The Batman - 2022

[Palanan]

New trailer:

Spoiler

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I'm so far out of the DC loop that I watched the whole trailer thinking it was another TV series.

Music is...not subtle. Not sure what I think about Andy Serkis as Alfred. Also not sure how convincing Pattinson will be as emo Bruce Wayne. And definitely not impressed with the chop-shop Batmobile.

Meh. Not stirring me from late-stage superhero burnout.

[Cen]

It looks like it was done milion times over...Literally nothing in this trailer excites me.

Black Adam on the other hand...

[Peelee]

It looks like it was done milion times over...Literally nothing in this trailer excites me.

Eh, there hasn't been a good movie Riddler (and I still maintain that Jim Carrey would be an amazing Riddler if they actually gave him a Riddler role and not "Ace Ventura: Batman Villain").

That being said, yeah, everything else looks like same old, same old.

[Dire_Flumph]

I understand people are tired of the MCU, and I'm not. I'm always eager to see what's coming down the pipe there.

But another Batman reboot? I'm going to need a better idea if there's any kind of fresh direction they're taking this in other than what this trailer is giving me. Almost all of this footage could have come from an Affleck or Bale Batman flick.

Bat-Mite shows up? I'm in. Another reboot of the core Rogues Gallery? Pass.

Eh, there hasn't been a good movie Riddler (and I still maintain that Jim Carrey would be an amazing Riddler if they actually gave him a Riddler role and not "Ace Ventura: Batman Villain").

Not a movie and I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to recommend the series, but I enjoyed Cory Michael Smith in the role on Gotham. And Jim Rash was born to play the Riddler, so I'm glad the Harley Quinn show gave him that opportunity.

[Trafalgar]

The trailer has a nineties vibe to it. Not just the music. It feels like a cross between Tim Burton's Batman movie and The Crow.

[Manga Shoggoth]

In the order of 90 years worth of material to mine, and we get another Batman film?

I get it - of the big three he is probably the easiest to write for since you don't have to deal with actual superpowers - but Marvel went for variety, and that I think was part of its success. With the amount of material they have to work with, surely they could come up with something new.

The trailer itself? Andy Serkis was probably the best bit. I reckon he could pull off Alfred, but I have difficulty recognising any of the other characters. I think there was supposed to be a Catwoman, a poor Heath Ledger^* clone, and the only reason I know there's a Riddler in there somewhere was the ? in the coffee.


^* - I give him due credit for his work, but for me there is no joker but Cesar Romero (although Mark Hamil and Jack Nicholson also pulled it off well)

[GloatingSwine]

I get it - of the big three he is probably the easiest to write for since you don't have to deal with actual superpowers - but Marvel went for variety, and that I think was part of its success. With the amount of material they have to work with, surely they could come up with something new.
[/SIZE]

Marvel went for variety because they didn't own the movie rights to any of their most popular characters, they had to sell them off in the '90s to keep the lights on.

If they hadn't you can bet your ass they would have been the ones eternally rebooting Spider-Man and the X-Men instead of Fox and Sony.


Anyway, it's another Batman film. Looked okay. My pants remain uncreamed by it or any of the other recent DC trailers. Black Adam is a character I barely know or care about other than that he's "what if Captain Marvel (not that one) but a ****", and the Flash teaser is mostly trading on Keaton nostalgia. Which, y'know, fine but we don't care that much about Ezra Miller Flash because he was only in that one trainwreck Justice League movie they tried to sell us twice.

(The character you possibly think is the Joker is apparently Penguin, I thought it might be from the nose, but do not think there will be time for him to be interesting.)

DC movies need to stop being ashamed to be comic book movies though. There should be a rule in their production rooms that if the words "grounded" or "realistic" are ever spoken James Gunn gets to walk in and slap whoever said it with a wet starfish.

[Eldan]

Yeah, colour me unimpressed as well. "Batman, but dark and *psychological* and with some ultraviolence" stopped being novel somewhere in the last three times they did that.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, colour me unimpressed as well. "Batman, but dark and *psychological* and with some ultraviolence" stopped being novel somewhere in the last three times they did that.

That's extremely generous since that's been almost the only Batman we've had since the 1980s.

[Eldan]

Eh, I count cartoons and outlier media. We have The Brave and the Bold and Lego Batman.

[Dire_Flumph]

That's extremely generous since that's been almost the only Batman we've had since the 1980s.

Unless you count the LEGO Batman movie (which was surprisingly good).

[Anteros]

Thoughts while watching the trailer: Apparently the world's greatest detective thinks punching bullet proof glass is a good way to impress someone.

Riddler, Catwoman, and Penguin in one movie? That's probably going to be a jumbled mess.

