Something i have wondered about that Alfred speech..doesn't it just come out of nowhere?
Not really ... no more "out of no where" than any other line of dialogue in movies. Movies show you essential scenes that make up the plot, with dialogue that reflects the themes of a film, or it's characters. It's supposed to give the audience insight. That's its job believe it or not.
Dialogue in Star Wars, or any other comic book or fantasy film is no believable way people talk. They are grand, and larger than life forms of dialogue. Reflective of the story. The only natural dialogue I have EVER heard on film is film about mundane, ordinary events. Not men who dress up like Bats, or super soldiers, etc.
Alfred's speech says "Perhaps", he's offering essential guidance. Which is the entire point of Alfred being a surrogate father to a young man. And it's well written, and well performed.
No more random than in Batman Forever, where a now oddly aged Riddler is laying down in pain, and for NO reason at all Batman explains that he isn't "Batman because he has to be, but now, because he chooses to be."
That isn't betaing you over the head with the theme of the film, but the poetic dialogue of the Nolan films bothers people?
Uhhh, ok. Selective memories if you ask me. Or Batman Returns issues with duality, the ever so subtle "Oh ... I mistook me for someone else." ~ Bruce Wayne.
At least in B89 it was more subtle. "Which one of these guys is Bruce Wayne?" ... "Well I'm not sure." I always see people complain about this scene, they say "what's the purpose if he introduces himself moments later" ... it's showing you Wayne is lost in his own skin, and has clear issues with duality. Yet it's EXTREMELY subtle.
spoonman said:
SmellTheWeird saying that Batman Forever's diealog is preachy while defending The Dark Knight is really funny, I mean don't get me wrong I love TDK but I just lol'd.
Re-read. I said it was preachy, specifically Batman Begins dialogue, but it has to be. Too much narrative to cover, and it's developing grand morality and ideological underpinnings for a character that we're supposed to understand why the hell he dresses up as a bat at night and beats criminals to a bloody pulp. It's just more intelligent, better written, poetic, and better performaned than what I'm comparing it to.
ALP said:
I agree with just about everything you've been saying thus far but I don't think the finger print from the shell casing is any more or less realistic than cracking a vault code with a hearing aid. The difference is that Nolan just gives us things in a matter of fact way without cheese or camp like Schumacher.
Exactly, more plausible. Or verisimilitude, a "heightened reality"
ALP said:
The brain drain in Batman Forever in theory isn't any less realistic than say the microwave emitter in Begins
I slightly disagree, I believe a microwave emitter, a technology that uses cell phones to emit sonar waves, and a maching that can create earthquakes (all while being fantastical and sci-fi based) are inherently more believable than a cable box that sucks your thoughts and "brain waves"