Prey is unavailable at our local library, and there's no local comic store. I'm not about to shell out $30 for the originals or the price for the TPB. Looks like I'll have to wait for the excitement to die down on this one.

LINK

There are plenty of other Batman graphic novels/TPBs available at reasonable prices if you guys are that interested. There's no confirmation that Prey will have any influence over the next Batman, or that Hugo Strange will be involved. Year One, The Long Halloween, and The Killing Joke all inspired the past two Batman films, but neither flick was anything close to a proper adaptation of any of them.

If "Prey" is, indeed, going to be the basis for the next film -- or if the film is going to feature Hugo Strange -- then it's pretty much guaranteed to be reprinted. Even if it isn't, I wouldn't be surprised to see DC go back to press on the book due to the sudden interest in it.

True. I just felt like reading it anyways because the story sounded interesting to me after hearing the rumors. It does seem like a good fit for The Dark Knight Rises though and would work within the Gotham that Nolan has created.

Glad to hear that Nolan won't be using Ledger footage in the new film. As much as I'd like for The Joker to be a character again (even if just a minor cameo) I totally understand the reasoning not to. It would be such an easy thing to take advantage of but good knowing that Nolan is too classy to just take advantage of a dead star's role.

I love this quote from Nolan. He's got the kind of clout over at WB that most directors would die for.

Two Face is out also, at least according to Eckhart.

^ Not really surprising. I believe Nolan has said plenty of times that Dent/Two-Face is dead. Also, unless they use flashbacks, I'm not sure where he'd fit in.

True, opf course, during Batman Begins production both Nolan and Goyer stated that killing villians off was a mistake the previous movies made. I don't care personally, just kind of find it interesting that they killed a villian off in both movies so far.

I can't wait to see what Nolan has up his sleeve. I also hope he continues to work for WB if they are giving him the room to do his own thing.

So far this is my biggest complaint to Nolan. I just don't understand why he killed off Two-Face right away. He's a huge character and easily could have been a big part of the next film. Not saying what we'll get won't be good but I just think it was a waste of that character to have him in the story for like half an hour (if that) and kill him off right away.

Yeah, but they also let two live (Technically, Joker should still be alive in the Nolanverse), so it's two for two.

In all fairness, Nolan never criticized the killing off of villains. He specifically criticized the killing off of the Joker. That's the only character he ever stated should never have died.

As for Two-Face, I like how he was used. It was more about the fall of Harvey Dent than the rise of Two-Face. And given the realistic nature of his wounds in TDK, he would have died from an infection anyway.

I think they should have kept Two Face alive

This is why I have a hard time getting behind this film. Harvey Dent wasn't all that heroic a figure prior to his disfigurement, and his "fall" is more a case of him being pushed in the path of an oncoming train than a case of him unraveling, and losing his ability to achieve a great or noble objective, due to one tragic flaw.
The guy gives up his career/primary driving motivation/personal quest and does a complete 180 when the guy that disfigured him and killed his fiancee puts a gun in his hand.
If he was ready to go on his vendetta odyssey, and start offing the guys that betrayed him, doesn't it make more sense that he would start (make his first fall) with the prime mover? It makes not a lick of sense that any recrimination wouldn't start there.

If Nolan wanted to make TDK about "the fall of Harvey Dent" rather than Joker Vs Batman, Harvey would have left that hospital room with the Joker slumped against the wall with the back of his head blown out, which is not only a thematically relevant fate for an anarchist whose death gives birth to a monster- but it's more relevant for a final conflict resolution with the Batman character. I'm not a fan of killing off villains, but it would have made Harvey's turn to the dark side more profound as well as much more logical.
Not killing him then and there just smacks of contrivance.

This is almost like Brad Pitts character in Seven opening the box and then choosing to kill Morgan Freeman or the guy that delivered the box. Yeah the other cops were corrupt and the gangster was a bad guy- but Joker was public enemy #1 at that point and Dent would have had a surfeit of personal animus there. Letting him go feels as honest and true as neither of the groups on the ferries pulling the switch...and then having the film comment that the city is so screwed up that the untarnished image of one politician is sacred. The ferry scene should have been enough to convince anyone that Gotham is a freaking Utopia where even hardened murders and rapists will now sacrifice themselves for strangers.


Spectacular special effects on Two-face, but in the service of a very weak, muddled character imo.


But on a positive note- The storyline to Prey sounds like a perfect fit for the third film. I thought Nolan painted himself into a ridiculous corner with TDK, but Prey would seem to be a great way of getting out of it.

me too
could have set him up to be the main villain in the next movie, or at least have that option

No offense...but considering dent left the hospital he would have died w/ the injuries he had. his skin wasn't scarred...it was fucking gone. If it was disfigured. It'd be fine but Nolan went with some grit on dent.

