Why can't Nolan's Batman be used in a JLA movie?

[LoneNecromancer]

"Please guys this is a serious comic book, look, Batman's getting stabbed near to death by a bunch of prostitutes, this city is super toned-down, there's not a supervillain or ninja army in sight. I swear if DC let me I'd remove Batman and ... well, just Batman, really, and make this a Dirty Harry comic. Please guys, I'm serious here."

It's hilarious how your excuse for Year One is that "Batman is a noob". Yes, that explains why the entire city of Gotham was equally as grounded as he was, the entire city was a "noob."

edit: like can you even imagine a Heat 2 where the criminal gang suddenly has magical bomb-planting powers and drives the entire city into a panic, because y'know what, I don't think you understand Heat either! Whatta surprise!

Catwoman and mentions to the Joker poisoning a resorvoir. Also, Bruce punches men through walls, kicks through trees and pillars, breaks through handcuffs with brute strength and continues fighting after suffering bullet wounds twice. Nah. While Gotham may have been grounded, he wasn't.

We already knew Frank Miller had no problem with Batman. It came after Dark Knight Returns, and that was anything but grounded. Miller had already showed how well he knew the character and mythos. The guy was going for a different take to show the first step of how Batman and Gotham would reach the points they were at in DKR.

[Death by Mime]

Catwoman wasn't a supervillain in Year One, and off-handed mentions don't count, c'mon. The biggest impact Year One had on continuity I think was on Barbara Gordon, because Miller decided to give the Commissioner a bouncing baby boy instead of a girl. And so the retcon that Barbara was his adopted daughter, except now maybe she's his biological daughter again? I don't know.

Dark Knight Returns, since you mention it, was famous for breaking with the established conventions of Batman. No light-hearted Adam West whimsy, the supervillains coming out of retirement only to die, the superheroes gone or retired, Superman a government sell-out, Batman vs. the world. This wasn't the Batman anyone knew or understood.

And then after that, Dark Knight Strikes Again, a crazy cavalcade of superheroes and villains and Robin being an evil Joker clone or something, I don't know what happened in that book at all.

These works were not logical, stolid continuations of what had come before. They were new, they broke with tradition, they offered an incredibly idiosyncratic take on Batman and what it meant to be Batman, and that's why they are so well-revered. Trying to slot everything into the storyboarded continuity of a Saturday morning cartoon series is as dull as heck, let artists do their own thing.

[Mr. Holmes]

edit: like can you even imagine a Heat 2 where the criminal gang suddenly has magical bomb-planting powers and drives the entire city into a panic, because y'know what, I don't think you understand Heat either! Whatta surprise!

It's hilarious how people do this. One person compared Dark Knight to Heat, and now people are throwing around this "Heat 2" label, and I bet half the people doing so haven't even seen Heat.

I don't really understand the idea that Dark Knight is more like a "crime movie." Sure the villain robs a bank in the beginning, but he isn't really a serial killer or a thief as much as a public terrorist who blows up buildings. The movie is more like Die Hard.

[Darrell D.]

It's hilarious how people do this. One person compared Dark Knight to Heat, and now people are throwing around this "Heat 2" label, and I bet half the people doing so haven't even seen Heat.

I don't really understand the idea that Dark Knight is more like a "crime movie." Sure the villain robs a bank in the beginning, but he isn't really a serial killer or a thief as much as a public terrorist who blows up buildings. The movie is more like Die Hard.

Except Die Hard was actually pretty fun.
I like The Dark Knight, I think it's a great flick,if flawed (the bashing of the themes over the head of the audience being the most glaring), but for me, and I'm guessing for other posters, it just doesn't feel like a Batman film, or a super-hero film, at all.
Iron Man felt like a super-hero film; it has fun light-hearted moments, and it uses the this to convey how awesome it is to have a suit of armor that can fly and do all kinds of cool stuff.
As I said, I like The Dark Knight; it is a great film, the mood and the emotion that Nolan conveys works and it has some amazing performances.

[Mr. Holmes]

I had plenty of fun watching Dark Knight.

Iron Man didn't feel like a superhero movie at all. It was fun sure, but hardly superhero.

[Death by Mime]

It's hilarious how people do this. One person compared Dark Knight to Heat, and now people are throwing around this "Heat 2" label, and I bet half the people doing so haven't even seen Heat.

