The Rabbit Hole

Batman the Animated Series. After we went to see The Dark Knight, we got to talking about the episode of BtAS called "Almost Got Him," in which the Joker, Two-Face, the Penguin, Poison Ivy, and Killer Croc all talk about how they almost killed Batman at one time or another. The part that came up which is STILL my absolute favorite.

Two-Face finishes telling a long story about almost squishing Batman under a giant penny.
Joker: So, who's next?
Croc: (bangs fist on table) ME! So, there I was in the sewer, Batman coming at me. He was getting closer, closer...
Poison Ivy: ...and?!
Croc: I threw a rock at him!
::PAUSE::
Poison Ivy: So, Harvey, whatever became of the giant penny?
Two-Face: They actually let him keep it!
Croc: (petulantly) It was a big rock.

I almost died laughing. I also watched, while I was at it, "The Man Who Killed Batman" and "Trial." Interesting thing about "Trial" is that it, incorrectly to my mind, postulates that the crazies of Arkham created Batman, not the other way around. Tim Burton's Batman suggested the same thing--"I made you; you made me first." So odd that two Batman adaptations that otherwise borrow so heavily from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns would run contrary to his major thesis in it--namely, that Batman brings out the freaks, and without him, they fade away. It's just so odd to think of how easily I agreed with the Burton/BtAS view without thinking about it for so long. When it comes down to it, though, I agree with Miller. (And Nolan, seeing how much he borrows from Miller's Year One and The Dark Knight Returns.)

I will now attempt to manage a non-spoilery review of The Dark Knight. In which I not only spoil nothing but that I neither give my opinion on the movie or anything in the movie or the people involved with the movie. No, I absolutely promise. Even ivy03 can't fault this for spoilers. And if she can, I think I give up because in order not to spoil, I'm not even talking about the movie at all.

Here it is. No spoilers. At all. My thoughts: The Dark Knight played out more or less exactly like what I had in my head for a fanfic that I started and never finished. Almost. This is very weird to me, seeing almost what I pictured happening in my story happen on the screen.

That is all.

I look forward to seeing it again with some folk. More, I look forward to seeing the trailer for Watchmen (I guess they dropped the "The") again because of a minor argument I had with bigscary about whether or not the trailer is indicative of the film's adherence to the graphic novel or else is proof that the film completely trashed the most fabulous story ever in favor of looks. Seeing The Dark Knight again might help me make sense of it. I think this is also true of seeing the Watchmen trailer again on the big screen.

Because a trailer is not the movie. (Funnily enough, nowhere more emphatically have I learned that lesson than in the case of 300, which was done by the same people who are doing Watchmen.) It might have something to say about the movie, but I feel trailers more tell a story about the audience and its expectation than about the film. We see a trailer for a "superhero movie," and we have certain expectations. (One liners! CGI! Romance! Explosions!) Certain films which have broken the mold (Iron Man, in its way; Nolan's Batman films) still present trailers that, more or less, sell movies as they've always been. Yet Iron Man skirted enough hairy issues at large in our world today to put a bit of tarnish on the fanboy polish of the flying armor. The Dark Knight is...well, impossible to describe what it has done.

So what happens when you start with a source material that was already subverting the superhero before screenwriters worked it into a movie? Does the trailer say what it seems to say or does it say more? How close are you paying attention? I will be watching it very closely.

Batman's history is still history.



(By the by, this is the show I've now gotten kind of hooked on. Check iout the full episodes, they're usually pretty fun.)

Hat tip to viridian for the link (and feiran for breaking the story to me): Heath Ledger, we hardly knew ye. Wow. I just...wow. feiran pointed out that he's all of two years older than we are. And he has a little baby. ::wants to cry::

The Dark Knight will still happen, apparently, which is good, but weeeeird. I guess I'll know how people felt going to see The Crow after Brandon Lee's spectacular, senseless death.

It's weirder still for the fact that Brad Renfro died last week, also with heavy hinting that he might have had a drug-related death. I broke that story to my former roommate, who bemoaned the loss of another former teen idol (she's still grieving for Jonathan Brandis). I wonder how she'll take this.

(Incidentally, this is making for a great argument for Elektra complexes. Having crushes on older stars makes more sense--hell, look at Robert Downey Jr. He's rolled more drugs than a pharmceutical factory--because they've at least made their drug addictions compatible with living. Sigh.)

So, the guys on Mythbusters decided to retest the myth that simply going faster will enable a vehicle to avoid setting off a speed camera. Using a special race car that can go 300 miles an hour (drag racer, I think), they manged to beat the speed camera (and thus did not "get a ticket"). And then this conversation happened:

darkling1: Well, I guess the Batmobile wouldn't get a ticket then.
me: I don't think there's a license plate on the Batmobile.
darkling1: "Hey! This thing is registered to Bruce Wayne!"

