Good morning, all. I saw Batman Begins last night. I found it big and explodey and dumb, and it totally failed to transmit any real city-ness in its cityscape. It just screamed fake, to me, and not in that "I am so fake I come around the bend back to a wack realism" thing that Tim Burton does.

Also, call me picky, but aren't humans 80% water? If your weapon is designed to vaporize the water supply, why isn't it also vaporizing humans? And if you have a weapon that can vaporize humans, why the elaborate hoodoo with the water supply? Get your act together you stupid villains!

Katie Holmes is a waste of skin. Not that that is news. The best character by a very long stretch was Scarecrow, although his motivation made no sense (and, Cillian Murphy is wee!). Batman did nothing for me, and that is a bad sign when he is the title character. He should have been scarier. Even if the plot had made a lick of sense, I wouldn't have liked the movie with that anger-management Batman.

Nutty, how do you feel about the Batman character in general? When you describe him as anger management, I think, well, that's Batman. If you don't buy that, you don't buy my Batman.

Nutty, I picked the same nit.

I'm glad that I had fewer nits to pick with Serenity than Batman Begins.

Because the Fremen sabotage them lest they reduce the amount of moisture available for Liet-Kynes plan to make Arrakis a garden?

That, or they're constantly getting clogged with sandworm droppings.

When I say anger-management Batman, I mean, he is too sane and has thought everything through too much. I think he works much better as someone who does not know himself, or knows himself poorly, or lies to himself at regular intervals. I am not interested in anger-management Batman; I am interested in anger Batman.

Because, someone who knows himself in the fullness of day would also be self-aware enough to know how silly the bat-suit looks.

I thought the water vaporizer worked only on loose water--water in combination with other elements (like in a tree or a man or pudding) would not be affected. This didn't seem odd to me--the machine would only vaporize water if, say, certain parts of the molecue were intact, ones which wouldn't be affected by the drug but which would be affected by being part of a living organism.

When I say anger-management Batman, I mean, he is too sane and has thought everything through too much. I think he works much better as someone who does not know himself, or knows himself poorly, or lies to himself at regular intervals. I am not interested in anger-management Batman; I am interested in anger Batman.

Nutty, my experience with the movie was somewhat similar to yours -- I kept expecting batshit crazy!Batman plus mega-jackhole!Batman, but that's because that's how he is in the comics right now. I had to keep reminding myself that this is Batman at the beginning of his career as a flying rodent, and so he's not yet crazy or completely dickish.

I think the issue with anger-management Batman is that he is a TOTAL control freak. Like, of epic proportions. And so it takes extraordinary circumstances for him to lose his shit, and when he does, it tends to come out in ways that aren't direct anger.

In fact, I'd say that Bruce/Batman is such a HUGE control freak that you'll never see anger!Batman. That's just the way the character is.

Which means that if you've had a drink of water in the last hour you're screwed. But quibbling about physics in comic book films is a fool's game.

I also saw Batman this weekend. My BF pointed out that the original script was about a caped seventy year-old Jewish freedom fighter. I'll let you figure that one out.

Anyway, MY nit was this, but having not read backthread, I don't know if anyone pointed it out: it's patently illegal to secretly buy up a controlling interest in a public company. Like, really, really; this is not a technicality. You have to file a statement with the SEC once your ownership goes over 5%.

Overall I was meh about it. I liked how everything in the script fit together like a puzzle, and how they weaved together three villians. But since it wasn't particularly funny, the action sequences were unremarkable (and, given Wayne's whole deal about not killing people, really freaking dangerous), and the love story useless, appreciating the script and the acting was ultimately unsatisfying. But the acting was great.

I saw BB again yesterday. Still loved it.

Also, we got the Serenity trailer this time too.

bon bon, thanks for the info. I had some physics nit-pics, but I don't know the first thing about business law. That's one of the things I love about this board--I can get all kinds of new info on shows/movies/books etc. that I would never have thought to ask about, but love knowing once I learn about 'em.