Wow, this is really edgy. Not my cup of tea at all.

[Lord Raziere]

That's extremely generous since that's been almost the only Batman we've had since the 1980s.

I know, boring and annoying isn't it? Another Batman movie is coming! and the crowd goes mild.

Serious Batman is old hat now. its a dry well, a tapped out mine. Bruce deserves to rest a bit, give the character some downtime maybe come back later with new ideas instead of constantly oversaturating us with the dark knight. We've had enough good Batman stuff for quite a while, we don't need more.

[Eldan]

Thoughts while watching the trailer: Apparently the world's greatest detective thinks punching bullet proof glass is a good way to impress someone.

Riddler, Catwoman, and Penguin in one movie? That's probably going to be a jumbled mess.

Wow, this is really edgy. Not my cup of tea at all.

And I think also what at least appear to be henchmen in grimdark clown makeup? So at least a Joker namedrop.

[Manga Shoggoth]

DC movies need to stop being ashamed to be comic book movies though. There should be a rule in their production rooms that if the words "grounded" or "realistic" are ever spoken James Gunn gets to walk in and slap whoever said it with a wet starfish.

I absolutely agree with you here. It's like they are still trying to live down the old Adam West/Burt Ward Batman, and haven't quite twigged that the (admittedly sometimes excessive) camp was why it was so popular in the first place.

[Anteros]

And I think also what at least appear to be henchmen in grimdark clown makeup? So at least a Joker namedrop.

I could see it working as a villain ensemble movie if they don't spend too much time on any individual villain. Honestly, at this point who isn't already familiar with Batman's rogue gallery? Kinda like a Spider-man vs the Sinister Six type story.

Not that I think that's what they're doing.

It looks like Catwoman doesn't even know Batman that well in the trailer, so we're getting origin story again. At least for her if not Bruce himself.

I absolutely agree with you here. It's like they are still trying to live down the old Adam West/Burt Ward Batman, and haven't quite twigged that the (admittedly sometimes excessive) camp was why it was so popular in the first place.

I don't necessarily agree. Grounded can be fine if well done. Something like Ledger's Joker performance in the Dark Knight is going to stand the test of time a lot better than something like the jokes and memes from GotG or Ragnarok. Those movies haven't aged nearly as well despite their massive popularity at the time. It just depends on what you're trying to do.

[Traab]

Hmmm riddler catwoman and penguin? It could work as a team up. Riddler being the brains, penguin the broker who gets the info and gear needed, catwoman for at least SOME fighting ability as well as her ability to steal just about anything not nailed down. Plus both riddler and penguin have their fun little tech toy gimmicks they work with, giving them another point of connection. But yeah, overall the movie looks dumb. And yes, batman punching bulletproof glass is SUPER intimidating. Had he smashed through and dragged the guy by his collar THAT would have made an impression.

[Psyren]

Ooh a gritty Batman! Thats new and fresh!

Marvel went for variety because they didn't own the movie rights to any of their most popular characters, they had to sell them off in the '90s to keep the lights on.

If they hadn't you can bet your ass they would have been the ones eternally rebooting Spider-Man and the X-Men instead of Fox and Sony.

I mean, yeah you're right, but here's the thing - Marvel happened. They showed that you can do those deep dives into the rest of the catalogue and make money. So DC has a template now, and therefore no excuse. We've even seen now that you can do TV shows, and tie those shows to the movies and back again, without losing audiences. There's still a possibility in the future that the whole tapestry collapses under its own weight, but that hasn't happened yet, and in the meantime they're making money hand over fist and convincing people to brave the theaters that otherwise wouldn't have.

Hmmm riddler catwoman and penguin? It could work as a team up. Riddler being the brains, penguin the broker who gets the info and gear needed, catwoman for at least SOME fighting ability as well as her ability to steal just about anything not nailed down. Plus both riddler and penguin have their fun little tech toy gimmicks they work with, giving them another point of connection. But yeah, overall the movie looks dumb. And yes, batman punching bulletproof glass is SUPER intimidating. Had he smashed through and dragged the guy by his collar THAT would have made an impression.

The thing about Catwoman is that she's firmly in antihero territory, so I expect her to pull off the triple if not quadruple-cross so she gets paid.

[GloatingSwine]

I absolutely agree with you here. It's like they are still trying to live down the old Adam West/Burt Ward Batman, and haven't quite twigged that the (admittedly sometimes excessive) camp was why it was so popular in the first place.

Yeah, it was also an accurate reflection of the Batman of the day, mind. Comics in the '60s were goofball stuff.

Modern movies need to split the difference and find ways to have a serious tone with a reasonable amount of levity, like BTAS did.

