What are you looking forward to in 2016?

[NinjaPug]

Lots of TV and movies coming this year that I'm excited about.

TV:
New season of Game of Thrones now that GRRM announced today that Winds of Winter won't be out before S6 debuts. Sucks that some big things are going to be seen on the show first but that also makes it more exciting not knowing what's coming. I'm worried that GRRM is never going to finish the series now that the show has passed him or that he changes things drastically from the show.

Preacher (AMC) - I'm really curious to see how they adapt this especially on AMC. This is one of my favorite comic series but there's a ton of stuff that is going to be tough to adapt.

I would put the final season of The Leftovers on here but I think that probably gets pushed to 2017.


Movies:
Both Marvel movies (Civil War and Dr Strange) - WS is my favorite MCU movie so far so really interested to see where they take those characters. Please don't mess up Spider-Man again. Was never really interested in Strange but started reading up on him after the movie was announced. I'm excited about it now because this should be a really different type of movie in the MCU plus the cast is so good.

Finding Dory - Nemo is still my favorite Pixar movie. Normally I'd be worried about a Pixar sequel but I feel pretty good about it with Andrew Stanton returning.

Batman v Superman - I'm worried about this story wise but I'm still really excited to finally see those two on the same screen. Also excited to finally see Wonder Woman in a movie. Snyder always makes a very aesthetically pleasing movie too. Not as excited for Suicide Squad because I really hate a lot of the cast. Really just want to see it for Harley and the Batman/Joker flashbacks.

Passengers - this is an old script from Jon Spaihts that has been on the internet forever. I'm so glad it's finally getting made. Great cast too - Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt.

What are you most excited about?

[ToTheNines]

Rogue One should be rad.

Civil War of course. And the Agents of SHIELD lead up to it.

Don Cheadle produced and starred in a Miles Davis semi-fictional movie that should be out soon. I think it's direct to DVD though. Still psyched though.

That's it off the top of my head. Plenty of stuff I'm gonna see, but those 3 have me very excited.

[CyberCubed]

I don't watch "real" TV, so other than Nick TMNT and maybe some other things, I don't watch television anymore.

For movies, the obvious ones, Batman/Superman, X-men Apocalypse, Captain America: Civil War, the new Star Trek movie. Also the Michael Bay TMNT sequel, probably see it just to see if its any better than the last awful movie.

I play far more videogames than TV/movies, so 2016 is all about games for me. So many great games to play this year, I'd much rather spend 20-30 hours on a videogame than watch some TV show.

[Autbot_Benz]

Movies

Batman V Superman

Deadpool

TMNT 2

Suicide Squad

Civil War

TV/Netflix

Daredevil (Punisher baby)

Doctor Who (Hopefully)

[Turo602]

Movies
Deadpool
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Captain America: Civil War
X-Men: Apocalypse
Finding Dory
Suicide Squad
Star Wars: Rogue One
Assassin's Creed

TV
Arrow
The Flash
Supernatural
Daredevil Season 2

[TurtleTitan97]

TV:

Samurai Jack revival
Powerpuff Girls reboot
Series Finale of Gravity Falls
DC's Legends of Tomorrow
Daredevil Season 2
Luke Cage
Westworld
The Flash

Movies:

Kung Fu Panda 3
Rogue One
Batman v Superman
Civil War
Deadpool
Suicide Squad
Zootopia
The Jungle Book
Ratchet & Clank
Finding Dory
Kubo and the Two Strings
Doctor Strange
Moana

[Powder]

Some One Punch Man OVA's, Fuller House, Better Call Saul s2, Deadpool, TMNT OOTS, as well as the continuation of TMNT & Adventure Time's present seasons.

[plastroncafe]

Ooh so many things. So many.

Rogue One
Civil War
Peggy Carter
Galavant
Deadpool
Star Trek

...seeing Star Wars again.

[CyberCubed]

Hopefully Dragonball Super gets good now that the movie adaption episodes are almost over.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Looking forward to? Oooh, so many things....

