The Dark Knight, a conservative movie, breaks records

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  • slightofjeff
    slightofjeff Posts: 7,762
    Uncle Leo wrote:
    And I did not know any of that. I'm not a big comic movie guy. And maybe it is a conservative movie, for all I know. My point is that it being conservative is not why it is so successful.

    Wait, sorry. I made up the yellow cake stuff. I was joking. Probably should have gone with a :).

    There is a scene that involves wiretapping, but after they do it, Batman has them destroy all the technology used to do it, because human beings apparently can't be trusted with it.
    everybody wants the most they can possibly get
    for the least they could possibly do
  • i thought they just used words like 'terrorist' and such to drive home the gritty and real style they were going for, not some political commentary, since Joker would be a terrorist in the real world, and not a supervillain. Actually, he's the ultimate terrorist.
  • slightofjeff
    slightofjeff Posts: 7,762
    MrSmith wrote:
    i thought they just used words like 'terrorist' and such to drive home the gritty and real style they were going for, not some political commentary, since Joker would be a terrorist in the real world, and not a supervillain. Actually, he's the ultimate terrorist.

    Although I have to say, the costume desiger's choice to dress the Joker in a long beard and turban was a little odd.

    Wait ... there I go again :)
    everybody wants the most they can possibly get
    for the least they could possibly do
  • Uncle Leo
    Uncle Leo Posts: 1,059
    Wait, sorry. I made up the yellow cake stuff. I was joking. Probably should have gone with a :).

    Yes. You could have told me that the villan was Osama bin Penguin and I'd have believed it.
    I cannot come up with a new sig till I get this egg off my face.
  • slightofjeff
    slightofjeff Posts: 7,762
    Uncle Leo wrote:
    Yes. You could have told me that the villan was Osama bin Penguin and I'd have believed it.

    So you HAVE seen the movie?



    Oh yeah ... :)
    everybody wants the most they can possibly get
    for the least they could possibly do
  • Rider
    Rider Posts: 129
    "The war in Iraq is coming to a close, resistance is almost non-existent. Families take their children to parks. A country is free from the evil reign of a butcher!"

    Yeah, Bush's term in office is just about over with
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  • Only if W understood economics like he does foreign policy, he WOULD be batman! or Reagan :)


    By the disaster on both fronts, it seems like he does understand them about the same.
    My whole life
    was like a picture
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    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?

    We love those movies because they are escapist and good and evil are clearly defined. Unfortunately, reality rarely is. Thus why most conservative values only appear in fantasy settings, because that is the only place they work ;)
  • hardboiled wrote:
    We love those movies because they are escapist and good and evil are clearly defined. Unfortunately, reality rarely is. Thus why most conservative values only appear in fantasy settings, because that is the only place they work ;)

    Nice first post!
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  • kenny olav
    kenny olav Posts: 3,319
    Rain dog, that was a really interesting post. kudos. Batman's (and Bruce Wayne's) complex morality definitely seems to lend to his mass appeal. I haven't seen The Dark Knight. I just recently saw Batman Begins. It was more interesting that I thought it'd be. I think, however, I still prefer Tim Burton's Batman.
  • RainDog
    RainDog Posts: 1,824
    Kenny Olav wrote:
    Rain dog, that was a really interesting post. kudos. Batman's (and Bruce Wayne's) complex morality definitely seems to lend to his mass appeal. I haven't seen The Dark Knight. I just recently saw Batman Begins. It was more interesting that I thought it'd be. I think, however, I still prefer Tim Burton's Batman.
    I'll admit that I cherry picked scenes to make a point - though there was definitely a more complex worldview in play than a simple "liberal or conservative" framework. Batman has always been a character that works above the law, while at the same time working with it; but in The Dark Knight, the filmmakers seemed to push the negative consequences more than in past Batman movies. And I really enjoyed it.

    I was pretty much in the same boat as you when I first saw Batman Begins - a good Batman movie, but maybe not as good as Tim Burton's. I was running mostly on the memory of Tim Burton's, though, as I hadn't seen it in a few years. I decided to do a comparison, and watched them both. Not back to back, but on one day and then the next (too much Batman in one sitting would have invariably prejudiced me against the second one watched, I think). Now, I'm giving Batman Begins the edge. Burton's has more style (stylized, in fact - and an overabundance in some ways) and let's face it, the Joker is a more interesting character than either the Scarecrow or Ras al Gul. But Nolan's Batman universe seems to have more substance.

    Now Nolan's Batman universe has the Joker. There are no origin stories in this one, either. Batman's was in the last movie, of course, and the Joker comes on fully formed in this one. There are no reasons for why he is the way he is other than his own explanations - which change throughout the movie, depending on who he's talking to. This is only after one viewing, mind you (I've seen all the other Batman movies a number of times - yes, I even watched that one - you know the one I mean - a second time when I caught it on cable), but I have to say the Dark Knight is the best of the lot. To continue an overused phrase - it definitely lived up to the hype.

