bearington

A cool bear havin' a chill day

  • He/Him

hi


You ever notice how if something advertises itself as a "Dark and mature" take on something it generally isn't?

Let's take the Christopher Nolan Batman movies for example. Batman was already "Dark and mature", even as a kid's show with The Animated Series and The New Adventures of Batman and Robin, and leading into Batman Beyond were all surprisingly mature takes on kids' media, with Beyond especially serving as a really interesting but too-short-lived bout of deconstructive nostalgia. Legit hate how they gave that an epilogue where Terry is revealed to be a genetic clone of Bruce!

Now I'm an uncomplicated guy. You can probably tell I'm pretty intellectually vapid, if well meaning, due to the fact I'm using Batman cartoons and Batman movies to demonstrate this point.

The Nolan movies were supposed to be a "Darker, more mature take" on Batman. I don't really know how to describe the emotions these films maker me feel beyond... perplexed? Confused?

Batman was already pretty damn mature. The Animated Series and New Adventures see Batman go from compassionate and caring more about helping his rogues gallery (Aside from The Joker) to becoming cold and distant to even those he visibly cared about like Robin, driving Dick Grayson away to go solo as Nightwing and driving apart Dick and Barbara Gorden, who Dick was dating at the time, by having a... physical relationship with her AND not telling him she was Batgirl.

Yeah. They were fucking. While she was dating Robin. It's canon to the show. The children's saturday morning cartoon. Keep in mind both Barbara and Dick were in college at this point and not like, high school. Still fucked up.

Meanwhile just gesturing in broad strokes at the Nolan trilogy and I'm perplexed by anyone thinking they're mature. Raz Al Ghul, Joker, and whatever the fuck Dark Knight Rises was supposed to be feel so insecure in their own maturity that they bend over backwards to try and convince you it's Batman for Adults! No kiddie bullshit here, Batman even kills a guy!

Seriously, Batman kills Raz al Ghul. Beating the shit out of him on a train and saying "I can't kill you, but I don't have to save you!" then leaving him in the crashing train is at least Manslaugter. Batman Begins was wild.


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