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Something I forgot to mention: during those three times I watched The Avengers already, there were, of course, trailers for other superhero movies. If you don't want to be spoiled for Batman and Spider-man trailers, do not read further.
1.) The Dark Knight Rises (I think that's the title?) : aka Nolan goes third. Christopher Nolan's Batman films are basically the Wagnerian opera to the Stephen Sondheim musical that is Joss Whedon's Avengers. (Yes, I think that's a perfectly valid musical analogue and I dare you to say otherwise.) Now I'm actually fond of Wagnerian opera (see also: various reviews of seeing same performed), but I also have to be in the mood for it, plus the trailer reminded me of my Christopher Nolan admirations and frustrations. Visual epic grandeur: he has it, no question. And he's excellent with obsessive, screwed up male characters. But he and his world take themselves so very, very seriously, relentlessly, without a break. Which is fitting for Batman, I suppose, if you want to avoid the camp route, but: it also makes me feel I like a need to breathe after watching his epics and it keeps the characters at a distance for me. (Oddly enough, not in the Prestige, but in every other Nolan pic, not just his Batman films.) Whereas one of the things I appreciate about the Sondheim-Whedon approach is that while all of these characters have gone or go through horrible tragedies as well, most of them do have a sense of the absurd and a sense of humor, and so does the narrative, and this doesn't negate or cheapen the dark stuff at all. Something like the duet between Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd after Sweeney had his epiphany - you know, the "have a little priest" one - would be impossible in Wagner - Wagner could have written Sweeney, but never a character like Mrs. Lovett. And it's impossible to imagine a moment in the Batman-Nolanverse on the lines ( of two spoilery things that happen in Avengers ). And the angsty stuff comes in big, shattering aria form in the Nolan Batverse. I can't imagine a revelation like ( the one Bruce Banner makes while everyone else is arguing ) happening in a Nolan film; it would have been played not as a quiet, understated part of an otherwise stormy scene but as a Big Moment (tm) complete with philosophical statement about lone heroic destinies and the awfulness and tragedy of life.
Moving away from apples versus oranges and staying with the apples, the trailer offered me my first look at Nolan's take on Selina Kyle, which is the one thing I'm most curious about in this outing because famous for three dimensional female characters, Nolan is not. There are several interpretations of Catwoman to choose from - the bored socialite going jewel thief from decades past, the former prostitute remaking herself into a vigilante (I think Frank Miller came up with thish one in the 80s, though the small sketch from Year One was made into a more interesting and elaborate story by another writer in Her Sister's Keeper), Tim Burton's bullied secretary going empowered domina, and some others. Nolan's Selina, going by the trailer, shows up as a socialite but actually appears to be of poor origin, going by what she says to Bruce Wayne, and with a have-not grudge against the haves. The Dark Night caused a bit of a discussion about inherent authorianism of the genre and the depiction of the population of Gotham as people who can't handle the truth and need to be protected from it (though I thought that was balanced by how the Joker's suvivalist game actually played out, which was an affirmation of faith that no, humans (non-superhero, ordinary ones) can also be able to choose not to kill under extreme pressure instead of confirming humanity is rotten. Anyway, I'm not sure a class war story can be done well in Nolan's Batmanverse without ending up making some statements about only pyschopaths or misguided people being for a revolution, but that's actually not due to any Christopher Nolan viewing experience of mine and more due to Frank Miller's Return of the Dark Knight, so maybe I should be more optimistic. And get in the mood for Wagnerian opera again.
2.) The Amazing Spider-Man. Poor Peter Parker. Doomed to be rebooted in continuities everywhere because the people in charge just don't want him to grow up. The big argument Quesada & Co. used for Brand New Day, which changed comicverse Spidey from a married adult who'd spent the last two decades being written in a stable relationship with his wife to a luckless eternal adolescent living with his aunt was that the appeal of Peter Parker otherwise was lost since according to them it consisted in him being a figure of identification only if, other than his superpowers, he was the eternally bullied unlucky in romance overlooked teen. But at least that happened after a few decades wherein the poor guy was allowed to actually grow and grow up, whereas the movieverse reboot happens with breathtaking speed. Now actually I'm not die-hard about the Sam Raimi movies as the best ever, and no, I don't mean that just the third is, err, flawed; the first two which tend to be praised by most have their big problems for me as well, though they certainly entertained me. And if the trailer is anything to go buy, Garfield!Peter actually quips, which makes him closer to the comicverse version than Toby!Peter. (I had seen the first Spider-Man film before reading any of the comics, so the first big difference I noticed when catching up on the comics was that being a relentless quipster is actually a core Spidey character trait, and it's suprising that Sam Raimi, otherwise quite at home with the quippy heroes, never used that.) Also a plus: Gwen Stacy seems to find out about Peter's secret identity early on. Which is good fo rme because I'm so over keeping-your-super-ID-from-your-significant-other tales right now. But it looks like a big part of the plot uses the Ultimateverse idea of Peter's parents being experimenting scientists etc., and you know, I never liked that all too much. Leave the "my parents were murdered! Therefore, I fight crime!" thing to Bruce Wayne, people. And the "your superpowers were no accident" thing of destiny is not something I like, either. To me, one of the appealing things about Peter Parker in the traditional 616 continuity is that he really had a normal life before that spider and wasn't chosen or or trained or inherited anything; it was just an accident, and what resulted from it was what he made of it.
Lastly: now I know Spider-man, like the X-Men, was licensed to other studios because the Marvel one had not yet been established when the first Spider film was made, and therefore we don't get crossover scenes, but a line or so of dialogue would be nice and not impossible.