DEAPOOL!!!
CA: Civil War. Nuff said.
Dr. Strange. Been wanting this one for years now.
Suicide Squad. Harley in a LA film? About darn time!
TMNT 2- if only because I'm excited for R&B. Okay, and the turtles, too!
X-Men Apocalypse. Finally, Psylocke!!

New seasons of Sleepy Hollow and Gotham.
Walking Dead- still awesome!
Fear the Walking Dead. Last season was short, but promising.
That's all I can think of so far, but I'm hoping to get into a few shows like Flash, Arrow, and Agents of SHIELD if I get the chance.

Oh, did I mention Deadpool? Yeah, really stoked for that one.

[Allio]

Movies:
Marvel Movies
DC Movies
DeadPool
X-men
SuperHero Year Films: Kamen Rider Ichigou and Gorenger

onlythings that pops up in mind first.

[T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!]

Dark Souls 3 and Street Fighter 5. Hopefully Zelda on Wii U as well.

[drgon78]

Movies
Moana
Zootopia
Kubo and the Two Strings
Captain America: Civil War
Dr. Strange
The Jungle Book
Fantastic Creatures...
Batman v Superman
Star Trek
Kung Fu Panda 3
Secret Life of Pets

TV
Agents of Shield
Supergirl
Agent Carter
Gravity Falls(last episode)

[Powder]

Dark Souls 3 and Street Fighter 5. Hopefully Zelda on Wii U as well.

This is not the video game section, G.

[Jephael]

Aside of anything TMNT, I'm looking forward to more episodes of The Big Bang Theory, 2 Broke Girls, Supergirl and Teen Titans Go!!!

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

The Flash
Legends of Tomorrow

Batman V Superman
Deadpool
Suicide Squad
Captain America 2

Curious to know what happens in Arrow and TMNT 2, although both are trainwrecks in their own individual form or fashion.

I don't think we'll be getting any new Doctor Who next year, as I thought Moffat was going to concentrate mostly on Sherlock in 2016, but I'd love to be wrong.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Um, CKD? That should read Captain America 3. 2 was Winter Soldier, dude. Just sayin.....

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Um, CKD? That should read Captain America 3. 2 was Winter Soldier, dude. Just sayin.....

You're ABSOLUTELY right. :tlol:

I was so excited to see Bucky get redeemed, I hit the wrong numeral. :twink:

[CyberCubed]

I still haven't seen Episode 7 yet, so that's a 2016 movie for me. Are there still a lot of people seeing Star Wars in theaters? I would think by now all the hardcore fans have seen it by now.

I want to see it when the movie isn't too crowded.

[Leo656]

All the comic book stuff of course but nothing on the same scale as Dawn of Justice.

[Vicky82]

Mostly movies

Dad's Army
Deadpool
Batman vs Superman
Zootopia/Zootropolis (UK Name)
The Jungle Book
Captain America: Civil War
X-Men
TMNT 2 (Obviously):D
Warcraft
Independence Day 2
The BFG
The Legend of Tarzan
The Secret Life of Pets
Ghostbusters 3
Suicide Squad
Doctor Strange

Forgot Bridget Jone's Baby

[ToTheNines]

I still haven't seen Episode 7 yet, so that's a 2016 movie for me. Are there still a lot of people seeing Star Wars in theaters? I would think by now all the hardcore fans have seen it by now.

I want to see it when the movie isn't too crowded.

http://www.zuguide.com/images/4845/4845.0.570.359.jpg

[Leo656]

I went the day after it opened and the theater was only 2/3s full at 10pm. Try again, Cubed.

[T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!]

This is not the video game section, G.

Those are still the things I'm looking the most forward to in 2016. As far as all the "comic book movies" I will pass because they just butcher the source material and are targeted towards the people that don't read comics. If I want good Batman I will read Scott Snyder. I sure don't expect it from Zach Snyder.

[Leo656]

"Butcher"... "Compromise and/or streamline for the sake of entertaining people who don't want to read a mountain of comics to understand/enjoy a two-hour movie"... To-may-toe, to-mah-toe, eh?

[T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!]

