It's very simple, Auskar. Don't skim this next bit and I doubt you'll misinterpret what I'm saying: There already is a legitimate The Dark Knight Returns. For someone who seems to know so much about comics you don't seem to have much faith in them.

I don't understand what is setting you off.

All I was talking about was if someone were to ever film a Batman Beyond movie, like BK Akitas was talking about in her post, it would be great if they first filmed a movie based on Frank Miller's graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns.

If my using the term "legitimate" is what is setting you off, all I meant is that if they do make The Dark Knight Returns as a movie, I would hope that they would be fairly loyal in tone and style to the graphic novel -- a movie about The Batman who is somewhat older, and yet more terrifying.

A hard-bound copy of The Dark Knight Returns sits on my bookshelf and I think it is a great piece of work.

I don't understand what is setting you off.

All I was talking about was if someone were to ever film a Batman Beyond movie, like BK Akitas was talking about in her post, it would be great if they first filmed a movie based on Frank Miller's graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns.

If my using the term "legitimate" is what is setting you off, all I meant is that if they do make The Dark Knight Returns as a movie, I would hope that they would be fairly loyal in tone and style to the graphic novel -- a movie about The Batman who is somewhat older, and yet more terrifying.

A hard-bound copy of The Dark Knight Returns sits on my bookshelf and I think it is a great piece of work.

That is indeed what is setting me off.

I just don't see any need to make a film of DKR, especially not if they're going to make it faithfully. I found Sin City to be a massive disappointment. I was surprised by this, becasue I had been really looking forward to it, becasue of how faithful it was going to be to the comic. Previously I had gone to comic book adaptations and been disappointed they had deviated from the source material so much (eg The Crow) so I was really keen to see Sin City 'done properly'.

But once I was in the cinema watching it, I realised how pointless the entire exercise had been. At the best of times, a film of a book is a pretty pointless exercise, and only really serves the fans of the book and people who are interested in the story but wouldn't have the time/inclination to read the book. The best films that have been adapted from books (I can think of one good example being LA Confidential) have been radically different from the book, but necessarily so to make them good films.

Comic books are a medium in their own right, no better nor worse than films or books. The frames are all of different shapes and sizes, which communicates their significance and their duration in the overall rythm of the narrative. ALmost unique to comic books is the extent to which you are in charge of how you move through the narrative. Whereas in films you are a passive observer of events taking place in the film (which would even take place whether or not you have your eyes closed) with a comic book you are in an active role in the progrerssion on the story. When you turn the next page, the first thing your peripheral vision might pick up is the massive bloody skull at the bottom of the next page; this would effect the way you read the summer picnic scene that occurs just before it. You could choose to dwell on a single panel of exceptionally nice artwork for an hour if you so chose, whereas in a film no matter how much you like the shot you are being shown you have no choice in how long you are allowed to dwell on it before it is taken away.

Even novels don't offer the reader the same amount of power over the text. Although the reader is required to create more in their heads than in a comic, you can't dwell over a particular mental image any longer than the author allows you to.

These are aspects to comics which are unique to comics. By simply Xeroxing the Sin City comic onto the cinema screen, they lost all of these things that make reading the comic such a rich and rewrding experience, and failed to replace them with anything else. For that reason I felt the Sin City film was a badly paced, shallow experience, and I would dread to think they would ever do the same thing to DKR.

And if they don't just do a Sin City job on it, if they adapt it extensively to make a good film out of it, then it's not really the same thing anymore, is it?

When you insisted that a film of DKR would legitimise it, I felt that you were undermining it's significance, and the significance of comic books in general. The comic book adaptation of the new Transformers film doesnt legitimise the new Transformer film, so why should it work the other way around? Is it because films are intrinsically better than comics?

I was surpised that a comic book fan would think they were.

You misunderstood everything I said. In fact, on another forum I am taking the same view as you are. Movies are a totally different type of medium than books, comics, and so on.

I think I said that if they made a The Dark Knight Returns movie, I wanted it to be faithful in tone (or something like that). Meaning the older Batman would be a little meaner, a little darker and a little scarier than the younger Batman. I admit that I misused the word "legitimate" in my post, but I had a stroke last year and my noggin works pretty well, but there are some kinks. Either that, or I just screwed up. Don't remember.

What I meant was that I wanted the movie to be a "legitimate" adaptation of Frank Miller's novel. Not exact. But not totally different, eitehr. Basically, I wanted it to be good.

Movies are never "just like" their source material. Sometimes they end up being good, sometimes not so good. Sort of like the first two Spidermans were okay, even though they departed wildly from the comic, but the third one just sucked. The first two X-Men movies were fine but drastically different from the comics, and the third one kinda sucked. Batman & Robin sucked. Batman Begins was pretty well done.

And as everyone here knows.... The Keep movie kinda sucked.

This is it! This is THE DARK KNIGHT!

http://www.ifilm.com/video/2806005



And, surprisingly Aaron Eckhart play Harvey Dent. Cool!

http://movies.ign.com/articles/805/805115p1.html

Spooky glimpse of the Joker.

Spooky glimpse of the Joker.

Agreed.

All of the footage from that fake trailer that wasnt taken from Batman Begins was taken from a pretty good, low-budget fan film called Batman: Dead End (including the creepy Joker image).

In case anybody hasnt seen Batman: Dead End, here's a link.

If they're going that way... they need to have the Dark Knight Returns remake of the graphic comic book novel story with that title to end it all

All of the footage from that fake trailer that wasnt taken from Batman Begins was taken from a pretty good, low-budget fan film called Batman: Dead End (including the creepy Joker image).

Wow you're right. That wasn't The Joker from The Dark Knight at all, but from Batman: Dead End. So we still don't know what The Joker will look like.

That was a well done fake trailer. I bet it got lots of visitors.

If they're going that way... they need to have the Dark Knight Returns remake of the graphic comic book novel story with that title to end it all

.....pardon? :confused:

Here's a photo slideshow of pics of the The Dark Knight. Most of em look real, too.

link to slideshow