Batman (or Someone) Begins

[CelestialStick]

Several people have been urging me on this board to watch Batman Begins, so I have.

Let me start off by saying that if this film chronicled the rise of a new superhero, like New Vigilante or Dogman (as suggested by the ludicrously canine-looking Bat-cowl, the worst Bat-cowl in Bat-history) I would say that the film was excellent--ignoring, of course what would in that case be the wholesale theft of Batman plot devices. ;)

As a Batman movie, however, it has serious problems. Bruce Wayne did not have a childhood friend named Rachel Dawes who grew up to be the one good Assistant District Attorney in Gotham and Bruce Wayne's love interest. Over the decades Bruce/Batman has had many love interests, including Vicky Vale, Selina Kyle, Talia al Ghul and even Diana (Wonder Woman). The original Batman isn't even a love story of any sort, so they could have left out the love interest entirely. Maybe, unlike the first Batman movie with Michael Keaton, the makers of Batman Returns could even have done some justice to Vicky Vale. Given the fact that they chose to have Ra's al Ghul in the film, having Talia as the love interest would have made much more sense. It would be nice to see film-makers displaying more sense. :D

More troubling still, the film has Bruce Wayne learning Batman's ninja tricks from Ra's al Ghul, a Batman villain invented some 30 years after Batman himself, and one who has never had any link to Batman's origins before. Bringing Ra's al Ghul into Batman Begins violates the dramatic integrity of the Batman myth almost as badly as bringing Doomsday into Smallville would violate the Superman myth. >:(

Speaking of Ra's al Ghul, many people will recall that he typically refers to Batman as "the Detective." Indeed Batman premiered in Detective comics and had the reputation as the Great Detective from the start. Even in the campy 1960s Adam West version Batman remained a great detective, putting together obscure clues to foil the villains' psychopathic plots. Yes Batman Begins entirely drops the notion of Batman as a great detective, and instead focuses solely on making him "darker" than the version of the other recent Batman movies.

And yet, for a film that supposedly takes Batman back to his dark roots, Batman Begins glaringly omits the real original Batman's dark habit of gunning down villains with pistols he routinely carried. Now that I would have liked to have seen. :D Seriously though, I wouldn't expect to see Batman return to gunning down villains any more than I'd expect to see Superman return to the early limits of jumping 1/8 of a mile or barely lifting a car. In two-thirds of a century, these iconic superheroes have grown, putting out wide branches and putting down deep roots. There's no "going back to the original." By "going back to the original" with Batman people seem to really mean making him not like Adam West's campy Batman of the 1960s. The insistance that Batman be not-Adam-West demonstrates that, the way that Christopher Reeve really IS Superman , Adam West still, after all these decades, really IS Batman. :D

There are some things I liked about the film. It shows the earlier Batman as not all that competent, especially with the whole jumping around rooftops and swinging from a Bat-line thing. I mean, he couldn't have started out as perfect. Although it violates the "original" Batman premise, likewise, the all-terrain Bat-armored-assault-vehicle makes more sense than the urban automobile. I also liked the way that Alfred ordered the Bat-gadgets in bulk through shell companies in order to stop anyone from knowing who had really ordered them. The whole development of the relationship between Batman and Jim Gordon worked well, and of all the actors in the movie, Gary Oldman worked best at portraying his character as generally portrayed over the years in Batman. Even before I heard the character's name, I figured out that he must be a young Jim Gordon. Scarecrow too I thought particularly effective and suitably creepy.

Personally, I don't mind a somewhat darker Batman. It makes for a nice contrast with Superman, the boyscout or paladin of the superheroes. Still, there's something appealing about the old, paladinal, Adam West Bruce Wayne, who's not driven by a compulsion to be Batman and who once remarked to **** Grayson, "Man can't live by crimefighting alone." ;D

Edit: For the sequel they're planning I hope they get rid of the canine cowl and probably the character of Rachel Dawes (not to mention the emaciated Katie Holmes). Otherwise they might just as well call the new movie Dogman Begins Somemore. ;)

[Bookman]

haha we told you it was good! :P Personally I really like the darker Batman and etc.........it just seems right.

[CelestialStick]

haha we told you it was good! :P Personally I really like the darker Batman and etc.........it just seems right.
I could see how a generation raised on the cynical "Dark Nut Returns" by Frankly Madman would have such an attachment to the darker versions of Batman. ;)

[Ing]

the goddamn Frank Miller has gone compleatly over the edge


dark is good

rat eating pedophile is bad

[CelestialStick]

the goddamn Frank Miller has gone compleatly over the edge


dark is good

rat eating pedophile is bad






Heh. I agree. As I said originally, although Adam West's campy, paladinal Batman really still IS Batman for millions of us, I do enjoy the darker Batman as a contrast with the brightness of Superman.

[Tarlonniel]

"Dark Nut Returns" by Frankly Madman

Now that is classic.

*Yoink!* ;D

[Nerd-o-rama]

Personally? I just enjoyed it as a different Batman, rather than "Dogman" or some such.

Basically, thinking of him as a different superhero like you suggested, and not worrying about character ripoffs. Because really, every popular superhero out there has had so many different versions, even in the same media, that I don't worry too much about "authenticity" or "canon."

But then, I'm an Ultimate Marvel guy.


Also, "the goddamn Frank Miller." Nice one.

[Beleriphon]

Edit: For the sequel they're planning I hope they get rid of the canine cowl and probably the character of Rachel Dawes (not to mention the emaciated Katie Holmes). Otherwise they might just as well call the new movie Dogman Begins Somemore. ;)

Rachel by all accounts is gone, and the next villain should be Joker. The current rumour is that Carmine's son, or other relative, has hooked up with a British arms dealer (a short, almost avian arms dealer) to fight off the "freaks".

I rather enjoyed the cowl, I though it was suitably bat-like. As for the training, I think at some level the movie tries to incorporate much of the current continuities ideas about how, and where, Batman was trained. For a guy that doesn't like the idea of canonical material CS you sure seem to be bent out of shape over Rachel Dawes, but then again I hate her too. I think if a different actress had played her the character would have worked much better.

As for Ra's, he has been linked on several occasions to Batman's origins given that the comics have never explicitly stated where he learned all of his tricks. I think that it sets up a nice contrast from the begining. They even work in Henri Ducard, as Ra's' alter-ego.

The cowl, I agree it is a bit to doggish, but I don't expect a big change for the next movie.

As for the darker Batman, Frank Miller brought him back to what he was originally without going over the edge (at least in DKR). I rather enjoyed Batman Begins and have to say that of all the Batman movies it is far an away the best one.

[Ing]

yes and now he's taken him WAY over the edge with the rat eating child abducting, psycotic laughing bat maniac



btw what does eating rats have to do with crime fighting training....i can understand a survivalist learning to live off the land but where in Gotham is he going to need to live off the warped twisted urban ecosystem????

[Beleriphon]

yes and now he's taken him WAY over the edge with the rat eating child abducting, psycotic laughing bat maniac



btw what does eating rats have to do with crime fighting training....i can understand a survivalist learning to live off the land but where in Gotham is he going to need to live off the warped twisted urban ecosystem????


You mean Dark Knight Strikes Again? Yeah, didn't like that one, I recall Miller has said that he he took it way too far looking back now.

[Tarlonniel]

Ing's actually talking about this:
http://www.i-mockery.com/comics/longbox7/default.php

Beleriphon, what was it about the original Batman that Frankly M. "brought back"? Comparing the 1969-70 comics I've got with those from 1939, he seems just as dark, violent, and mysterious... maybe more so.

[Smashymcsmash]

I have to say for the guy who said "canon is only for the narrow, rigid-minded comic book fanatics. The rest of us really don't care." You seem to care a little bit about the changes they made CS. ;)

I agree that there is no reason to add a love story to a Batman story but I'm pretty sure Hollywood can't make a movie without one. I like the movie over all. They changed Ras' story entirely but it works.

[Ing]

the continuity is only dismissed for his prescious superman and the utter teeny bopper drama that is smallvile Superman-in-name-only

when it comes to bashing batman's soft underdeveloped baby skull agianst the rocks he's all about continuity and proper plot history

;)

[Beleriphon]

Ing's actually talking about this:
http://www.i-mockery.com/comics/longbox7/default.php

Beleriphon, what was it about the original Batman that Frankly M. "brought back"? Comparing the 1969-70 comics I've got with those from 1939, he seems just as dark, violent, and mysterious... maybe more so.

Well DKR is the prototypical dark and broody, and slightly nuts, Batman. That, that is just wrong. If this is what Frank Miller has relegated himself to I will say the only good comic he has ever written is DKR. What was that? Rats? Gah?

Maybe its supposed to be a "what if Batman really was totally insane" type of story. Then again....

Edit: It occured to me walking home from work (yes I was posting at work, so sue me) that Miller seems to have taken every horrible idea or concept about Batman and ramped them up to the worst possible degree. I can only imagine that this is intentional instead of him not understanding the character, but I can't for the life of me imagine why he would do such a thing.

[CelestialStick]

the continuity is only dismissed for his prescious superman and the utter teeny bopper drama that is smallvile Superman-in-name-only

when it comes to bashing batman's soft underdeveloped baby skull agianst the rocks he's all about continuity and proper plot history

;)
Heh. Actually it's specifically because people on these threads threw "canon" in my face repeatedly in order to discredit any Superman that wasn't weak and ineffectual that I tossed back the at Batman Begins. Like I was going to say on another thread before I just got too fed up to even bother to respond, I would have enjoyed this movie more if it hadn't been so overhyped by people on this thread. The truth is that it's no closer to the comic book Batman than the Batman and Robin that people regularly condemn here.

Frankly I enjoy these threads a good deal more when people can focus on the subject rather than taking personal shots at me.

[Beleriphon]

The truth is that it's no closer to the comic book Batman than the Batman and Robin that people regularly condemn here.


Perhaps true, but its still a vastly superior movie. It think ultimately thats what makes the difference. Batman and Robin is just a bad movie, regardless of an accurate Batman. This is why Batman Begins is widely considered the best Batman movie, its actually a good movie overall (well Katie Holmes not withstanding).

I also think its much closer to the comic book Batman in many regards then previous incarnations. The dark, broody character has always been there, but he isn't the technocoloured idiot that is shown in some of the other movies. Overall Batman as a character is fairly easy to do, its the supporting cast and the villains, that make the movie. Thats why Batman and Batman Returns were so good, they got the villains right. Batman Forever and Batman and Robin failed because of some poor design decisions such as making the set look like a four colour comic, and grossly overblown villains. Tommy Lee Jones is a good choice for Harvey Dent, but the character was portaryed abysmally in terms of comic book behaviour, the same way that Uma Thurman looked good as Poison Ivy, but the character fell flat. I'm even going to touch Arnold Schwarztenagger as Mr Freeze.

At some level maybe you're right CS. The reason that we all love Batman Begins is because we had no expectations going in, you had all of us saying that it was great. It is a really good movie, but going in with high expecations and then having the movie not quite meet them is always a disappointment. But you still have to admit, its the best Batman movie made thus far.

[CelestialStick]

I could see how a generation raised on the cynical "Dark Nut Returns" by Frankly Madman would have such an attachment to the darker versions of Batman. ;)



Now that is classic.

*Yoink!* ;D
Thanks! :D


Ing's actually talking about this:
http://www.i-mockery.com/comics/longbox7/default.php

Beleriphon, what was it about the original Batman that Frankly M. "brought back"? Comparing the 1969-70 comics I've got with those from 1939, he seems just as dark, violent, and mysterious... maybe more so.

Except that the original Batman racked up the villain body-count with his trusty pistols. He didn't demand that they each get a trial, like the Batman in Batman begins did.

[Tarlonniel]

I don't have any comics where he's packing bat-pistols, but it's pretty obvious Batman didn't have a "no guns" or "no kill" code back then. And Superman was just as tough when push came to shove - he used his powers to terrify more than one criminal into a confession!

[Hyrael]

I only knew of Ras through the 1990s animated series, and i had to do a wikipedia search to actualy connect the two characters. I only remebered him as "the smart sophisticated guy who comes back to life alot."

I do feel that by increasing his familiarity with batman at this early stage, they have missed out on some nice Homes-vs-moriarty interplay, with two people who hardly know eachother directly jousting. and I would have liked to see more Detective stuff. Ninja Batman is cool, but Sherlock batman should have made an appearance.

good movie, all in all. nifty BmB and cape.

and i do like the no-guns batman. Its a logical character quirk, given his past. and it gives more meaning to his retirement in Batman Beyond

[Ing]

the bat gear was good

hell Jim Gordon kicked ass, he got to do stuff insted of sit around and wait for batman to clean up the mess. i suspect with Joker we will see a return to the Sherlock Moriarty formula.