(As for DC following Marvel's template, everyone tried to follow Marvel's template and everyone made a balls up of it. It turns out the MCU might just have been more luck than judgement)

[Talakeal]

Looks good. Nothing terribly original, but there is nothing wrong with a back to basics Batman story if done well. I like the look of everyone, especially Cat Woman.

If the first trailer was any indication, the Court of Owls is going to be the main villain, although they seem absent from this one.

[Trafalgar]

I would just like to point out that they tried to make a campy Batman movie in 1997 - "Batman and Robin". Which had Bat Skates, a Bat Credit card, and Bat nipples. Maybe they should stay with a dark and brooding Batman movie.

I think DC cinematic universe started out on the wrong foot because they went with a dark and brooding Superman. Superman is not normally a dark and brooding character.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Yeah, it was also an accurate reflection of the Batman of the day, mind. Comics in the '60s were goofball stuff.

Ah yes, the 60's. I was even alive for half the decade. I fell in love with Batman as soon as they broadcast it over here in the late 70's.

(EDIT: Wikipedia says it was broadcash in the UK in 1989, but that can't be right - I used to watch it after school, and I graduated university in 1986)

Modern movies need to split the difference and find ways to have a serious tone with a reasonable amount of levity, like BTAS did.

The stupid thing is that - by all accounts (I've only seen bits of the film) - DC has managed to do the comic-book stuff well with Shazam. It's not that they can't do it, they won't.

(As for DC following Marvel's template, everyone tried to follow Marvel's template and everyone made a balls up of it. It turns out the MCU might just have been more luck than judgement)

I'm not so sure. Marvel started small (with Iron Man, as I recall) and built up the franchise and characters in stages, finally putting them together with Avengers. They took time to experiment, didn't over-reach and were always in a position where they could put the project down without looking as if they had failed.. That smacks of at least some level of planning and forethought rather than plain luck. (Although I acknowledge that a huge amount of luck is required...)

While others have been accused of following Marvel's template, I'm not really sure that anyone really has. More that they have tried to create the same endpoint, but without doing the same level of preperation. DC tried to do the same thing in the space of about three films and rushed it too much, and Universal "Dark Universe" Pictures dived straight in with the first film and crashed.

I'm not sure that the Avengers film would have worked on its own without the number of films that went before it. It was the first MCU film I saw, and it only worked for me because I have a knowledge of the comics going back to the early 80's (and most of them wer imports of older comics).

[Divayth Fyr]

While others have been accused of following Marvel's template, I'm not really sure that anyone really has. More that they have tried to create the same endpoint, but without doing the same level of preperation. DC tried to do the same thing in the space of about three films and rushed it too much, and Universal "Dark Universe" Pictures dived straight in with the first film and crashed.

I think Justice League is considered the 5th film in the DC Universe (Man of Steel, Bat vs Supes, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman). MCU had 5 movies before the Avengers (2 Iron Mans, Hulk, Thor, Cap). The difference is that the MCU did its best to use the movies to make people know most of the cast (even though you could make it even better by switching IM2 for a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie), whereas DC spent one of the movies on side nonsense (Suicide Squad), and doubled down on Superman (and to a slightly smaller extent, Wonder Woman). Having something for Flash or Cyborg would really help - the important characters who came into the limelight in Avengers are generally regular people, which means they don't have powers, and you don't have to really explain much of their backstory. This is largely the opposite for Justice League, which doesn't help. Neither does the mess that was the production and release... Not that I really consider Snyder's version particularly great (also, I think it is irrelevant, as the original release is considered canon?).

I think DC cinematic universe started out on the wrong foot because they went with a dark and brooding Superman. Superman is not normally a dark and brooding character.

That certainly didn't help, though it is far from the only issue.

[Psyren]

(As for DC following Marvel's template, everyone tried to follow Marvel's template and everyone made a balls up of it. It turns out the MCU might just have been more luck than judgement)

The three times they've actually followed Marvel tonally (Shazam, WW1, even TSS minus the gore) were their most successful actually. The problem is they won't commit to keeping the DCEU fun because the Dark Knight trilogy made money in the 'aughts.

[Trafalgar]

I think DC cinematic universe started out on the wrong foot because they went with a dark and brooding Superman. Superman is not normally a dark and brooding character.

That certainly didn't help, though it is far from the only issue.

I agree its not the only issue, but for me it's the biggest one. In the DC Cinematic Universe, Superman didn't feel like Superman, Batman didn't feel like Batman, and Lex Luthor DID NOT feel like Lex Luthor. They didn't get it right until Wonder Woman.

But the MCU generally gets the characters right, even if the backstory is substantially different. Hulk, in my opinion, is off but the rest are recognizably similar to the comic book.