I don't really understand the idea that Dark Knight is more like a "crime movie." Sure the villain robs a bank in the beginning, but he isn't really a serial killer or a thief as much as a public terrorist who blows up buildings. The movie is more like Die Hard.

Heat is a fair comparison to make, I'm pretty sure Nolan has explicitly mentioned it as one of his influences. But the thing is, he was talking about the cinematography. Again, it's people mistaking style with substance. TDK looks like Heat, therefore it must have the same plot and genre as Heat. Black Widow can fight like she does in the comics, therefore she's the real Black Widow. Burton's misanthropic dystopia perfectly captures the tone of the comics, of course it does, because look at all those gargoyles!

Iron Man felt like a super-hero film; it has fun light-hearted moments, and it uses the this to convey how awesome it is to have a suit of armor that can fly and do all kinds of cool stuff.

The question is, what is a "super-hero film"? Let's take Iron Man. The film opens by telling us Tony Stark is irresponsible. He sells weapons and doesn't care who ends up with them. After his traumatic experience, he decides the best solution to the problem is to stop making weapons altogether, except for the ultimate weapon of the Iron Man armor, which only he alone will use. Even for a superhero film, this is a really dumb solution. So of course, he gets shut out of his own company for trying something so dumb, and Stane takes over. Tony Stark makes the armor and flies over to the Middle East and shoots a few insurgents, but that doesn't matter. Because the real villain is back in the US and has control of Tony's weapons company, because Tony has been too busy flying around and doing cool stuff. Then eventually they have a big fight in the middle of the city.

But this would have all been avoided if Tony had just taken control of his company and started regulating the sale of his weapons, instead of trying to just shut everything down and go off flying. Being Iron Man is allowing Tony to remain irresponsible. Is that what a super-hero movie is? Flying around and doing cool stuff and ignoring your responsibilities? I dunno, maybe, superheroes do tend to spend a lot of time flying around.

[Death by Mime]

I had plenty of fun watching Dark Knight.

Yo, I liked Dark Knight, but I have a hard time describing it as "fun."

[Darrell D.]

I'm pretty sure I'm just using my preference for how I consider a super-hero film.
There's no question that The Dark Knight is a better film, technically and even thematically, but I still enjoyed Iron Man a lot more on a purely base emotional level.
Iron Man, I had a huge smile on my face coming out of the theater, and considered seeing it again. I was pumped.
The Dark Knight, not so much.

[Predator jp]

that's how it supposed to be.
i don't remember when i had a huge smile on my face after i finished reading Batman comics.

[Death by Mime]

I'm not judging anyone's enjoyment derived from the films. It's just that this is a common refrain: TDK is a good film, but it's not a superhero film. Or that it's not enough like the comics, which largely means the same thing. These aren't statements of preference, they are coming from people trying to objectively classify the film. What do people mean when they say "superheroes"? Why can the Avengers hack into everyone's computers without a second thought, and still be superheroes, while Batman struggles to save lives while not violating too many civil liberties, and he isn't really a superhero, not really.

Just, what do people think superheroes are? What do people think superheroes should be?

[Darrell D.]

that's how it supposed to be.
i don't remember when i had a huge smile on my face after i finished reading Batman comics.

I was pumped when I saw Batman '89. It was fun and loud and had a great set design, and Jack as the Joker stole the movie. It was actually the movie that got me back into super-hero comics.

[Darrell D.]

For me, super-heroes are the ultimate adolescent power fantasy, bigger than life and boisterous.
Colorful beings doing the impossible, and enjoying it all the while.

[Death by Mime]

Well I would associate a moral component with all that, but okay, I guess that's as good an answer as any.

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

I'm not judging anyone's enjoyment derived from the films. It's just that this is a common refrain: TDK is a good film, but it's not a superhero film. Or that it's not enough like the comics, which largely means the same thing. These aren't statements of preference, they are coming from people trying to objectively classify the film. What do people mean when they say "superheroes"? Why can the Avengers hack into everyone's computers without a second thought, and still be superheroes, while Batman struggles to save lives while not violating too many civil liberties, and he isn't really a superhero, not really.

Just, what do people think superheroes are? What do people think superheroes should be?

When did the Avengers hack into everyone's computers? The only person who hacked anything was Tony, and that was only SHIELD computers to find out why SHIELD really wanted the Tesseract.

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

that's how it supposed to be.
i don't remember when i had a huge smile on my face after i finished reading Batman comics.

I do.

Batman & Robin #1 by Morrison and Quitely. It was my favorite comic its month of release.