[Beleriphon]

the bat gear was good

hell Jim Gordon kicked ass, he got to do stuff insted of sit around and wait for batman to clean up the mess. i suspect with Joker we will see a return to the Sherlock Moriarty formula.

I was thinking the same thing Ing. With an origins movies is more important to establish action and character. With a sequel you can start to add in some extras, like Batman be an investigator, we saw that in Begins with his interrogations of Flass, but not as much as we would have seen in say A Long Halloween or Dark Victory. Gotta love Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.

[Ing]

gotta read Dark Victory. if i'm not mistaken its a sequel to the classic Long Halloween right?

on another note, i am distressed to hear CS's cruel harshness towards the Gothic Knight

Superman must remain at the apex of his power, even though it is a vast bastardization of his original conception, bue yet Batman is criticised from being far removed from the gunslinging heartless anti-hero he originally was? i'm sorry but inconsistancy is truely hurting your arguments almost as much as poor spelling hurts mine!

on another nother note. 3 cheer to the chaps for making the Commish a character instead of a prop, let's hope to see Harvy Dent in the next movie

[Jarl]

You know, Robin was originally going to be in Batman Returns? Guess who was gonna play him.
You'll never guess.
And when I tell you, you'll say "That's rediculous."
But then you'l remember that Burton was in charge, and you'll realise, "That's completely insane."
Marlon Wayans.

-And, on that note, Batman could be argued as having a number of personal aspects, such as his detective persona, the ninja thing, good looks, playboy 'tude, serious athletic tuning, and Gothic darkness, that each actor has portrayed with varying degrees of success. Keaton had the detective thing, a little bit of the ninja thing at times, he was definitely dark, and, whilst in the suit, could pass as somewhat athletic, you know, from a distance, in silhouette. Clooney got the darkness, the 'tude, and the good looks part, but that was about it. Val Kilmer was certainly athletic, and good looking, and had a 'tude you could bend steel on, but that was it. Bale, I feel, manages to combine the aspects to the greatest quality so far, except for the whole detective thing.

[RandomNPC]

good movie, to comment on the superman comparison im only 21 and i remember a superman cartoon where sleeping gas made him drowsy, bullets hitting his shoulders knocked him back (a little) and he had to strain to stop a speeding locomotive.

i wish i saw the first batman to be able to compare, but i can't. i bet it was good though.

[Beleriphon]

gotta read Dark Victory. if i'm not mistaken its a sequel to the classic Long Halloween right?


Yeppers. Very good as well, its also Leob's interpretation of how Robin is introduced. It actually works in that Bats had no intention of keeping the kid around a sidekick, he let him help once to get **** to leave him alone. Things kind of escalated from there.



on another nother note. 3 cheer to the chaps for making the Commish a character instead of a prop, let's hope to see Harvy Dent in the next movie

Absolutely on that one. Gordon is a real character in this, and Gary Oldman does a great job. Of course we'll see old Harv in the next one, after all the DA in Begins gets bumped off by one of Ra's' goons.

[Caillach]

Basically, thinking of him as a different superhero like you suggested, and not worrying about character ripoffs. Because really, every popular superhero out there has had so many different versions, even in the same media, that I don't worry too much about "authenticity" or "canon."



Ditto. It may have not been to strict form, but I thought it was woven together beautifully.

This Batman movie was not just "a batman movie"(watch outrageous phsyco villians mess things up) like all the others. It was a genuinely good movie. Great cinimatography, (sp?) the visuals were beautifull, the movie had theme's, and symbolism, and a depth the other movies lacked.
Yes it was changed from the comic's, but the change was to make it able to apeal as a movie, still utterly fake and impossible, but still somehow beliveable and real. The other batman movies, though mabye truer to form, never did that for me.
One thing I didn't like about the movie was whats-his-face's batvoice. He was great in the movie, but the batvoice seemed to forced. (Dr.Krane (sp?) was great though, and Ra's al Ghul was perfect for me)
(p.s. I like the new Batsuit. Way better than Val Kilmer 's , or whatever his las tname was)

and as for Adam West Batman...Way awesome. I used to watch it all the time. It is very funny when I look back on it now.
"Yes. The reamarkable ability of the near human porpoise. It was trully noble of that animal to hurl himself into the path of that final torpedo. He gave his life for ours." *snrk* only West can pull off a line like that with a straight face.

[Beleriphon]

"Yes. The reamarkable ability of the near human porpoise. It was trully noble of that animal to hurl himself into the path of that final torpedo. He gave his life for ours." *snrk* only West can pull off a line like that with a straight face.

Which is half the reason I think he does himself as Mayor Adam West on Family Guy. After starring in the 60s Batman show you have to be able to laugh at yourself.

[Ing]

the old batman was intended as a joke, which many people seem to forget...

many actors loved appearing on that show cause it let them just shed all serious acting and be as silly and absurd as possible

Vincy Price for god sake said it was one of his favorite acting jobs cause it let him take a break from his typecasted roles in horror movies. (he played Egghead btw))

[CelestialStick]

gotta read Dark Victory. if i'm not mistaken its a sequel to the classic Long Halloween right?

on another note, i am distressed to hear CS's cruel harshness towards the Gothic Knight

Superman must remain at the apex of his power, even though it is a vast bastardization of his original conception, bue yet Batman is criticised from being far removed from the gunslinging heartless anti-hero he originally was? i'm sorry but inconsistancy is truely hurting your arguments almost as much as poor spelling hurts mine!

on another nother note. 3 cheer to the chaps for making the Commish a character instead of a prop, let's hope to see Harvy Dent in the next movie
You know, I already made the point that I criticized Batman Begins for not following the Batman story on several important points specifically because people on the threads here have been beating me up with "the Superman movies aren't canonical" for a couple of months now. Apparently it's a great burden, but do try to read everything I post if you're going to comment on what I have to say.




Perhaps true, but its still a vastly superior movie. It think ultimately thats what makes the difference. Batman and Robin is just a bad movie, regardless of an accurate Batman. This is why Batman Begins is widely considered the best Batman movie, its actually a good movie overall (well Katie Holmes not withstanding).

I also think its much closer to the comic book Batman in many regards then previous incarnations. The dark, broody character has always been there, but he isn't the technocoloured idiot that is shown in some of the other movies. Overall Batman as a character is fairly easy to do, its the supporting cast and the villains, that make the movie. Thats why Batman and Batman Returns were so good, they got the villains right. Batman Forever and Batman and Robin failed because of some poor design decisions such as making the set look like a four colour comic, and grossly overblown villains. Tommy Lee Jones is a good choice for Harvey Dent, but the character was portaryed abysmally in terms of comic book behaviour, the same way that Uma Thurman looked good as Poison Ivy, but the character fell flat. I'm even going to touch Arnold Schwarztenagger as Mr Freeze.

At some level maybe you're right CS. The reason that we all love Batman Begins is because we had no expectations going in, you had all of us saying that it was great. It is a really good movie, but going in with high expecations and then having the movie not quite meet them is always a disappointment. But you still have to admit, its the best Batman movie made thus far.
Maybe it's objectively better, but more likely, that's simply a matter of opinion. Do you have any objective criteria by which you claims it's a better movie, or do you just mean that you (and maybe more people) like it better? I can't honestly say for certain that I liked it better.

You see, as picky as I am, I liked Batman and Robin, and I especially liked Arnold Schwarztenagger as Mr Freeze. That's right. Arnold seemed perfect to me as Freeze. Was he just like the Freeze of the comic books when I grew up? Well gee, I don't remember Freeze from the comic books when I grew up. Was he just like the Freeze of the comic books of today? Well, I haven't read any recent Freeze stories. Was he just like the Freeze of the campy Batman of the 1960s? Well not just like him, but I do seem to recall that that Freeze too had a sense of humor. But even if he didn't, I loved Arnold as Freeze. "Take two and call me in the morning" stands out in my mind from the dialogue in Batman and Robin. Arnold just stood out to me as being a perfect Freeze, the way that Jack Nicholson stood out as the perfect Joker.

Uma as Ivy? Meh, no strong feelings either way. Uma's attractive but when I think of the Hollywood women I find most attractive, she's not on the list. Poison Ivy? I have no strong feelings about her either.

As for other movies, well I didn't like Carey as Riddler. I thought to myself at the time that he probably captured the insane spirit of Frank Gorshan's campy Riddler that if Jim Carey hadn't been so overexposed at the time and his Riddler so like his Ace Ventura that maybe, had he not been overexposed and not done Ace Ventura so similarly, I would have thought he was perfectly cast as Riddler. Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face? Well I had never even heard of Two-Face before, so I had no preconceptions. At times he seems just as wacky as Carey's Riddler, and thus not much better than a Riddler henchmen, but at other times he seems more brutal and less intellectual, and thus appealing as a contrast.

DeVito, speaking of contrasts, played Penguin much differently than Burgess Meredith, not just darker, but more importantly, much cruder. Penguin was supposed to be the gentleman villain, cultured and elegant, and DeVito played him as almost the opposite. Yet somehow there still seemed to be something Penguinish (or Penguiny) about DeVito's performance too. I didn't have any problem with Michelle Pfifer's rendition of Catwoman, although she really wasn't much like any other Catwoman I've seen or read.

As for the other Batmans (Batmen?)--well with all that latex on, you could put Adam West back in the roll and Batman would pretty much be Batman. It's as Bruce Wayne that the actors get interesting to me. I had no more trouble accepting Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne than I did accepting Christian Bale. Indeed the only Wayne I didn't like was Val Kilmer, and that's because I don't like Val Kilmer. But none of these guys made anyone exclaim, "he really IS Batman!" or Bruce Wayne for that matter.

Were the first four Batman movies campier than Batman Begins? I suppose so, but then I grew up on a much campier Batman, so maybe little camp didn't spoil those movies for me. In fact it's the very juxtaposition of campy and seriousness that makes the first Chris Reeve Superman so good for me. But the comic books themsleves have traditionally had an element of camp, so it hardly seems out of place in movies based on the comic books.

It's hard to say whether I would have liked Batman Begins better than the other four Batman movies if people on these threads hadn't hyped it out of all proportion before I saw it. I recall the other movies as being dark and tense, like this one, and it's only in retrospect that I think of them as having elements of camp in them. Of course I'm not entirely sure that the people on the threads who object to, say, Batman and Robin and in particular Arnold as Mr. Freeze object because of the camp or for some other reason; mostly these people seem to hold it as self-evident that the movie and Arnold were bad, and frankly, before I got to this board, I'd never heard anyone object to either.

[Ing]

Batman and Robin is a bad movie


no it is a bad thing

it is universally despised. and holds a place of pure shame on all list of loathed movies.

Michael J. Nelson states that it is not only the worst movie EVER made but it is the worst thing ever made in relation to the arts. it makes no sense and it is unbearable.

I am tempted to start a thread just to get a patition of people who thinks that it sucks

[Beleriphon]

Of course I'm not entirely sure that the people on the threads who object to, say, Batman and Robin and in particular Arnold as Mr. Freeze object because of the camp or for some other reason; mostly these people seem to hold it as self-evident that the movie and Arnold were bad, and frankly, before I got to this board, I'd never heard anyone object to either.

Well I can say without fail its a bad movie, objectively. Its poorly scripted, acted, and directed. In much the same way that Katie Holmes comes off as wooden, nearly all the actors as being that in Batman and Robin and Arnold as Mr Freeze is just too over the top to really capture that villain. While the 60s TV show version certainly had a sense of humour, and the comic one does as well, I remember it being a very dry sardonic sense of humour. Arnold laughing like an maniac and blasting things with his ice gun strikes me as being more like the Joker, who tends to laugh like a maniac and blast things while spouting bad puns. Don't get me wrong here, it was a fun movie, but everything about it just stinks of trying way too hard. This in turn just made the whole thing in a giant joke, which is why its a bad movie. Not just a bat Batman movie, but just generally a bad movie.

The other movies I enjoyed. Batman and Batman Returns were good. I like Michael Keaton as Batman, and Nicholson as the Joker is inspired, same with DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. As for Two-Face, Tommy Lee Jones was a good looking, but poor Two-Face. Harvey Dent is very much like Batman's mirror, he's a monster that commits crimes instead of a monster that stops them. They also didn't really capture how torn Harvey is, the coin flip is the difference between life or death not an upsetting outcome if he doesn't get to kill somebody. While Harvey has no compunctions about killing, its not like he makes it a point to, its that the coin has become his conscience. Anyhoo thats neither here nor there in terms of actual movie quality.

