The Dark Knight (no spoilers)

[cannedpeahes]

I'm mostly into it because of what it will do for... the notion of the summer blockbuster, that movie of so many dollars and so few real thoughts. The Dark Knight exceeded everybody's expectations as an action movie, and then beneath that added moral dilemmas that a lot of its audience - the types that would rather spend $7 on movies like Too Fast, Too Furious or the newest Tyler Perry crossdressing romp - would not be familiar with. And then those people would go home, and then in the future when a movie that was just a little bit more thoughtful came along, they might actually go see it, where they might not have before. It's a movie that has interesting implications for the future of the popcorn flick.

[Surf314]

I think the bar is being raised because of all the good comic books they are picking up.  It's harder to screw up a comic book adaptation because comic books are already visual and generally not much has to be cut (length of arcs are fairly close to lengths of movies).  Plus a comic book is very similar to the storyboard process they use to plan out and visualize films.  The only issue is that most of the really good current comic books are written in a TV show-like format.  These TV show-type plot arcs aren't on a grand enough scale for a movie.  However, these have been successfully chopped up and put together with original material in both of the batman movies and iron man.  Those that are written to be self contained stories have also been successfully adapted into movies like 300 and Sin City as well as good enough adapted into movies like V for Vendetta and From Hell.

Before these movies almost every adaptation of book or comic book has been terrible compared to the original, and Hollywood is in desperate need of ideas (most releases will make this pretty obvious).  Now that they have realized that there is a wealth of material to tap into in many different genres (comic books take on more than just super-heroes) and now there are directors/producers that have finally figured out how to properly adapt it we will hopefully see a lot more excellent films instead of sequels, awful spoofs and shallow "special interest" films (ie. those dance movies).  Maybe they will even learn how to do a decent book adaptation.

[Budr]

I'm mostly into it because of what it will do for... the notion of the summer blockbuster, that movie of so many dollars and so few real thoughts. The Dark Knight succeeded (contextually nonsensical) everybody's expectations as an action movie, and then beneath that added moral dilemmas, ethical conundrums that a good deal of it's (possibly a typo but best to nip the basic errors in the bud) audience - the types that would frequent movies like Too Fast, Too Furious or the latest Tyler Perry transvestite romp - would not be familiar with (not to go off on too much of a syntactically anal trip but "with", a preposition, should never finish a sentence). And then those people would go home, and then in the future when a movie that was just a little bit more thoughtful came along, they might actually go see it, where they might not have before. It's a movie that has interesting implications for the future of the popcorn flick.

Based on your response in another thread and what I remember of your intro, I'm assuming you're trying hard to write in as eloquent a manner as possible for a reason. That said, I'm playing grammar Nazi as a means of constructive criticism rather than being a cunt. If this post is out of line, apologies and I will delete.

[cannedpeahes]

It's early in the morning, butter. It's not really forced eloquence, I hope. But I like my end of sentence prepositions (<- and my start-of-sentence conjunctions), they're fun and most people tolerate them. And I always fuck up "it's".

I think the bar is being raised because of all the good comic books they are picking up.  It's harder to screw up a comic book adaptation because comic books are already visual and generally not much has to be cut (length of arcs are fairly close to lengths of movies).  Plus a comic book is very similar to the storyboard process they use to plan out and visualize films.  The only issue is that most of the really good current comic books are written in a TV show-like format.  These TV show-type plot arcs aren't on a grand enough scale for a movie.  However, these have been successfully chopped up and put together with original material in both of the batman movies and iron man.  Those that are written to be self contained stories have also been successfully adapted into movies like 300 and Sin City as well as good enough adapted into movies like V for Vendetta and From Hell.

Somebody's a Frank Miller fan. But it's not just raising the bar for comic book movies, I think, but for every genre and type of movie that once prouded itself on being shallow and insipid. That just won't do anymore, and producers, I think, are beginning to realize that.

[Surf314]

Somebody's a Frank Miller fan (somewhat, I still think he is a douche when it comes to women/handling other peoples work). But it's not just raising the bar for comic book movies, I think, but for every genre and type of movie that once prouded itself on being shallow and insipid. That just won't do anymore, and producers, I think, are beginning to realize that.

This was my point basically, that comic book adaptations are advancing the caliber of movies because of how hard they are to fuck up.  Assuming that they are done properly and not "oh what a fantastic idea/story let's throw it away and see what we can come up with."

[Surf314]

Also no worries Budr, I have a huge head ache.  Also I've always been a post first edit later kind of guy.

[copulatingduck]

[quote author=cannedpeaches link=topic=883.msg24032#msg24032 date=1216831375]
I'm mostly into it because of what it will do for... the notion of the summer blockbuster, that movie of so many dollars and so few real thoughts. The Dark Knight succeeded (contextually nonsensical) everybody's expectations as an action movie, and then beneath that added moral dilemmas, ethical conundrums that a good deal of it's (possibly a typo but best to nip the basic errors in the bud) audience - the types that would frequent movies like Too Fast, Too Furious or the latest Tyler Perry transvestite romp - would not be familiar with (not to go off on too much of a syntactically anal trip but "with", a preposition, should never finish a sentence). And then those people would go home, and then in the future when a movie that was just a little bit more thoughtful came along, they might actually go see it, where they might not have before. It's a movie that has interesting implications for the future of the popcorn flick.

Based on your response in another thread and what I remember of your intro, I'm assuming you're trying hard to write in as eloquent a manner as possible for a reason. That said, I'm playing grammar Nazi as a means of constructive criticism rather than being a cunt. If this post is out of line, apologies and I will delete.
[/quote]

While being a hardcore grammar nazi is fine, it helps to recognize the difference between formal and colloquial voices. That being said, in my creative writing, I go for the colloquial, as it's what I do well with. Forcing something you're not never yields a successful writer.

Also, I'm not really sure how much this will "raise the bar" for "intelligent" films. I would love to think so, but the number of people I heard saddened over some certain aspects of the film was a bit discouraging and makes me think otherwise. I mean, for me it was refreshing to see something where the good guys didn't get everything they wanted in the end; but I guess some people just can't appreciate the rollercoaster of emotion that this film was.