We went to see Batman again last night. I think I have to watch the Michael Keaton Batman again, just to compare ’em. But I liked it just as well the second time through, although I will discuss behind the cut tag the one thing that’s got me going back and forth on whether I approve or not.
I also watched the last hour of “Legends of the Fall” on tv last night, and learned it’s one of Ted’s favorite movies ever. This surprised me, because I think it’s really depressing (it’s *good*. I just don’t like it very much.), and normally Ted’s the one who doesn’t like depressing movies and I do. In fact, I wanted to know who’d switched our brains. :) Depressing or not, *God* it’s got a good title. I want to use that title. Hrmph.
miles to Rauros Falls: 285
Here be Batman Begins spoilers!
If you’re still reading, it’s your own fault if you get spoiled.
Just sayin’. I warned you. That’s all I’m sayin’.
Okay then.
In the climactic fight scene in the train, Batman has Ra’s al Ghul down and Ra’s is actually very pleased because he thinks Bruce has finally learned to do what must be done. Batman says, “I won’t kill you. But I don’t have to save you,” before leaping from the train himself and leaving Ra’s to die.
…
*gnrghght*
On the one hand: I think it’s quite wonderfully grey and questionable and dark, all of which is good Batman material. I can’t *blame* him. Ra’s is trying to destroy his beloved Gotham, and has left him for dead once already and yadda yadda yadda. I see where he’s coming from.
But on the other hand, he’s Batman. Batman doesn’t kill people. Okay, okay, yeah, *technically* he didn’t kill him (and it’s Ra’s al Ghul, so we all know he’s not really dead, but that’s not the POINT), but hoo boy that is one fine line to walk. And I’m always uncomfortable with that line, because I’m always *really badly* disappointed in my heroes when they cross it. (The Mummy Returns particularly infuriated me, because dammit, a hero would have tried to save Imhotep, even if he was horrible and evil, because that’s what heroes do, and I felt very similarly about Obiwan at the end of RotS. The *good guys* do *not leave people dying on the edges of lava pits, god damn it!*)
So *man* did they skirt that line, and I’m *still* not sure how I come down on it. It was good, it was morally ambiguous, it was grey, but … it was Batman, and I really can’t decide if I think he should have been better than that. I really can’t decide.
Which, when you get right down to it, means it’s some pretty damned good storytelling.
Let’s talk sometime on AIM about it!
I was, I have to admit, really REALLY disappointed with the non-plausible plot (hello, science?).
You know, although I noticed it *immediately* (like the instant it was introduced), I was for some reason able to completely let the non-plausible plot thing go. Yes! I will chat with you on AIM about it sometime soon! :)
On the other hand, ggggggllll. Loved the characters.
(Specificially, I was thinking about a characters vs. plot discussion.)
Legends of the Fall is a good movie, but I agree it’s depressing.
No, Kit, it’s *uplifting*!
On the other hand, it’s a pretty balanced thing for Batman to have done. Once, he saved his mentor’s life when — on reflection — he shouldn’t have; learning the truth, and given the same choice again, he didn’t.
That’s not entirely bad — especially given that the first time around, he helped someone who was helplessly unconscious, and the second time, he refused to help someone who had demonstrated fairly strongly that he had the capabilities (if not the tools) to evade death on his own.
I get that it’s a grey line, but I think Bats operated in a proper, admirable position relative to it. It’s certainly a less dark position for Bats to have taken than in, let’s see, pretty much every other Batman movie to date (I have bouts of hysterical blindness when I try to contemplate the second Schumacher film, so I leave that out of consideration). And it may be a position that’s completely validated down the line — we saw R’as prepare himself, and then we saw the train he was in a few moments earlier crash and explode. We don’t see him die. So did he? Was Bruce’s implicit confidence in R’as to watch out for his own ass well founded? I tend to think it was.
And for the record: anyone who complains about the science in a comic book movie did not go to that movie in the proper headspace. Science is not to matter one whit; leave it at the door.
I was going to say on the other thread, but I’ll say it here:
It would be interesting if they picked Cillian for his Superman looks. Because I kept thinking that when I saw him. Wow. He could be a Clark Kent.