Each of the movies has its own issues in terms of Batman, but overall I have to say that Batman Begins does the best job of presenting all of the characters as real people, instead of cardboard cut outs. Of all of the Batman movies the only one that I really didn't like was Batman and Robin. From a subjective perspective I didn't like the visual style, it tried too hard to let you know the movie was based on a comic book. It also didn't really give us the characters as real people, they were very much cutouts of the characters borrowed from the previous movies. Batman did the same thing with Batman, he has no character he's just a guy in a rubber batsuit, but the Joker's character completely overshadowed him so nobody seems to notice.

As for Batman and Robin my friends and I have been complaining about Arnold's Mr Freeze ever since the movie came out, so I think that its fair to say that people have complained about it for some time. This is also not the first time I have been on a message board and seen it be complained about. I honestly think that part of the problem is the marketing strategy of the producers, they were trying to sell toys instead of make a movie.

[CelestialStick]

Batman and Robin is a bad movie


no it is a bad thing

it is universally despised. and holds a place of pure shame on all list of loathed movies.

Michael J. Nelson states that it is not only the worst movie EVER made but it is the worst thing ever made in relation to the arts. it makes no sense and it is unbearable.

I am tempted to start a thread just to get a patition of people who thinks that it sucks

Well since I liked it, it's not universally despised. How many hundreds of millions of dollars did it earn? Obviously not universally-despised. Maybe there's some subset of people almost all of whom despise it--certainly I've seen several comment on these threads about how awful the commenters found it. My guess would that the subset would consist of something like avid comic-book readers? Heh. :D

P.S. Joel was vastly better than Mike anyway, and that's "universally" accepted. ;)




Well I can say without fail its a bad movie, objectively. Its poorly scripted, acted, and directed. In much the same way that Katie Holmes comes off as wooden, nearly all the actors as being that in Batman and Robin and Arnold as Mr Freeze is just too over the top to really capture that villain. While the 60s TV show version certainly had a sense of humour, and the comic one does as well, I remember it being a very dry sardonic sense of humour. Arnold laughing like an maniac and blasting things with his ice gun strikes me as being more like the Joker, who tends to laugh like a maniac and blast things while spouting bad puns. Don't get me wrong here, it was a fun movie, but everything about it just stinks of trying way too hard. This in turn just made the whole thing in a giant joke, which is why its a bad movie. Not just a bat Batman movie, but just generally a bad movie.

The other movies I enjoyed. Batman and Batman Returns were good. I like Michael Keaton as Batman, and Nicholson as the Joker is inspired, same with DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. As for Two-Face, Tommy Lee Jones was a good looking, but poor Two-Face. Harvey Dent is very much like Batman's mirror, he's a monster that commits crimes instead of a monster that stops them. They also didn't really capture how torn Harvey is, the coin flip is the difference between life or death not an upsetting outcome if he doesn't get to kill somebody. While Harvey has no compunctions about killing, its not like he makes it a point to, its that the coin has become his conscience. Anyhoo thats neither here nor there in terms of actual movie quality.

Each of the movies has its own issues in terms of Batman, but overall I have to say that Batman Begins does the best job of presenting all of the characters as real people, instead of cardboard cut outs. Of all of the Batman movies the only one that I really didn't like was Batman and Robin. From a subjective perspective I didn't like the visual style, it tried too hard to let you know the movie was based on a comic book. It also didn't really give us the characters as real people, they were very much cutouts of the characters borrowed from the previous movies. Batman did the same thing with Batman, he has no character he's just a guy in a rubber batsuit, but the Joker's character completely overshadowed him so nobody seems to notice.

As for Batman and Robin my friends and I have been complaining about Arnold's Mr Freeze ever since the movie came out, so I think that its fair to say that people have complained about it for some time. This is also not the first time I have been on a message board and seen it be complained about. I honestly think that part of the problem is the marketing strategy of the producers, they were trying to sell toys instead of make a movie.

"My friends and I didn't like it" doesn't mean that it was objectively inferior any more than "Mike Nelson didn't like it" means that. It's your opinons and you're entitled them, but you offer little in the way of persusive evidence of anything objective. Saying that it's badly acted doesn't make that an objective reality; it just means that you didn't like the acting. Having all your friends agree with you doesn't make it any more objective.

Even saying that Arnold's acting was "over the top" doesn't objectively make it bad. Shatner played Kirk over the top and that's part of what made Kirk great. Nicholson played the Joker way over the top and even you liked that. And while the 1960s Mr. Freeze couldn't run around blasting things with an ice gun because of the limits of special effects, I suspect that you know that the Mr. Freeze of the animated Batman series did just that. So forget about being objective; you're not even conveying to me a good sense of why you don't like it when you, for instance, liked the first Batman movie with Keaton.

I mean, I could see that if you didn't like over-the-top performances, you wouldn't have liked any of the Batman movies other than Batman Begins. Batman Begins doesn't seem like a comic book movie at all, but rather a taut adventure film. But it's hard to see, at least based on what you've said so far, why you'd like Batman but not Batman and Robin. Okay, maybe Keaton is darker than Clooney, but that doesn't seem to be your reason and in any case I'd have trouble seeing how Clooney's more sensitive Batman could possibly qualify the film for the status as "worst film ever" etc. I don't see how someone could love Nicholson's over-the-top performance but despise Arnold's--unless he just hated Arnold. And if Katie Holmes is wooden, and everyone in Batman and Robin is wooden, why is Batman Begins a "masterpiece" but Batman and Robin the worst movie ever? This anlaysis seems self-contradictory. (By the way, I never said that Katie Holmes put in a wooden peformance. I thought she was fine. I think her face looked terribly drawn, like she was in the throes of severe anorexia, and I thought it was odd for people beating me with "movies arent' canon" to exalt a movie that added an entirely new (non-canonical) character, but I didn't have any problem with her in general.

Now I did actually have a bit of a problem with Liam Neeson's character. He just seemed too similar to Qui-Gon Jinn at some points during the training, especially when he made a comment about being mindful of the surroundings, which reminded me of Qui-Gon telling Obi Wan to be mindful of the living Force. I actually wondered whether they put that in there as a deliberate reference (hommage perhaps) to Star Wars, but if so I think maybe they erred in doing so because it jarred me right out of the story into thinking about Qui-Gon Jinn and moving-making. For me it was only momentarily jarring once or twice, and I didn't even think to mention it in my initial post.

This sort of jarring me out of the movie effect, by contrast, happened regularly in Superman Returns, making it much harder for me to stay in the story and enjoy that movie.

[Caillach]

Maybe it's objectively better, but more likely, that's simply a matter of opinion. Do you have any objective criteria by which you claims it's a better movie, or do you just mean that you (and maybe more people) like it better? I can't honestly say for certain that I liked it better.


Well, it really does depend on what you like if you're going to say this is better than that. Your objective criteria probably differs from mine, which is why we have a different view. So you really don't have to listen to anything I say if you disagree. I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just stateing mine.

I think it honestly was better than the previous movies. Though the other movies were fun, this one managed to go deeper, to have a actual storyline with complications due to Bruce Wayne's mental state (I felt the two Keaton movies lacked depth into this) , rather than complications due to the bad guy's dasterdly deeds. Also , the "bad guy's" in this movie had more of a reason to do what they were doing rather than the classic batman explenation of "they're Nuts/really Ugly." It works great for the comic books, but for a whole movie, you need something more . Not to mention that this movie finally focused on Bruce Wayne, instead of on the "Baddies" or "The Lurve Intrest," which is how it should be. He is the main character. Let's see him in action please. These reasons combined with the Movie elements I mentioned in my previous post make Batman Begins a far better watch for me than it's predessesors (sp?)

Also (I know I'm going to get shot down for adding this one) Batman Begins was nominated for an Oscar. I could be wrong, but I don't think any other Batman movies have managed to hook an oscar nod, so other's must have found it objectively better as well. ;)

[Beleriphon]

As for the specifics of why I liked the over the top Joker is because thats the way he's supposed to be. He's supposed to be a clown, a crazy homocidal clown. I can see a crazy ice blasting maniac but Mr Freeze, for me, shouldn't be making bad puns and then laughing like self indulgent moron. Mr Freeze always struck me as intelligent character, the depiction in Batman and Robin is a laughing fool. Sure he's good with goofy gadgets and what not, but he' still an idiot. I also happen to like Arnold Schwartzenagger, I find him to be a very funny and entertaining in most movie. In Batman and Robin was entirely the wrong choice, or was given abysmal direction for where his character should be coming from.

Maybe your right CS, it is all just opinion. Its my opinion that A Tale of Two Cities is a terrible book. I can't stand it at all. That doens't mean that it isn't a classic, or good. In the same vein I like plenty of awful movies Evil Dead is one of them. That is a bad movie, but I like it anyways. I look at Batman and Robin in much the same way. Its a bad movie, but they really tried to make it good and failed, thus making it even worse that if they just didn't try.

Then again I look at the 60s TV show and laugh my ass off at how stupid it is, and no point do I actually find it entertaining for anything beyond its horrifyingly campy nature and terrible acting. Of course I think that South Park can be absolute genius in lampooning any number of issues, so I guess its all a matter of perspective.

[Tarlonniel]

I... erm... alsolikedBatmanandRobin. :o
In fact, it's the only Bat-movie I've ever wanted to see more than once (not counting Adam West's version). Sure it wasn't quality movie-making in a lot of ways, but I enjoyed it a heckuva lot. And that's all I really care about. ;D

[Caillach]

I don't really think it's a bad thing to like movies that aren't neccessarily great. (I like Troy, but Troy was not that great)
I just think that if your argueing for quality movie makeing Batman Begins wins hands down.

[Jarl]

I like how they managed to bring in the fact that The Shadow was a major precursor to Batman with the whole... well, League of Shadows thing, the ninjas, the mountains, the monastery... good stuff.

-Now if only the Shadow movie had been better. Certainly they did a good job in casting Alec Baldwin, but the movie on the whole was simultaneously over-the-top and too serious. Like Batman and Robin only worse.

[CelestialStick]

Caillach, my point about objective criteria is that in cases of taste that people often seem to confuse their subjective opinion for a non-existent objective reality. It's particularly glaring here on these threads where so many of the posters are postmodernists who seem incapable of even recognizing that an objective reality might exist. An Oscar nomination just means that someone at the Academia of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences liked the film enough to nominate it. It is unusual for a comic-book or science fiction movie to appeal to anyone at the Academy, so perhaps it says something about a broader appeal for Batman Begins that it did. A broader appeal doesn't necessarily mean it's objectively better in some sense. The notion that the world is flat, for instance had very broad appeal for a very long time, but it's objectively wrong, so mass opinion clearly doesn't equal objective truth, and when it comes to which movie is better, I'm not sure that there is an objective truth.

I object to people domatically asserting their subjective opinions as some sort of objective truth, but I don't object to people having different tastes in movies than I do. If you like Batman Begins much better than Batman and Robin, that's fine. I might have even liked it better if it hadn't been so over-hypered before I saw it. It's hard for me to say now. I'll probably watch Batman Begins again before I return it to the friend who lent it to me. Alas I don't have access to Batman and Robin to compare the two movies right now. I do know that I enjoyed Batman and Robin enough to see it again in television at least once (and I think maybe twice) after having seen it in the theater originally. (I never went to see Batman Begins in the theater, although I never made a specific decison that I wouldn't see it; rather, I just never got around to seeing it.)

Tarlonniel, somehow I'm not surprised that you too liked Batman and Robin. We seem to have curiously similar tastes, especially given our differences in age and gender. :)

Beleriphon, I find that I just don't have the patience for South Park's incessant potty-mouth humor. Once or twice ok, but not continuously for half an hour or longer. As for the Tale of Two Cities, I guess we could agree that it was the best of books; it was the worst of books. ;)

[Beleriphon]

Beleriphon, I find that I just don't have the patience for South Park's incessant potty-mouth humor. Once or twice ok, but not continuously for half an hour or longer. As for the Tale of Two Cities, I guess we could agree that it was the best of books; it was the worst of books. ;)

And a mangled quote to boot. :)

I think there are certain object things however that can define a bad movie. Poor cinematography, shaky camera control, horrifyingly bad special effects, to name a few. If Batman and Robin were on TV I'd probably watch it instead of watching NASCAR or professional bowling, but I still contest that it is a bad movie as far as movies go. There have been worse, but its still a bad movie. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy a bad movie, but just because you (or I) enjoy something doesn't make it good.

