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F-warp โ Marlow
Published: 2009-05-11 11:38:29 +0000 UTC; Views: 1040; Favourites: 26; Downloads: 11
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Just a doodle I got kind of carried away with.Say what you will about 30 Days of Night but that movie deserves a goddamn medal for trying to make vampires seriously scary again. And Danny Huston is just brilliant as Marlow: "God?... No God."
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Comments: 33
"God?........... No God."
He scared the SHIT out of me, al those vampires did, but Marlow was the scariest, his movement, his voice, his speech. He was a epic, evil, scary, TRUE vampire. A blood feeding monster, cruel, horrifying, monstrous.ย
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Hell yeah! You should do a EB of Dracula versus this guy!!
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Read "The Strain" the vamps will make you afraid to go to sleep at night...
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You're right, it's not the best vampire movie around, could have been a lot better even, but vampires in it were just f###ing awesome! No elegance of Dracula, no poetry of Anne Rice, no emoness of any recent teenangstemovampires, just plain freaking monsters. Awesome!
Love this pic of Marlowe, looks so great!
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I recently saw Daybreakers, and I have to say it totally kicks 30 days of Night's ass as far as vampire movies are concerned. Hell, I think it's better than Near Dark and I love the hell out of Near Dark!
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Good, I haven't seen any scary vamps since Lost Boys. Hah.
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Find yourself a copy of Near Dark. It was made in the same year as Lost Boys and it's a far superior vamp-flick.
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Is it an R rated? Just for gore n stuff?
Yay, another 80's movie. I dislike the era, but some of my fav movies were from that period.
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I'm not all that familiar with the American ratings system but I think it is R-rated. If you can handle Lost Boys, you'll probably be able to handle this.
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Oh right, I forgot you probably have a different rating system where you are. R= restricted, only ages allowed are 18+. Yeah, I won't have a problem with the movie.
By any chance, have you read the Hannibal Lecter series, or even seen the movies? I particularly enjoyed the books, there's some great writing. Hannibal even eats a nurse's tongue at some point. While she's alive. O_0 Havn't gotten around to seeing the films yet.
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I have seen the movies. The bit where he eats the nurse's tongue is in the second movie I believe, though I don't think that ranks among the goriest moments in the film. If you're going to see one of the movies, let it be Silence of the Lambs. It's really one of those essential films that everyone should have seen at least once in their lifetime and Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter is still way up there with the greatest villains in cinema history.
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The books were alot gorier, probably. I'd recommend reading them, I try to always read the books before I see the movie.
I love Anthony Hopkins, especially in Meet Joe Black, so I will probably have to check the movie out. I'd have to say Dr. Lecter is also one of my fav villains. Incredibly polite and formal, and then he'll turn around and rip your face off. Lovely.
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Ooooh, me likey!
And the movie is very nice, indeed! My favourite scene is when Marlow kills that grilled vampire girl. 'What can be destroyed must be destroyed.'
And the way the vampires hunt is quite charming. You usually see such savage attacks in werewolf movies - and in the '28 X later' series, of course - but the style fits well with the overall depiction of vampires in 30 Days of Night. All these huge blood stains in the snow... Epic!
I mean, I like the first few books of The Vampire Chronicles and I loooove Nosferatu (the Kinski version) and the classical folk tales like Carmilla the Vampire and The Blood Baroness and so on, but this vampire/werewolf mix is really nice. I wonder how much character depth you could work into this kind of vampire...
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I used to like Interview with the Vampire but now I can't help but look at it and go: "Yup...this is what made vampires into wussies." I also read The Vampire Lestat and hated it so I never bothered with the rest of The Vampire Chronicles.
Truly good vampire movies are so few and far between. Apart from last year's "Let The Right One In" (brilliant!!!) the last really excellent one was "Near Dark" (which is apparently being remade) and that was over twenty years ago!
I usually like my vampires with a bit more personality than most of the ones in 30 Days of Night but the feral nature worked perfect in this particular movie.
That being said, I'm completely DONE with the overly-sympathetic vampire anti-hero trope. It may have been cool and edgy in the nineties but now it's become a lame product of whiny teen sub-culture. I want to see vampires being straight-up villains and threats again. They just work better that way.
