Christian Bale’s Statement On The Tragedy

COMMENTS (15)

• During the weeks leading up to this, I would occasional post silly, goofy Batman stuff (and there is almost 75 years worth) with the caption “Top THIS, Nolan”. It was just my cheeky way of dealing with the hype. Thursday, I wrapped that up by posting a series of clips from BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, topping it off with a comment about how I, as a lifelong Batman fan, considered that show the “definitive” Batman because of it’s skill at mixing the dark with the light to create a well-balanced whole.
  I didn’t want to get into a fight with people about it, but yeah, I really hate the current state of Batman- not just Nolan’s pretentious, joyless films, but also the nastyness and nihilism that has come to dominate the comic book version. The Joker as a mass-murdering serial killer and Batman as an unsympathetic jerk who’s as much a sociopath as the criminals he fights. I don’t like the endless, one-note UGLYNESS of it all.
  Let me say this (and I cannot emphasise this enough): The killer was a ticking time bomb. He was going to go off somewhere, sometime; and if he’d never HEARD of Batman, he would have still ended up committing SOME atrocity or other. Christopher Nolan did not CREATE this guy.
  Having said that: He didn’t do it at THE AVENGERS, and he didn’t tell the cops he was Loki.

  Comment by cst — Saturday July 21, 2012 @ 4:12pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Are you serious? Your “let me say this” garbage is instantly nullified by an inane “comparison” with The Avengers. Stay in school kids, or you’ll turn out like this idiot.

    Comment by John — Saturday July 21, 2012 @ 6:56pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • You are completely crazy if you think the shooting is somehow instigated by the movies. Whatever your views on the films may be, this is very inappropriate.

    Comment by k — Saturday July 21, 2012 @ 8:45pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • You’re deliberately refusing to understand what I said. This guy is crazy; he’s looking to relieve his own sick pain by inflicting it on others. He always WOULD be.
      Stephen King once said “I have no doubt killers copy what they see in movies. If the movies didn’t exist, they’d just kill people in less imaginative ways”.
      When you hear reports about the guy basically doing a Heath Ledger impression in the interrogation room, you recognise the truth of King’s words.

      Comment by cst — Sunday July 22, 2012 @ 3:53am PDT  Reply to this post

  • I think you and Mr. Holmes should have adjoining rooms in the psych ward.

    Comment by What the? — Saturday July 21, 2012 @ 9:33pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Agree with cst. As you make these films “grittier” and more “real”…then the lines between reality and fantasy blur with disturbed individuals who have no moral compass to counter-weight the “death culture” prevalent in our society today in everything from abortion to “torture porn.”

  Comment by CM — Saturday July 21, 2012 @ 7:03pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • WTF is the world coming to? “blur” the lines……?????? what ever happen to parenting? crazy.

    Growing up around certain individuals, gang-affiliated or not, in rough parts here in LA, you still know what the hell is real even if you see given violence in a film, its a damn movie. PERIOD.

    Comment by dt — Sunday July 22, 2012 @ 12:41pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Your last comment doesn’t make a lot of sense.. Nobody did this at Terminator 2 or any of the Scream films.

  Comment by Dave Large — Saturday July 21, 2012 @ 7:26pm PDT  Reply to this post

• The word nihilism has been coming to mind more and more when talking about movies and TV programming. We need the Pollyannas too.

  Comment by PaulaWB — Saturday July 21, 2012 @ 9:26pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Oy. In order…

  The movie you are asking for that mixes darkness and light was made. It was the Tim Burton directed BATMAN that inspired the Batman Animated Series.

  It’s incredible cold hearted and nihilistic and narcissistic to post on an article about grieving murder victims how you don’t like the current Batman films.

  The Joker gas been a killer since his first appearance, And a sadistic mass murderer since Denny O’Neill’s story THE JOKER’S 5-WAY REVENGE in the 1970s. Batman has also been intense and grim since then, but extra I tense and grim since Frank Milller’s the DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, an incredibly popular graphic novel from the 1980s.

  Millions love Nolan’s take on Batman,a s witnessed by it’s massive billion dollar plus revenue cum of the first 3 pictures, waaaay more profit than your beloved Batman Animated Series.

  Plenty of people watch the even grimmer SAW and HOSTEL movies– are we to say it’s only a matter of time before people inspired by those movies set up torture chambers and eat each other?

  Yes, the AVENGERS is the only valid way to adapt a superhero. Light, frothy, with witty patter and no social commentary, or political metaphor, or larger subtext. Everything should be told the same exact way.

  I’m glad you like your litte Burton I spired toon from the 1990s..but you don’t reflect most people as the box office and reviews bear out.

  Now go look at the major events of Bush’s War on terror, and watch Batman do illegal extraditions in Dark Knight, tap everyone’s cell phones illegally, see people killed while tied to oil cans, and Batman standing atop the burrning pile of rubble like Geore Bush at the World Trade Center, and tell me again how these films should be more like The Avengers?

  Comment by Idiotseverwhere — Sunday July 22, 2012 @ 7:26am PDT  Reply to this post

  • [Now go look at the major events of Bush’s War on terror, and watch Batman do illegal extraditions in Dark Knight, tap everyone’s cell phones illegally, see people killed while tied to oil cans, and Batman standing atop the burrning pile of rubble like Geore Bush at the World Trade Center]
    And it doesn’t occur to you that a “serious political allegory” is lessened in power ON IT”S OWN TERMS when akwardly inserted into a story involving a beloved children’s character?
    Don’t you realise that all this approach gets you is a dumbed-down version of an “adult” story? A story in which all the self-important “Statements” it claims to make are rendered foolish when the main character PUTS ON HIS RUBBER ARMOUR and climbs into his FLYING CAR so he can PUNCH THE BAD GUY?
    Seriously, why don’t you go watch a GROWN-UP movie instead of insisting on seeing serious topics trivialised just so you can pretend that YOUR juvenile tastes don’t need to change.
    I’m not the immature one here, fanboy.

    Comment by cst — Sunday July 22, 2012 @ 1:20pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Some are going to blame the guns, others will try to blame films like this. Most people withount an agenda are going to blame the loonatic. The cast and crew did nothing wrong, but now they too are in pain.

  Comment by Alex — Sunday July 22, 2012 @ 8:05am PDT  Reply to this post

• Hey K,

  Let’s keep it real. Of course movies with violence and the news influence freakshows like James as we have weak people in our culture. We can’t censor and suppress because of it for various reasons. But it does plant seeds period!

  Comment by IB — Sunday July 22, 2012 @ 8:09am PDT  Reply to this post

• Hey Dave. Just because there is not a killing at every movie does not mean movies violence don’t influence the weak minds. Where do you think these people get the ideas? It’s like saying porn does not influence higher levels of masturbation and excess hours jerking off to the computer.. For some not all. Guilty as charged!

  Comment by IB — Sunday July 22, 2012 @ 8:15am PDT  Reply to this post

• Yeah i agree unstable people can be influenced by things look at the guy in norway for comparison in his word he trained and got ideas from playing call of duty video games, not much different concept, and still nothing should ever be cencored due to the acts of insane peoples.

  Comment by Nsm — Sunday July 22, 2012 @ 7:41pm PDT  Reply to this post