As for South Park, yes the swearing can get old, but half the time I have to laugh that outrageousness of it all, which I should point out is still bad TV, but again I enjoy it immensly. For really offensive material Team America: World Police is quite the ride. It has a few highly entertaining aspects, including a gratitous sex scene which is funny only that it is totally gratitous for a movie using marionettes, and a few neat tricks in the scenery. If you do see it, I would recommend taking a look at the Film Actors Guild headquarters, the palm tree leaves are shredded one hundred bills. Again a really bad movie, with some neat technical aspects in terms of actual movie making.

[Holy_Knight]

Let me preface what I'm about to say by first saying that Celestial Stick, I hope you don't take any of this as a personal attack, since I know you've felt like some of the other posts have been such. This isn't intended that way, although I will disagree with a fair amount of what you've said here. Also, since Ing apparently made a thread devoted to Batman and Robin, I'll put my commentary on it there. Anyway, here we go:



Let me start off by saying that if this film chronicled the rise of a new superhero, like New Vigilante or Dogman (as suggested by the ludicrously canine-looking Bat-cowl, the worst Bat-cowl in Bat-history) I would say that the film was excellent--ignoring, of course what would in that case be the wholesale theft of Batman plot devices. ;)
I never thought the cowl looked doglike, but oh well. That's not a big deal.



As a Batman movie, however, it has serious problems. Bruce Wayne did not have a childhood friend named Rachel Dawes who grew up to be the one good Assistant District Attorney in Gotham and Bruce Wayne's love interest. Over the decades Bruce/Batman has had many love interests, including Vicky Vale, Selina Kyle, Talia al Ghul and even Diana (Wonder Woman). The original Batman isn't even a love story of any sort, so they could have left out the love interest entirely. Maybe, unlike the first Batman movie with Michael Keaton, the makers of Batman Returns could even have done some justice to Vicky Vale. Given the fact that they chose to have Ra's al Ghul in the film, having Talia as the love interest would have made much more sense. It would be nice to see film-makers displaying more sense. :D
Well, I agree that Batman doesn't really need a love interest, but given that they decided to have one, I think the Rachel Dawes character is as plausible an angle as any for one to actually happen. Part of Batman has always been that he really can't have that kind of relationship, and despite the fact that the character was made up for the movie, I think they did a much better job with her than on any of the past incarnations. In particular, they did an excellent job of showing precisely why Bruce can't maintain a romantic relationship or even very many personal ones in general.



More troubling still, the film has Bruce Wayne learning Batman's ninja tricks from Ra's al Ghul, a Batman villain invented some 30 years after Batman himself, and one who has never had any link to Batman's origins before. Bringing Ra's al Ghul into Batman Begins violates the dramatic integrity of the Batman myth almost as badly as bringing Doomsday into Smallville would violate the Superman myth. >:(
Well, there's a couple ways that I look at this. On one hand, there's obviously a part of me that would like to see the movie be as faithful to the comics as possible. Nevertheless, I think that the way Ra's is portrayed was well done. Batman has always been the most realistic superhero--sure, there are fantastic things that take place in it, some of which stretch believability at times--but at its heart, Batman has always been the hero who seems like he could really exist. As such, having a Ra's Al Ghul who is a powerful but mortal adversary is a better choice than one who uses a "Lazarus Pit" to inexplicably increase his lifespan, in light of telling a story that could have happened in the real world. Now, I'll admit, I think it would have been just as good if not better to have just used a different name for the character they called Ra's Al Ghul. But since they decided to use him, I think the changes were positive. They did capture Ra's sense of having an ostensibly good goal of "cleansing the world" but being willing to sacrifice innocent lives to do it, so the character wasn't that far off in terms of motivations and scope of plans.



Speaking of Ra's al Ghul, many people will recall that he typically refers to Batman as "the Detective." Indeed Batman premiered in Detective comics and had the reputation as the Great Detective from the start. Even in the campy 1960s Adam West version Batman remained a great detective, putting together obscure clues to foil the villains' psychopathic plots. Yes Batman Begins entirely drops the notion of Batman as a great detective, and instead focuses solely on making him "darker" than the version of the other recent Batman movies.
I don't think this is a fair assessment. True, there wasn't as much focus on his detective skills as there might have been, but there's a couple reasons why I don't see that as a problem. First, this is Batman as he's just starting out, which means that we shouldn't expect the same level of capability as a detective as he has when he's more experienced. Second, we do see him doing investigation work at multiple points, and what's more, we see it in ways that were entirely absent from any of the other movies. One example of this is when Bruce is "undercover" (dressed simply as an inconspicuous man in jeans, a hat, and a hooded sweatshirt) listening in on a conversation of Falcone's through a bug. Another is when he strings Flass up by his foot and interrogates him in an alley--that scene was textbook Batman, and is a perfect example of how the movie captured his character. While it's true that he's not the master detective that he will eventually become, he still does do some detective work, it's more than he does in the previous movies, and it makes sense given that he's just starting out.



And yet, for a film that supposedly takes Batman back to his dark roots, Batman Begins glaringly omits the real original Batman's dark habit of gunning down villains with pistols he routinely carried. Now that I would have liked to have seen. :D Seriously though, I wouldn't expect to see Batman return to gunning down villains any more than I'd expect to see Superman return to the early limits of jumping 1/8 of a mile or barely lifting a car. In two-thirds of a century, these iconic superheroes have grown, putting out wide branches and putting down deep roots. There's no "going back to the original." By "going back to the original" with Batman people seem to really mean making him not like Adam West's campy Batman of the 1960s. The insistance that Batman be not-Adam-West demonstrates that, the way that Christopher Reeve really IS Superman , Adam West still, after all these decades, really IS Batman. :D
There's two things here. First, as you acknowledge, it's unreasonable to think that going back to the roots of Batman would mean making him a gun-toting character who executes those he catches, just as no one would think that re-telling Superman's origin would mean vastly reducing his power-level to its original conception. However, I have to disagree that this entails that there's no such thing as "going back to the original", and the reason can be seen in your use of the word "iconic". These characters are icons, but not as they were originally conceived. The concept for each of them grew and matured into something different and greater, and those new, matured concepts of the characters is what became iconicized as part of our modern mythology. As such, there is a very strong sense in which those are the real Batman and Superman. The real Batman is not the one who takes it upon himself to kill the criminals he catches, but rather the one who abhors both guns and killing as part of his overall motivation for doing what he does, and who ironically operates outside the official justice system in order to preserve its ideals. Similarly, the real Superman is not the one who has trouble lifting cars and can only leap tall buildings rather than fly, but instead the nearly invincible, angelic pillar of light who simultaneously transcends all human limitation while yet maintaining a human personality with all of the weaknesses therein. Insofar as they do exist as icons (and not just characters), and insofar as they possess mythological status for us, it's fair to say that those are their true personas.

Second, we've had a lot of debate about the relationship of the Adam West Batman to other portrayals of him, and I'd like to say a few things about that. If you'll allow me to use an analogy for a second, imagine the following: Let's say there's someone--let's call him "OutsiderLine", who likes Superman--but not the Superman from most of his existence. instead, he's a big fan of the electric Superman. We might see him saying things like this:

OutsiderLine: I first got into Superman comics when he had electric powers, so to me, the zappy electric Superman is Superman. I haven't read any Superman comics for awhile, but I don't really like this "solar battery" version they made him into.

You might say to him that that really isn't what Superman is like--in fact, the portrayal of Superman as having electric powers was really only a brief period in the character's history. You might even agree that those were fun comics in their own way, or that the "Zap!"s and "Pow!"s accompanying his use of his electric abilities to shock people or blow things up are amusing from time to time. However, you'd still remind him that those electric powers don't accurately represent either what came before or after it, and which the comics moved away from in favor of returning to the character's roots. Perhaps you'd point out to him that "The Man of Tomorrow Comes Back", although not official canon, is widely considered as not only one of the best portrayals of Superman but one of the best works in comic books. We might imagine him replying:

OutsiderLine: I can see how people who grew up reading "The Sham of Tomorrow Comes Back" would like the "solar" version, but if what I've heard about it is true, I have no desire to read it. To me and a lot of people, the electric version will always be what we associate with Superman.

Perhaps you'd argue with him some more, or perhaps the debate would resurface in other places. In any case, my point is: I think that you would be right in this debate, not OutsiderLine--the electric Superman just isn't Superman. Sure, there are ways in which the "solar battery" concept can be taken too far, but it still represents the essential nature of Superman. You would probably feel like even though the electric Superman might be kind of fun to read about, his appearance in some ways actually damaged the Superman mythos for portraying him so incongruously with how he had always been before. In the same vein, I agree with you that it's not part of the essence of Superman to be ineffectual, stupid, and so forth (although we might disagree on whether certain things constitute this or not). So if we imagine another poster--ExtraplanarTangent, let's say--who really loved a "bumbling dolt" sort of Superman who had colossal power but couldn't seem to use it well, I'd side with you over him even if there were a run of comics that he grew up with where Superman was portrayed that way. We'd call that an aberration in the continuity, and we'd be right to do so--that's just not who Superman is.

Similarly, in a lot of ways the Adam West Batman just [/i]isn't[/i] really Batman. His personality is vastly different, his adventures aren't realistic, his villains are ineffectual, and--let's face it--the show is pretty dumb. (Bat shark-repellent? An inflatable Batmobile? come on....) Now, that being said, I do enjoy watching it. I liked it as a kid, I like it now, and it's good for a laugh. But it's not the Batman of the majority of the comic books, either before or after, and it certainly doesn't match the [/i]iconic[/] Batman, who can't help but be a dark, realistic character given his motivations and his world. To get back to the main topic, Batman Begins does an excellent job of portraying the realism, darkness, and complexities of Batman, all of which are mostly absent from the Adam West version.



There are some things I liked about the film. It shows the earlier Batman as not all that competent, especially with the whole jumping around rooftops and swinging from a Bat-line thing. I mean, he couldn't have started out as perfect. Although it violates the "original" Batman premise, likewise, the all-terrain Bat-armored-assault-vehicle makes more sense than the urban automobile. I also liked the way that Alfred ordered the Bat-gadgets in bulk through shell companies in order to stop anyone from knowing who had really ordered them. The whole development of the relationship between Batman and Jim Gordon worked well, and of all the actors in the movie, Gary Oldman worked best at portraying his character as generally portrayed over the years in Batman. Even before I heard the character's name, I figured out that he must be a young Jim Gordon. Scarecrow too I thought particularly effective and suitably creepy.
I agree--and I'll echo you and others in saying that I particularly liked how Gordon played such an important role.



Personally, I don't mind a somewhat darker Batman. It makes for a nice contrast with Superman, the boyscout or paladin of the superheroes. Still, there's something appealing about the old, paladinal, Adam West Bruce Wayne, who's not driven by a compulsion to be Batman and who once remarked to **** Grayson, "Man can't live by crimefighting alone." ;D
Like I've said before, I see Batman as a paladin too, albeit of a much different kind than Superman. That's not that important at the moment, though. As I mentioned, I too enjoy the Adam West one, although I don't think it represents Batman well, and the lack of that compulsion is a good example of why.

...whew! Well, maybe there's more I could say, or even had in mind at one point, but I think this will have to be where I stop for now. I'll probably say some more about Batman Begins in a future post, and how it compares to the other Batman movies. CS, again let me say that I hope I didn't come across as insulting you anywhere, especially in the analogies--they were obviously parodies of a sort, but they weren't meant to be mocking.

For now, see you next time, Bat-fans. Same Bat time... you know the rest. :)

[Caillach]

Caillach, my point about objective criteria is that in cases of taste that people often seem to confuse their subjective opinion for a non-existent objective reality. It's particularly glaring here on these threads where so many of the posters are postmodernists who seem incapable of even recognizing that an objective reality might exist. An Oscar nomination just means that someone at the Academia of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences liked the film enough to nominate it. It is unusual for a comic-book or science fiction movie to appeal to anyone at the Academy, so perhaps it says something about a broader appeal for Batman Begins that it did. A broader appeal doesn't necessarily mean it's objectively better in some sense. The notion that the world is flat, for instance had very broad appeal for a very long time, but it's objectively wrong, so mass opinion clearly doesn't equal objective truth, and when it comes to which movie is better, I'm not sure that there is an objective truth.
As for the Tale of Two Cities, I guess we could agree that it was the best of books; it was the worst of books. ;)

If you're defineing Objective Criterea as striaght facts than I really don't think that anyone can make any claim onany movie being better than another.
I could argue that Batman begins had superior Visuals and Depth. To me these are my facts.
You would dissagree. Your facts are different from my facts.
Your facts state that the Movie was too far away from the comics.
My facts state that in the case of a movie this is fine.