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I haven't seen the two movies you mention, but that's gonna change. Thanks for the tip
The problem I have with pure villains is the black and white picture they create. There has to be a little sting of regret when the bad guy is killed. It's no fun without regret รด.o (That's why L!Erik is such a great character)
Although, I can accept pure villains when they are hunted by other villains. Black in black is nice - or being in between a rock and a hard place characterwise.
Oh... now I have a plot bunny... -.-
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When I'm talking about villains I'm not talking about characters who act like assholes merely for the sake of being assholes. I'm talking about larger-than-life characters who represent concepts and conflicts the main character has to face. And actually Leroux Erik is a perfect example of this. At the end of the day Erik is symbolic of the death of Christine's father, a death that she (being the heroine) must come to terms with to complete her journey. A few other examples:
Dracula: In order for Jonathan Harker to become a man he must first face off with the greatest threat to his masculinity, namely the count (it's all slightly more complicated than that but I don't feel like writing an essay right now).
The Dark Knight: The Joker presents a threat to every idea that makes up Batman. Bruce Wayne swears he will never kill anyone, but can he stay the course when faced with someone as ridiculously dangerous as the Joker? And isn't the Joker in many ways the same as Batman?
Wall Street: Gordon Gekko tempts Bud Fox essentially sell his soul to fulfill his professional ambitions.
Sure villains are fascinating and a small part of us identifies with them, but so do the hero-characters in the examples I mentioned above. In order for them to represent the ideas that make them so fascinating to us they NEED to be larger-than-life. Making them into anti-heroes and eye-level characters for the petty purpose of our identifying with them even more robs them of their mystique and everything they represented in the first place.
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Wow, that's interesting; there's only a hand full of villains that I see that way, and in each case someone pointed the symbolism out to me.
Personally, I prefer to see each character - villain or hero - as a person in and of themselfs. And the heros tend to be boring if they only gain profile when they have a villain to fight; a sandbag that was designed so the hero can show off his mad boxing skills (that, sadly, are all he has). I'm interested in personalities and the diverse relationships between them, not between a character, his sandbag and himself.
Of course, every interaction between a hero and a villain inevitably shows the abilities and mindsets of both of them. But staging these encounters for the sake of portraying the hero, having him spit out some 'cool' one liners (and communicating some moral), is unfair towards the villain.
I believe that every character deserves an independent personality, every character deserves its genuine conflicts that are not dependent on the existence and/or presence of their antagonist.
Maybe I'm a fighter for character rights. Like Amnesty International for fictional people.
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Could you cite some examples where the villain is nothing more than a punching bag and the hero has nothing more than boxing skills and one-liners? Because I can't think of any movie or book with a decent story where that is true.
I think you misunderstand me. A villain SHOULD have compelling characteristics but the very fact that they ARE the villain means they can't possibly work as eye-level characters (I.E. protagonists) without being seriously watered down.
There are thousands of ways to create a villain. There are no real rules to this thing. He (or she) just needs to properly fulfill their role in the story, and for them to do that they need to represent something that is essential to the main point of the narrative (you know, the point which the whole story is structured around), which is usually represented by the development of the main character(s).
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"I can't think of any movie or book with a decent story where that is true."
That's because they have a decent story
"the very fact that they ARE the villain means they can't possibly work as eye-level characters (I.E. protagonists) without being seriously watered down."
Maybe we should define what we mean by the word 'villain'. I use it for the character who does/initiates things that the reader doesn't want to happen. The hero is the person whom the reader wants to see living happily everafter.
A really good villain - in my eyes - is a villain whom the reader can't hate because they understand their motifs. A really good hero is a hero who makes mistakes that are hard to forgive.
In order to achieve both - the basic relationship between the reader and the character, and the ambiguity - you need full-fledged personalities on both sides of the imaginary good/evil divide. The only reason one side gets more screen time should be that they are the main character.
"He (or she) just needs to properly fulfill their role in the story,"
Personally I see a character's role in a story only as the startingpoint for their creation. They have a role, a function, certain actions that they need to perform in order to get/keep the plot going. But you have to flesh that out with underlying motifs, wishes, fears, history and some ambiguity in order to have a real character and not just a cog wheel with a name scratched into.
But you asked for an example of a punching bag villain and a one-liner hero.