"Butcher"... "Compromise and/or streamline for the sake of entertaining people who don't want to read a mountain of comics to understand/enjoy a two-hour movie"... To-may-toe, to-mah-toe, eh?

Watch The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and then read it. You'll see what I mean. I don't even have a clue what Marvel is doing with Civil War. I watched the trailer during Star Wars and wondered why they called it Civil War because they didn't even seem to mention anything about government registration and unmasking and things that actually caused the Civil War in the comics. Is it just about Bucky and Cap or something?

[T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!]

"Butcher"... "Compromise and/or streamline for the sake of entertaining people who don't want to read a mountain of comics to understand/enjoy a two-hour movie"... To-may-toe, to-mah-toe, eh?

Also would it be so hard for Sam Raimi to just let you know that Uncle Ben got killed instead of saying that Sandman did it when it wasn't really Sandman that did it? There are just a lot of things that irritate me when Hollywood tries to change things that artists and creators have firmly established. If the audience doesn't know the difference then why change it? That's what really ticked me off about 300 and Watchmen and V for Vendetta. I can totally understand why Allan Moore hates movies.

[Leo656]

League is like, the single most extreme example a person could use, but I'll allow it. :trazz: To say they're always like that is patently false, though; that movie had next to nothing to do with what it was adapting and wasn't even trying to be the same thing. Which begs the question why they bothered, but that's a whole other thing.

I'm hardly a Marvel guy but what I do know of the Civil War storyline from the comics was pretty contrived and dumb-ish, anyways, so I'm hardly worried about what the movie is going to tinker with. Frankly - and I'm not purposely insulting anyone's tastes here - but I've always found the Marvel Universe more interesting in the movies than in the books, and I've found most of the changes they've made in translating Marvel Comics to the screen to be positive ones. If for no other reason than Marvel Comics have never been explicitly about the writing, they've spent most of the time since the early-80s being about superstar artists and Big Events, and a lot of their long-running stories are a jumbled mess, to the point where any cinematic streamlining is both necessary and welcome. If they tried to make the movies super-literal to what's on the printed page, the Marvel movies would be terrible because the stories they're based on, as-written, often aren't good enough for a two-hour movie, not without some editing. All the movies would be 4-hours long and loaded with exposition and needless secondary characters, so the non-comic readers could "catch up". That'd be awful, nobody wants that.

Everything about Spider-Man 3 was wrong and plenty of blame to go around on that. Firstly, Raimi shouldn't have been on it. When the fans and the studio unanimously wanted Venom, and Raimi stubbornly clung to Sandman, a villain nobody's cared about in over 20 years and not one person was screaming to see in a movie, Raimi should have respectfully stepped aside and let the studio put their mercenary of choice in charge. Instead they kept Raimi out of fear nobody else could "get" Spider-Man, and not wanting to take any risks after the first two made so much money, and he half-heartedly relented to some of their suggestions but did it in such a piss-poor way that it threw the balance of the entire movie off. That was one rare case where the studio was right and the director was wrong: Nobody wanted Spider-Man 3 to be a weepy sob story about loss, forgiveness, and redemption, they just wanted to see him fight Venom in live-action already after years of false starts. Usually studio interference is wrong, but that case proves that sometimes you need to go with the populists' choice and just do what's best for business.

I'm not sure what was changed about Watchmen that was so sacrilegious. If it was the removal of the squid, that was a wise decision. Watchmen is a really good comic book movie. You can tell, because nerds hate it for being both too faithful AND too much of a departure. As if that makes any sense, but those are the only two complaints you ever hear about it. "It's exactly the book! What's the point?" and, "They changed so much from the book, what's the point?" If you're getting it from both sides then you probably did a lot right, truthfully.

