How Nolan’s Batman Warned Us About Nolan’s Odysseus

Before I start this commentary I want it on the record that I am not trashing “a movie you haven’t seen yet” or Christopher Nolan at all. He’s earned his fanbase and every accolade he’s received. I am going by the marketing alone, including interviews and reports by film experts, and the realization that not every person is the right fit for every project. John Hughes shouldn’t remake A Nightmare On Elm Street and Wes Anderson shouldn’t remake Sixteen Candles. Even if they were both still alive and in the business. In the same perspective I’m not sure Nolan was the right fit for Batman and based on what’s out there now he’s not the right fit for The Odyssey at all.

We’re not talking about some of the culture war related issues, but let’s get that out of the way now. Elliot Page playing Achilles is still just rumor and a way to clown on the fact that Hollywood would indeed make a decision that dumb. Whatever your views on the former Ellen Page changing forms, Page is skinner than me and I’m make a terrible Achilles because he didn’t have a gut but did have actual muscles. The man was a Greek soldier. It goes with the territory. All the Styx dip did was make him invulnerable except in the one place he got shot, but we’ll come back to him. As far as the Helen race swap, that’s a level of cultural and historical stupidity I’m not even going to touch lest we go off-topic for this site. It’s inaccurate whatever someone’s attorney’s neighbor’s second cousin twice removed told them, though I’ll note for the topic that he did the same for Commissioner Gordon and Catwoman. Anything else, like the translation Nolan has been seen praising, JesterBell has already covered.

No, it’s that Nolan wants to “ground” the story in “historical accuracy”, except for the parts he doesn’t, but I point you to the link in the previous sentence. The Odyssey is not really a myth. It’s not even religion. Homer is not St. Matthew, he’s the guy who wrote the Olympian version of Touched By An Angel, a story inspired by religion. Even The Iliad starts with three goddesses forcing a man to judge their beauty pageant and then bribing said judge, but you could almost ground that one just by having Paris and Helen run off together. The only other magical element is a man who can’t be stabbed or shot depending on his footwear to cover his one weak point. (I tried to find the “maximum damage” quote but Google Search AI isn’t as smart as Google thinks it is.) Just make really good armor…it’s not like they’re getting that historically accurate. Just don’t go full Iron Man…although I admittedly would watch that movie. However, The Odyssey, it’s sequel, is totally filled with the very things Nolan wants to avoid.

At issue here isn’t whether or not Nolan is a good director, or even if his Batman movies were good. I own Batman Begins on DVD with no regrets. It’s whether or not his gritty, grounded takes fit the world of Batman or the adventures of Odysseus. While Batman doesn’t deal with the fantastic as often, it’s still very much there even if it isn’t close to Odysseus’s level, unless you count the times Batman hangs out with the Justice League thanks to Wonder Woman being a member. He’s met the Greek gods and goddesses and one dude who thinks he’s Zeus. (I wonder if Maxie Zeus ever met the real deal?) That’s why Nolan’s take on Batman should have prepared you for the same adaptation errors he’s talking about making, and we can start with the Clown Prince Of Crime himself.

Wrong Joker?

Did the late Heath Ledger do a great job? Sure, won’t deny it. Did he do a good Joker? No, but that’s not on him because that’s not the character he was given. Much like Joaquin Phoenix’s “Arthur Fleck”, Heath’s character was Joker in name alone. The man who would become the Joker was the original Red Hood, a criminal whose backstory changes based on Joker’s mood that Tuesday afternoon. He fell into a vat of chemicals, had his body bleached white and hair turn green (only Harley knows if the curtains match the drapes), and his mind damaged beyond permanent repair. Nolan’s Joker on the other hand is just some psycho in incompletely applied make-up who, as Alfred put it, just wants to watch the world burn. He’s obsessed with “sending a message” (we’re done with the politics), not whatever scheme he has that day. It’s the wrong form of twisted. No silly gadgets with a comedy theme. No theatrics outside of bigger booms. It takes more than “criminal clown” to be the Joker or Bill Murray would count.

I want to give him a pass on the League Of Shadows, except he still got that wrong. Ra’s Al Ghul led the League Of Assassins, aka killers for hire. His ultimate goal isn’t wipe out corruption, it’s wipe out all of humanity except for a chosen few. You know, like any elitist nutjob. He also has the Lazarus Pits, a series of pits with a natural chemical mix that can get a dead body working again, but with limited uses and the cost of your sanity each time. While I’m pretty sure getting blown up would go past those limits, as you need enough of a body to bring back, it doesn’t align with Ra’s depiction and usage in Batman’s stories whether in comics or animation. Not being dead is kind of Ra’s thing. Also, if I may vent, yes you @#$%$ do have to save him! You’re Batman! Saving people is what you do and letting him die is the coward’s way of still killing him.

Then there’s Bane from the third movie, the one people generally don’t like. Bane wanting to challenge and defeat Batman, believing Gotham is his city and that’s how you take it from him? Totally on point, no problem. Being part of the League Of Not-Assassins-But-Still-Kills-Everyone? i guess it’s acceptable. However, Bane was also the victim of a series of experiments that proved to be the wrong test subject if you wanted to not be his first target. Bone enhancements, a quick-boosting steroid that he takes through a tube in the back of his head, and the craziness that comes with it are all missing. Instead he just wants to claim Talia as his bride. Weak! That all speaks to Nolan’s grounding being less cool that the actual comic depictions and the productions that take advantage of it, and we could go over all of the crazed villains, mutations, zombies, literal demons, and monsters he’s fought or even teamed with, but I have one more bit of comparison before we get to what’s missing entirely.

