Going back to Star Wars: compare the opening battle of Revenge of The Sith (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cU0BYXlTuI) to the closing battle of A New Hope (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtnu4kcKbik&feature=related). The latter often recycles clips, depriving the scene of its intended sense of continuous motion. This is understandable given the limited budget at the time, but even so. With the former we remain focused solely on the Jedi Starfighters as they navigate the intimate cross-fire of the capital ships.

I never noticed, but look at Luke Skywalker after 3:20, it's about the most visually literal sense of "climax" in a plot that I can imagine haha.  Looks like he finally lost his load.  That being said, I never thought the prequels stacked up to the original.  I even like the graphical style of the originals.  I-III looks like some kind of computer game half the time.  I know it allows for more dynamic scenes, but the over-glossed look of it doesn't appeal to me.

I DONT HAVE TO ACT OR KNOW HOW TO ACT TO APPRECIATE/DISLIKE AN ACTOR'S ACTING. No one does, that is pretentious bullshit. Now to be an actor, yes, I would have to learn how to act. But to be able to interpret on my own I do not need to do any of that shit, that is bullshit.

As I said before, you're entitled to your opinion; but that doesn't mean it's more credible than anyone else's, regardless of whether it conforms to collective public opinion or not. I was just offering-up a supposedly unorthodox critical viewpoint.

If you're going to take a comic book concept and story and turn it into a movie you need to take source material and do it right. Not take the story and turn it into compete garbage like BATMAN AND ROBIN WAS.

Who seriously gives a flying fuck if it's "done right" or not? The Dark Knight certainly isn't a Batman film. It works excellently as an action thriller, but as an interpretation of the source material it's pretty far off the mark, stylistically. Yes, Frank Miller's 'Year One' is grounded in a fairly believable reality, but in general there's a high fantasy element to the comics that the Schumacher Batflicks really nailed.

To call it "complete garbage" is to disregard all of its merits, of which I have listed a handful.

oh wait I need concrete evidence for why its complete garbage now don't I? http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1077027-batman_and_robin/

well I guess since ROTTEN-FUCKING-TOMATOES aren't ACTORS then they can't tell when a movie is shit can they?

oh wait: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118688/

"If 51% or more of respondents think it's shit then it must be intrinsically shit, right?" And this is why democracy is impractical in a progressive, civilised world...

And IMDB is a festering shathole of juvenility and idiocy. I'm not too familiar with Rotten Tomatoes, although I'm aware of it.

seriously though when a dude is clearly ignoring the objective qualities of a film and ranting about shit absolutely no one has ever seen in it, you should have dropped it man. it's like you're arguing 2+2 is an equation and he's saying 2+2=monkey cheese.

I tend to avoid engaging in debate because of this. It often ends-up leading nowhere, but once you're in it's difficult to just walk away.

I'm not really sure where to begin so I'll give it some time to think about it and come back later. 

Actually I'll probably just forget.

Have a shot. I'm interested to hear what you have to say. Providing you don't give me the Coxswain treatment, I'm not going to rip your head off.

I-III looks like some kind of computer game half the time.  I know it allows for more dynamic scenes, but the over-glossed look of it doesn't appeal to me.

I understand what you mean. It's similar to the way I feel about the current generation of videogames. Despite aiming to paint a more realistic aesthetic, developers often overlook major graphical inconsistencies that almost break the verisimilitude of the experience. For example, in Grand Theft Auto IV, all of the buildings are reflected in the water but none of the vehicles or character models.  Had they omitted the buildings too, it would've looked a lot more consistent. It's a nitpick, but when you're sat less than a meter from a HD TV screen, it's quite noticeable.

The quote itself is: "He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight."

It just sounds a little too... flowery. Considering everything that's come before, poetry starts streaming from Gordon's mouth. It almost breaks the "realistic" context that Nolan and Co have been trying so hard to forge and sustain, despite missing numerous holes along the way.

you cant pick out this one line to crit when youve completely ignored that the cornball dialogue in batman and robin is a fuckin motif

There are numerous lines in The Dark Knight that come-off as sounding rather contrived.

In Batman & Robin the line-delivery is often accompanied with a knowing wink from the actors. In general the dialogue flows a lot more naturally, despite how cringeworthy it is at times.

In Batman & Robin the line-delivery is often accompanied with a knowing wink from the actors. In general the dialogue flows a lot more naturally, despite how cringeworthy it is at times.

dude you keep saying SELF AWARENESS but i'm kind of wondering how many batman comics you have read?