This being the case, with the terms now defined, I'll totally eliminate my arguements from being stated as objective,and more as opinion as I'm sure everyone else will.

and as for the tale of two cities...Amen. ;)

[aaronbourque]

Several people have been urging me on this board to watch Batman Begins, so I have.

Let me start off by saying that if this film chronicled the rise of a new superhero, like New Vigilante or Dogman (as suggested by the ludicrously canine-looking Bat-cowl, the worst Bat-cowl in Bat-history) I would say that the film was excellent--ignoring, of course what would in that case be the wholesale theft of Batman plot devices. ;)

As a Batman movie, however, it has serious problems. Bruce Wayne did not have a childhood friend named Rachel Dawes who grew up to be the one good Assistant District Attorney in Gotham and Bruce Wayne's love interest.
He did in the movie.


Over the decades Bruce/Batman has had many love interests, including Vicky Vale, Selina Kyle, Talia al Ghul and even Diana (Wonder Woman).
Not at his BEGINNING.


The original Batman isn't even a love story of any sort, so they could have left out the love interest entirely.
I agree, but broad-appeal movies need love interests.

Because people suck.


Maybe, unlike the first Batman movie with Michael Keaton, the makers of Batman Returns could even have done some justice to Vicky Vale. Given the fact that they chose to have Ra's al Ghul in the film, having Talia as the love interest would have made much more sense. It would be nice to see film-makers displaying more sense. :D
But it couldn't have worked, because it's only after Batman is established that Talia really falls for him.


More troubling still, the film has Bruce Wayne learning Batman's ninja tricks from Ra's al Ghul, a Batman villain invented some 30 years after Batman himself, and one who has never had any link to Batman's origins before.
He learns stuff before meeting Ra's. It's just that he got his Advanced Degree in Ninja-ology from Ra's al-Ghul University Advanced Degree Program (aka The League of Shadows)


Bringing Ra's al Ghul into Batman Begins violates the dramatic integrity of the Batman myth almost as badly as bringing Doomsday into Smallville would violate the Superman myth.
Not really. It just gives a focus to the film. There are lots of origin stories for Batman, most of them stop after his parents were murdered, or don't get into much detail between then and his life as a masked vigilante.

Doomsday in Smallville would be sort of like having Bizarro show up in Superboy stories, and then becoming a nemesis/complication in Superman's adult life. Oh, wait. That's how Bizarro was introduced.


Speaking of Ra's al Ghul, many people will recall that he typically refers to Batman as "the Detective." Indeed Batman premiered in Detective comics and had the reputation as the Great Detective from the start. Even in the campy 1960s Adam West version Batman remained a great detective, putting together obscure clues to foil the villains' psychopathic plots. Yes Batman Begins entirely drops the notion of Batman as a great detective, and instead focuses solely on making him "darker" than the version of the other recent Batman movies.
And yet he's still detectiving, investigating crimes, and using his high intellect to make connections and operate as two men at the same time. He's just not a great detective . . . yet. It's called "Batman Begins," not "Batman Has Been Previously Established As The Best Detective Ever And That's What This Movie Will Be"


And yet, for a film that supposedly takes Batman back to his dark roots, Batman Begins glaringly omits the real original Batman's dark habit of gunning down villains with pistols he routinely carried.
Oh, he did not. First of all, he carried ONE pistol occasionally. He occasionally had no qualms about flinging thugs out of windows, but those buildings might have only been a few stories above ground. He never "gunned anyone down" but in one case, where a mad scientist--Professor Hugo Strange, I think--had mutated a bunch of people into hulking, King Kong-sized monsters (and on that occasion, he thought about how he "normally abhore the taking of human life" but that he didn't think there was any way to revert them back to regular people, and that death was better then living as a monster) and in one case where he was facing a vampire-werewolf who could only be killed by a silver bullet.

Finally, if you're going to be that much of a stickler for the "original" Batman, the original Batman didn't use batarangs until his third or fourth appearance, didn't have a "batmobile" for years, carried around a lariat, and wore a god-awful mask that was changed for his second appearance!


Now that I would have liked to have seen. :D
Bleh. I know you're joking, but Marvel's tried twice to make a Punisher movie and both times weren't very good. I don't see why the Warner Brothers studio would have had better luck.


Seriously though, I wouldn't expect to see Batman return to gunning down villains any more than I'd expect to see Superman return to the early limits of jumping 1/8 of a mile or barely lifting a car. In two-thirds of a century, these iconic superheroes have grown, putting out wide branches and putting down deep roots. There's no "going back to the original." By "going back to the original" with Batman people seem to really mean making him not like Adam West's campy Batman of the 1960s. The insistance that Batman be not-Adam-West demonstrates that, the way that Christopher Reeve really IS Superman , Adam West still, after all these decades, really IS Batman. :D
I don't see how that tracks. Superman Returns is about continuing in the traditions of the (first two) Reeve-starring Superman movies, while Batman from 1989 and Batman Begins have been about showing how Batman was like before the 1960s and the Comics Code Authority (which was what the 70s O'neal/Adams revamp which led to DKR and Year One were about, too).


There are some things I liked about the film. It shows the earlier Batman as not all that competent, especially with the whole jumping around rooftops and swinging from a Bat-line thing. I mean, he couldn't have started out as perfect.
And yet you demand that he starts out as the perfect detective?


Although it violates the "original" Batman premise, likewise, the all-terrain Bat-armored-assault-vehicle makes more sense than the urban automobile.
Except in the sense of the "original" Batmobile, which was as urban camo as well as a utility vehicle.


I also liked the way that Alfred ordered the Bat-gadgets in bulk through shell companies in order to stop anyone from knowing who had really ordered them.
But wai, how could not-the-world's-greatest-detective have come up with such a plan?

. . .


The whole development of the relationship between Batman and Jim Gordon worked well, and of all the actors in the movie, Gary Oldman worked best at portraying his character as generally portrayed over the years in Batman. Even before I heard the character's name, I figured out that he must be a young Jim Gordon. Scarecrow too I thought particularly effective and suitably creepy.
Agreed, though the "original" reason Batman and Gordon teamed up was because Batman saved Gordon's life!


Personally, I don't mind a somewhat darker Batman.
He's not even really that dark, compared to some other versions of Batman. This is how Batman should have been portrayed all along: scary as all hell to criminals, a bit creepy maybe even to those he works with, but ultimately human and caring and a sign of hope, and interested in justice more than a) vengeance or b) the letter of the law.


It makes for a nice contrast with Superman, the boyscout or paladin of the superheroes. Still, there's something appealing about the old, paladinal, Adam West Bruce Wayne, who's not driven by a compulsion to be Batman and who once remarked to **** Grayson, "Man can't live by crimefighting alone." ;D
If Adam West is really your template for the "perfect Batman"--or the better Batman--then your taste is simply so screwed up that I am incapable of agreeing with you. It can be fun to see on occasion, but it should no longer be what people think of when they think "Batman."


Edit: For the sequel they're planning I hope they get rid of the canine cowl and probably the character of Rachel Dawes (not to mention the emaciated Katie Holmes). Otherwise they might just as well call the new movie Dogman Begins Somemore. ;)
The only problem I had with the cowl was how huge-tastic the forehead was . . . and that Batman can't look up by simply turning his head, he's gotta turn his whole waist . . .

But since I think that Rachel Dawes was unneeded in the first place, I have no problem with her not being in the sequel, or only being in it minimally (just long enough for the villain of the piece--hopefully Joker--to kill her as writer's shorthand that he's eeeeeevil).

. . . unless they make her the movie-verse Two-Face. That . . . could be interesting.

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; interesting-good or interesting-bad I can't say . . .

[Jarl]

Huh... female two-face...

-Makes as much sense as black two-face. All systems are go.

[Ing]

nah she's victim #1 of SMilex

no such thing as a chemicle imbalance my ass!!

[Caillach]

I dunno. I don't think she'll be back in the next one. She made it pretty clear that she wants to be "just Friends" (I respect that) so Bruce is just gonna have to move on and find a new love interest.

[Ing]

it's stated she's gone

Katie Holmes isn't comming back.

some have jokeing suspected it had to due with all the psycho bable and psycho reactive drugs that pop up in the Batman world ::)

[Beleriphon]

some have jokeing suspected it had to due with all the psycho bable and psycho reactive drugs that pop up in the Batman world ::)

Really? I always thought it was because I would jokingly say that she sucked. ;D

Anyhoo, here's hoping for the Joker in the next one.

[Ing]

hopes are well placed

Mr. J has been confirmed

[Beleriphon]

hopes are well placed

Mr. J has been confirmed

Excellent, any news on who's playing the Clown Prince of Crime yet?

[SteveMB]

You might say to him that that really isn't what Superman is like--in fact, the portrayal of Superman as having electric powers was really only a brief period in the character's history. You might even agree that those were fun comics in their own way, or that the "Zap!"s and "Pow!"s accompanying his use of his electric abilities to shock people or blow things up are amusing from time to time. However, you'd still remind him that those electric powers don't accurately represent either what came before or after it, and which the comics moved away from in favor of returning to the character's roots....

Similarly, in a lot of ways the Adam West Batman just [/i]isn't[/i] really Batman. His personality is vastly different, his adventures aren't realistic, his villains are ineffectual, and--let's face it--the show is pretty dumb. (Bat shark-repellent? An inflatable Batmobile? come on....) Now, that being said, I do enjoy watching it. I liked it as a kid, I like it now, and it's good for a laugh. But it's not the Batman of the majority of the comic books, either before or after, and it certainly doesn't match the [/i]iconic[/] Batman, who can't help but be a dark, realistic character given his motivations and his world. To get back to the main topic, Batman Begins does an excellent job of portraying the realism, darkness, and complexities of Batman, all of which are mostly absent from the Adam West version.
The analogy fits particularly well when you consider that the Batman comics went through a "silly season" in the 1950s, and had only recently shifted back toward Batman's grim and gritty roots when the TV series was on the air. The TV show was actually fairly close in tone to many of the comics stories of that period (though not, obviously, to the stories before and since that define Batman for most of the fans).

[Ing]

A background actor from The Matrix Reloaded was at first set, but it appears he has been dumped.

lachey hume and paul bettany are in talks apparently
and adrian brody was brought up as suggestion.

i also heard rumor that Hugo Weaving was considered but i don't think that's true.

but the characters of Harvy Dent and the Joker are confirmed to be in the movie!!!

[Closet_Skeleton]

What if it's all a lie and Kelly Holmes is the Joker? Wait, they've already done that female version of the joker with the dumb name.

If I knew anything about actors I could probably tell you who I thought would make a good joker... Might be good if he was completly differant to Nickleson's interpretation, because if they get someone who can do a Jack Nickleson impression to play the Joker it will probably suck. If they got some random famous stand up comic to do it it will probably suck as well.

Okay, the name wasn't that bad, but anyone who has a "secret identity" that is almost just like their super hero/villain name is usually kind of lame in that respect.

[Carmen]

And if Katie Holmes is wooden, and everyone in Batman and Robin is wooden, why is Batman Begins a "masterpiece" but Batman and Robin the worst movie ever? This analysis seems self-contradictory.

Well, I don't think "Batman Begins" is a masterpiece, though I do think it's the most enjoyable Batman flick since Tim Burton's "Batman". I also don't believe that "Batman & Robin" is the worst movie ever made, although I think it's the least enjoyable live-action Batman flick. But I think the analysis goes something like this.

Katie Holmes = 1 actor
Everyone in "Batman & Robin" = many actors

Movie with 1 wooden actor > Movie whose cast was entirely made of wood

Of course, if you disagree with the idea that the entire cast of "Batman & Robin" gave wooden performances, then you will, naturally, disagree with the analysis. ;D


I thought it was odd for people beating me with "movies aren't canon" to exalt a movie that added an entirely new (non-canonical) character.

CelestialStick, this statement confuses me. The people who beat you with the "movies aren't canon" statement are obviously not as attached to the comic-book canon as you are. Why would the addition of a non-canonical character in a non-canonical movie bother them?

