Batman Continues - Page 3

But the gothic look in the comics emerged because of the movies. Gotham always had a noir vibe to it, but I really don't remember artists portraying Gotham as having a heavily gothic feel prior to the first Batman film.

And I don't necessarily think the new look Gotham was generic, I got a stronger sense of place and dimension from Batman Begins than I ever did in the Burton films. Burton's Gotham always felt like a collection of sets rather than a city with defined boundaries.

I'm sure I remember Neal Adams using a bit of it. But I'm not sure. It worked for the film.

In terms of sets, sure, Burton's were too enclosed, and it didn't seem like a proper city. But they had the right feel, as opposed to Nolan's "realistic" look - which was sometimes awfully unrealistic, just look at the digital mattes of the Narrows. Like Batman himself, the city had no menace, no atmosphere, no mystery. It was exactly what it says on the tin, and didn't work for me at all.

Tim Burton's movies work fine, just so long as you view them as Tim Burton's Batman. A sort of Elseworlds thing.

Given that there were very heightened aspects to Nolan's Gotham - like everything being routed around the central Wayne tower and clearly marked out and seperate slum area -I can see why the attempts at realism might fail. It is the same 'having your cake and eating it' problem as the serious first act and the wacky last act.

Moving from a fairly down to earth beginning and slowly introducing larger and more fantastic elements is an excellent way of creating myth (see LOTR and Raiders Of The Lost Ark). BB doesn't make the transition seemless though, which is where it falls down - the realistic and the fantastic clash.

Agreed. Though I still despise RETURNS with a passion.

Considering we are talking about comic book characters that change writers like underwear...yes all of the good ones thrive through different interpretations. Spidey has also been all over the map with stories like Ben Reilly and the clones...that type of pap. When we get to the late 80's-90's and everyone wanted to be Frank Miller....yes Batman got ridiculously dour. But writers like Denny O'neill had him on a more balanced path with better results for a good twenty years before this happened.

As far as the most successful interpretation. It depends on how you judge success really. As a comic the most sales friendly years were the 70's and 80's (I could be wrong, but I remember reading this somewhere-whether it was a percentile figure or gross number I do not remember). Writers moved the stories toward more detective work, a more serious tone. Batman's relationship with the Bat Family really started to become interesting. Characters like Leslie Tompkins would make more appearances.

Why is the Robin story any less interesting than the Peter Parker/Mary Jane story? The father/son dynamic is just as interesting in my eyes. Characters like Robin, Alfred, Leslie Thompkins, and others are characters that know Bruce. They all try in various ways to pull him back toward a more Bruce Wayne centered reality. They make him a more interesting character because of it. The only difference between Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne is that Bruce creates many of these relationships as he grows older. Many of Parker's are established in his youth. I don't see a whole lot of difference beyond that.

I think the problem is that many people's perception of Batman has been colored by the extremist Frank Miller version...which is fun to read in graphic novels...but does not make for interesting sustained story arcs. Even Jeph Loeb did a better job with the much maligned "Hush" story line. He used characters like Catwoman, Robin, Superman, to show that Batman's world was much bigger than just the loner on the rooftops. It is not a surprise that DC has exchanged the darker Batman for a much more 70's styled version with their recent one year later stories.

I thought Gotham looked extremely boring in Begins. Just looked like Chicago with a few minor CGI enhancements. The city in Mystery Men had much more personality.

Sorry, but this is just flat-out not true. I understand that you think too much time was devoted to the development of the Bat-gadgets, but there were at least a dozen scenes of Bruce discussing his parents' death and its consequences with Alfred, Ras, Rachel, Fox, and the CEO (don't remember his name). It didn't work for you, fine, but it was a major focus of the movie.

That's just the thing though. We're in the CGI era now, so the soundstage look of the Burton films isn't necessary to create fantastic locations. If Burton were making those films today there would be no boundaries to his "sets."

Other than the fact that Peter Parker has family and friends he must hide his secret from, and a life that suffers enormously because of the sacrifices he must make, while Bruce Wayne must keep his secret from...bimbos. And, in terms of the movies, he rarely manages to do even that.

My point is that if you have an enormous amount of money, and the only person you need to have any regular day-to-day contact with is a butler who knows who you really are, that's not the most fertile ground for a secret identity drama.

My main point there was that I find it ironic (and quite funny) that Robin, one of the key reasons Batman has a camp reputation, is being offered up as a way to develop the story of this new ultra-serious Batman franchise.