1.) The Dark Knight Rises (I think that's the title?) : aka Nolan goes third. Christopher Nolan's Batman films are basically the Wagnerian opera to the Stephen Sondheim musical that is Joss Whedon's Avengers. (Yes, I think that's a perfectly valid musical analogue and I dare you to say otherwise.) Now I'm actually fond of Wagnerian opera (see also: various reviews of seeing same performed), but I also have to be in the mood for it, plus the trailer reminded me of my Christopher Nolan admirations and frustrations. Visual epic grandeur: he has it, no question. And he's excellent with obsessive, screwed up male characters. But he and his world take themselves so very, very seriously, relentlessly, without a break. Which is fitting for Batman, I suppose, if you want to avoid the camp route, but: it also makes me feel I like a need to breathe after watching his epics and it keeps the characters at a distance for me. (Oddly enough, not in the Prestige, but in every other Nolan pic, not just his Batman films.) Whereas one of the things I appreciate about the Sondheim-Whedon approach is that while all of these characters have gone or go through horrible tragedies as well, most of them do have a sense of the absurd and a sense of humor, and so does the narrative, and this doesn't negate or cheapen the dark stuff at all. Something like the duet between Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd after Sweeney had his epiphany - you know, the "have a little priest" one - would be impossible in Wagner - Wagner could have written Sweeney, but never a character like Mrs. Lovett. And it's impossible to imagine a moment in the Batman-Nolanverse on the lines ( of two spoilery things that happen in Avengers ). And the angsty stuff comes in big, shattering aria form in the Nolan Batverse. I can't imagine a revelation like ( the one Bruce Banner makes while everyone else is arguing ) happening in a Nolan film; it would have been played not as a quiet, understated part of an otherwise stormy scene but as a Big Moment (tm) complete with philosophical statement about lone heroic destinies and the awfulness and tragedy of life.
Moving away from apples versus oranges and staying with the apples, the trailer offered me my first look at Nolan's take on Selina Kyle, which is the one thing I'm most curious about in this outing because famous for three dimensional female characters, Nolan is not. There are several interpretations of Catwoman to choose from - the bored socialite going jewel thief from decades past, the former prostitute remaking herself into a vigilante (I think Frank Miller came up with thish one in the 80s, though the small sketch from Year One was made into a more interesting and elaborate story by another writer in Her Sister's Keeper), Tim Burton's bullied secretary going empowered domina, and some others. Nolan's Selina, going by the trailer, shows up as a socialite but actually appears to be of poor origin, going by what she says to Bruce Wayne, and with a have-not grudge against the haves. The Dark Night caused a bit of a discussion about inherent authorianism of the genre and the depiction of the population of Gotham as people who can't handle the truth and need to be protected from it (though I thought that was balanced by how the Joker's suvivalist game actually played out, which was an affirmation of faith that no, humans (non-superhero, ordinary ones) can also be able to choose not to kill under extreme pressure instead of confirming humanity is rotten. Anyway, I'm not sure a class war story can be done well in Nolan's Batmanverse without ending up making some statements about only pyschopaths or misguided people being for a revolution, but that's actually not due to any Christopher Nolan viewing experience of mine and more due to Frank Miller's Return of the Dark Knight, so maybe I should be more optimistic. And get in the mood for Wagnerian opera again.
2.) The Amazing Spider-Man. Poor Peter Parker. Doomed to be rebooted in continuities everywhere because the people in charge just don't want him to grow up. The big argument Quesada & Co. used for Brand New Day, which changed comicverse Spidey from a married adult who'd spent the last two decades being written in a stable relationship with his wife to a luckless eternal adolescent living with his aunt was that the appeal of Peter Parker otherwise was lost since according to them it consisted in him being a figure of identification only if, other than his superpowers, he was the eternally bullied unlucky in romance overlooked teen. But at least that happened after a few decades wherein the poor guy was allowed to actually grow and grow up, whereas the movieverse reboot happens with breathtaking speed. Now actually I'm not die-hard about the Sam Raimi movies as the best ever, and no, I don't mean that just the third is, err, flawed; the first two which tend to be praised by most have their big problems for me as well, though they certainly entertained me. And if the trailer is anything to go buy, Garfield!Peter actually quips, which makes him closer to the comicverse version than Toby!Peter. (I had seen the first Spider-Man film before reading any of the comics, so the first big difference I noticed when catching up on the comics was that being a relentless quipster is actually a core Spidey character trait, and it's suprising that Sam Raimi, otherwise quite at home with the quippy heroes, never used that.) Also a plus: Gwen Stacy seems to find out about Peter's secret identity early on. Which is good fo rme because I'm so over keeping-your-super-ID-from-your-significant-other tales right now. But it looks like a big part of the plot uses the Ultimateverse idea of Peter's parents being experimenting scientists etc., and you know, I never liked that all too much. Leave the "my parents were murdered! Therefore, I fight crime!" thing to Bruce Wayne, people. And the "your superpowers were no accident" thing of destiny is not something I like, either. To me, one of the appealing things about Peter Parker in the traditional 616 continuity is that he really had a normal life before that spider and wasn't chosen or or trained or inherited anything; it was just an accident, and what resulted from it was what he made of it.
Lastly: now I know Spider-man, like the X-Men, was licensed to other studios because the Marvel one had not yet been established when the first Spider film was made, and therefore we don't get crossover scenes, but a line or so of dialogue would be nice and not impossible.
