seriousfic | No, not that, the other thing.

So I've also heard some fans saying they want a John Blake movie, and that way they can continue the Nolanverse series into the Justice League. Which, uhh... no. Nothing against JGL, but I can't quite see him as Vengeance, the Night, etc. It'd be kind of like how in romantic comedies, the heroine has a safe, boring fiance who she dumps so she can get with someone dangerous, in a "the same race as her, the same sexuality as her, the same socioeconomic level as her" kind of way. But he--for the sake of argument, let's call him James Marsden--wasn't such a bad guy, so it would make the audience feel bad if he just got totally screwed. So in the last few minutes, we find out that James Marsden met someone right for him too (preferably someone's sister) and they're going to hook up.

And there's nothing wrong with it. Rom-coms are supposed to be fun and offer closure. But a John Blake movie would be like an entire movie of James Marsden and his blushing bride. I don't need to see it! It's enough that there was one shot of them smiling and holding hands!

And yes, I do like legacy heroes and Batman has had a few "Batman IIs," but generally they have interesting personalities that build on their predecessor. Dick Grayson has to compare himself to Big Mighty Bat-God Bruce Wayne while dealing with the Worst Robin Ever. There was a relationship there that informed everything Dick did as Batman. John Blake was a fan of Batman the same way I'm a fan of Elizabeth Gillies.

And Terry McGuiness had the whole 'teenage Batman in training/bitter old-ass Bruce Wayne mentoring him' thing. That was cool, but if you brought Christian Bale back to mentor John Blake, it wouldn't work as well. Bale's not that old, so you'd keep waiting for him to get back in the saddle himself, and he's smashing Anne Hathaway, so guy's got no reason to be bitter, and Blake's a grown-ass man, so you know they're not gonna be "father and son" so much as "slashfic waiting to happen."

To be fair, I could kinda see a Knightfall adaptation happening, with John Blake developing into a psychotic Jean-Paul Valley kinda Batman and Bruce Wayne coming back to stop him. But even then, where does the story go? Does Bruce decide to be Batman Forever (a la... The Dark Knight) again? Does he decide he needs to retire, again?

I think it'd just end up like Terminator 2. Remember? Terminator 2 wrapped everything up, gave everyone closure, but we decided we wanted a Terminator 3 just because of the number three.. So we got the trilogy "wrapped up" by bringing back none of the original creators and completely undoing the last movie in the series and killing off the main character inbetween movies and not offering any closure whatsoever, just leaving the door open for another three movies all about humans fighting robots. Just so we could have more "I'M BACK YOU ARE TERMINATED SARAH CONNOR?" It's not like James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton went away... okay, maybe Linda Hamilton... it's just that they went to work on other things because there's only so much one person can say about a given character.

There's no reason for a John Blake movie because what we really want is a Christopher Nolan movie and he's said literally all he has to say about Batman. There was a beginning, a middle, and an end and each of them was two and a half hours long! There aren't any other parts! Maybe you can still do a Catwoman movie, since that's a relatively fresh character and Anne Hathaway's performance was so good that it'd be a shame to lose it with the reboot. But even Shakespeare brought back Falstaff for a side-story. He didn't do Romeo & Juliet 2: Mo' Montagues, Mo' Problems.

Plus, does anyone really want to see a Justice League movie where the kid from Third Rock From The Sun is best friends with Superman and lusting after Wonder Woman? Ruh-ha-really?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Why bother with John Blake? Nolan has more or less established that Batman is the Dread Pirate Roberts. I would like to see Batgirl Begins. Babs, all grown up, returns to Gotham to attend school, or so it seems. She's really looking to finally establish a relationship with her father and ask the questions that her brother never bothered with, like who is the Batman and what happened to him after Blake retired the cowl when his injuries make it impossible for him to continue. It has ties to the original because you get to see retired Jim Gordonget back in the saddle for one more grand adventure with Bat"man" and the Dread Bat legacy continues.

No, not that, the other thing.

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