Let's take Batman. He's a pretty boring, shallow character with standard conflicts, and the Joker's potential is barely touched (The Dark Knight is a great movie nontheless, but my heart bleeds when I think about what it *could* have been). I watch all Batman movies for the bad guys because Batman consists of nothing but one-liners, some muscles, orphan angst and desperate attempts to make his voice sound dark and mysterious.
Or Spiderman. Yeah, ok, he feels like it's a bit too much for him, but aside from that, what is he but the good guy who kicks the bad guy's ass while trying to get the girl? And the Green Goblin? GG senior is nuts and GG junior is jealous. That's not what I would call 'an excuse to attack' but not 'a motive'.
Or take a classic: Robin Hood. Fighting for the poor and Maid Marian. And the Sheriff? Fighting for profit and Maid Marian. What an epic constellation.
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Batman is a boring character? BATMAN IS A BORING CHARACTER?! Are you serious?!
I'm sorry, but this discussion will not continue before you do the next three things:
1: Erase ALL your memories of the Burton/Schumacher Batman films (NONE of them really did it right).
2: Read this: [link]
and this: [link]
and 3: Watch this: [link]
And one more thing, remember the storylines from that solo-series of comics which featured the Joker as the main character? No? Well, neither does anyone else.
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Eeep, don't hit me, don't hit me *duck*
I'll look up the directors of the Batman films that I've seen and I'll read your links; just give me some three or four days because I'm pretty busy studying for my finals.
I'll report back fully informed
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Hey, it's all cool. Actually the reading I'm talking about isn't the links but the graphic novels the links are about. You know what's better, just watch this youtube vid: [link] (be quick before youtube removes it)
It's a segment focusing on the Joker from a documentary called "The Psychology of Batman". It really does a good job of explaining what the character is about. Also look up on youtube: Batman Mask of the Phantasm. The spin-off movie from the animated series which actually stands right up there with Christopher Nolan's films.
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K, I just watched the vid. Maybe I didn't get the point, so bear with me.
The Joker is Nihilism. He sees the world and humankind for what they are and decides to get some lulz out of it. He's random - /b/ incarnate minus the porn, one might say. He's got no discernable motivation besides being a pain in the ass and seeing what happens when he does this or that. He'd even have himself killed for the lack of shit he gives about anything.
He might appear profound if you haven't thought about Nihilism or find the thought of it disconcerting, but if that can't shock you, his prototypical power quickly deflates and all that remains are the lulz.
Batman is more like Nietzsche's Ubermensch; disciplined and opposed to Nihilism because he needs to at least value the power he tries to gain, and the bits of moral code that he uses to facilitate his decision making. He's predictable in what his next goal will be and his actions usually involve a lot of technology that he uses to be physically superhuman.
In the end he's just your average human, though, trying to defend his turf against reality and feel like he's doing something useful or even important.
It's the battle most people fight every time they accidentally realise the conditio humana. You can interpret that as giving Batman and The Joker epic significance, but personally I think the basic facts of life aren't really that important. So it's just Batman and his Big Bag of Boxing.
It's still buckets of fun to watch, though, and Nurse Joker is pretty rad รด.o I'd like to see Rambo wearing a dress. And lipstic
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Interesting interpretation, though slightly off the mark IMO. It's a shame they took the entire documentary off of youtube, there was some really great stuff in there. You should really check out the comics to get a better grasp on the characters. Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" is a great starting point. Of course the different comics have been written by so many different people over the decades that the quality does tend to vary a bit. However, The Dark Knight does do a good job of capturing the general spirit IMHO.
The Joker is a kind of a unique character. It's impossible to really grasp his motivations because they keep changing, which is perfect because the character represents chaos. But his behaviour doesn't come from indifference. Sure, he doesn't care about human life but he always has a motivation that he cares deeply about. Like in The Dark Knight, he actually WANTS Batman to kill him because then Batman would have broken his one rule and the Joker would have been proven right about noone being pure and everyone having a price. The best incarnations of the Joker always have some twisted point to make. Try looking him up on wikipedia.
The thing about Batman is that he really does do useful and important things, not because he needs to feel important about himself or wants to prove his superiority, but because it genuinely needs to be done. That's what the whole speech at the end of The Dark Knight is about. You need to really listen to that particular part because it pretty much tells you what the character is about. They aren't just saying that stuff to sound "cool", there's a point to it.
