Monday, March 4, 2013

Nolan In The Deep

As I lie in my bedroom, my eyes slowly, slowly closing, checking Facebook right before I pass out into my first full night of sleep in God knows how long... I SEE THIS:

Christopher Nolan Taking Over Justice League, Bringing Bale Back As Batman

And then I explode and die at the same time.

The idea of Christopher Nolan running the entire DC Universe is an exciting one for me, considering that Joss Whedon (another critically acclaimed writer/director) has more or less taken charge of the Marvel Universe, and these two opposing viewpoints bring a very interesting contrast in tone to the table.

The movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have very much adopted the tone of comic books, with larger-than-life characters, bright colors and snappy repartee. Conversely, Nolan's Batman universe is filled with steely grays and muted blues, telling the story of the Caped Crusader in a gritty, down-to-earth way. He has furthered this vision by producing DC's new Superman movie, Man of Steel, with one of the main questions during production being "how would the world react if Superman existed?"

Over the course of the past year, there have been abundant rumors regarding a possible DC Justice League movie to combat Marvel's immense success with the Avengers, which has scared me as a massive fan of the direction of Christopher Nolan and Zak Snyder's DC superhero movies. But more importantly, I think that DC would lose their biggest weapon: their unique voice and tone. The Dark Knight trilogy was an entirely different entity than the Marvel movies, and as Green Lantern demonstrated, DC can't beat Marvel at their own game.

If the DC universe (including the Justice League) can be united under Christopher Nolan's vision, they have a chance of continuing to combat Marvel's movie dominance. Otherwise, they will be poorly imitating, in typical Hollywood fashion, and they will lose.

Also, as a continuity junkie, the prospect of Christian Bale returning as Batman in the Justice League, alongside Henry Cavill as Superman, makes me happy all over.

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