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I'm curious what made Culp, as well as Kevin Smith and Max Landis, say that Batman wasn't Batman in this movie.

Kevin Smith said he wasn't a detective. Batman was certainly a detective here, trying to figure out who or what the White Portuguese was, as well as discovering what was on it and that the meteor in Lex's possession had the power to take out Superman.

Another common criticism against this Batman is the branding and the killing. Did we forget that the last time we saw Batman, he shot down Talia and her truck driver? I saw very little outcry about that. And that was the same movie where Batman outright said "No guns, no killing." At least this one didn't claim to have a moral line, only to hypocritically cross it later without much ceremony.

He didn't shoot Talia or the truck driver on purpose. That was all accidental. There isn't an element of hypocrisy at all. Why would there be ceremony?

This Batman is willing to crash through cars and buildings. We saw that in Begins and Dark Knight too.

But that Batman wasn't willing to blow up cars and smash through them into explosions and drag cars with him to slam into other cars and blow them up.

This Batman has machine guns on his Batmobile and his Batwing. We saw that with Michael Keaton and Christian Bale (and to be fair to Keaton, his car only used the machine gun to blast through Axis Chemicals, but wasn't used on any people). This is nothing new. If anything, Schumacher should be praised for having vehicles that didn't show machine guns.

In TDKT, those weapons were used for destroying things in his way that were unoccupied and trying to get vehicles to change course, not trying to blow up people in vehicles.

If anything, this Batman probably made the most sense in crossing the line. He clearly has gone through the trauma of the Metropolis attack (that Brett Culp in the above video said was comparable, in trauma, to him reliving his parents' deaths) as well as, we can assume, the death of Jason Todd/Robin at Joker's hands. Much like the Batman in Dark Knight Returns and the Batman after Death in the Family, his tactics become more brutal as he takes it out on the criminal element. Alfred points this out that this wasn't always how things were.

Alfred says everything's changed and has no other qualms about it in the movie. The movie gives Alfred so little as a character to go off of that he seems to just shrug his shoulders and allow Bruce to have free reign with whatever, even things that he doesn't like. Alfred says that things have changed, but the movie doesn't treat it like it is. Alfred takes this all as business as usual and Bruce does with little to no fanfare. No one seems to care really and treats it like this is nothing new. I don't think Batman actively killed people after Jason's death in the comics. Have a very great day!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

[in]

It tends to raise the question of which WB should take more seriously:

A- A petition signed by a few thousand people.
B- Nearly half a billion dollars in just five days.

Tough choice, eh?

More than anything, they should take seriously whether or not the product is quality.

Yep - Money speaks all languages.

Got to give it to Snyder and WB/DC though. This film, while clearly divisive, was brave enough to do its own thing in contrast to the MCU. Totally different tone, atmosphere and themes. The reaction of the film basically reflects how Superman was treated in the film.

Atmosphere and tone are basically the same thing. The themes aren't much different than some MCU products. It's basically a nonsense film either way. Like AOU. Only that was dumb with insane things in it, while this was insane with dumb things in it. Have a very great day both of you!

God bless you both! God bless everyone!

[part of the Batman origin]

I'm gonna defend the film on one criticism I'm seeing pop up, which is that Thomas Wayne's character was somehow altered into being reckless and idiotic when trying to fight Joe Chill in the opening flashback scene.

Perhaps people are used to the more pacifistic Thomas Wayne that we saw in 1989 and in Batman Begins, but this moment with Thomas is actually directly out of the comics.

Snyder directly lifted the image of Thomas Wayne's fist out of The Dark Knight Returns.

This isn't unique to TDKR either, though.

If you look at the very first take on the origin of Batman in 1939, Thomas Wayne charges at the mugger to try to get him to leave Martha alone. The fact that Thomas attempts to fight him off and fails to is part of the Batman origin. You could even say that Thomas's failure to stop a man with the gun is what subconsciously pushes Bruce into training himself to become one of the greatest martial artists ever.

I think Burton's take is still the most haunting, due to the score and hollow/echo-y sound effects. And Nolan's has a bit more emotional impact on the simple fact that we got to spend some time with Thomas Wayne before he died. But Snyder's take is, hands down, the most comic book faithful.

I think there's a difference in trying to stop someone from hurting your wife and randomly trying to punch a guy pointing a gun at you. It does make him seem kinda stupid though to me, whether from TDKReturns or not. Have a very great day!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

I always assumed we were seeing different parts of the city in the different movies.

Another idea I like though is that we're dealing with alternate realities. That these movies take place in different worlds but are still loosely connected to each other in regards to past events. I think the best argument for this is the change in Harvey Dent's race. I can overlook different actors playing the same role because that happens sometimes but to change a character's race is something else all together. To me that suggests an alternate reality.

