Nolan criticisms that piss you off

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The point is that it's a short animated film aimed primarily at a young demographic, and necessarily sub-par in most possible areas of storytelling and filmmaking, so saying it matches or exceeds those films is necessarily ridiculous.


-Vader

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Vader182 wrote:The point is that it's a short animated film aimed primarily at a young demographic, and necessarily sub-par in most possible areas of storytelling and filmmaking, so saying it matches or exceeds those films is necessarily ridiculous.


-Vader
It's definitely not primarily a kid's film as it deals with very adult themes, such as commitment, love and letting go. Sure, it might be a cartoon with much shorter length, but if anything that's a positive that it managed to achieve so much. The same can be said for quite a few episodes of The Animated Series. And compared to Batman Forever, which came out around the same time, it's freaking Apocalypse Now. And Batman actually does detective work in Phantasm, something that I admit Nolan neglected in his films.

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darthnazgul wrote:
Vader182 wrote:The point is that it's a short animated film aimed primarily at a young demographic, and necessarily sub-par in most possible areas of storytelling and filmmaking, so saying it matches or exceeds those films is necessarily ridiculous.


-Vader
It's definitely not primarily a kid's film as it deals with very adult themes, such as commitment, love and letting go. Sure, it might be a cartoon with much shorter length, but if anything that's a positive that it managed to achieve so much. The same can be said for quite a few episodes of The Animated Series. And compared to Batman Forever, which came out around the same time, it's freaking Apocalypse Now. And Batman actually does detective work in Phantasm, something that I admit Nolan neglected in his films.
I love Phantasm for what it is, but those are 'adult' themes only in the sense those are things adults deal with- not that they're conceived or implemented with maturity. Further, I mean, let's be honest: Nolan's films take on incredibly complex and socially aware issues and confronts them with more tact and nuance (if not subtlety) than most films existing solely to deal with those issues head-on, nevermind supervillains and Lambotanks. I've always been confused by the 'detective' comments, as the plot of all three films unravels from Batman's investigations, deductions, and inferences. In terms of quantity, there's more pure detective scenes in each Nolan feature than Phantasm, and it's always seemed like a big part of the films, namely The Dark Knight.


-Vader

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Vader182 wrote:
darthnazgul wrote:
Vader182 wrote:The point is that it's a short animated film aimed primarily at a young demographic, and necessarily sub-par in most possible areas of storytelling and filmmaking, so saying it matches or exceeds those films is necessarily ridiculous.


-Vader
It's definitely not primarily a kid's film as it deals with very adult themes, such as commitment, love and letting go. Sure, it might be a cartoon with much shorter length, but if anything that's a positive that it managed to achieve so much. The same can be said for quite a few episodes of The Animated Series. And compared to Batman Forever, which came out around the same time, it's freaking Apocalypse Now. And Batman actually does detective work in Phantasm, something that I admit Nolan neglected in his films.
I love Phantasm for what it is, but those are 'adult' themes only in the sense those are things adults deal with- not that they're conceived or implemented with maturity. Further, I mean, let's be honest: Nolan's films take on incredibly complex and socially aware issues and confronts them with more tact and nuance (if not subtlety) than most films existing solely to deal with those issues head-on, nevermind supervillains and Lambotanks. I've always been confused by the 'detective' comments, as the plot of all three films unravels from Batman's investigations, deductions, and inferences. In terms of quantity, there's more pure detective scenes in each Nolan feature than Phantasm, and it's always seemed like a big part of the films, namely The Dark Knight.


-Vader
I see what you're saying but as someone who hated Phantasm as a kid and loves it as an adult, I kinda automatically view it as a mature film.

Anyway, the whole detective part is that in the Nolan films Batman rarely deduces, and largely gets help in the detective department from Alfred and Fox. There are certain points where it does lean more towards the great detective aspect of the character, especially in The Dark Knight, but the plot doesn't really cater to it. That or it's just the mystery-high I've been on for the past year talking.

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dafox wrote:
Vader182 wrote:Lol, this comes off as parodying Nolan's critics more than anything. The thing is, Nolan deliberately shot Batman Begins in a 'sitting in the trenches' point of view. I'm not sure it was a great decision since many fans have cried out about the action scenes in the movie, but most of them were successful in eliciting the chaos of Bruce's fighting. Also, the main set piece with the Tumbler's universally thought to be fantastic, so. The Dark Knight, Inception, and The Dark Knight Rises all feature quite a number of iconic action scenes, with the majority of them being hailed as fantastic jaw-dropping spectacle by critics and fans.