Ing, I hate to tell you this, but Mike Nelson was wrong. "Batman & Robin" is not the worst movie ever made. In fact, it isn't even close. The worst movie ever made is a French film called "Zombie Lake". If you choose to share my pain by watching this atrocity, it is available from Netflix. ;D

[Ing]

its something we like to call hyperbole


try it sometime

i like bad movies

i think the worse is tied with

Manos the hands of fate
Crawling terror
Plan 9 from outer space
Swamp Diamonds

[Jarl]

its something we like to call hyperbolla


try it sometime
It's actually what we call "hyperbole". A hyperbola is... it's like a... it's a geometry thing, is what it is. Something about the locus of all points in a plain... whatever.

-It would almost be funny to have Mark Hamill playing the Joker, but it would also be highly inappropriate. Adrian Brody sounds nice, but consider for Mr. Freeze: John Malkovich.

[Ing]

Pat Stewart for Fries (i checked it is spelt Fries)

[The Glyphstone]

Anything involving the words "Uwe Bole". :)

[Ing]

Shudders*

you are an evil little monopoly man

[Kontonshin]

Excellent, any news on who's playing the Clown Prince of Crime yet?


Honestly, if they could get Mark Hamill, he'd be awesome. He doesn't necessarily have the right *look*, but you can do a lot with makeup, and when he does the voice of the Joker in the cartoons, he sounds like a fragging dangerous *loony*.

So what's this about Batman being a "rat-eating pedophile"?
:o

[Ing]

Frank MIllers All Star Batman and RObin

[ElfLad]

its something we like to call hyperbole


try it sometime

i like bad movies

i think the worse is tied with

Manos the hands of fate
Crawling terror
Plan 9 from outer space
Swamp Diamonds
Have you ever seen Manos without the protective cushion of Joel and the Bots? Because it is soul-crushingly bad. With Batman & Robin, at least something is happening, instead of Torgo walking around all funny for a whole minute. Or the fifteen minutes of dialogue-less driving. *shudders*

[Ing]

I don't know...Clony hobbles around in his bat suit in a manner remenisent of Torgo (he had hurt his leg and was in a cast durring filming)

plus both had no real plot and were empty inside

Manos is hillarious on its own ((for some reason i can't get over how happy the hell hound always looks. he's such a happy looking dog))

[Santiago]

Several people have been urging me on this board to watch Batman Begins, so I have.

Let me start off by saying that if this film chronicled the rise of a new superhero, like New Vigilante or Dogman (as suggested by the ludicrously canine-looking Bat-cowl, the worst Bat-cowl in Bat-history) I would say that the film was excellent--ignoring, of course what would in that case be the wholesale theft of Batman plot devices. ;)

As a Batman movie, however, it has serious problems. Bruce Wayne did not have a childhood friend named Rachel Dawes who grew up to be the one good Assistant District Attorney in Gotham and Bruce Wayne's love interest. Over the decades Bruce/Batman has had many love interests, including Vicky Vale, Selina Kyle, Talia al Ghul and even Diana (Wonder Woman). The original Batman isn't even a love story of any sort, so they could have left out the love interest entirely. Maybe, unlike the first Batman movie with Michael Keaton, the makers of Batman Returns could even have done some justice to Vicky Vale. Given the fact that they chose to have Ra's al Ghul in the film, having Talia as the love interest would have made much more sense. It would be nice to see film-makers displaying more sense. :D

More troubling still, the film has Bruce Wayne learning Batman's ninja tricks from Ra's al Ghul, a Batman villain invented some 30 years after Batman himself, and one who has never had any link to Batman's origins before. Bringing Ra's al Ghul into Batman Begins violates the dramatic integrity of the Batman myth almost as badly as bringing Doomsday into Smallville would violate the Superman myth. >:(

Speaking of Ra's al Ghul, many people will recall that he typically refers to Batman as "the Detective." Indeed Batman premiered in Detective comics and had the reputation as the Great Detective from the start. Even in the campy 1960s Adam West version Batman remained a great detective, putting together obscure clues to foil the villains' psychopathic plots. Yes Batman Begins entirely drops the notion of Batman as a great detective, and instead focuses solely on making him "darker" than the version of the other recent Batman movies.

And yet, for a film that supposedly takes Batman back to his dark roots, Batman Begins glaringly omits the real original Batman's dark habit of gunning down villains with pistols he routinely carried. Now that I would have liked to have seen. :D Seriously though, I wouldn't expect to see Batman return to gunning down villains any more than I'd expect to see Superman return to the early limits of jumping 1/8 of a mile or barely lifting a car. In two-thirds of a century, these iconic superheroes have grown, putting out wide branches and putting down deep roots. There's no "going back to the original." By "going back to the original" with Batman people seem to really mean making him not like Adam West's campy Batman of the 1960s. The insistance that Batman be not-Adam-West demonstrates that, the way that Christopher Reeve really IS Superman , Adam West still, after all these decades, really IS Batman. :D

There are some things I liked about the film. It shows the earlier Batman as not all that competent, especially with the whole jumping around rooftops and swinging from a Bat-line thing. I mean, he couldn't have started out as perfect. Although it violates the "original" Batman premise, likewise, the all-terrain Bat-armored-assault-vehicle makes more sense than the urban automobile. I also liked the way that Alfred ordered the Bat-gadgets in bulk through shell companies in order to stop anyone from knowing who had really ordered them. The whole development of the relationship between Batman and Jim Gordon worked well, and of all the actors in the movie, Gary Oldman worked best at portraying his character as generally portrayed over the years in Batman. Even before I heard the character's name, I figured out that he must be a young Jim Gordon. Scarecrow too I thought particularly effective and suitably creepy.

Personally, I don't mind a somewhat darker Batman. It makes for a nice contrast with Superman, the boyscout or paladin of the superheroes. Still, there's something appealing about the old, paladinal, Adam West Bruce Wayne, who's not driven by a compulsion to be Batman and who once remarked to **** Grayson, "Man can't live by crimefighting alone." ;D

Edit: For the sequel they're planning I hope they get rid of the canine cowl and probably the character of Rachel Dawes (not to mention the emaciated Katie Holmes). Otherwise they might just as well call the new movie Dogman Begins Somemore. ;)

If they made the Batman movie 100% analogous to the comics, it would be a 15 hour film.

[Tiberian]

If they made the Batman movie 100% analogous to the comics, it would be a 15 hour film.
Give me an intermission, and I'm up for it.

[CelestialStick]

Ok, before I read all of the replies since I last posted, I want to say that I viewed the flim a second time before returning it to the friend who lent it. Because the disappointing first viewing dispelled all the hype built up by people on this board (and by the wife of the fellow who lent me the film) I found it generally more enjoyable than the first time around.

I did, however, find two stupid items I'd over looked the first time around, and remember two others, and all involve the Batmobile.

I don't care if the Batmobile was designed to jump over rivers--there's no way that Batman would let himself get chased into a parking garage and then resort to the monumentally stupid act of jumping across rooftops. The Batmobile has to weigh at least a couple of tons and given that it appears heavily armored, probably many, many tons. It's possible that some of those rooftops would have supported the weight of the Batmobile had it been gradually lowered onto them by a helicopter, almost most of them probably wouldn't have, and there's no way that they would have supported the weight of a falling (roof-jumping), speeding Batmobile. That Batman would let himself get chased into a parking garage seems stupid itself--or shows him as stupid, which I don't support--and jumping from roof to roof is even more stupid.

Then there's the notion of having to move from a sitting position to a reclining position to fire weapons. This is stupidly impractical for any vehicle designed for fast combat. It might have seemed like a "cool special effect" to the move-makers, but special effects should support the movie rather than undermine it with their obvious stupidity.

Then there's the notion that Gordon could operate the vehicle, and especially the weapons, without ever having so much as sat in it before. Tied to that is the stupidity of counting on someone who's never even sat in it before to know to operate the vehicle, especially the weapons. (Technically that's two points, but they're so intertwined that to be nice I'm listing them as one stupidity rather than two. ;D)

Finally there's the stupidity of leading the cops right to the point where the vehicle goes offroad. One of the reaons that the police can't ever track the Batmobile back to the Batcave is that it drive on city streets to it leave no tracks on the asphalt or concrete. Now I happen to think that an all-terrain Batmobile makes more sense than the standard car--since I don't care about canon--but if he goes off the road with those tires in right in front of the police they will track him right back to the Batcave. The fact that he jumps over a ravine and through a waterfall isn't going to stop them from finding the cave. They will see that the tracks end at the edge of the ravine and see from the depths of the track that the vehicle was speeding. Especially after seeing it (stupidly) jumping across rooftops they'll know it can jump (and indeed at high enough speeds a normal car would go over that ravine and through the waterfall) and just look behind the waterfall. Then they have him.

Ok, so enough about the Batmobile-related stupidity and on to other second impressions of the movie. I'd say that I enjoyed the portion before he became Batman more than the later parts of the movie. The early portions were taught and well-written, with a believeable character. Batman, like all comic book superheroes, requires some suspension of disbelief, but the early parts of the movie don't, and when we finally see him in his costume the sudden requirement that we suspend disbelief jarred me out of the movie. In general this confirmed my original impression that I like it better as a not-Batman movie than as a Batman movie, though perhaps in a new way.

Although I mentioned initially that they chose a new character instead of one of Batman's traditional love interests, I found that on second viewing the new character actually worked well, and since I don't really care about canon, I liked her. Also she didn't really seem so thin and drawn until the end of the movie. I have no particular dislike for that actress, so I wouldn't mind if the sequel includes her. She's not as likeable as Kirstin Dunst from the Spiderman movies, but then that's a high standard to reach, and indeed we wouldn't really expect to see the sort of longing and pining in a dark Batman movie as we would in a lighter Spiderman movie. Peter isn't as dark as Bruce, so a ligher woman and a lighter love story suits him better.

One of the things I didn't like about the earlier Batman movies is that while the first one introduced Vicky Vale, and indeed allowed her to find out Batman's secret identity even in the first movie, the subsequent movies write her out. I'm not a big fan of the actress who played her (name escapes me at the moment) and the way she played Vicky seemed vacuous and shallow (the way that actress usuall comes across) but dropping her reduced the continuity across the movies. So I hope they bring back this new Batman love interest, and even with the same actress.

Ok, that's all I can remember at the moment, so I'll see about responding to other posts since my last one.

[Beleriphon]

One of the things I didn't like about the earlier Batman movies is that while the first one introduced Vicky Vale, and indeed allowed her to find out Batman's secret identity even in the first movie, the subsequent movies write her out. I'm not a big fan of the actress who played her (name escapes me at the moment) and the way she played Vicky seemed vacuous and shallow (the way that actress usuall comes across) but dropping her reduced the continuity across the movies. So I hope they bring back this new Batman love interest, and even with the same actress.


That would be Kim Basinger, see L.A. Confindential for her in a great role (be aware very much a noir movie where the good guys don't necessarily win). And yes she was stupid and vacuous. Unfortunately the writers seemed to think it would be fun to have Batman get a bevy of Bond like girlfriends. As for Vicki getting a total write off, thats not technically true, she does get mentioned in Batman Returns although I don't recall the exact reason given. The actually story reason the is the introduction of Catwoman, who gets ignored in Batman Forever in her place we get Chase Meridian, who gets ignored for nobody by Batman and Robin.

[Ulicus]

The Batmobile has to weigh at least a couple of tons and given that it appears heavily armored, probably many, many tons. It's possible that some of those rooftops would have supported the weight of the Batmobile had it been gradually lowered onto them by a helicopter, almost most of them probably wouldn't have, and there's no way that they would have supported the weight of a falling (roof-jumping), speeding Batmobile.

A similar point was brought up on C.H.U.D, then they realised that he had that navigation system that was telling him pretty much everything about the buildings he was jumping to. So he knows what's what.



That Batman would let himself get chased into a parking garage seems stupid itself--or shows him as stupid, which I don't support--and jumping from roof to roof is even more stupid.

I was under the impression that he *led* them there, but whatever.



Then there's the notion that Gordon could operate the vehicle, and especially the weapons, without ever having so much as sat in it before. Tied to that is the stupidity of counting on someone who's never even sat in it before to know to operate the vehicle, especially the weapons. (Technically that's two points, but they're so intertwined that to be nice I'm listing them as one stupidity rather than two. ;D)

Funnily enough, that's the only thing that REALLY bugged me in the entire film.