Also, Batman is, much like the Joker, insane! The guy runs around dressed up as a BAT(?!), beating up criminals! I mean...a BAT?! What the hell?! I don't recall Nietszche ever writing anything about how the Ubermensch feels the need to dress up like a flying mammal! It's also not what I would call a generic character trait. For God's sake HE DRESSES UP LIKE A BAT! How nuts is this guy! There's a lot of people with severe childhood traumas out there but to my knowledge not a single one has found it necessary to become a bat-themed vigilante!
May I ask, out of pure curiosity, why you don't find the basic facts of life that important? I mean, you're only human, aren't you? And what do you find important then?
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"You should really check out the comics to get a better grasp on the characters."
I've done a bit of reading about the characters on wikipedia. Are the comics still in print?
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"The Joker is a kind of a unique character. It's impossible to really grasp his motivations because they keep changing, which is perfect because the character represents chaos."
I feel like he makes his next move up as he moves along. He doesn't plan, he's not a schemer. He's just going with the flow.
When I read about the different versions of The Joker's past I was actually a bit disappointed, because not a single one of them really did The Joker justice because you can't push someone that far with just one or two incidences. There must have been a predisposition that already produced symptoms in early childhood, a good measure of abuse as parental answer to his problematic behaviour, make him an outsider in school, add an extremely high intellect and a tendency to dissociate (but no schizophrenia) and there you have the basic mixture that only needs some key experiences to explode and become The Joker.
Him being uncertain about his own past is a nice move, though. He can't have anything fixed and certain about him, no roots of any kind. Although... hm... gotta think about that some more
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"Like in The Dark Knight, he actually WANTS Batman to kill him because then Batman would have broken his one rule and the Joker would have been proven right about noone being pure and everyone having a price."
I'm not sure about that. If he wanted Batman to kill him, he'd never have risked his life in the hospital. It was 50/50 that Two Face would shoot him, and he knew that. But he didn't care.
He says it himself: "I'm like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it."
He has a plan (hunt the car) but that plan has no real goal because he has no idea what he'll do once the plan is through. I'm pretty sure he makes it all up as he goes along. The only time he's serious is in his last talk to Batman. Maybe that's because this time there's 100% certainty that the game is over.
BTW: By not keeping the cops from shooting The Joker, Batman becomes the accomplice of the murder of an unarmed, helpless person.
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"The thing about Batman is that he really does do useful and important things, not because he needs to feel important about himself or wants to prove his superiority, but because it genuinely needs to be done."
It needs to be done? Only if you deem it important.
Batman feels that it needs to be done (in contrast to The Joker who knows that it's futile and ultimately senseless), and Batman feels it's so important to do it, that he'll even do it himself, just so that the situation changes in a way that he himself sees as 'good'. Batman wants to change Gotham, he wants it to become what he wants it to be.
He wants to control what's happening there. He wants the city to obey the same rules that he himself obeys. He's identifying with that cause, and why? Because he was hurt as a child. So ultimately it's not even about Gotham. It's about little Bruce Wayne who never got over the death of his parents.
That's human. It only appears heroic as long as you don't pick apart the facade of selflessness. Batman isn't selfless; he wins and defends his identity only in his role as Batman.
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"Also, Batman is, much like the Joker, insane! The guy runs around dressed up as a BAT(?!), beating up criminals! I mean...a BAT?!"
Awww
THAT would be an insane costume and behaviour
No, seriously, I wouldn't say that Batman's insane. He's a little traumatised, has an unhealthy hobby and doesn't care too much about his physical integrity. But insane is too big a word to describe Batman.
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Of course they're still in print. DC comics is still alive and kicking and cranking out new Batman comics to this day.
Bullied in school? Parental abuse? That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about that would RUIN the character. Come on, I was bullied in school! You don't see me putting on clown make-up and shooting random people. Having the Joker come forth from that kind of trauma would just make the character look like a wimp because people go through those kinds of things ALL THE TIME and don't go nearly as insane as the Joker. He's supposed to be a super-villain, not some whiny emo!