Another thing that catches my attention is how radically Gothamites' clothing styles changed in between the Burton and Schumacher eras. I suppose it could be a natural evolution but it is striking to me nonetheless. I like to think that in the world, or worlds, of Batman '89 and Batman Returns the whole western world is stuck in a kind of 1940's time warp in many ways and not just Gotham. The newspapers in Batman '89 suggest an alternate reality.

It's the same universe. Clothing styles change. Harvey Dent had to deal with a lot going through getting his skin bleached and then getting acid thrown on his face. Have a very great day!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

I must have been the only one who clearly heard Supes tell Lois he had to go to Gotham to ask Batman for help or he (Bats) had to die. It became quickly evident Batman had no intentions of helping so he had to beat him down even though he didn't want to kill him (the oft heard line from the trailers "If I wanted it you'd be dead already"). Lex had his MOM and was going to burn her alive if you remember. That would screw with the psyche of any man or superman (or woman for that matter, I would have freaked), especially one already wracked with the amount of self doubt Clark had. So he was totally distracted and not thinking clearly.

Lex has his mom and he's going to waste time punching Batman and telling him to stay down instead of telling him that Lex Luthor is threatening his mom to make him do this. Him telling him to save Martha is really unnatural too, as much as I liked that scene a lot, because I can't see how anyone's default phrase to ask someone to save their mother is to call them by their first name. Have a very great day!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

What a load of nonsense. If Nolan truly believed Batman didn't break his rule, he would have strenuously said so - or even better - re-write the scene where Ra's al Ghul died by other means without Batman getting him killed.

Instead, he tries to give a weak "yes and no" answer in the TDK Screenplays Book - where even his brother Jonathan acknowledged that Batman broke his rule including the first film. Hell, if Nolan really wanted to convey his belief that Batman didn't kill Ra's al Ghul, he would've had the character say so. Instead, he directs a scene where Batman justifies doing it when confronted by Talia in Dark Knight Rises, because innocent people's lives were at stake. Despite the fact in the previous film, refusing to kill Joker resulted in putting everyone else in harm's way.

The fact that you keep saying there's a difference between killing someone and letting them die - as well as ignoring the fact that Batman set Ra's al Ghul up in a death trap to ensure he didn't survive - is downright foolish and desperate to say the least.

I didn't say anything about what Nolan believed. I said he was wrong. If he was ever going to set up a death trap, then he never got the chance because Ra's stabbed the console and set up his own death. Batman justifying doing it doesn't mean he actually did it. If there's an inconsistency it's in TDKR.

Keep telling that to yourself. That's not what was presented on screen or in the script. Besides, you even acknowledged in another discussion last year that Batman had to have been aware that knocking Two-Face off the edge of the building was going to put him in grave danger. Common sense tells me that an incident is not accidental when one is aware that they're putting somebody else at risk.

I don't remember that. But him being aware of danger doesn't mean that he's trying to kill him or even thinks about it in that way. What's depicted on screen is that Batman tackles Harvey to save a kid. He killed him, yes, but it wasn't why he did it. I've never read the script.

Again, nonsense. The only inconsistent thing I saw Burton's Batman do was saying the "wrong on both counts" line when Catwoman claimed the law doesn't apply to both of them. I've never liked that line by the way, and I've always complained about it; so I think I've got every right to criticise the inconsistent behavior in Nolan's films.

There's also his attitude towards her when he pulls out the gun. But it goes both ways. You take extreme issue with inconsistencies that aren't there. There are problems with TDKT. But the ones you cite aren't what they are. Do you take as an extreme of an issue with one inconsistency as you do the other? It doesn't seem so.

The humour was disappointing. Then again, the humour in MOS wasn't particularly good either.

Taste may vary. Have a very great day!

God bless you! God bless your family and everyone else in your life! God bless everyone!

I'm in the process of rewatching this for the first time since I saw it in theatres, I just passed the halfway point (stopped at the scene where Zod meets superman)

My thoughts on the first half;

I liked the non-linear telling as well, specifically for an origin story. While I liked Batman begins, one of its downsides is it takes a long time to even get to a modern bruce wayne let alone Batman and this is repeated in the dark knight rises. A linear story would have bogged this one down, while the child Clark Kent parts were important to the story, they are not the strong part of the film and it would have made the first act awfully boring if it took 40 minutes before seeing Cavill on screen.

We see modern Bruce Wayne in the second scene of BB.

While I think Costner did a good job in his role, I didn't like the way it was written; his death scene was cringeworthy, he makes no attempt to save himself, it's almost as if the character purposely wants Clark to be tortured. In my opinion this film tries too hard to make Clark a tragic hero and while that works for some, Superman is not supposed to be as dark of a character as this film portrays. It clearly doesn't let the hero ever enjoy victory at any point, Costner makes him feel bad every time he uses his powers.

I kind of agree.

Amy Adams is a good actress but she's no Margot Kidder (far better than Kate Bosworth though). Like the rest of the film she's humorless and lacks personality. I did like how she does act noble and heroic in her own right trying to tell the story that needs to be told.