THANK YOU droidguy1119!!!!



::continues babbling incoherently::

Woo! I finally did my revisions on this chapter for my Batman Begins fanfic.

On my LJ, I will personally thank everyone in writing group who did the concrit on the original chapter (dotsomething, ivy03, and jethrien--you rock!). This is as much your chapter as anyone else's. The motivation to post it came from alizzy and linaerys, so they got the credit, but you guys rocked for steering me away from the bad cartoonishness and towards the good cartoonishness. I ::heart:: you mightily!

Here's hoping I can get somewhere with this before 2008 changes canon.

Also? I wrote a two-page Jeremy thing! I have no idea whether I even like it, but that's what I heard in my brain today. We're listening to our brains, we are.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: the fourth volume of Batman: the Animated Series is complete crap. This was when the show was reimagined, the art changed to be more in harmony with the style used on the animated Superman series, and the subtlties of Batman's nature suddenly ceased to exist. He was no longer playful or even all that smart. He went in hitting and when that didn't work defaulted to a gadget. This is the guy who "went undercover" as...Bruce Wayne with a moustache...and wasn't recognized. Gah!

( Promise me you're going to kill me soon... )

And, out of nowhere, BOOM! You get "Legends of the Dark Knight" and "Mad Love" and "Judgement Day," episodes that were good but consternating, cute but simplistic, and just plain good, respectively.

( 'Legends of the Dark Knight:' HE AIN'T GAY, in other words. )

( 'Mad Love' or why cartoon psychiatry needs some work. )

( Judgement Day: TV learns to love Harvey Dent )

So apparently Netflilx does send out completely movie-or-TV-show-free discs when you queue up something. I almost cancelled the last disc of series seven Red Dwarf because I looked up online and found that discs one and two had covered all the actual episodes. Just in case this was not so, I let it arrive at my apartment (also, by the time I realized this, it was already on its way). I discovered it was just a bonus features disc, and nearly chucked it right back in the mail.

I ended up watching it and rather enjoying the retrospective on the entire series seven--the drama! The departures! The something else that begins with a D! They went episode by episode after the initial warm-up, which worked well because you got to see progression, problems with individual episodes dealt with, et al. It's amazing just how much of what is great about a show is completely do to mistakes, cock-ups in management, and the limitations of both budget and material. A lot of really great art comes about by mistake or by response to limitation--a great example (non-Red Dwarf!) would be the limitation on Batman: the Animated Series where they weren't allowed to show the pivotal scene of Bruce Wayne's parents being shot, so instead they just have them walking down a dark alley that transforms into the muzzle of a gun. It's really classy.

What I really loved about the Dwarf extras? British people's non-honesty. Not dishonesty, just honesty by another name that makes it seem like lying but isn't. So the writers had a falling out before series seven, and watching the writer who stayed with the show try to call his ex-partner a git without actually calling him names is both funny and painful. Ditto when people talked about Chris Barrie leaving--the writer was very kind, but instead of saying the actor was tired from working two shows at once, he said something like "Chris got used to the way the other show was shot--just show up, do your lines, go home--and that's not how we did it because we had all the visual effects."

So, basically: "The stupid git was being a lazy bastard about putting up with blue screening, but I can't say that and still look at the man again if we ever bring the show back."

See? Non-honesty. Concession to the other person for having a point while maintaining an air that you think they were being stupid throughout. I loved it!

I guess this is a round-about way of asking this: Do people watch extras on DVDs often? Commentaries, making-ofs, goofs, et al? I rarely do. I make the exception for something that is good or extensive (hello, Lord of the Rings), or inclusive (all-cast commentaries are usually great), but otherwise, not so much. What say the rest of ye?

This link provided me by bigscary is just perfect.

Grant Morrison gets exactly was has always bothered me about the second incarnation of Batman: the Animated Series: Batman was too humorlessly dark. While it was pretty funny to see that kind of seriousness contrasted against Superman's earnest optimism in the Batman/Superman Adventures, it struck me as horribly wrong for the Batman solo adventures. The worst offender had to be the episode that introduced Tim Drake. When Batgirl and Batman find out that Tim's father is dead, Batgirl is saddened, and Batman says "Are you expecting sympathy?" when she looks at him. "From you?" she asks. That's awful. It's also lightyears from the Batman of "Robin's Reckoning" in the original animated series. Bruce is everything kind and sympathetic, reaching out to Dick to let him know that he understands the kid's pain and is there to help any way he can. The worst that that Batman did was get distracted trying to find justice for Dick Grayson's parents that he ignored the kid for a while.

It's nice to find out someone so (in)famous likes the same stuff you do. I love that he called Christian Bale's Bruce/Batman definitive. I agree :)