V for Vendetta is also a chore and a slog to read through but a fun politically-bent action movie. I honestly think the movie improves on big chunks of the book. I wanted to like that book more than I did, and it's okay, but the movie loses a lot of the more extraneous bits that make the book drag, and that's kind of the point of an adaptation: "All killer/no filler". And the ending is so much more poignant than the book's typical "sidekick takes up the hero's identity and carries on his work" cliche. I kind of don't think Alan Moore knows how to end any of his stories. He writes a lot of great big stories that end with a kazoo noise. Watchmen, V, Killing Joke... Alan Moore is like the king of Great Stories With Bad Endings. I imagine that's the first thing they try and decide when they adapt any of his stories, "How do we fix that ending?" If so, good for 'em, those changes are necessary.
---------------

Look, anybody knows I'm as "purist" as the next guy, but there's also the simple fact that very few people would have the patience to sit through a movie that was EXACTLY like the comic it was based on, because stories for comics and stories for movies are written completely differently, and you can't just NOT make movies based on comic books. Editing, trimming, and streamlining is absolutely necessary 100% of the time, but to what degree is admittedly a matter of debate. But there's no Right or Wrong answer on what the right way to do that is. Sometimes you get ultra-faithful movies that are lousy, and sometimes you get movies that take huge departures from the comics but it ultimately makes the movie better. Like, aside from Doom, the first Fantastic 4 movie was super-faithful and it was awful. One could argue that making Doom simply "Doom from the comics" could have "fixed" it, but the entire movie itself was so irredeemably stupid that I doubt it would have been the One Big Thing That Made Everything Else Okay, it was just a bad movie. Then you get movies like Batman Begins, which take some liberties with the source material, but when you really think about it you have to go, "Huh, that actually works a lot better that way" about a lot of things.

Anyways, in summation, a lot of comic book movies are great and a lot are awful, but at this point it can't reasonably be based on how closely they do or don't follow the comic books. I think it's silly to ignore the good ones just because they're not the exact same thing as the printed version, as they're not always perfect either.

[T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!]

I TOTALLY agree with you Leo that Marvel is junk in print right now. I've been a life long Marvel fan but now I can only read Daredevil and Hawkeye. I'm SO sick of stupid "event" books that I can't even tell you. You're also right about Spidey 3. They butchered Venom miserably. They made Peter a stupid emo kid and just all around dropped the ball. I love all of Allan Moore's classics and really thought the V movie sucked because of the changes they made. I just didn't think the book had anything wrong with it but I'm admittedly a big fan of his. I have a problem with the way the films characterize certain characters. The one I hate the most is the Bane portrayal in DKR. I wasn't a real big fan of Ledger either but I'm also a Hamill fanboy. I thought Murphy done the best job as Scarecrow and the Two-Face interpretation I thought was abysmal. I'd say Begins was my favorite Nolan film.

The thing that irked me about 300 was it makes it out in the comic that the dude who can't be a Spartan kills himself after Leonidas tells him he can't be a Spartan. Then when you see that he's the one that reveals the way to beat them it really pays off story wise. So then in the Snyder film Leonidas tells him he can't be a Spartan and then just walks away and says something like "I hope no one finds out about our weakness" or something. I was just like "WHY?! Would you not make it appear that he killed himself?!" Those choices insult the audience in my opinion.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Everything about Spider-Man 3 was wrong and plenty of blame to go around on that. Firstly, Raimi shouldn't have been on it. When the fans and the studio unanimously wanted Venom, and Raimi stubbornly clung to Sandman, a villain nobody's cared about in over 20 years and not one person was screaming to see in a movie, Raimi should have respectfully stepped aside and let the studio put their mercenary of choice in charge. Instead they kept Raimi out of fear nobody else could "get" Spider-Man, and not wanting to take any risks after the first two made so much money, and he half-heartedly relented to some of their suggestions but did it in such a piss-poor way that it threw the balance of the entire movie off. That was one rare case where the studio was right and the director was wrong: Nobody wanted Spider-Man 3 to be a weepy sob story about loss, forgiveness, and redemption, they just wanted to see him fight Venom in live-action already after years of false starts. Usually studio interference is wrong, but that case proves that sometimes you need to go with the populists' choice and just do what's best for business.

Leo, based on this perspective, do you think it would have been better for Warner Brothers to similarly force Riddler to be used in Nolan's Dark Knight sequel instead of Bane?