    And that concludes my long-winded way of saying "see it. It's a good movie." Oh, and that it's neither liberal nor conservative. It's political and non-political at the same time, at least in my opinion; and that's a hard thing to pull off.
  • Purple Hawk
    Purple Hawk Posts: 1,300
    Saw it tonight, and it did live up to the hype..

    It was not as good as Batman Begins in my opinion, but it was still great.

    I hated the tim burton version of Batman...i actually hate all superhero movies....but the guy who is now doing batman has been able to capture a new audience....

    The conservative themes in this movie are undeniable...

    batman defies international law to do what must be done;
    batman "tortures" people to get the truth;
    batman eave-drops on Gotham to save thousands of lives

    but the non-ideological theme in the movie:
    batman does what's right, despite how others view him. This is not a liberal / conservative question, i think all good people agree on this, regardless of ideology.


    Still, as a conservative, it was refreshing to see a movie that is deep and at the same time affirmed my world view as opposed to attack it.
    And you ask me what I want this year
    And I try to make this kind and clear
    Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
    Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
    And desire and love and empty things
    Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
  • Ledbetterman10
    Ledbetterman10 Posts: 16,991
    http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB121694247343482821.html

    What Bush and Batman Have in Common
    By ANDREW KLAVAN
    July 25, 2008; Page A15

    A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

    Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

    There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

    And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

    "The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

    Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror -- films like "In The Valley of Elah," "Rendition" and "Redacted" -- which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe.

    Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?

    The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?

    The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of "The Dark Knight" itself: Doing what's right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified.

    Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms.

    Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.

    The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.

    When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, "He has to run away -- because we have to chase him."

    That's real moral complexity. And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised -- then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.

    Perhaps that's when Hollywood conservatives will be able to take off their masks and speak plainly in the light of day.

    wow, was that ever stupid
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  • Purple Hawk
    Purple Hawk Posts: 1,300
    wow, was that ever stupid

    uh huh...yeah...like...you know *twirls hair*..like yeah.
    And you ask me what I want this year
    And I try to make this kind and clear
    Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
    Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
    And desire and love and empty things
    Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
  • Ledbetterman10
    Ledbetterman10 Posts: 16,991
    uh huh...yeah...like...you know *twirls hair*..like yeah.

    correction: THAT was stupid
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  • Purple Hawk
    Purple Hawk Posts: 1,300
    correction: THAT was stupid

    i stand corrected.

    *leaves in shame*
    And you ask me what I want this year
    And I try to make this kind and clear
    Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
    Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
    And desire and love and empty things
    Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
  • comparing batman to bush is stupid. batman got his hands dirty, bush has people to do his dirty work. also batman was a last resort to the crime in the city. once he saw gotham had no hope, he knew he had to take action.

    if bush went over to iraq with a cape and beat the snot outta saddam or found bin laden and handed him over to the u.n. for trial, then you could make a connection between the 2.

    also batman isnt sworn in to protect the laws of a country. he has no oath to uphold, something a president does.

    whoever wrote that probably never heard of batman until this movie became #1, shows how outta touch they are with comics and the story of the heros and villians.
  • This guy is basically echoing what Glenn Beck said:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyL1q7s4sng
    Drifting away..........
  • NMyTree
    NMyTree Posts: 2,374
    There's a huge misconception going on here.

    This movie does not advocate, praise or vindicate conservative (Bush) tactics and policies.

    The movie's storyline is more of mirror reflection of what has been going on in our world. Which they held up for everyone to look at it and hopefully question themselves, ponder and scrutize our recent events.

    The most significant element in the movie's storyline is the fact that all of the tactics Batman utilizes pretty much blow up in his face and never really work out for the better. There's much more negative, destructive, chaotic results than anything positive or good; to come out of it all.

    THAT is the important element/message in the movies's storyline.

    The movie hands you a very similar situation and set of circumstances, then, it poses some questions and counter-points. As well a fairly clear example of cause and effect. While illustrating the chaotic results.

    The movie poses many questions.

    It's designed to make us think, evaluate, scrutinize and search ourselves.
  • Purple Hawk
    Purple Hawk Posts: 1,300
    This guy is basically echoing what Glenn Beck said:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyL1q7s4sng

    I think Glenn Beck saw the themes more overt than they actually were...but i do agree with his ultimate conclusion.

    either way, the guy who is making these batman movies IS making us think. Thanks to Angelica, if not for her...i would never have seen batman begins!
    And you ask me what I want this year
    And I try to make this kind and clear
    Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
    Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
    And desire and love and empty things
    Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days