As for why the Robin story is any less interesting? He knows Bruce's secret, for one. For two, everyone has a boy/girlfriend they've had to keep things from. Not many people have adopted an acrobatic ward. The two characters perform completely different functions in the narrative.

There's real human drama in the relationship between Peter and Mary Jane. The kind of stuff that doesn't need a supervillain to sustain. The Peter/MJ stuff in Spider-Man 2 could still have worked if Spidey had just fought bank robbers and muggers every night. Doc Ock made it more spectacular, and upped the stakes, but the throughline of the story is always Peter and his relationships. Because he has relationships. He's an extraordinary person trying to maintain ordinary relationships. That creates friction, conflict, drama.

Just adding an orphan sidekick for Batman doesn't create similar drama. It just pads out the cast. The only way to make the rather flimsy father/son dynamic more interesting would be to have Bruce adopt a Dick Grayson type character and not induct him into a life of death-defying superheroics. Have him keep Batman seperate from his surrogate family. By making his ward into a crimefighter, you lose dramatic potential just so Batman has someone to talk to.

Even the characters that have been added to the Batman mythos have their relationships with Batman, not Bruce. He might as well fake his death, as he does at the end of Dark Knight Returns, since the Wayne persona serves no practical or dramatic purpose. Which brings me back to my original point - the only interesting Bruce Wayne story is how he came to be Batman. And it's no surprise that once that story is told, Batman Begins reverts to being a rather silly superhero action movie. If that story wasn't enough to sustain one movie, the sequel will be starting with even more barren soil to work with.

Bruce Wayne is always going to be a severely limited character. Therefore the story is driven by what he does as Batman. But Batman is defined by his villains, therefore the movies evolve not through development of the lead character, but by changing the adversary. Which is how you end up with Batman & Robin.

As Miller's work has cast a long shadow over Batman movies from Burton to Nolan, you've pretty much proven my point. As long as Nolan insists on following this realistic "what if Batman actually existed" ethos, the movies will always be dramatically flat.

Thank goodness for the lack of decent looking CGI soundstages back then.

I think that is just the point though (and it seems to be where we agree)...Batman doesn't have to be an ultra-serious film. It doesn't have to be campy either. But there is a lot of wiggle room and source material to make it into something that is fun and serious at the same time.

We can hope that perhaps since DC is taking a different direction with the comics....that the resulting sequel (whenever it does happen) will reflect this change in tone.

There was actually a Batman/Detective crossover back in the early 90s ("Demolition" or something like that) where it was revealed that Furst's Gotham existed within Gotham but had been covered and obscured by newer buildings. Some crazy gent ran amuck blowing up newer buildings to reveal the older architecture until Batman stopped him. Thus, until that time, Gotham was a rather generic noir-esque city.

And that's where Nolan's film left me cold. It takes Batman too seriously, and seems more concerned with rationalising every aspect of his comic book world - how did he get the Batmobile, how did he get the suit, how does he make the pointy ears - that it ultimately gives him feet of clay.

It spends the first two thirds of the running time painstakingly establishing how this rich kid becomes a rock-hard crimefighter, and how such a decision might work in the real world, but once they've got him to that point - the grand finale is like something out of a 1940s serial, complete with a scheming mastermind whose plot is so spectacularly illogical and ill-planned that you wonder if you're watching the same film.

Basically, all the best stuff in Batman Begins is the stuff they can't use again. That's why a sequel seems like a less than enticing idea.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Batman as a cinematic hero.

The thing that makes Batman so intriguing is the pathology. And filmmakers so far have failed to successfully exploit that aspect. That's why Batman will never spawn a great movie as long as it's made by a studio. It's better suited as an independent film.

That's why I was sorry Aranofsky never got his shot, because he seemed to actually get the core nature of the character, and was planning a risky film (which is why it was canned).

For all Nolan's good intentions, he's also not capable of pulling it off, because like everybody else he keeps trying to make a comic book movie, and Batman is better approached as just a character, and not necessarily a comic book icon.

Those are just my two cents.

Personally I think the most intriging thing about Batman is those boingy fingers, but if you want to take the 'this guy's a loonie' approach why not just make a 'rich guy/masked vigilante' movie? Calling it Batman, a name with such huge cultural baggage, is just going to weigh down the film and confuse the audience.

Dramatic tension could be developed with the introduction of a Robin character, but not effectively for another couple of films. The problem with doing it in a 2nd film is that Wayne/Batman are still fairly balanced sides of the character's persona. The second film should have Wayne drifting further away from himself into the comfortable stoicism of Batman. This would set-up Robin's role of helping to restore the Wayne side further down the series.