I don't really care what the real world implications are with Dent's injuries. As much as Nolan grounded the movie in reality, in my mind it's still a Batman movie where that shit can happen

Hell they can use Batmitt if they want. All all want is a superhero movie with only one (1) Villain only! Why is it the hero needs to fight 2 or even 3 villain (spiderman 3)?

qft

As much as I liked The Dark Knight, it is a very flawed movie for the reasons you listed and more. People hold it out to be this perfect movie because of an amazing performance by Ledger, but it's far from perfect.

Oh, I agree. It is far from perfect. In fact, BB was a far better film. And the ferry scene was a total misfire. They should have had the civilians flip the switch only to blow up themselves. Then Batman taking the fall for Harvey would have been more reasonable.

That said, the Two-Face they created for the film didn't seem to me like someone who would then turn into a big crime boss and base all his crimes on duality. So killing him off made sense to me.

I like the idea of Harvey killing the Joker but they did try to give a plausible explanation as to why he didn't. Better would have been if the Joker had given Harvey a gun with dummy bullets (just to screw with him).

I agree. I think there are flaws and missteps in BB as well, but not of the magnitude I see in TDK- and BB gets tremendous props from me for being the first film to really get to the essence of the main character and make the entire conceit (of a guy dressing in an outlandishly baroque costume to go out and kick-ass) seem intellectually plausible.

yes, a total misfire. And it's a perfect illustration of what I see as the incoherence of most if not all of Nolan's themes in this film.

I don't have a problem with killing Dent off- or not turning him into the comic book style crime boss. The retribution angle was a perfectly sound trajectory for that character in the film- and his wounds did imply a very limited shelf life. That's conceptually fine. It just plays out extremely truncated and abrupt. In TDK the Two-face resolution is essentially a fourth act. Two-face evading capture while stalking the cops that betrayed him would have worked better as plotline B in the third film. It would have had room to breathe, and when at the climax Batman finally confronts Harvey, there would have been a little more gravitas there. The character of Two-face would have been in business longer, so to speak, so the pay-off would be greater.

That's a great idea too- The important point is even the dummy bullet scene would be true to both of the characters. There is no good/honest/emotionally true reason that Dent wouldn't at least want to kill Joker more than anyone else at that point. Frustrating that would have been very-Joker-esque and Dent being rendered impotent right at the moment of achieving some dark satisfaction, would have worked as a great ignition switch to justify such a massive personality change.

Also, if the joker had set him up in the hospital room, just to frustrate him at the end like that, it would have set up a more perfect end-game for Dent later. Rather than going after Gordon (which makes no sense to me) Dent should have been methodically working his way to hitting the Joker- which would have put Batman in the interesting position of having to work to protect the person that killed the woman he loved- to stay true to his core principals.

There are all kinds of natural, logical, and interesting conflicts that spill out from that scenario-
which is why it is so frustrating to see all the contrived conflicts Nolan actually chooses instead to promote.

It's the Joker, that gun could have had a BANG flag in it and I wouldn't be surprised. I figured Dent wanted to kill him but was becoming more and more a tool of his own coin, which showed up more and more as Dent started losing his cool halfway through the movie.

Both movies have things I don't like. Begins had Batman allowing a villian to die, and Katie Holmes. TDK had Two Face getting killed.

I thought Holmes did a great job of portraying a young, earnest, and ultimately ineffectual assistant DA.
I see people criticize her for not relating gravitas or authority well, but that to me seems a major mis-reading of the character she's playing. The character doesn't really have gravity or authority beyond her job title. She's an attractive young girl dealing with a closed door, men's club mentality from her peers, and on the other side some of the hardest and worst scum on the earth. All her attempts at being a tough hard ass are going to be affectations because she was not born and raised a street tough hard ass.

Katie essayed the part as well as anyone could have. What tripped her up was some of the woeful dialogue Nolan forced her to read (such as at the end of the film).

Up until TDK, I would have said MG was a more accomplished thespian by a good margin, but I thought the reality was she was much worse in the part. Check out her scene with the interrogation of Eric Roberts. She comes off as a lightweight that's just too giddy to me.

Holmes is just another case of people criticizing her resume not her actual performance.
For the reverse of that see just how much praise has been lavished on Jack Nicholson over the years for his performance(s).

No...she was w/ Lao..not Maroni (Roberts)

MG was believable cuz she was a woman. Holmes still looked like she was my age at that time. She looked too young for Bale too. Out of all the actors in BB KH was miscast for sure. She didn't even visually belong in sync w/ the look of the film.

The MASSIVE flaw with your reasoning is that Dent had pretty much gone insane by his injuries, the pain, the loss of his finance, the loss of his life and wasn't exactly thinking rationally.

The second massive flaw with your reasoning is that's its a freaking movie based on a comic book character.