen. I actually didn't even read all of what you said before because I didn't want a headache. I did read this^ post though. Yeah, killing Batman and having him fail would be extremely ballsy and original. And yeah, it would piss off the audience. Not because it wasn't a happy ending, but because it would mean Bruce's character arc and the film's thematic meaning was never resolved. Which would be dumb and would make it a bad film.

I will leave this threat now forever.

I would never have suggested this ending if the Nolan brothers did not write themselves in a corner like that. The first things that should have been written out from the film from the first minute were the nuclear bomb and Talia Al'Guhl. They should of just not go back to the league of shadows ever after Batman Begins.

Let me explain a little about nuclear power.  Fallout comes from radioactive byproducts of a nuclear explosion.  A fusion reaction can only be caused by intense pressure and/or intense heat.  The only way we have been able to provide enough heat to set off a sustainable reaction is through...a fission reaction.

Fusion is clean.  When two hydrogen atoms (or dueterium, or tritium, which are variants of hydrogen that include neutrons) combine, they form a couple of different products, depending on the nature of the which forms of hydrogen are used, either helium or lithium, as well as neutrons and energy.  Helium and lithium are not radioactive, and therefore do not leave fallout messes.  Fission, on the other hand, is not so clean, the products of split uranium or plutonium reactions are quite radioactive, take years and years to decay to a safe point, and can get into the air or elsewhere to spread long distances with far-reaching effects.  The reason nuclear weapons or reactors cause such lasting damage is because of the fission reactions that are used to trigger the reaction.  If we were dealing with a reactor that did not have to utilize any fission reaction to trigger or sustain it, such as that used in the movie, it would not cause any fallout or lasting radioactive pollution.

Now, depending on the size of the explosion, we still have the issue of initial damage.  The explosion would still send out highly energetic neutrons, gamma radiation, heat, and sheer explosive force.  If it were a small enough reaction (as you might imagine would take place in a controlled reactor), then an out of control reaction would likely be relatively small.  If the explosion took place far enough away, the damage it would cause might not be so lethal.  That said, I don't believe that Batman could have possibly gotten far enough away in such a short time to get sufficient distance, nor do I believe 9 miles (is that right,?...Been a bit since I've seen it) would be a safe enough distance, as I believe even a small fusion explosion would be larger than that.  So people in Gotham, at least those closest to the reaction, would be affected.

But bear in mind that exploding reactors in the real world, such as Chernobyl's reactor, did not produce a massively violent explosion equivalent to a bomb of a similar nature.  It's explosion was rather small.  But the radioactive damage it spread was really the deadly problem.  So we can imagine something similar would take place in the movie.

I agree, it would have been best to avoid something like this, IMO.  But I do believe that while it's not realistic, it's not the most grievous of unscientific movie mistakes.  I'm okay with overlooking inaccuracy in movies if they are not outrageous, and this is not an outrageous error.  It still fits in the suspension of disbelief I have established for the Nolanverse Batman series.