She's not as likeable as Kirstin Dunst from the Spiderman movies, but then that's a high standard to reach, and indeed we wouldn't really expect to see the sort of longing and pining in a dark Batman movie as we would in a lighter Spiderman movie. Peter isn't as dark as Bruce, so a ligher woman and a lighter love story suits him better.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA! Movie Mary-Jane is likeable? Since when? We're talking about a woman who realised she loved Peter/Spider-Man, and decided to *wait until the moment she was at the altar* to "inform" John Jameson that she wasn't interested anymore.

Really likeable...

And she's no way near hot enough to be Mary Jane either, but that's besides the point. :P

[Caillach]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA! Movie Mary-Jane is likeable? Since when? We're talking about a woman who realised she loved Peter/Spider-Man, and decided to *wait until the moment she was at the altar* to "inform" John Jameson that she wasn't interested anymore.


Amen. What a witch, huh?
If he left her at the alter everyone would be all "poor ol' Mary Jane. Her ex is such a jerk" but not when she does it to someone else. :P

[turkishproverb]

Pat Stewart for Fries (i checked it is spelt Fries)


Dear God.

Thats a good idea.

(I thought it was spelled Freise, now I have to check....anyway.)

HE could definitelly do the dark, melancholy evil that is Mr. Freeze.

A guy that likes causing people pain, but doesn't show emotion. Bald. Genious. Calculating. Cold.

Forceful, but quiet. Threatening, but not physical.

It's Picard, only evil.

I LIKE it.


As for Joker, I still want Chrispin Glover.

Watch willard (Remake).

Tone the part where he's finally pissed off and losing it up, a few knotches.

Add hidious laughter, green hair, white skin, and lipstick.

Enjoy.

[Ing]

It amazes me to no end that Celestick is caught up over BLEEDING TIRE TRACKS in Batman Begins but finds TURNING BACK TIME TO SAVE LOIS acceptable in his love for the Superman movie.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA! Movie Mary-Jane is likeable? Since when? We're talking about a woman who realised she loved Peter/Spider-Man, and decided to *wait until the moment she was at the altar* to "inform" John Jameson that she wasn't interested anymore.

It is a movie. When else do you tell your fiance you don't like him when you're in a movie.

It's traditional and it is traditional because it's the most dramatic point in being engaged.

[Steward]

It is a movie. When else do you tell your fiance you don't like him when you're in a movie.

It's traditional and it is traditional because it's the most dramatic point in being engaged.


That doesn't make the character any more likeable to me. Especially when we're supposed to think that she's wonderful for doing it right the altar, instead of before the wedding like a "kind" or "reasonable" person.

[Ing]

I would like to take the time to just say i didn't mean to be so hostile to CS...i was in a bad mood, but i'll keep it up for humor purposes and just give his appology.

[Caillach]

It is a movie. When else do you tell your fiance you don't like him when you're in a movie.

It's traditional and it is traditional because it's the most dramatic point in being engaged.


still doesn't mean she's not a witch.

[Beleriphon]

still doesn't mean she's not a witch.

I thought that title belonged to the women that hung out with Dr Strange. Mary Jane always struck me as more of a ditz, or a nit wit. :P

[evileeyore]

Ing's actually talking about this:
http://www.i-mockery.com/comics/longbox7/default.php



Bwahahahaha!

Okay I'm sold I have to get this series, it sounds absolutely awful.

This review right here takes the cake:

But let's think about three important words here. "Fifteen hours ago". That means one of two things. Clark Kent either drank this carton of milk fifteen hours before **** Grayson was kidnapped by Batman, and thus it is a magical prescient carton of milk, OR it's actually been a long enough ride in the Batmobile for **** to have been reported missing, for his name to get to the missing persons groups, for them to submit his information to the milk company, for the milk company to print the cartons, distribute the cartons, and then for Clark Kent to go to the grocery store and buy the carton of milk. Let's see, by my rough estimate, that means that Batman and **** have been on the way to the Batcave for, oh, about FIVE [CENSORED] WEEKS now.


Beautiful!

[AmoDman]

Again, Stick, pretty much all of your negative complaints seem to be centering on how they portrayed Batman rather than on the ACTUAL movie. For God's sake, Begins is a simply fantastic movie. Tell me it's character developement is crap, tell me the storyline is horrible, that the action sucks, the interaction is atrocious, the cinematography is sub-par, tell me, in essence, that the movie is bad for ANY reason in your opinion OTHER than that you didn't like how they chose to portray Batman. Personally, it's one of my favorite portrayals yet. Brilliant move IMO to have Al'Ghul as his mentor. I love it. This isn't the comics, this can't be the comics, it's a movie. It's got to make it on it's own skin and the filmmakers made decisions accordingly.

p.s. The Cowl? Honestly, the cowl? Literally NO ONE I know has EVER mentioned a *word* about the cowl, only the fact that his suit, overall, in this movie was freaking awsome. Also, Katie Holmes wasn't that bad. I'm only saying this for all the hate in this thread. She wasn't great, but she wasn't horrid either. I'm rather disspapointed, actually, that her character won't be, if only momentarily, in the sequel, because I thought they established her quite well...her dissapearance will almost be somewhat mystifiying without some serious explaining later on.

[Smashymcsmash]

However it fits in perfectly with the previous movies. All the women who know that Bruce Wayne is Batman mysteriously disappear. Hmmmm.. you know a hidden cave would be a great place to dispose of bodies. ;D

[CelestialStick]

Again, Stick, pretty much all of your negative complaints seem to be centering on how they portrayed Batman rather than on the ACTUAL movie. For God's sake, Begins is a simply fantastic movie. Tell me it's character developement is crap, tell me the storyline is horrible, that the action sucks, the interaction is atrocious, the cinematography is sub-par, tell me, in essence, that the movie is bad for ANY reason in your opinion OTHER than that you didn't like how they chose to portray Batman. Personally, it's one of my favorite portrayals yet. Brilliant move IMO to have Al'Ghul as his mentor. I love it. This isn't the comics, this can't be the comics, it's a movie. It's got to make it on it's own skin and the filmmakers made decisions accordingly.

p.s. The Cowl? Honestly, the cowl? Literally NO ONE I know has EVER mentioned a *word* about the cowl, only the fact that his suit, overall, in this movie was freaking awsome. Also, Katie Holmes wasn't that bad. I'm only saying this for all the hate in this thread. She wasn't great, but she wasn't horrid either. I'm rather disspapointed, actually, that her character won't be, if only momentarily, in the sequel, because I thought they established her quite well...her dissapearance will almost be somewhat mystifiying without some serious explaining later on.


I debated for a long time whether to resurrect this thread that I started. Some of the comments turned from discussion of the movie into personal invective directed at me. Indeed I stopped posting entirely for about 10 days because of the nastiness of some of the replies.

I'm hoping that this time around perhaps some people can exercise a bit more adult self-restraint when faced with disagreement.

A movie about a comic book superhero must by necessity be judged by how well it brings forth the essence of that superhero. The Chris Reeve Superman is great, and a classic, not because everything about it was above reproach or without fault--indeed I just watched it again and could name numerous faults--but because it completely captured the essence of Superman. To millions of people Chris Reeve WAS Superman. In between noticing various weakness, I laughed, I cried, and during the closing credits I picked up my cat and had her fly around the room, doing an orbit of the dining room ceiling light fixture. :D

Batman Begins was a good movie in some ways, and flawed in others, but it was better when it wasn't depicting Batman than when it was. That doesn't mean it was horrible or not entertaining. That doesn't even mean that the depiction of Batman was bad or not even decent. It's just that as a Batman movie it's not great and not a classic, as it didn't capture the essence of Batman. Millions of people did not walk away from Batman Begins thinking that Christian Bale WAS Batman.

[AmoDman]

Millions of people did not walk away from Batman Begins thinking that Christian Bale WAS Batman.

I disagree. Many movie-critics and movie-goers alike as well as several comic fans thought Bale nailed his portrayal of Batman. For the non-comic fans, all they know of Batman is Begins, and the former cheese. Most anyone can see that Begins is more accurate in nature, if not in various details :P.

I think Begins IS the most accurate Batman movie in substance to date, but, regardless, MOVIES should be judged as MOVIES, and NOT how accurately they portray certain comics (a million and a half iterations of Batman already existing regardless). You can complain that they made stupid decisions (all geeks do), but inaccuracy is not grounds for lack of quality. Begns, IMO, succeeds on almost every level to make it an excellent MOVIE. Your character nit-picking aside, what can you say to the effect that the MOVIE, in and of itself, was bad? I'm not saying it's w/o flaws. Every movie has them, to various degrees. But what, exactly, makes Begins sub-par, or even just average, jusged just as a movie?

[Kish]

I disagree. Many movie-critics and movie-goers alike as well as several comic fans thought Bale nailed his portrayal of Batman. For the non-comic fans, all they know of Batman is Begins, and the former cheese. Most anyone can see that Begins is more accurate in nature, if not in various details :P.

Hold it a sec here. You're lumping in Batman (the one with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson) and Batman Returns under "the former cheese" and asserting that most anyone can see that Batman Begins is somehow "more accurate"?

I think you're quite wrong. (About what "most anyone" sees, and the viability of claiming to speak for "most anyone" here, not about what you see, of course.)


But what, exactly, makes Begins sub-par, or even just average, jusged just as a movie?
Attempting to be deep and meaningful without actually taking a stance was what did it for me. After all the (end-spoilers for Batman Begins) fiddling about "It's wrong to kill/no it isn't/Thomas Wayne was too soft and was responsible for his own death/the person who said that is a dangerous lunatic," the one thing I came away from the movie with the impression the movie was trying to say was that Batman was wise, and Thomas would be proud of him--for exactly what, I'm not sure. Considering that the one clear moral stance Batman took--"I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you"--is pure moral cowardice (there's a case to be made for the moral viability of killing, and one to be made for the moral viability of not killing even the worst people, but for the idea that killing is all right if and only if you can do it by inaction instead of action? Please), I found this...distasteful.
There's nothing wrong with an action movie. There is, imho, something wrong with an action movie that pretends, not very well, to be something more.

[CelestialStick]

Hold it a sec here. You're lumping in Batman (the one with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson) and Batman Returns under "the former cheese" and asserting that most anyone can see that Batman Begins is somehow "more accurate"?

I think you're quite wrong. (About what "most anyone" sees, and the viability of claiming to speak for "most anyone" here, not about what you see, of course.)

Attempting to be deep and meaningful without actually taking a stance was what did it for me. After all the (end-spoilers for Batman Begins) fiddling about "It's wrong to kill/no it isn't/Thomas Wayne was too soft and was responsible for his own death/the person who said that is a dangerous lunatic," the one thing I came away from the movie with the impression the movie was trying to say was that Batman was wise, and Thomas would be proud of him--for exactly what, I'm not sure. Considering that the one clear moral stance Batman took--"I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you"--is pure moral cowardice (there's a case to be made for the moral viability of killing, and one to be made for the moral viability of not killing even the worst people, but for the idea that killing is all right if and only if you can do it by inaction instead of action? Please), I found this...distasteful.
There's nothing wrong with an action movie. There is, imho, something wrong with an action movie that pretends, not very well, to be something more.
These are good points all around.

Let me add a few points:

1. A handful of movie critics saying that Bale "nailed" the part doesn't mean that millions of people walked away saying, "It's scary--Bale IS Batman." That just didnt' happen.

2. Batman Begins followed the Batman comic book canon less faithfully than the earlier Batman movies which you label "cheese."' They may be less serious, but they're not less accurate. They're more accurate.

3. All of the Batman movies of the recent franchise are much darker than the previous mass-media version of Batman--the campy Adam West Batman of the 1960s. Anyone who claims these dark movies were merely cheese lacks any sort of historical context for his analysis.

4. Comic book characters have always done fantastic and unrealistic things. It's cheesy that a man runs around in tights and fake bat (or dog!) ears fighting crime. It's cheesy that one man without any firearms can take out a dozen armed guards. It's super-cheezy that an armored all-terrain vehicle jumps from rooftop to rooftop. If you don't want unrealistic fantasy, don't make a movie about a comic book character.

[Holy_Knight]

Batman Begins was a good movie in some ways, and flawed in others, but it was better when it wasn't depicting Batman than when it was. That doesn't mean it was horrible or not entertaining. That doesn't even mean that the depiction of Batman was bad or not even decent. It's just that as a Batman movie it's not great and not a classic, as it didn't capture the essence of Batman. Millions of people did not walk away from Batman Begins thinking that Christian Bale WAS Batman.
I'm actually surprised that you see it this way, since my reaction was just the opposite. I felt that despite some creative liberties, they captured Batman's essence perfectly, which was why I think so highly of the movie. I won't go into specifics now, altohugh I think I mentioned some of them in a previous post.

