Shuvrajit Das Biswas
6. Father Son Relationship
Superheroes usually come from broken homes. It is a clichéd characteristic shared by most superheroes. Logan and Batman too fall in this category. However, they have both been lucky to find a surrogate father figure – Charles Xavier for Logan and Alfred for Batman. While Michael Kane’s Alfred delivers a powerful performance in The Dark Knight with the right amount of worried concern underlying the gentle admonishments meted out to Bruce, the relationship between Xavier and Logan is positively poignant. Xavier at the end of the line finds help, company and affection from probably his most unruly surrogate son – Logan. The pain and sorrow evident on Logan’s face after Xavier’s death is testament to the power of the father son relationship they shared. Thus, while both movies hit on the same trope, Logan clearly captures it better.
7. Setting of the Film
Admittedly The Dark Knight is limited in this scope – the Batman, despite the Joker’s statement about having no jurisdiction, is mostly restricted to Gotham. Thus Nolan’s setting is limited to a city and urban shots. Logan on the other hand can travel the country and usually does since he is a drifter like character. Thus the film’s settings are more diverse and give us not only views of city lives but also small towns, suburbs and mostly rural America. The Dark Knight seems particularly lacking in the setting because even with the city, Batman Begins seemed to cover a wider aspect of city life including the homeless and ordinary people along with the big movers of Gotham. The Dark Knight seems to fixate only on multiple high profile characters and leaves out the ordinary city folk except for the launch scene.
8. The Role of Superheroes
The Dark Knight was definitely a game changer in this aspect with Nolan making the audience question the role of superheroes in all his three films with Gordon’s cryptic hero that we deserve comment coming at the end of the second film. However, the hero’s role is changed even more drastically in Logan where the hero is a reluctant participant. Logan wants to lead a quiet life, hang up his boots so to speak, but the situation throws him back into the old life and his role is thrust upon him. Apart from that the mutant characters in themselves speak of the marginalization and otherness. This narrative of the other will always be ideologically absent in Batman who becomes a bourgeoisie reaction to the criminal element of society. Logan, thus deals with more sensitive strands of roles than Batman does.
9. The Nostalgia for the Fans
The Dark Knight could never hope to compete here. This admittedly gives Logan an unfair upper edge. For people who grew up with Hugh Jackman’s Logan, his last appearance was bound to spark nostalgia in the audience. It signified the end of an era and the end of a character portrayal that we had all grown to love. The character of Batman holds no such emotional sway in terms of the actors, since the Batman franchise has always had different actors and in fact at this moment has Ben Affleck playing the role. With Hugh Jackman’s nostalgic last performance the movie has a higher emotional quotient than the Batman played by Christian Bale.
10. The Ending of the Film
Spoilers for those who haven’t watched Logan yet, but Logan dies. Batman is seen being chased by cops as he bleeds but gets on his bike and gets away. These are the two endings of the films but it is as I have iterated earlier – Nolan’s film is too cerebral. It speaks of logic and rests on audience logic for appreciation. A truly intelligent spectator base will enjoy the conclusion in Nolan’s film and how it almost seems like a conclusion to a thesis he was writing in the course of his movie. However, this very aspect might make the ending seem a bit hollow – as if the championing of logic seeks to take away perhaps the most important thing that a movie should have, that is emotion. Logan on the other hand capitalizes on emotion – the death of Logan will bring tears to the eyes of the audience. The despondent poignancy of the scene makes it all the more powerful and seeks to establish Logan as a better superhero movie.