Furthermore, plenty of people find his films moving, and a lot don't. It's not as if the majority opinion is that his films are cold. Terrance Malick's films aren't moving to everyone, does that make him a bad filmmaker? It's a stupidly subjective comment to make, especially when fans wiped away tears to The Dark Knight Rises across the country. Inception was hailed as quite moving as well-- if it wasn't to you, that's fine, but don't project that reaction to the norm. The exposition, while both overbearing and distracting to seasoned cinema veterans, clearly didn't outline things quite enough for the majority of viewers, as Inception's still that 'crazy mind blowing movie' nobody understands. It's the price you pay of 'high brow' escapism, I guess. Additionally, the thematic ideas in the films have been hotly contested since release, and while they're anything but subtle, in many cases they contain a nuance even films less concerned with flipping semi-trucks can't deliver as rich commentary. If they were so utterly obvious, what's the origin of the discussion amongst film critics and fans? Boredom? The one comment that bugs me in particular (the PG-13 issue is present, but hardly something to attribute to Nolan) is number 2. The writer misconstrued the purpose of the boat sequence in The Dark Knight-- it wasn't some Spielbergian optimism shining through the darkness, the conflict of the film centered on The Joker and Bats fighting for the 'soul' of Gotham City, and the pictured moment illustrates Batman's finally inspired people to believe in 'goooood'. For all the accusations towards Nolan for obvious themes, the credibility of the writer's attack is pretty well undermined in light of missing a basic thematic development in the story.

Nolan's not a perfect filmmaker by any means, and although I'm not sure it affects his action sequences as profoundly as some, his lack of coverage and sometimes clumsy editing can hamper the rhythm of his otherwise finely paced movies. Still, these criticisms are largely exhausted. We know the Talia romance in Rises didn't work, we get it. Catwoman and Bats did, though, so stop complaining. It's a bit 'done' by a year later.

I'm posting this and nobody can read it, lolololol.

-Vader
Most aggressive analysis of Nolan's supposed sophistry are just textbook examples of logical fallacies. Endless straw man criticisms and or just having the themes go right over their heads. Take this guy for example.

http://www.academia.edu/1940710/_What_D ... _Franchise

He seems to try to say everything and anything to undermine Nolan's Batman films intellectual weight. He even goes so far as to say that Michael Bay's Transformers films may have more artistic merit than Nolan's blockbuster success. Batman Returns is apparently more worthy of scholarly analysis than Nolan's Batman and he seems to be ignoring the real philosophy of the trilogy in favor of pointing out a possible sexual relationship between Bruce and Alfred implied at the end of TDKR. I'd love to criticize these critics and Nolan, especially right now since I'm supposed to be doing something else but almost no one cares enough to have an actual discussion. Its either provoke the fanboys or wrestle with the trolls for one or two responses and then everybody walks away thinking they're absolutely right. I agree with most of the criticism on page 2 of that previous article but the title itself is just mind numbingly short sided, dishonest etc. I guess this little post counts as my 20 minute break.

In the interests of balance, the piece doesn't say that the 'Transformers' flicks have "more artistic merit" than 'The Dark Knight' movies, but that - by comparison to the cutting-edge use of CGI in Bay's movies - Nolan's films (with their commitment to visual realism) are more aesthetically conservative than the 'Transformers' series. It also argues that, rather than having any "real philosophy" that is consistent throughout the series, the 'Dark Knight' trilogy systematically evades any kind of thematic coherence in order to (a) avoid being pigeonholed politically and (b) to help satisfy the varying demands of a mass audience. It argues that you can find pretty much what you want to find in the Dark Knight films depending on your own moral/ethical/political/philosophical worldview. Rather than this being Nolan's 'fault', the author argues that the trilogy is emblematic of the way contemporary blockbusters 'work' on a thematic and political level - they don't want to offend anyone, so they offer something for everyone (no matter how contradictory). As for the homoerotics...the essay points out that fans hate that reading of Batman in all its guises, and that this loathing is underpinned by a mixture of homophobia/homoeroticism that is disingenuous at best in a series of films acclaimed for their "intelligence". All the key relationships are between men; as a result women are entirely marginal; the sexism only underpins the homoeroticism (which is turn is downplayed by what the author describes as the "sexless" tone of the trilogy). In other words, the films are committed to having their cake and eating it.

As for the title of the piece being "mind numbingly short sided, dishonest etc." - the title takes the form of a question (itself a quote from TDK, so arguably Nolan himself is asking the question) which the essay then attempts to answer. You might not agree with said answer, but its a bit 'short sighted' and 'dishonest' to criticise the piece for asking the question in the first place. ;)

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- Exposition dialogue in movies Inception and TDKR.
- "How did Bruce come back to Gotham ?" in TDKR. :judge:
- Emotinless and cold movies. :problem:
- He can't film action scenes. :facepalm:

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no-lans-land wrote:- Exposition dialogue in movies Inception and TDKR.
- "How did Bruce come back to Gotham ?" in TDKR. :judge:
- Emotinless and cold movies. :problem:
- He can't film action scenes. :facepalm:
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no-lans-land wrote: - He can't film action scenes. :facepalm:
Well, Batman Begins kind of overdid its style of action scenes, making them very disorienting. It worked with the introduction of Batman but eventually grew stale.

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