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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

10 Comments

  1. Anton B
    November 6, 2017 @ 3:42 pm

    ‘…Nolan’s approach depends on a relatively straightforward take on a basic concept under the hood.

    Was this an unconscious call out to Watchmen’s Nite-Owl or are you actually linking this to The Last War in Albion?

    Personally Batman Begins was one of those comic book inspired things that everyone told me I’d love but I that I actually only sort of appreciated and could never understand why anyone else did. A bit like Watchmen the movie.

    Reply

  2. CJM
    November 6, 2017 @ 4:40 pm

    I’m kind of hoping that the next post is entirely in italics and is on THE PRESTIGE. But then again, I really love that film’s exploration of magic.

    Reply

    • Camestros Felapton
      November 6, 2017 @ 6:17 pm

      I re-watched The Prestige at the weekend. I’d seen it prior to Batman Begins originally, so the extent to which the films overlap beyond casting hadn’t struck me before (revenge and identity and the power & hubris of wealth).

      Reply

  3. Przemek
    November 7, 2017 @ 9:43 am

    It’s so disjointed, this trilogy. “Batman Begins”, as you noted, often feels like a movie from the previous era of superhero films and is strangely inconsequential, plot-wise, to the rest of the trilogy (well, except for the League of Shadows, I guess). “The Dark Knight” feels like chapter one in a different, more gritty and “realistic” movie continuity. And then “The Dark Knight Rises” is a bombastic, overblown superhero spectacle more akin to “Batman vs. Superman” than its own prequels that doesn’t really follow the “Batman as a hunted, hated vigilante” plot set up by the previous movie.

    It’s probably a good thing (and a natural consequence of the 3-4 year long gap between the movies), making every part of the trilogy unique, but it still feels strange.

    Reply

  4. Tombo
    November 8, 2017 @ 9:52 am

    I really liked BB when it came out – I loved how it straddled the line between comic movie and real crime drama. The whole, this is a town that contains real gangsters and cops and real-looking buildings and people but with sci fi gadgets and cool-looking heroes, it struck a perfect note for me. I was actually disappointed in the 2nd film, how it felt more like a crime drama, less sentimental, and I never got into the 3rd film at all (despite them both having cool ideas/scenes).

    I didn’t think about the politics – I just took it for granted that the DC universe is a place where trustworthy people are granted wealth or powers that they use for good.

    When I see it now the one line that stands out for me is Ra’s saying “your antics forced my hand” so, if Batman had never caught Falcone, (and then been forced to rescue Rachel when she tried to prosecute him), Ra’s would never have invaded. (and Joker may not have been inspired). So there was never really an immediate danger that Batman needed to deal with? Is the film saying it would have been better to let things be.

    Reply

  5. Luca
    November 14, 2017 @ 1:21 am

    I really wouldn’t say this was the most compelling movie of this wave… Maybe I was just very young, but I remember watching it when it came out and it just seemed to fit right in with the other ones. A bit darker, but it’s Batman so that’s expected. Otherwise, I believe if it wasn’t for it’s sequel it would probably be as forgotten as Superman Returns. I’d take Sam Raimi’s Spiderman over it any time, and there’s probably a case to be made that it’s in rather-less-ominous shadow that we live in.

    Reply

  6. XRE
    November 16, 2017 @ 10:03 pm

    TDKR wasn’t an example of ‘purile maturity’.

    “Of course, and not to put too fine a point on it, “social problems are best solved by the intervention of powerful and virtuous rich men” is basically the premise of Batman anyway. And in many ways Nolan deserves credit for facing this head-on instead of trying to disguise the class politics inherent in the premise. Yes, the resulting politics are viscerally horrifying, but it’s generally speaking better to be conscious of your bad politics than not. To compare to the last time we talked about superheroes, Nolan is on some level aware that his Batman films are paeans to fascism, as opposed to laboring under the delusion that they are in some fashion about resistance.”

    Yeah…no it isn’t. That was never stated or conceived of by Bill Finger at all. Batman’s wealth was a means to an end and got exaggerated over time. You are overextrapolating…again…

    “This is in many ways revealing simply because superhero fiction is generally not aware of its authoritarian leanings,”

    WHAT authoritarian leanings genius?

    Reply

    • Elizabeth Sandifer
      November 16, 2017 @ 10:17 pm

      I’m not sure you really want to be condescendingly suggesting other people are idiots while trying to use Bill Finger’s conception of Batman’s wealth as a means to an end to refute the claim that the character’s basic concept says social problems are best solved by the intervention of powerful and virtuous rich men.

      And yeah, TDKR is puerile as fuck.

      Reply

  7. thesmilingstallioninn
    November 19, 2017 @ 6:51 pm

    Just curious, do you think you might extend this analysis to the new DCEU or maybe the Marvel line of movies?

    Reply

  8. Roderick T. Long
    December 7, 2017 @ 10:15 pm

    Ra’s, not R’as.

    Reply

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