I liked Kate Bosworth as a character more personally.

Halfway through this film is completely deprived of humour. I didn't laugh once and I don't think there was even a single attempt at humor. While not terrible it's obvious it attempts to be a superman version of the dark knight series rather than its own film.

TDKT had humor. Have a very great day!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

The consensus amongst critics is that it's too "gloomy", it's "confusing", and some even said "boring". I'll have to see it for myself to make the call. I really don't want to believe the critics (coming from someone who enjoyed Batman & Robin). Gloominess, while inappropriate when dealing with Superman is the right ingredient for Batman (did they choose to ignore Nolan's acclaimed trilogy?).

I can say that I didn't get the feeling the TDKT was gloomy. But BvS is a Superman movie too. Have a very great day!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

I bet the imbecile who wrote this article never complained when Superman killed Zod in SII or Batman killing in the Nolan films despite claiming he had a moral code. I guarantee you that she never asked Nolan to explore Batman's failure to maintain his moral code, or condemned him for breaking his rule in the first place...but liked those movies anyway.

This seems like an intense assumption made without something as a foundation to make it. Killing accidentally isn't the same as not having a moral code as well. And Superman 2, despite me having not a great deal of love for those films in their quality, didn't make a problem out of Zod's deatht in it, and instead of having him murder Zod onscreen, cleanly just tossed him into a hole. MOS made an issue out of their thing, showed it onscreen, forced the audiences to watch it and did it brutally, without dealing with it.

If Superman killing Zod was an act of 'murder' (which you have to be a moron to believe that's what was presented in the ending), then apply the same standard to the other films I mentioned.

The pathetic hypocrisy from people like her tells me more about how biased and flawed their mindset is than the ending itself.

You've said that Batman broke his rule, when allowing someone to die isn't killing. The same thing you're saying here about this person applies to what you've said, if that logic is to be gone by.

Give me a break. Nothing that Snyder said was anywhere near as flimsy as Nolan having Batman break his rule, and then the director himself acknowledged it but played it down at the same time in that screenwriting book.

Nolan was factually wrong by saying that Batman broke his rule in BB. How is it just as flimsy though to admit it, but downplay it at the same time? It doesn't contradict it.

And if you're going to try and justify that Batman "accidentally" killed Two-Face, and he didn't mean to kill Talia again, don't bother, because you did NOT originally hold this opinion:

It was accidental.

As you can see for yourself, you agreed with me that Nolan didn't bother to address this inconsistency when we had a discussion about this in April 2014.

Four months later though, you started twisting things to suit your interpretation and wrote some rather unflattering remarks to me along the way:

Admitting that an inconsistency wasn't addressed isn't the same as saying it wasn't accidental.

I like how you sugarcoated all the contradictory things in that trilogy, and yet you're bothered by Superman reluctantly killing Zod. I find it especially hysterical that you disregarded my complaints by accusing of being "locked in a mindset" too by the way, despite you once acknowledged that some of my complaints were legitimate.

It wasn't sugarcoating. It was a statement of that there are good things and bad things in both sets of stories. There aren't really contradictory things in the trilogy though, the ones that you've said are anyway.

Bottom line: if you can turn a blind eye to these things and try to justify in your head over Batman's inconsistent behavior in the Nolan films, then you have no right to complain about Superman killing Zod. Continuing to do so is blatantly hypocritical.

One could say the same about the complaints that you have. If you try to justify Batman's inconsistent behavior in the Burton film, then you have no right to complain about his inconsistent behavior in the Nolan films, by that logic.

It's funny how the myth of 'Superman trashed half of Metropolis' continues. The opposite is true.

Zod was fully in charge of the fight, constantly threw Supes around and brought down a building via his erratic heat vision. These videos demonstrate it pretty well.

Supes was green and took his first and only chance at ending the fight. It was either neck snap or nothing.

Superman did engage Zod in a fight, in a city. He had a hand in it. I don't blame him for the destruction. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable for that action. Have a very great day both of you!

God bless you both! God bless your families and everyone else in your lives! God bless everyone!

I have my own suspicions about this. In a previous episode, when Leslie met Bruce, she also met Alfred, who flirted with her and attempted to ask her out before discovering that she was already with Gordon.

But now, Leslie and Gordon are having conflicts in their relationship, with it looking likely that Leslie will call it quits soon...and she's just starting to visit Wayne Manor these days...

I would prefer that. I liked that scene with Alfred quite a bit. And I have found the changes like Barbara being made crazy obnoxious and pandering. I would like to see it revealed that Barbara didn't kill her parents and she just thinks she did because seeing the Ogre kill them made her crazy. I suspect this because Barbara's story of killing them doesn't match how they were found by Jim. But that could just be because the writers rushed that and messed it up due to them trying to appease the character's dislikers. Have a very great day!

God bless you! God bless everyone!