Also, I feel like Bane was much better represented in "Rises" than comics, even if he was a drastic departure from the comics. Like, now that we've had a good Bane (although in name only as a lot of people liked to throw around) and rinsed out the bad taste of B&R Bane, we can have a good and ACCURATE Bane.

Just curious to know your thoughts on those...

[Leo656]

I own "Lost Girls" so I feel I can say whatever I want about Alan Moore. :trazz: And most of what I have to say is positive. I just don't think anything he's ever done is perfect and I can clearly see why people who re-tell those stories often feel the need to either streamline or remove certain things.

Dark Knight Rises was another case like Spider-Man 3 where there was too much disconnect between best for the story and best for business. WB really needed to lay off the "make the release date" nonsense and just let the movie be made and release it when it was done. It's clearly a rush-job. Most of what they did with Bane worked but making him Talia's lackey did not. I admire them for trying to tie things together with the first movie, but they over-assumed how many people actually watched Begins compared to Dark Knight. The answer was "not as many as they'd hoped", since most casual filmgoers in 2004 were not enthusiastic about a new Batman movie period, and after hearing Scarecrow was the villain opted to "Wait and go see the Joker movie if they do one". So about 3/4s of the audience for Rises had no idea what was going on, or why the stuff with Talia and the League of Shadows was important, or why Liam Neeson's Force Ghost showed up. Then you had all the continuity errors.

Damn, I thought Dark Knight Rises was good when I saw it in theaters, but damn it it's really not very good at all. The ONLY thing it does well is wrap up that one, specific (and decisively NON-canon after all) Batman universe. Which I can only call a letdown after an opener like "Begins", which fits neatly into any Batman continuity you want it to, thus making it the "best" Batman movie by default. Everything wrong with Rises, however, I feel could have been fixed if they had another 6 months to work on it. Lots of issues only presented themselves with hindsight, and that's something they didn't have when they were in a rush to make the release date.
-------------------

Anyways... the whole "comic book movies suck because they make too many changes" thing just doesn't sit well with me as a blanket statement because lots of times the changes help more than they hurt. The reverse is also true but it's true enough in either case that it's simply not a "one-size-fits-all" kind of thing. Sometimes it's better and sometimes it works, some comic book movies are great and some are awful but there's a lot more to it than just sticking to the canon.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I own "Lost Girls" so I feel I can say whatever I want about Alan Moore. :trazz: And most of what I have to say is positive. I just don't think anything he's ever done is perfect and I can clearly see why people who re-tell those stories often feel the need to either streamline or remove certain things.

Dark Knight Rises was another case like Spider-Man 3 where there was too much disconnect between best for the story and best for business. WB really needed to lay off the "make the release date" nonsense and just let the movie be made and release it when it was done. It's clearly a rush-job. Most of what they did with Bane worked but making him Talia's lackey did not. I admire them for trying to tie things together with the first movie, but they over-assumed how many people actually watched Begins compared to Dark Knight. The answer was "not as many as they'd hoped", since most casual filmgoers in 2004 were not enthusiastic about a new Batman movie period, and after hearing Scarecrow was the villain opted to "Wait and go see the Joker movie if they do one". So about 3/4s of the audience for Rises had no idea what was going on, or why the stuff with Talia and the League of Shadows was important, or why Liam Neeson's Force Ghost showed up. Then you had all the continuity errors.

Damn, I thought Dark Knight Rises was good when I saw it in theaters, but damn it it's really not very good at all. The ONLY thing it does well is wrap up that one, specific (and decisively NON-canon after all) Batman universe. Which I can only call a letdown after an opener like "Begins", which fits neatly into any Batman continuity you want it to, thus making it the "best" Batman movie by default. Everything wrong with Rises, however, I feel could have been fixed if they had another 6 months to work on it. Lots of issues only presented themselves with hindsight, and that's something they didn't have when they were in a rush to make the release date.
-------------------

Anyways... the whole "comic book movies suck because they make too many changes" thing just doesn't sit well with me as a blanket statement because lots of times the changes help more than they hurt. The reverse is also true but it's true enough in either case that it's simply not a "one-size-fits-all" kind of thing. Sometimes it's better and sometimes it works, some comic book movies are great and some are awful but there's a lot more to it than just sticking to the canon.