Trying to ground Batman’s gadgets in reality was, from an adaptation perspective, hit and miss. I’ve made no secret that I’m not a fan of the “Tumbler” or any other “Bat-Tank” pretending to be the Batmobile. Tanks go faster than we see in some movies, as MatPat and friends demonstrated, but in a car chase? He’d be better off with something sleek and sporty. Avoiding being seen by the cops and ignored by anyone except the sucker he’s chasing is also a benefit to an actual car. He can have a mobile crime lab, bulletproof everything, and hidden non-lethal weapons, and even a place to shove the criminal until he ejects him in front of police HQ, but tanks are a special occasion vehicle, not the nightly patrol vehicle.

I’ve also complained numerous times about the “bat blades”. I don’t think they were called “batarangs” on screen ever, but the general public now assumes that’s what a batarang is, and it’s not. Batarangs are mini boomerangs, as the name should imply given Batman’s branding (he is a businessman after all). They’re a tool for distraction or to knock a guy out. They don’t go in a straight line, making their movements harder to predict but Bruce is trained in how to get them to hit the desired target. Before the grapnel gun was invented for Batman he used a boomerang to wrap something solid for his batline. He also has gadget batarangs in various incarnations that be operated remotely (long explanation), work as small explosive or shockers, and so on. Nolan? Just throwing stars that vaguely resemble Batman Beyond’s bat-symbol.

Nothing in the movies has matched this panel.

The cape I give him credit for trying to explain the tech for. Small shocks control how rigid the cape is, and he can glide like those glider suits based on flying squirrels. I have scientific questions, as Mythbusters has explored similar Jules Verne style fiction tech for MacGyver, Breaking Bad and even those times the A-Team turns a bumper car into a battle tank or something. There’s some plausible science at best. They even tested James Bond gadgets and some work better than others. My big question is what’s holding the other half of the cape from flying up and failing to work as a glider? Plus that’s not really what it does. At best it’s an airfoil or short-distance parachute. He also uses it for distraction in the Arkham games by smacking opponents with it so he can get a good hit. The main reason for the cape, however, is a psychological edge.

Reasoning that, as the saying goes, “criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot”, Bruce uses it to extend his profile, giving the impression that he is a bat. Some of the more supervillain types are even fooled by a moment while the thugs, henchmen, and mob enforcers are scared stiff given Batman’s reputation. There’s a reason I call it the best cape in comics. It’s cool and functional, but some versions are bullet or acid proof, allowing him to protect himself and even other people. (How do you get materials like that? Look at the people he knows.) If he wants to fly without the plane or helicopter he has a flight pack. Even the overly gazetted outfit from Batman: The Brave & The Bold, a campy tribute to the Silver Age adventures, has to convert the cape to make it fly while in the DCAU he has a jetpack with really big bat-shaped wings.

With all that in mind let’s look at what we know about Nolans’ grounded, more historically accurate (except where it isn’t) take on The Odyssey. The “historic” part is “what would people assume was a monster but actually has a ‘true’ explanation Agent Scully would settle for”, because otherwise this story can’t take place in a “real” world. You have a multiheaded monster living next to a whirlpool, magical bewitchers showing up more than once, and it’s all because the gods are petty revenge-seeking jerks and turned a few days travel into years. Explain the island where everyone has one eye in the center of their forehead, who are all giants who can solo kidnap an entire ship of sailors but dumb enough to be easily tricked Bart Simpson style into being blinded and not being able to get help. It’s technically possible, I guess, but where’s the fun in that?

The fun of Odysseus’ travels comes the wild and mythical adventures he and his crew go through until finally he’s the only survivor, making home past all odds and still being in good enough shape to send off the suitors that have been hassling his loving and supportive (some would say beyond reason) wife. Take that away and it’s just not the same story. This is fiction based on mythology while the world of Gotham City is fiction based on imagination and loosely based on the darker parts of New York City. Strip that away and you don’t just lose the magic of the deities, you lose the magic of the worlds those stories take place in. Shapeshifting monsters, people tossing lightning bolts either by magic or by technology that doesn’t exist, exciting action and adventure…that’s what was missing in his Batman and all indications are that it will be missing from his Odysseus as well. Toss in the culture war stuff, the strange ideas that came from that or trying to “realistically explain” the mythical elements, and it just doesn’t sound fun, if not missing the whole point of superheroes and gods, the mythology based on values and moral lessons.

What we get is another director who refuses to believe in the fantastic, which given Nolan’s various movie settings over the years baffles me. I don’t expect the origin movie of the atomic bomb to have dragons, and you can set a movie in space without aliens and stuff, and still be fascinating. I’m not against Nolan’s tone elsewhere and they’re movies worth seeing. It’s when he’s adapting something where the fantastic was the point and trying to ground it more in our world that something of value is lost compared to the original work. He wasn’t adapting The Iliad, a story where the goddesses only matter in the prologue, and he didn’t adapt the original Golden Age concept of Batman that Bob Kane created and Bill Finger designed. In both cases he took the magical and made it mundane. That’s kind of boring, and what works on his other projects just don’t fit in here. Oddly and possibly ironically, it’s the elements that make Christopher Nolan a great director that made him the wrong director for Batman and The Odyssey, but he made them anyway and we’ll have to see if quality is enough to make it good.