I'm not going to argue one side or the other, but this is obviously a matter of taste.  I loved B&R when I was a kid, but I feel that I've outgrown it.  Crazy special effects and silly one-liners are too much for me to stomach nowadays.  I won't disagree when anyone says otherwise.  I WOULD like to see anybody justify the added scenes to the original SW trilogy, like the poorly-rendered singing/dancing alien and the Jabba/Solo scene. 

I would like to note that my friends and I used to visit this senile and decrepit old man who was this real-life equivalent of the Family Gay homosexual old man.  He used to LOVE watching Batman and Robin for some reason.

dude you keep saying SELF AWARENESS but i'm kind of wondering how many batman comics you have read?

I was referring to film's self-awareness of its cheesiness, not its recognition of the source material. Do you seriously think that the cast and crew were working under the delusion that it was going to be anything more than a bit of "good, wholesome, clean American fun"? My issue is with audiences these days picking things to hate for the sake of it, rather than being grateful for every plateful of food that lands on the table, however foul it may taste. Just sit-back and enjoy yourself, for fuck's sake...

To be completely honest, I've only read 'Batman: Year One', 'The Dark Knight Returns', 'Hush', 'Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth' and '10 Nights of The Beast'. I don't claim to be an expert, or even a major enthusiast. I came to appreciate the superhero genre through my interest in film, beginning with Tim Burton's 'Batman'. I must've watched that film in excess of 50 times as a child.

why are you guys even arguing with him. it's pretty ridiculous and you aren't going to change his opinion. it's like talking to a wall

On the contrary, I've been trying to acknowledge and respond to everyone's contributions to this little 'debate'. Were people responding in a more intelligent and constructive fashion, they'd find me more compromising.

This is why I generally try to avoid debating, as it always comes down to who's the "winner", or who utters the wittiest retorts (and any attempts at wit in this topic have been fairly poor so far). I'm not trying to "change anyone's opinions"; I'm just arguing my case in the hope that it may generate fruitful discussion. 

what I find kind of interesting is his insistence that the source material is like this when, by the time the Batman and Robin movie was made, it was way more like Batman Begins. he seems to think that because there is an element of absurdity to the comic book, making a terrible movie is an excuse. it's almost as if we don't live in 1920 anymore...

I think nowadays, post-Dark Knight, people should be able to appreciate Schumacher's films a lot more. The fans got what they want, now they are able look back and celebrate the diversity and stylistic range of the cinematic Bat-canon without pondering "What it could have been..." 

And you say I sound like a fanboy, but I don't actually hold Batman & Robin in that high esteem. I just think it's a hugely entertaining film, and also happen to believe that it's a greater technical accomplishment than The Dark Knight. I appreciate style, as well as substance in a film, of which the latter contained very little of. Wally Pfister's cinematography is fantastic, but on the whole it's not that imaginative, visually. It's presented very matter-of-factly. Again, I don't regard that as a flaw; it just doesn't match-up to the visual depth and masterful production design of Batman & Robin.

It's not as if when I saw Batman Begins I instantly screamed "What?! No nipples on the Batsuit?!" I judged it on its individual merits. You couldn't say the same of a "Flames on Optimus?!"-screeching Transformers fanboy, eh? 

That's another one. I only came to appreciate the concept of Transformers through Bay's interpretation, and thoroughly enjoyed his production's take on the original material.   

As in it has no connection to anything Batman related...

Neither does The Dark Knight, really; as I said before. Rename all the characters, replace Batman's cowl for a helmet and take away his cape, and you've pretty much got a film in its own right, independent of the comics. Heck, even Batman's symbol has been revised.

Arnold haters unite against me, I don't care. I've always liked Arnie and this role could have been really sweet for him if they avoided his oneliners.

I fully agree. The one-liners really didn't help at all. Then again, if you've seen the Mr Freeze episodes in The Animated Series, they're chocka full of such one-liners. I would even say it's more excessive than it is in the film.

Yeah, but a GOOD director would say, "Alright Arnold, that was great how you said "Freeze", but could you say it with no emotion?"
Mr. Freeze in the cartoon always said zingers, but never with a smile lurking in his words. It was cold and robotic.

Schumacher has proven himself to be an excellent director on numerous projects since the Batman films. It's like blaming a government figurehead solely for the collective failings of their administration. The director on a movie set acts as the mediator between all the different production departments. Unless you're George Lucas, creative control is largely out of your hands. And even in Lucas' case, a lot of the "direction" was conducted by the SFX departments.

I don't know, though... I still think the one-liners are unecessary.