Okay, before C42 comes in here and tells me I only like Nolan's movies because I've been TOLD to like Nolan's movies, I don't see why everyone assumes Bane was Talia's lackey. It seems like a perfectly 50/50 division of authority partnership; Talia handles the subterfuge and covert affairs, Bane handles the upfront visuals and muscle. I saw no lackey.

That Talia death scene though... sigh. :trolleye: Oh, and John fvcking Blake. THAT really pisses me off every time.

[T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!]

I own "Lost Girls" so I feel I can say whatever I want about Alan Moore. :trazz: And most of what I have to say is positive. I just don't think anything he's ever done is perfect and I can clearly see why people who re-tell those stories often feel the need to either streamline or remove certain things.

Dark Knight Rises was another case like Spider-Man 3 where there was too much disconnect between best for the story and best for business. WB really needed to lay off the "make the release date" nonsense and just let the movie be made and release it when it was done. It's clearly a rush-job. Most of what they did with Bane worked but making him Talia's lackey did not. I admire them for trying to tie things together with the first movie, but they over-assumed how many people actually watched Begins compared to Dark Knight. The answer was "not as many as they'd hoped", since most casual filmgoers in 2004 were not enthusiastic about a new Batman movie period, and after hearing Scarecrow was the villain opted to "Wait and go see the Joker movie if they do one". So about 3/4s of the audience for Rises had no idea what was going on, or why the stuff with Talia and the League of Shadows was important, or why Liam Neeson's Force Ghost showed up. Then you had all the continuity errors.

Damn, I thought Dark Knight Rises was good when I saw it in theaters, but damn it it's really not very good at all. The ONLY thing it does well is wrap up that one, specific (and decisively NON-canon after all) Batman universe. Which I can only call a letdown after an opener like "Begins", which fits neatly into any Batman continuity you want it to, thus making it the "best" Batman movie by default. Everything wrong with Rises, however, I feel could have been fixed if they had another 6 months to work on it. Lots of issues only presented themselves with hindsight, and that's something they didn't have when they were in a rush to make the release date.
-------------------

Anyways... the whole "comic book movies suck because they make too many changes" thing just doesn't sit well with me as a blanket statement because lots of times the changes help more than they hurt. The reverse is also true but it's true enough in either case that it's simply not a "one-size-fits-all" kind of thing. Sometimes it's better and sometimes it works, some comic book movies are great and some are awful but there's a lot more to it than just sticking to the canon.
I think Sin City and American Splendor are the most "faithful" adaptations ever.

[Leo656]

Leo, based on this perspective, do you think it would have been better for Warner Brothers to similarly force Riddler to be used in Nolan's Dark Knight sequel instead of Bane?

Also, I feel like Bane was much better represented in "Rises" than comics, even if he was a drastic departure from the comics. Like, now that we've had a good Bane (although in name only as a lot of people liked to throw around) and rinsed out the bad taste of B&R Bane, we can have a good and ACCURATE Bane.

Just curious to know your thoughts on those...

No, Bane was the right choice. Like with Spider-Man, you only have a handful of 3-5 names on the tip of every fan's tongue as far as who'd be a good movie villain, and anyone else is settling for less. Riddler isn't a compelling movie villain, especially in a movie like the third one of a trilogy where the threat needs to be much more dire and preferably physical. Lots of people bemoan the Nolan films because Bruce isn't much of a Detective, but those criticisms ignore the fact that "super-hero as detective thriller" doesn't really work as a blockbuster movie that everyone from Junior to Grandma has to enjoy. A 2.5-hour film of Batman deciphering clues and delivering expository dialogue in the vein of the Adam West show would be brutal, and we already had a taste and it was awful.

It's not that I'd never want to see it done - although I think the stink of Carrey's unbearable performance is going to taint the idea in people's minds for a long time - but I'm hard-pressed to figure out how you make Riddler a competent movie villain, without either giving him a muscle-bound sidekick to do all the work for him - and at that point why not make the "sidekick" the Main Villain? - or flat-out have him start killing people, and then he's just The Joker with a sh*ttier costume.