In any case, I'm not sure if we can quantify the "millions of people" thing, but here's a relevant question to ask about that. If we do ask whether millions of people came away from Batman Begins or one of the previous movies thinking "Bale was Batman" or "Keaton was Batman" (No, I didn't forget Kilmer or *shudder* Clooney, they were left out on purpose)--what should we take that to mean? Do we mean:

"Millions of general comic book fans thought the portrayal was very good"?

"Millions of Batman comic book fans thought the character's essence was captured"?

"Millions of people in the general public thought the portrayal was convincing in a narrative sense"?

Do we mean some combination of these, or something in between? For my part, I consider myself a very big Batman fan, and I think Batman Begins has been the best movie portrayal of the character. Do most other Batman fans agree with me? My impression is that they do, and most of what I've heard confirms that, although I could yet be mistaken. My point, however, is that it definitely makes a big difference what and whom we mean in talking of what millions of people thought of the Batman movies.


Considering that the one clear moral stance Batman took--"I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you"--is pure moral cowardice (there's a case to be made for the moral viability of killing, and one to be made for the moral viability of not killing even the worst people, but for the idea that killing is all right if and only if you can do it by inaction instead of action? Please), I found this...distasteful something more.
Actually, I disagree here, Kish. I don't see this as moral cowardice, and here's why: In neither saving nor killing Ra's, Batman is allowing him to reap the consequences of his own actions. Ultimately we are all responsible for our own choices, and by stepping aside, Batman simply forces Ra's to face that responsibility. Ra's is killed, yes, but he is killed as a direct result of the evil schemes that he himself had set in motion. He is, then, the architect of his own destruction. Refusing to interfere with that is not a sign of cowardice, but rather the acceptance of a very powerful form of justice.

[Kish]

Perhaps I should watch the movie again. However, I'm curious now. What impression of Thomas Wayne did you come away with?

[CelestialStick]

I'm actually surprised that you see it this way, since my reaction was just the opposite. I felt that despite some creative liberties, they captured Batman's essence perfectly, which was why I think so highly of the movie. I won't go into specifics now, altohugh I think I mentioned some of them in a previous post.

In any case, I'm not sure if we can quantify the "millions of people" thing, but here's a relevant question to ask about that. If we do ask whether millions of people came away from Batman Begins or one of the previous movies thinking "Bale was Batman" or "Keaton was Batman" (No, I didn't forget Kilmer or *shudder* Clooney, they were left out on purpose)--what should we take that to mean? Do we mean:

"Millions of general comic book fans thought the portrayal was very good"?

"Millions of Batman comic book fans thought the character's essence was captured"?

"Millions of people in the general public thought the portrayal was convincing in a narrative sense"?

Do we mean some combination of these, or something in between? For my part, I consider myself a very big Batman fan, and I think Batman Begins has been the best movie portrayal of the character. Do most other Batman fans agree with me? My impression is that they do, and most of what I've heard confirms that, although I could yet be mistaken. My point, however, is that it definitely makes a big difference what and whom we mean in talking of what millions of people thought of the Batman movies.

Actually, I disagree here, Kish. I don't see this as moral cowardice, and here's why: In neither saving nor killing Ra's, Batman is allowing him to reap the consequences of his own actions. Ultimately we are all responsible for our own choices, and by stepping aside, Batman simply forces Ra's to face that responsibility. Ra's is killed, yes, but he is killed as a direct result of the evil schemes that he himself had set in motion. He is, then, the architect of his own destruction. Refusing to interfere with that is not a sign of cowardice, but rather the acceptance of a very powerful form of justice.

Millions of people means just what it says. Not millions of comic book fans, or millions of aliens from Mars, or millions of plant spores. Millions of people found that for them Chris Reeve WAS Superman, and the same just isn't true for Christian Bale and Batman.

On the other topic, Batman had Gordon blow out the supports for the train track so that when Ra's got there in the train it would fly off the track and he would die. Batman was already responsible for Ra's death. I have no problem with Batman killing Ra's, but to pretend otherwise demonstrates, as Kish put it, moral cowardice.

[Smashymcsmash]

Okay, taking into account that no one can say whether or not millions of people thought Christian Bale WAS Batman, we have to accept that both opinions are equally valid. At least until someone takes a poll. :)
Personally, though I really like the movie, my "definitive" Batman is the one from the various animated series. In his own series he is constantly struggling against a bevy of deranged lunatics. In a team dynamic, facing generally more powerful and less KrAAAZY opponents, he is the man with the plan. He is better written there then many of his comics. Man, I miss JLU.

[CelestialStick]

Okay, taking into account that no one can say whether or not millions of people thought Christian Bale WAS Batman, we have to accept that both opinions are equally valid. At least until someone takes a poll. :)
Personally, though I really like the movie, my "definitive" Batman is the one from the various animated series. In his own series he is constantly struggling against a bevy of deranged lunatics. In a team dynamic, facing generally more powerful and less KrAAAZY opponents, he is the man with the plan. He is better written there then many of his comics. Man, I miss JLU.


No, it was well-documented back after the first Chris Reeve movie came out. There was just nothing comparable with Batman Begins.

I miss Justice League too. I bought the first two seasons on DVD, and two third-season DVDs containing a paultry 6 episodes (3 per DVD) but I never got to see the 5th season at all. :(

Eventually episodes 3-5 will probably come to DVD in toto.

[Ing]

Actually, I disagree here, Kish. I don't see this as moral cowardice, and here's why: In neither saving nor killing Ra's, Batman is allowing him to reap the consequences of his own actions. Ultimately we are all responsible for our own choices, and by stepping aside, Batman simply forces Ra's to face that responsibility. Ra's is killed, yes, but he is killed as a direct result of the evil schemes that he himself had set in motion. He is, then, the architect of his own destruction. Refusing to interfere with that is not a sign of cowardice, but rather the acceptance of a very powerful form of justice.


If you think Ras actually died in that train wreck then clearly you have never read comics before.

[Holy_Knight]

Perhaps I should watch the movie again. However, I'm curious now. What impression of Thomas Wayne did you come away with?
My impression is that he was a good man who genuinely cared about improving the city of Gotham and helping his citizens; and that he wanted to raise his son to be the same sort of man despite the obvious temptation to just live a life of ease. My thought was that Thomas was suposed to have been proud of Bruce because Bruce essentially continued his father's legacy of sacrificing for the sake of the city and its people.



Millions of people means just what it says. Not millions of comic book fans, or millions of aliens from Mars, or millions of plant spores. Millions of people found that for them Chris Reeve WAS Superman, and the same just isn't true for Christian Bale and Batman.
I think you're missing my point (well, two points, really). The first is that you're not really making a fair comparison. Millions of people in general thought that Chris Reeve was Superman because he was the first (and for a long time only) big screen adaptation of the character. Many of them would have had very little exposure at all to him other than that as well. The same goes for Michael Keaton. Obviously when you have someone in the first big budget motion picture many people will think of that portrayal as defining the character, especially since a very large number of them probably had never even read a Batman comic book. People who are younger than you or I may think of Brandon Routh or Dean Cain as the definitive Superman (maybe even Tom Welling), simply because that's their first and/or biggest exposure to the character. That in itself doesn't really speak one way or the other to how accurately the character is portrayed. On that note, the other point is that if we're asking which portrayal is most true to the essence of the character, then it's really not the opinion of the general public that matters. It's fans of the characters, those who actually know who the character is. My claim was that the majority of comic book fans, and especially Batman fans, would agree that Bale's Batman was the best of the ones in the movies. I could be mistaken, but either way the thoughts of actual fans of the character are what is relevant to that question, not those of people whose only or main exposure to the character is the movies. (Incidentally, probably everybody would agree that the Kevin Conroy Batman is likely the best overall. That series was gold.)



On the other topic, Batman had Gordon blow out the supports for the train track so that when Ra's got there in the train it would fly off the track and he would die. Batman was already responsible for Ra's death. I have no problem with Batman killing Ra's, but to pretend otherwise demonstrates, as Kish put it, moral cowardice.
I know that he had Gordon blow out the train tracks, but my point remains. Ra's had intentionally set the train in motion for the purpose of causing the death and destruction of others, and Batman simply forced him to reap his own bitter fruits that he had sown. I see that as allowing justice to take place, as Ra's deservedly met the doom he had intended for innocent others.



If you think Ras actually died in that train wreck then clearly you have never read comics before.
Lol... if it had been a comic, then yes, he would have survived. Since it was a movie, we can safely say that he actually died.

[Tiberian]

Since it was a movie, we can safely say that he actually died.

If you don't see the body, there not really dead. Just like Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2.

[Kish]

Lol... if it had been a comic, then yes, he would have survived. Since it was a movie, we can safely say that he actually died.
Batman did exactly what villains often do to him: He left his enemy in a death trap. I'm surprised you think Ras actually dying is likely, much less certain.

[Ing]

plus this is the man who taught batman everything he knows (well in regard to ninjitsu)

he taught batman everything batman knows...not everything he (Ras) knows.

[Steward]

If you don't see the body, there not really dead. Just like Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2.

Even if you do see the body, that doesn't rule out clones, body-doubles, robots, disembodied brains, zombies, and really good corpse-acting.

[Smashymcsmash]

No, it was well-documented back after the first Chris Reeve movie came out. There was just nothing comparable with Batman Begins.


Where was it well-documented that millions of people did not feel that way about Christian Bale? As much as you may feel it to be true it is still your opinion. Just as others have said they disagree with you and have the right to that opinion. All iwas trying to say was that unless you have exit interviews for these movies there is no way for you to prove one way or the other.

[Electric_Bard]

Amen to that fellow Pixie!
Personally, I loved Begins; it was, simply put, amazing. I have many points I could put up, but my time is limited so, how are they going to make Joker a threat? We've seen how the new Bat deals with chemical agents (fear gas), so how is laughing gas going to be that different?

[Beleriphon]

We've seen how the new Bat deals with chemical agents (fear gas), so how is laughing gas going to be that different?

For one its funnier. As for the Joker's threat its always stemmed from the fact that he's immensely intelligent (at some level he's very much Batman's homocidal opposite), and completely amoral. He doesn't care who he hurts, or what he does so long as the joke is played out.

The gangster's like Falcone are dangerous because of money and power mongering. But they are still human, they still have human emotions. The Joker is different, at that level he's very much and inhuman monster. He fits in the concept of the psychopath in that he has a total disregard for the feelings of others. You could reason with Falcone, the Joker might just up and shoot you because he thinks it would be funny.

As for the rough outline that I've heard rumoured it sounds like a certain British arms dealer (in fact one umbrella wielding, bird obessed arms dealer) will be making a deal with one of Falcone's rivals to control the Gotham underworld. In face of this we will of course have Joker, Clown Prince of Crime, on the other end working his magic to make the "freaks" dominant in the criminal world of Gotham. We end up with a gang war between Joker and a crime boss.

[Tiberian]

Even if you do see the body, that doesn't rule out clones, body-doubles, robots, disembodied brains, zombies, and really good corpse-acting.
Very true. But you left out Shape-shifting minions. And replacement villians, oops, Mysterio's back.

[Caillach]

Amen to that fellow Pixie!
Personally, I loved Begins; it was, simply put, amazing. I have many points I could put up, but my time is limited so, how are they going to make Joker a threat? We've seen how the new Bat deals with chemical agents (fear gas), so how is laughing gas going to be that different?


The Joker is Batmans character foil, and pretty much Bats main nemisis so I'm sure they'll find a way to make it work.
I just hope they don't over do the joker, I mean yes he is insane, but I hate it when a movie over does the whole maniac thing. Thats why I liked Dr.Krane in this movie, he did the perfect crazy for me. I know the Jokers will have to be a more obnoxious crazy, but I really hope they don't over do it.
I also hope they don't stop developing Bruce Wayne/Batman's character, and focus the whole movie on The Joker.

[Electric_Bard]

They won't. It is the Batman series after all! I think this next Joker isn't going to be as in-your -face as he has been. Seeing as Begins is so much darker, the next joker will be more creepy than evilly jubilant.

[Steward]

I also hope they don't stop developing Bruce Wayne/Batman's character, and focus the whole movie on The Joker.

A lot of movies do that. They focus a lot of attention on the villains (see: Batman and Robin) and that's good, but they sort of forget the guy with the pointy ears on his head.