Blog of Spoilers

Lemme get everything else out of the way before I go off on my spoiler-filled brainspurt.

First off, I saw Pajama Game at Eden Prairie. God bless the cast, they did their best with what they had. That being said, I REALLY didn't like the play itself, and the theater that they had to work with, was more or less ugh...

Also, I'm getting frustrated. Two Toys R Us's, Two Targets, Two Walmarts, and no Cybertron. Rrrgh...

So, okay, yeah... Batman... FANTASTIC movie, I suggest it to everyone.

Anything beyond that will be in spoiler territory. So if you want to see it, don't know what's going to happen, and don't WANT to know, stop reading now...













Okay, now that that's out of the way...

Batman Begins. Quite possibly the best superhero movie I've ever seen. Possibly topped by X2, but that's only because I have a love for the X-Men that Batman can't match.

That being said, some of the choices they made for BB were incredible. At least to me, that is. Making Liam Neeson into Ra's Al Ghul, very cool twist.

I read a lot of reviews coming in. Some said that it was too slow. Others said that the third act was too over the top. I disagree with both, especially in the case of the latter. Letting loose a fear toxin to destroy the city is a whole hell of a lot more believable than, say, unleashing a mutant-creating machine. Or making a miniature sun in the middle of New York City. Or even releasing laughing gas on Gotham. The way they explain its purpose worked fine for me, using the League of Shadows as a social extermination force.

I also read that there were too many villains. Ghul. Scarecrow. Falcone. That's fine, they all fit within the conext of the story, and all connect with each other more cleanly than any other villain "team-up" in the history of the franchise, if for no other reason than the fact that they don't have to explain its origins, only that they exist.

So what happens next? We know that The Joker is in the next one, and Two-Face is in the third. Beyond that, evertyhing's up in the air, because they've created a new continuity this time around.

In this Gotham, Batman did not create The Joker, as he did in every other continuity. No Red Hood, no acid bath. He's already left two victims and a calling card even before Batman sees the guy.

In this Gotham, the next person in line for the DA position is Rachel Dawes, not Harvey Dent.

In this Gotham, Wayne Enterprises is no longer run by Bruce Wayne, but by Lucius Fox.

In this Gotham, Scarecrow ran off into the fog on horseback, with no damage done except a taser to the face.

In this Gotham, Wayne Manor is burned to the ground, to be rebuilt, possibly more modern?

So what happens? How is the Joker to be explained? Did he exist before Batman came on the scene? Was he a creation of Crane's fear toxin? Or are they going to throw out the last scene of this movie and have Batman face Napier/Red Hood?

My guess is going to be the second, that Napier or Red Hood was locked in Arkham, got a high-intensity dose of the toxin, and it snapped his mind, creating the Joker. What's going to be really interesting is how Christopher Nolan approaches the Joker in his new, realistic world. And if they're going to play the "duality" nature, like they did in this one, as well as pretty much every previous Batman movie.

Also, because of Dawes' role in the DA's office, they're going to have to come up with a way to introduce Harvey Dent in the next movie, especially if they want to work his split-personality into things without rushing into it. They'll either have write Katie Holmes out of the picture (and she's not signed for the next one yet), or bring Dent in as a young upstart trying to take the post. Or they'll say that there's more than one DA, although I don't know how they'd put anyone but the head DA in charge of the Joker Trial in Batman 3.

So, yeah, I LOVED it. Everyone go see it.