Mayor to sue 'Dark Knight' producers over use of village name

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firemedic0703

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http://www.forum.digitalspy.co.uk/odd/a135288/mayor-sues-batman-for-city-name-theft.html

Article here.

How pathetic is this, so it took them nearly 70 years to find out Batman existed and decide to sue them. :rolleyes: Of the stories I've heard about stupid legal cases, I think this one tops them all. Completely ridiculous, I bet they wouldn't be sueing if their precious village was the SETTING for a film. Looks like their council must be feeling the pinch of the credit crunch eh. :rolleyes:
 
All these suits are pathetic. All that fuss over Borat. And apparently the Albanian government was unhappy that their citizens were the bad guys in Taken.


Maybe it's best to stick with Sci-Fi and all the made up names but I guess someone will find something to complain about.
 
George Lucas' use of Chinese and Jamaican voices in The Phantom Menace for the Viceroy and Jar-Jar respectively was so racist, but no one took action back then.

The Borat thing was serious. They paid the entire village three dollars, and didn't explain that they were going to ridicule them all.
 
I read in one article that the city of Batman was founded in 1955, whereas 'the dark knight' first showed up on the page in 1939.

Case closed. :rolleyes:
 
Not sure I can agree there. They weren't the best choice of voices, but they are afterall just characters and there was nothing derogitory in the dialogue. I get that they could be poorly representing particular ethnicities, but at the end of the day the voices weren't representing anything in reality. Star Wars are fantasy films afterall.

At the end of the day white British people could take offense that all the bad guys, the Imperial officers in the original films are played by white Englishmen.

There are far worse examples of inequality in Hollywood.

Best
 
No, the white Englishman thing really isn't that offensive when you consider than the American's were the good guys and the Brits were a droid and the baddies. George Lucas is American and the target audience was mainly the US. Revolutionary war meant they won, we lost - the oppressed beat the oppressors. Then the white ones their become the oppressors.

Funny thing is, there were apparently more Brits fighting as Americans than there were in the British army. The British had foreigners fighting for them. I saw it on QI. :p

As for the Viceroy and Jar-Jar thing - Why did the Viceroy wear oriental clothing? Why did he talk exactly like a piss-taker's impression of oriental people? Why was Jar-Jar given floppy serrated ears that look like dreadlocks. Why was he given a Jamaican accent? Was was the Gungan leader made to look and sound like an African chief?

Lucas even brought Lando in, because people had complained about the lack of black people in the Universe. Let's look at Lando for a second:

- He was seen as a charming, if slimy, traitor. Spaced used the term, "Lando," to refer to a traitor in the same way the word, "Judas," is used.

- It was only by the third film that he was able to redeem himself, but even then, he still ended the film upstaged by a bunch of teddy bears.
 
Fair points about Jar Jar and the Viceroy, its been a while since I watched TPM.

As for Lando, Lucas's motivation aside, he is a hugely popular Star Wars character. Anything he did on screen has not changed that nor represented black men in a bad way in the eyes of fans. He happened to be one black man who did some bad things. He's a loveable rogue. The actor Billy Dee Williams certainly loved playing him and had no issues with the character.

In fact Han Solo was also firstly presented as an untrustworthy character.
 
I agree, but Lando was never going to be good enough for Princess Leia.

White Han Solo, though also an untrustworthy space pirate, was for some reason - white skin. Lando had his own city, and was still not good enough.
 
No offense, I think you are simplifying it to make an issue.

To be fair, by the time Leia fell for Han she had been through a lot with him, but she didn't trust him at all for the biggest part of the first film.

When she met Lando they were being chased by the Empire, she was suspicious of everyone and in Lando's case with good reason.

The fact is you can tell Lando doesn't want to betray Han, he is forced by Vader and has the lives of all the Cloud City inhabitants to worry about. He had to way it up, does he protect the thousanRAB of people in his city or one man and a few other people he had not even met when Vader forced him into the deal.

His colour is irrelevant, he's an interesting man who had to make tough choices.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with The Dark Knight, so apologies to the other posters.
 
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