Even Alan Moore realized the need to keep Joker's past as vague as possible when he wrote The Killing Joke. In that comic, the Joker flashes back to what seems like his origin story (which definitely does NOT involve bullying or abuse) but says at the end of the comic that he tends to remember his history differently all the time: "If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice."
Harvey Dent is (almost) the same as Batman. If Dent had killed the Joker in the hospital, it would still have been a victory for the Joker because Dent was another "upstanding goodguy" that needed to be taken down a notch morally. What better way to do that then cold-blooded murder. And I would think that smuggling tons of explosives into hospitals and onto two freighters is hardly a spur-of-the-moment-decision. In fact, I don't know how anyone could state that each and every move the Joker makes in The Dark Knight is NOT delicately planned in advance.
"BTW: By not keeping the cops from shooting The Joker, Batman becomes the accomplice of the murder of an unarmed, helpless person."
I'm sorry, what? When does this happen? And how does NOT keeping the cops from shooting the Joker make Batman an accomplice?
When does Batman, in The Dark Knight, ever do anything that you would deem morally unjustified? When does he ever irrationally impose his will? Do you think he should just stand by and do nothing when he sees a woman being mugged or raped in an alley? Should he just let the Joker blow up as many people as wants?
Sure there's the present danger of Bruce Wayne going completely nuts with his vigilantism. Batman has to struggle to keep his moral integrity, that's what the movie is all about!
I should point out that there is absolutely no clear definition for the word insane (or so a psychiatrist friend of mine has told me). But it is made abundantly clear throughout the comics AND the movies that Bruce Wayne is in desperate need of a shrink. You said it yourself: "it's all about Bruce Wayne not being able to cope with the death of his parents.", I.E. THIS MAN HAS SERIOUS ISSUES! And if I ever saw a guy dressing up as a bat and fighting crime, the first thought in my mind would probably be: "That is one crazy mofo!"
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"Of course they're still in print. DC comics is still alive and kicking and cranking out new Batman comics to this day."
Great! Should I get them in English or doesn't it matter?
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"Bullied in school? Parental abuse? That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about that would RUIN the character. ... He's supposed to be a super-villain, not some whiny emo!"
Holy faked borderline syndrome Batman, that's not what I mean!
There's a psychological disorder that's called Psychopathy. It's basically the same as sociopathy. The construct is pretty accurate in predicting relapse in adult criminals who couldn't be convicted because of unsoundness of mind. It works for kids and teens, too, although it produces a lot of false positives in terms of predicting criminality.
So. Psychopathy contains a lot of traits that The Joker shows (see here: [link] ), and although the diagnosis doesn't describe him accuratly, an early-onset of some key symptoms - like lying, lack of remorse, lack of empathy, poor behaviour control - would have made him a pain in the ass as a kid.
Sociopaths aren't neccessarily destructive on purpose, though. In general, they don't hurt people physically if they don't learn physical violence. So, Little Joker had to learn it, and he had to aquire a taste for pissing on other people's parade and destroying their plans. Best teachers? Parents who aren't able to deal with his difficult personality.
And I'm pretty sure Little Joker would never have been bullied at school. You lay hand on him, you regret it. He was an outsider because he chose to be. He could have been the admired quarterback type if he had wanted; he doesn't lack any of the neccessary abilities. He could be charming, he's impulsive, reckless... But he chose to entertain a certain disgust towards humans and not partake in their games. He plays his own. After all, he wasn't exactly greeted kindly here on earth.
That means he must have been emotionally approachable as a child; not much, but enough to make him internalise a negative attitude towards humans. That'd be compatible with the other stuff I constructed.
The final kicks over the edge, I don't know, they could even have been positive experiences.
I'd have to dive into this some more. Maybe I'll do that once my final exams are over.
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"If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice."
I like that quote
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"Harvey Dent is (almost) the same as Batman. If Dent had killed the Joker in the hospital, it would still have been a victory for the Joker because Dent was another "upstanding goodguy" that needed to be taken down a notch morally."
Hmhmhm... yeah, I have to agree here.
Maybe I should see the movie again, so I don't waste your time because I forget aspects of the story -.-
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"And I would think that smuggling tons of explosives into hospitals and onto two freighters is hardly a spur-of-the-moment-decision. In fact, I don't know how anyone could state that each and every move the Joker makes in The Dark Knight is NOT delicately planned in advance."