The dramatic linch-pin of the Batman/Robin father-son dynamic involves Batman's decision to include Robin in his exploits, knowing full well that by doing so he is putting the boy in ever greater danger.

That's what Aronofsky was planning to a certain extent. But it had to be called Batman because that's the character, it's a guy dressed as a giant bat, which is what makes it interesting in the first place.

Aronofsky was approaching it as more like a Dirty Harry type thing, making it less about the riches and bitches, and more about the pathology of the character and the situation.

That's what's cool about comic books, is you have the character and the name recognition, but it's a movie so you should be able to strip away the various comic incarnations and get at the core of the character. That's the whole point of making it a movie in the first place. Studios will never understand this.

Is this script available somewhere?

They probably don't understand it (I don't think I do either) because they want to make money. If you take a well known and beloved franchise name and then just throw out half the background details everyone expects, you stand a good chance of alienating the audience.

You also stand a good chance of throwing out everything that makes the idea work. Comic book movies shouldn't be afraid to be based on comic books. Yes, some things will need to be changed, streamlined, or excised completely when translating from one form of media to another, to play to that medium's strengths and weaknesses. But, as Colt45 is apparently suggesting, to just throw out everything and start fresh with a name, what's the point, other than just branding it for a few extra geek box office receipts? Why not just make something fresh?

Films like Spider-Man and Superman have already proven that you can bring the four color superhero world to life without major sacrifices made in the name of "realism", whatever that means when you're talking about a movie where a man dresses up as a giant bat to fight crime.

On second thought, I really have no idea what the hell Colt45 is trying to say.

Today Batman joins Star Wars and The Matrix in the pantheon of geek topics that have been completely exhausted.

Next up...YOUR VAGINA! HAHAHAHA...hahhahaha....hahha...I'm sorry Bob...I blame Darkmites. He edited my brain.

I'm putting you on probation, Cujo.

Taking my badge?

And your gun.

It's DARKMITE8! Don't you pay attention?

Consequences, fine. But I mean the actual death. The actual moment in time where the event that will drive Bruce Wayne's life for the rest of his days. Which is barely touched upon.

I realize there was dialogue pertaining to it, and his parents. It doesn't change the fact, for me, it seemed to be not touched on with any real focus. You're supposed to feel for Bruce, to feel that these senseless deaths have given him enough psychological pain for him to mold himself into this creature that is trying to wage a war on crime in some vain attempt to sate his anger and frustration.

I didn't get that. At all. You can give me a detailed list of the amount of running time talking about it, but when all is said and done, none of it meant anything to me. I don't know, maybe this all joining in with my personal life, where I'm not only a huge Batfan, but I know what it's like to lose a parent. Both of which are probably why I was so utterly disappointed at the film's failure to make any impact out of what is a defining moment in Batlore.

Exactly. And it goes some way to also hurting the mystery of the character. What is there to know about Batman where every single part of him is spelled out on screen? It's like Boba Fett - once a cool character, because of his mystery. Now revealed as a lame clone of that guy from ONCE WERE WARRIORS.

All the film needed was a few throwaway references while Bruce and Lucius are chatting about there being a stockpile of unused prototypes in the Wayne building, and that he was given access to. Instead, we get step by step instructions on how to become Batman - and it doesn't work.

There is no core to this character. There's what you personally connect to, which is fine, but such an archetypal character is, by design, re-interpretable.

You seem to be functioning in a very comfortable fantasy world where comic book heroes, and major Hollywood franchises, are the realm of very personal visions. You will find that the more you specific-up this character, the less popular he will become.

Wow this has been a fun read.

I enjoyed BB even with the lackluster 3rd act. I agree with everyone that says the action scenes needs some work.

However my big question.....what is everyone's opinion about the rumors of Paul Bettany being considered for the role of the joker.

Physically he works, but beyond that, if the rumor were to ever pan out, who knows?
Personally the only casting rumor that really grabbed my interest was Sam Rockwell as the Joker.
That would work for me, that would really work for me.

In Mask of the Phantasm, when Bruce visits the grave of his parents and begs to be released from his vow, from his guilt, so he can lead a normal life... this IMO represents Batman's core. That scene hit a chord with me. I remember tearing up in the theater. Yes, his origin is explained in Batman Begins... but the reasons why he continues to do what he does, the guilt he feels, the sacrifices he makes, and the shitty life he leads due to this massive responsibilty he's put on himself= makes good drama.