[Traab]

I agree its not the only issue, but for me it's the biggest one. In the DC Cinematic Universe, Superman didn't feel like Superman, Batman didn't feel like Batman, and Lex Luthor DID NOT feel like Lex Luthor. They didn't get it right until Wonder Woman.

But the MCU generally gets the characters right, even if the backstory is substantially different. Hulk, in my opinion, is off but the rest are recognizably similar to the comic book.

I really think the biggest flaw in the dceu was the rush to the big payoff without the foundation work. Altering superman was stupid, but the entire set of films all felt like "Omg you guys, justice league! Its going to be great! Hold on, here it comes!" Meanwhile the mcu had excellent self contained storylines for each hero. Ones where the film itself was the payoff, not the assurance that down the line the big team up was going to roxxor yor boxxorz. I do think a decent part of it was also that the mcu films were just BETTER. Better written, better filmed, better acted. They didnt take the characters and substantially change them from what they are, so didnt tick off the comic fans, and they didnt have two tentpole characters that are so overdone you just want them to go away for a couple decades and try again in 2040. Speaking of which, I just heard they are going to reboot the fantastic four yet again due to desperately wanting to hold onto the rights despite every film they make tanking harder than the last.

[GloatingSwine]

I mean they also tried to build it on a foundation of people who hated comic books and people who read them, so that wasn't a good start either.

[Anteros]

Most of the DC heroes don't really lend themselves very well to MCU type movies anyway. Some heroes do like Flash or Cyborg, but the big 3? No. Batman is basically the poster child for grim and broody while Superman is the blandest thing since water. WW's typical presentation is "female Superman"

DC's big heroes have always been more icons than humans, while Marvel tends to focus on the human aspect of the character first. You don't get stories about the big 3 struggling to pay rent, or with alcoholism, or whatever. It's hard to even imagine Superman telling a quip.

It doesn't help that WB doesn't understand the things that do make the characters interesting. Superman's inherent goodness, and the message that people can choose to be good despite having every opportunity. Batman's struggling against adversity and drive to never give up, even when the odds seem literally impossible. WW's....well I never cared for WW. Maybe someone else can tell me what her appeal is.

[GloatingSwine]

DC's big heroes have always been more icons than humans, while Marvel tends to focus on the human aspect of the character first. You don't get stories about the big 3 struggling to pay rent, or with alcoholism, or whatever. It's hard to even imagine Superman telling a quip.

Of course not. But you do get stories about Superman being conflicted over his desire to live as a human and connect with humanity with the fact that the world needs a Superman and he's the only one who can be that.

That's the core of the really good Superman stories. He desperately wants to not have to be Superman but his moral convictions won't allow him not to be.

So how you do Superman is, largely, what Richard Donner did. Start by establishing the value of being Clark Kent. That doesn't necessarily mean redoing the origin story but does mean you need to show Clark having a loving relationship with Jonathan and Martha Kent, and that they knew all along that he wasn't human. You need to show why Superman values being human, and not being the last of his people. (This is a good place to use Lex and his resentment of Superman's power. Lex resents Superman because he sees an alien with overwhelming power and wants to prove the superiority of a human, but Clark wins by being more human)

Then once that's well established by your first story, you give him the temptation. What if he could be human all the time. What if he could tear down the barrier between himself and the people around him, to let the weight of being Superman pass from his shoulders. Couple of different ways you could do that, Superman II did it by removing his powers, For The Man who Has Everything trapped him in a dream, but you do a story where he faces the temptation of giving it all up to be Human and eventually overcomes it.

Then you introduce the Justice League because now that's the healthy solution to the problem, Superman doesn't need to carry the weight alone any more.

[hungrycrow]

Most of the DC heroes don't really lend themselves very well to MCU type movies anyway. Some heroes do like Flash or Cyborg, but the big 3? No. Batman is basically the poster child for grim and broody while Superman is the blandest thing since water. WW's typical presentation is "female Superman"

DC's big heroes have always been more icons than humans, while Marvel tends to focus on the human aspect of the character first. You don't get stories about the big 3 struggling to pay rent, or with alcoholism, or whatever. It's hard to even imagine Superman telling a quip.

It doesn't help that WB doesn't understand the things that do make the characters interesting. Superman's inherent goodness, and the message that people can choose to be good despite having every opportunity. Batman's struggling against adversity and drive to never give up, even when the odds seem literally impossible. WW's....well I never cared for WW. Maybe someone else can tell me what her appeal is.

Tony Stark was a super smart, super rich playboy in an invincible robot suit. On paper he is completely unrelatable to a general audience, but the MCU still made him work. There's nothing stopping WB from doing the same with the big 3; they just have to care about doing so.