Batman Begins site now active.

That seems pretty newsworthy to me.

Good looking logo. No shitty yellow oval.

So far, so good.

Nice...I like it.


If you move your cursor real fast under the bat's wing, it giggles, shakes and says, "That tickles...stop it!"

Excellent. I like my logos minimalistic and cut out of rusted metal. Or is that chocolate?

Fuckin' awesome. As far as Batman updates go, I'm very easily pleased.

A fucking logo made my day.

Possibly, sir. Possibly.

I'd buy that it was pressure-formed cow dung. In fact, is that hay I see in there?

I believe you me HOLEY RUSTED METAL.

It's not practical. A stealthy crimefighter does NOT watch a larget yellow spot in the center of his chest.

i like the look better without the oval but in the dark knight returns batman gets shot in the chest and is saved by a metal plate and makes some comment to the effect that he does wear a big yellow bullseye on his chest so people will aim there instead of his head

It reminds me of cool. Enough said.

It's nice, very much in tone with the film.

Nice. Looks much like the Future Batman cape.

Its become a total cliche`, but this movie really seems to have a lot of grit to it, something non-existant in a Batman film since the first few scenes of the first one.

Dig the logo. Sure, Miller made a good case for the oval, but if we're gonna be sticklers, the plain black bat is the closest to original Batman anyways.

The costume is supposedly heavily influenced mostly by Lee, Ross & Mazzucchelli.

It's supposed to be 'all about realism', with logical and practical explainations and uses for the cape, the car, and the suit itself.

Last thing I read said the cowl 'may or may not' have retractable lenses, ala Green Goblin. Its a pretty good idea if you ask me- we'd get to see both the serious, piercing eyes of Bale, and the classic 'white eye' look, probably for practical reasons like night/heat vision.

I like it.

I can't remember the exact source, but I distinctly remember a time when the purpose of the yellow oval was explained. Basically, the emblem (or perhaps the whole chest area... can't remember) was bullet-proof and the yellow was supposed to entice criminals to shoot at Batman's chest instead of his head, etc.

Yeah, dumb... but that's what I remember.

Well, the reason for why it's there in REAL life is because DC couldn't copyright just a bat silouette, but when they put a yellow oval around it they were allowed to.

Nice. How long before that's hanging in theatres? July?

So, the website tells us that Batman will have the symbol of a bat on his chest.

Well, shoot, there's MY $10!

A friend of mine had a supersize Batman hockey jersey which he wore when he played goal. He swears to this day that he took more shots to the chest in that jersey than any other in his collection.

It's not entirely without merit.

"You had me at logo."

my manipulated version with extra scratches

Oooh! Yours is definitely better. Very cool, man.

Cool logo on the site.

The new logo will take some getting used to for me. It bugs me that the edges look so sharp, like it would cut you if you picked it up.

The old logo is familiar, so I like it, but it does have a slight design flaw in that the negative and positive spaces have equal emphasis. Because of this, I kept seeing a funny mouth with yellow round teeth the first few times I saw it.

I think the new logo looks a lot like Batman with his cape outstretched right before he leaps from a building.

Hey, I had to stare at that image of the original Bat Logo for 30 seconds before I saw a mouth with yellow teeth. I mean in principal it was obvious what you meant as soon as I read it but damned if I didn't have to stare at it for a while before, all of a sudden, hey! There's a mouth with some funky yellow teeth.

They should put that in optical illusion books, as silly as it is.

Gritty and realistic is the way to go with the Batman franchise at this point, but they shouldn't stray too far away from the comic book world. When I see a superhero movie I want to feel like the character on screen shares the world with other beings with superpowers, whether or not they are mentioned. The X-Men movies capture this feeling because they're centrally concerned with the public's reaction to a worls filled with super-powered beings.

It's mainly issues with rights to use the characters that make certain comic book movies seem like their characters are isolated-- the only superhero in the world, which makes the whole costume/theme a little silly. In Batman's case the DC universe makes him more interesting because his lack of super-powers creates a challenging contrast to the other characters. It's not that big a deal though since his enemies usually lack powers as well. But you know which movie could really have used referencing to other comic characters to make it more effective? Hulk. Because for some reason, Hulk works better played off the other Marvel characters than on his own.

But I guess my point is that cross-referencing seems, ironically, to make some of the bizarre elements of comic fantasy more realistic because it's easier to portray the reaction of the public at large to the these outlandish events if they are a bit more commonplace. For example, the whole world would just freak out wholesale in reaction to the events of the Hulk movie. Everyone would be in shock. Unless of course they were used to hearing about the exploits of Spider-Man, the Avengers, etc.

Batman is a little different, sure. He's one of the only costumed heroes I could see as the only one of his kind. But things like the rumored absence of the Lazarus Pit in the movie make me worry that the filmakers are trying too hard to set this Batman in the "real world." They need to leave some latitude for increasing the scope for the sequels.

Not to say this isn't shaping up to be an awesome film.

This is my first post to CHUD. I've been waiting to register for a while. This site rules. Thanks!

Neato bandito!

While I am not all that particularly excited about this this, I will be once the first good picture of Bale in the suit is released.

that was about the funniest thing ive ever read... *still wiping tears away*

and so true! you made my week PG

question; BATSIGNAL? is it in the film?

obviously the logo would be consistant to this one - which is pretty damn nice.

Tim Sale used that in the collection of the three Halloween specials he and Loeb did (Haunted Knight).
He had the bat logo be carved into a pumpkin, so that it looked like the mouth of a Jack-o-lantern. Always thought that was a pretty cool way to go.

Edited for spelling

tell me about it. with any other movie, upon figuring out that the logo was all the website had, i'd have saluted it with a hot stream of insults. but since everything (so far) is so rightabout this movie, i went to the website and my reaction was: "hey... cool".

Cool. Some people saw the mouth first, and others saw the bat.

I don't know who Tim Sale or Loeb are. I just saw the Batman movies, loved the first two with Michael Keaton, and saw a few episodes of a very, very good animated Batman series on TV a while back, that was full of dark imagery. I also have some old Batman memorabilia from the Tim Burton movies tucked away in a box, statuettes, magazines, and stuff.

Hmm...I didn't think it was possible to squeeze more recognizable names to the call sheet for this movie, but I believe it has been done.

Superherohype.com reported that Rutger Hauer is playing some guy named Mr. Earl in Batman Begins.

Nolan is living every geek's wet dream...reinventing Batman for the screen, working with Geek god Christian bale, and now Rutger Haur.

Jeph Loeb, IMO, is the best Batman writer today (and not only according to me, but that's another story). He wrote The Long Halloween and its sequel Dark Victory, the greatest Batman story ever (well, I haven't read all Batman stories, but the best one I've read). It's a follow-up to Frank Miller's Year One and chronicles the early days of Batman, the war against organised crime and the price that is paid to win that war.

Tim Sale does the art on much of Loeb's stuff. Apart from Haunted Knight, Long Halloween and Dark Victory they did Daredevil: Yellow, and Superman for all seasons (really good Superman story), to mention a few.

It's easier to see the optical illusion in this poster:


The first time I saw the teaser poster in 88 or 89, I stared at it for a few seconds wondering "what's up with those freaky gold teeth," before I saw the bat, and promptly wet my pants.

Whoa! Those are some shiny gold teeth.

Thank you, Cobblepot. Now if Batman could just fight corporate crime today...