I didn’t “get” how powerful comics could be until I read The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller way back in the mid-80s. It is a massive story that seems almost impossible to adapt to a movie, but Warner Home Video is planning to do it with a two part movie coming later this year.
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Really glad they’re doing it as a two-parter instead of trying to cram the entire book into one DVD!
Ooooooh I hope this is good.
Perfect. Since I loved the first two books and hated the last two, I’m all set!
The books were fantastic and changed the industry – the dark and gritty scene really got its start with Dark Knight Returns – and major changes such as making Robin a girl became acceptable. And it was really the first time that an “outsider” who wasn’t working on the mainstream books was allowed to fiddle with a publisher’s top ranked properties. It’s interesting to look back and see just how many elements that were first shown in Dark Knight and Kingdom Come have filtered through into mainstream books.
I wonder, though, how the art style will translate to animation. The unique art and minimalist backgrounds were an integral part of the storytelling of Dark Knight, and on previous WB animations where the source material had a unique art style the animators weren’t able to pull it off. Especially Superman/Batman: Apokalipse where the animation turned out rather grotesque compared to the comic and instead of Supergirl appearing stunningly cute like in the book she ended up looking rather slutty and cheap instead.
My instincts tell me that the Dark Knight will be a disappointment. They’ll most likely sanitize the story a bit too much and the art won’t be satisfying either. But I might well be wrong, after all, I thought that the Lord of the Rings was unfilmable and Peter Jackson proved me wrong in a big way.
I wonder, though, how the art style will translate to animation.
During Batman: The Animated Series, there was a Tales of the Dark Knight episode where three children told their interpretation of Batman, and one of them was The Dark Knight Returns, done in the Miller style, and it worked. It worked very well.
Yeah. That was one of the best episodes of the series.