Ah, wait a moment. The Joker is a very manipulative person. He's able to persuade someone to have explosives implanted into his body. Since Gotham is crawling with mentally unstable people - and the comics state that The Joker has a whole army at his disposal - it'd be no problem for him to get an idea, make a rough plan and then just give orders and see what happens.
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"I'm sorry, what? When does this happen? And how does NOT keeping the cops from shooting the Joker make Batman an accomplice?"
Isn't The Joker shot in the end? I thought he was shot in the end. *scratches head*
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"When does Batman, in The Dark Knight, ever do anything that you would deem morally unjustified?"
When he puts a chair under the doorknob so he can torture The Joker until the nutcase decides to tell him where Harvey and the girl are. It's undestandable that Batman loses his countenance to his feeling of helplessness instilled by The Joker's complete immunity to arguments even of the physical kind. But still, torture is never morally justified.
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"When does he ever irrationally impose his will? Do you think he should just stand by and do nothing when he sees a woman being mugged or raped in an alley? Should he just let the Joker blow up as many people as wants?"
No, of course not. And Batman's not irrational by any means.
I'm distinguishing *what* he does from the *moral content* his actions have.
What he does is he dedicates his life to the cause of having his personal idea of what's good spread and enforced in Gotham. He's a tyrant who doesn't hesitate to use violence and deceit to get what he wants.
You - as a viewer - can only see that as a good thing because Batman's idea of good is compatible with your own. His actions and motives in and of themselfs are still dangerous.
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"Batman has to struggle to keep his moral integrity, that's what the movie is all about!"
Isn't his only rule that he doesn't kill and only hurts the people who work against his plans for Gotham?
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"I should point out that there is absolutely no clear definition for the word insane (or so a psychiatrist friend of mine has told me)."
Ok. I understand the word 'insane' as implying a bit of schizophrenia.
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"But it is made abundantly clear throughout the comics AND the movies that Bruce Wayne is in desperate need of a shrink. You said it yourself: "it's all about Bruce Wayne not being able to cope with the death of his parents.", I.E. THIS MAN HAS SERIOUS ISSUES!"
Ok, it seems like I need some more input here.
What exactly is his main conflict? As far as I understand things he's pissed that his parents - good people - were killed, and now he wants to do away with crime and strike fear in the hearts of those who strike fear in the hearts of nice people.
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"And if I ever saw a guy dressing up as a bat and fighting crime, the first thought in my mind would probably be: "That is one crazy mofo!""
Ah, well, it's a comic universe with comic characters. They're a lot larger than life could ever be. So, when you calculate Batman down to the size of reality he might be some guy who knows how to handle a baseball bat and walks off his insomnia in the city where he beats up the occasional burglar or rapist that he happens to stumble upon, ties them up and leaves them there for the police to find them. I'd call that an environmentally friendly way to deal with a sleeping disorder, but not exactly crazy.
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You should definitely get them in English. Most huge bookstores have a fair amount of paperbacks by Marvel and DC. Try finding a Waterstone's or American Book Centre in your local area. Of course there's also amazon.com. Try to get your hands on: "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller and "The Killing Joke" by Alan Moore.
So then istead of being just another whiny emo, the Joker would be just another psychopath. There is no point whatsoever to giving him a canonized past like that. It doesn't, in any way,enhance or improve any aspect of the character. Even the theoretical past given to the character by Moore had a point in the story which was being told.
Joker doesn't have an army at his disposal. It's never really more than about ten to twenty thugs (usually less) working for him. And there is absolutely nothing rough about his plans in The Dark Knight.
"sn't The Joker shot in the end? I thought he was shot in the end. *scratches head*"
Nope, Batman saves the Joker from falling to his death then hands him over to the police. I really think you need to watch the movie again.
Batman doesn't torture the Joker. He just beats him up while he isn't even restrained.
Yeah, Batman is really ambiguous character. He needs to restrain himself from becoming a truly crazed vigilante (which you seem to think he already is). That is why he has his moral code, which the Joker is trying to destroy. That is where the ambiguity in the character comes from.
