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mknod  ·  3566 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Why Tim Burton's Batman Is Still the Best - Esquire

    By contrast, Christopher Nolan's Wayne is a narcissistic Boy Scout and a paragon of virtue, just like his do-no-wrong dad. There's no catharsis there. In '89 Batman, the stakes are that Bruce Wayne might be cuckoo. In 2005 Batman, the stakes are that Bruce Wayne might make Katie Holmes sniffle. Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale stripped Bruce Wayne of his dark side and turned him into a spoiled billionaire, like Tony Stark. Their movies suffer for it.

Way to miss the complete point of the Nolan Batman, which is, if we were all paying attention at all,

BATMAN IS NOT A GOOD GUY

Batman is the reason we have an increase in super-villains in every movie. Bruce Wayne makes more money than god, and instead of giving to the police department, or helping education of impoverished Gotham, he uses it for crime fighting toys. He has money to support non-corrupt politicians but chooses to stay out of politics.

Batman is not a good guy, he is a bad guy who dresses up like a bat to pretend to be a good guy. (At least in the Nolan universe)

But let me step back for a moment, and address one of the other problems:

    But the origin story — that essential background that provides the "why?" behind the "WTF?" — is exactly what Keaton and Burton (and scriptwriter Sam Hamm) got right.

No they didn't in fact. I would still argue that no super hero film has ever gotten any origin story right. But, I would say that origin stories are unimportant, and will remain unimportant until movies get their stories straight.