Once they had already done Joker and Ra's, Bane was the only logical choice. Even when there was a rumor early on that the villains were going to be Riddler and Penguin, that sounded like a huge mistake, because we'd just sat through a whole movie of Batman playing cat-and-mouse with a bad guy he couldn't outsmart, doubling-down on that would have been crummy. The third movie needed a serious physical threat, and Bane hadn't been done properly yet, and he was the only one the fans even really WANTED to see, anyway. I'd heard that WB was high on Depp as Riddler and Hoffman as Penguin, but that was some drunken red carpet loose talk that got picked up as "fact" and reported, I'm not sure how much discussion there actually was, but either way, settling on Bane was the smart move.

I disagree about Bane, in that he's not one who delegates authority nor plays well with others, thus the "In Name Only" criticisms. I thought it was a good, not great, interpretation. The costume and voice didn't bother me, but the fact that his "master plan to break the Bat" wasn't even HIS Master Plan did bother me, because that's a little bit too far off from how Bane operates. Not anywhere NEAR as bad as what they did in Batman & Robin, but it did needlessly weaken Bane's character and muddle his motivations. "Lackey" may be over-stating it but suddenly when he's just Talia's teddy bear he isn't as threatening as a villain anymore. That was a misfire, they shouldn't have had anything to do with each other as far as being partners. He should have been a complete rogue that Talia wanted to eliminate because he proved impossible for the League of Shadows to control, they shouldn't have been working together. They should have each been independently trying to take out Batman for their own reasons, and if their plans intersected it should have been a ruse for mutual benefit, with each one fully intending to betray the other before the end. That could have worked, IF they had to be a pairing. Again, little things that they would have thought of it they had time to actually write the damn thing.
------------------

They're great movies, on the whole, but I understand the "purists" take as well, I just don't agree with it. I mean for whatever else those movies were, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin were, if anything, TOO faithful to certain, goofier parts of the source material that simply don't work in live action. They changed some of the characters' stories for the worst, but the costumes, the dialogue, the scenarios, were all lifted directly from the page... and it was a gaudy, bloated mess, because that kind of tongue-in-cheek stuff only works with little kids, everyone else rightly thinks it's stupid and juvenile. After all that, a serious, "real world" take was needed in order to justify ever doing a Batman movie again. The Nolan films were not a good representation of the comics regrettably, but they did accurately reflect the tone and spirit of the mythology, even if nobody looked "right" and everyone's story was "tweaked". And most importantly, it made billions of people who were "too old" or "too mature" to care about Batman, care a lot about Batman.

And now that they've proven that a more serious and dramatic take on Batman can work, and make lots of money, they have the freedom to execute this newest take, which is a "more realistic" take than the 90s films while being "more comics-faithful" than the Nolan films, which we couldn't have had otherwise. So it really seems like the best of both worlds.

I liked those movies but I'm ready to move on from them to something a little more faithful, as long as they don't abandon the stuff that really worked from the Nolan films, as in not making fun of the material or trying to pimp it up to sell more toys. My only real complaints about Nolan's trilogy were that while some of the changes to the canon were good, others seemed like there was no reason for them and they were just different for different's sake, like killing off Dent just when he finally gets to where we want him to be, story-wise. So while there's lots of good stuff in them there's plenty of room for improvement.

[T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!]

Leo, based on this perspective, do you think it would have been better for Warner Brothers to similarly force Riddler to be used in Nolan's Dark Knight sequel instead of Bane?

Also, I feel like Bane was much better represented in "Rises" than comics, even if he was a drastic departure from the comics. Like, now that we've had a good Bane (although in name only as a lot of people liked to throw around) and rinsed out the bad taste of B&R Bane, we can have a good and ACCURATE Bane.

Just curious to know your thoughts on those...