Batman has no plans for Gotham! He merely REACTS to situations. That is all he ever does. He merely contains the criminal element while the people whose actual job it is to uphold the law (like Dent) try to get the city back on its feet. The Batman is a desperate emergency measure and really, Bruce Wayne wants to stop doing it and just lead a normal life (another thing which is made very clear in The Dark Knight).
Have you seen Batman Begins? Because that whole movie pretty much deals with everything that drives Bruce Wayne to become Batman.
"Ah, well, it's a comic universe with comic characters."
Sorry, but ever since the mid-eighties realism has played a huge part in superhero-comics (mostly due to the success of Watchmen). Hell, the sense of realism has been one of the major things that makes the Nolan-Batman movies (Batman begins and Dark Knight) so good.
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I guess I'll try amazon. Evil corporations need money, too, hrnhrn.
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"So then istead of being just another whiny emo, the Joker would be just another psychopath."
He wouldn't be just another psychopath because he'd still be The Joker. D'uh
You *got* a point there, but I feel it hinges a lot on the details. The constellation of 'disposition+abuse+key events' is ancient, I know, but there's only so much you can do to make a character snap. And this tryptich has - in my view - more life to it than a bath in acid and the loss of a wife and kid.
You can fill in a lot of drastically different details to this blueprint, flesh it out, give it an interesting spin and so on. Good story telling isn't so much about the foundation, it's about the things you build up on that. Depth depends on the details, motives, explanations, as does the reality of the characters.
'Interview with a Freak' is a perfect example 
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"Nope, Batman saves the Joker from falling to his death then hands him over to the police. I really think you need to watch the movie again."
Oh. Well. Apparently O.o
I could have sworn I was sad because The Joker died in the end... Poor little Joker *sniff*
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"Batman doesn't torture the Joker. He just beats him up while he isn't even restrained."
Even if you don't call it torture it's neither legal nor morally ok. You can't just beat someone up to get information out of him. Not if you want to keep the moral high ground.
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"Yeah, Batman is really ambiguous character. He needs to restrain himself from becoming a truly crazed vigilante (which you seem to think he already is). That is why he has his moral code."
Batman surely has a temper but I don't remember any situation where he beat someone to a pulp who hadn't really been asking for it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Maybe I could take the 'darker' aspect of the character more seriously if he had... dunno beaten some youth into a wheelchair for threatening someone with an unloaded gun. You know, if it took him constant self-monitoring to not switch into berserk mode and involuntarily inflict serious injury on a person who just overstepped the law one tiny bit.
Aw, I like that thought... Batman, the Bad Guy Slasher - Transforming Gotham's prison into an intensive care unit. Why, yes, Sir, we sure need another cranio facial surgeon for our team. Gneheheh...
No, I don't have a thing for violent anal retentive characters, why do you ask?
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"The Batman is a desperate emergency measure and really, Bruce Wayne wants to stop doing it and just lead a normal life (another thing which is made very clear in The Dark Knight)."
He's a multi millionnaire; how normal can it get?
I'll watch the movie again. Apparently I was more than baked while I watched it, or something like that -.- Damned brain.
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"Hell, the sense of realism has been one of the major things that makes the Nolan-Batman movies (Batman begins and Dark Knight) so good."
Care to give an example?
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You just have a little more patience when it comes to IWAF. There may just be a little more to it than just Erik sitting in a cell talking about his past *wink* *wink*.
I think if the other person is about to blow two people up a little beating won't cost you any moral high ground. And remember, it isn't until after Batman learns that Rachel Dawes is also in danger that he uses the chair to barricade the door. That's an example of his emotions getting the best of him.
"Batman the badguy-slasher". There's already a guy like that. He's called the Punisher.
"He's a multi millionnaire; how normal can it get?"
He's really just looking for a girl to settle down with. Something he will never have because of his double life as Batman (also covered in TDK)
"Care to give an example?"
First you answer me wether you've seen Batman Begins...recently.
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Wooow,That great look, he this horrifying one.Especially I love the blood You have done how it?
I have not seen this film 30 Days of Night , what so this?
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Thanks! The whole thing was done using only the brush tool in photoshop 7.0 and my Wacom Tablet.
30 Days of Night is IMO one of the better vampire flicks to have come out in recent years. The movie was based on a graphic novel by Steve Niles which I have yet to read. I have seen some of the art for it though and it looks great!
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