Surrounding himself with the criminal element night after night, dancing that fine line between law & crime (theme of many undercover & revenge movies), never being able to satiate the bloodlust for vengeance, the guilt of attracting/creating all the crazies in Gotham, the alienation of everyone in his life, descent into isolation & darkness, the duality of Bruce/Batman (and also his villains), his responsibilities as an heir to a huge corporation... All of these elements make good stories, and I barely scratched the surface with supporting cast. Hard not to show the effect of life on a person and their emotional state without interaction with other people.

Having lost a parent in a tragedy myself, Batman's ability to snap back from such a terrible event and be a hero to many is inspiring to me and an awesome foundation for great storytelling. It's why the character has lasted so many years. He's not just a guy in a cape punching people. It's mythic and bigger than life and yet it's also very emotionally accessible and relateable.

I'm not sold on the idea of Rockwell, don't get me wrong I think he great and all but i'm just not sure it would work.

I've given up on my hopes that Crispin Glover would be the Joker....I just pray they don't give it to Johnny Depp.

The core is his motivation, personal tragedy. Yes, he's an archetypal Golden Age character, but almost every other superhero after him has the exact same trope concerning the death of person(s) X creating some absurdly heightened response to personal loss (Gerard Jones said it way better in "Men of Tomorrow").

The point has been made that Batman wasn't exactly born w/ a personality or almost any relatable human qualities, but time and talent have turned him into an onion, any layer of which can can be exploited given the appropriate creative force, be it in film or comics.

That is his major appeal, anything else is just a base.

I tend to fall in step with a lot of the negative perceptions of Begins. It rarely gets a spin in my dvd player, and when it does, I can't watch it past Gordon, clad in only a trenchcoat having to carry the unconscious character who should have been Harvey Dent and not a love interest down the flight of stairs past the cops in swat gear immobilized by the attack bats so Batman gets to jump down a stairwell.

I am a fan of the little bit of depth given to Bruce's motivations. The initial confrontation with Falcone, all the way to Bruce's conversation with Alfred on the flight back to Gotham- it couches Bruce's actions in a context outside revenge, or a need for control, and it offers something new to the Batman mythos.

Charlie, it's cool that this particular part of the movie didn't work for you, but I'm honestly puzzled at what you wanted out of it. Begins focused much more on his parents death and its effect on Bruce than any other Batman story I've ever seen or read.

Focusing on something isn't the same thing as giving it weight. I still really like the film, but on this, I do agree w/ him.
For me, the positives outweight the negatives, but the negatives are still exactly that.

How were they supposed to give the parents' death more weight? Seriously, I'm confused about this, because I felt this was one of the film's strongest points. A good third of the (arguably too weighty) movie was focused on Bruce dealing with his father's death and legacy. What aspect of the event was ignored?

I don't know, maybe we saw a different cut. All I know is the movie I saw was far too brief in dealing with the death, and gave us no time to grieve, and what was projected later on through dialogue with other characters I felt was weak.

In terms of weight, again, I'm not a hundred percent sure. But I don't feel the film had much weight to it at all, and what little was only on the surface. I didn't feel there was any depth to it, whether this was down to Goyer's terrible writing or Nolan, or even the producers, I don't know.

The flashback/forwards structure gave all the scenes a distanced feel. The first half is a collection of 'this happened then this happened' episodes, which gives you the information but doesn't tell you how anything feels.
This is how I'm reading Charlie's posts anyway, and I kind of agree with him.

That's pretty much it, which is why I feel it's all surface. There's very little real meat there for me to chew on, emotionally, which is why I don't care about the rest of the film.

I'd just like to see a Batman movie where it takes a little longer than the film's running time for Bruce to decide to reveal his secret identity to the first pretty girl in danger he runs into.

I've been saying for years that Seven is the best Batman movie ever made. Freeman is Gordon, Spacey is the Joker, and Pitt is the Year One Batman. Have him refuse to kill Spacey in the end and it's a perfect Batman story.

Yep, nothing better than two minutes of money shots of the Batwing scorching the skies of Gotham only to have the Joker down it with a pistol. Great action beat there.

The perfect Batman story has Bruce Wayne married to Gwenyth Paltrow and living in a cruddy apartment?

I always like to think that his hard-on for justice would make him entirely impotent, leading to gossip that he is a 'confirmed' bachelor.

Obviously not every detail fits, but the overall theme and the main characters certainly do.

Not really. A married Batman doesn't work, especially early in his career. I think you're getting Seven mixed up with the Gordon arc in The Killing Joke.