I personally would have rather had a straight up Two-Face story as opposed to either Bane or Riddler. I thought Eckart didn't make a good Harvey Dent at all though and Two-Face himself is almost just a cameo. I honestly felt like they put him in there just to say they did. I also would have like a lot more Scarecrow stuff. His character could translate very well to the big screen and even give a more horror element to the film. With multiple villains though it just sorta stretches each one thin by default in my opinion. I feel like Nolan had the best Batman but Burton had the best Gotham. Gotham itself was a sort of weak point to the Nolan films for me as well. I also liked Burton's Batmobile much better and didn't like Nolan's at all.

[Leo656]

You lost me on some of those. Especially Questionable Penis-Nose Batmobile over The Tumbler.

And while I would have liked to see more Two-Face and killing him off was beyond stupid I thought Eckhart was perfect.

[THGhost]

Right now, Deadpool. Any other movie is irrelevant to me. :P

[T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!]

You lost me on some of those. Especially Questionable Penis-Nose Batmobile over The Tumbler.

And while I would have liked to see more Two-Face and killing him off was beyond stupid I thought Eckhart was perfect.

I just couldn't see Eckhart as menacing and threatening. That was my beef with him. The thing about the Tumbler is that it didn't even look like the Batmobile. I just wanted something that was more "comic booky" I guess. LOL! Don't get me wrong though. I thought Burton's films had some major problems too but his Gotham looked much more "gothic" than Nolan's but that's really his niche anyway. Nolan's looked much more "industrial" to me and I just didn't like that as much as the old school almost crime noir flavor of Burton's. I also DESPISED Christian Bale's voice as Batman. I think he makes a fine Bruce Wayne though. I really wish they could just let Kevin Conroy taking over voicing duties when the actors put the suit on. Sorta like Vader with James Earl Jones. Nobody has ever been able to get Batman's voice right.

[Leo656]

I can understand the way some people feel about the two film versions of Gotham, but I kind of have to mentally defer to a movie about a big city that... actually... filmed it... in a big city... and not a soundstage.... :lol: Burton created some good atmosphere, but eventually you start to notice how there's nobody outside in the daytime. :trazz: But yeah, I suppose Nolan's movies could have used a gargoyle or two. It never bothered me while I was watching it, though.

I also liked the idea of the Batmobile as a serious piece of equipment and not a snazzy sports car. I like both fine - I mean it can't get worse than Schumacher's Disco Ball Engine - but it was so functional and real I couldn't find any fault with it, just because it wasn't sleek. It was a beast, it seemed exactly like what he would drive.

We're just gonna have to agree to disagree on the rest. Especially Eckhart. Totally redeemed the character as an idea for movies, after Tommy Lee's disastrous take nearly ruined it forever. The only thing wrong was how they killed him off for lack of any ideas how to use him in a sequel. Again, the biggest problems with the Nolan films was that the latter two were rushed to make a release date, so the stories don't make much sense compared to Begins, which was released when it was finished and not before, so it actually had a plot.

[T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!]

I can understand the way some people feel about the two film versions of Gotham, but I kind of have to mentally defer to a movie about a big city that... actually... filmed it... in a big city... and not a soundstage.... :lol: Burton created some good atmosphere, but eventually you start to notice how there's nobody outside in the daytime. :trazz: But yeah, I suppose Nolan's movies could have used a gargoyle or two. It never bothered me while I was watching it, though.

I also liked the idea of the Batmobile as a serious piece of equipment and not a snazzy sports car. I like both fine - I mean it can't get worse than Schumacher's Disco Ball Engine - but it was so functional and real I couldn't find any fault with it, just because it wasn't sleek. It was a beast, it seemed exactly like what he would drive.

We're just gonna have to agree to disagree on the rest. Especially Eckhart. Totally redeemed the character as an idea for movies, after Tommy Lee's disastrous take nearly ruined it forever. The only thing wrong was how they killed him off for lack of any ideas how to use him in a sequel. Again, the biggest problems with the Nolan films was that the latter two were rushed to make a release date, so the stories don't make much sense compared to Begins, which was released when it was finished and not before, so it actually had a plot.
Yeah the Schumacher films will forever be blocked from my mind. LOL!