BTAS: Super-duper delux box set...

[Christopher]

Emh wrote:

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...but I hate how many of the characters (both men and women) got much skinnier, with the women practically having "Disney-esque" waists.

I certainly wasn't fond of that either. There was a certain tendency to juvenilize the women. (I hated the character animation of Catwoman in "You Scratch My Back" -- they gave her the body language of a bubbly teenage girl rather than a mature, graceful, sophisticated woman. They improved it in "Cult of the Cat," though.) But since Batgirl was college-age or so, the look worked on her. And her new black costume was tons better than the old grey one.

There are other things about the "New Look" that I'm not fond of, and there are additional aspects of TNBA I'm not crazy about (mainly the loss of the different voices for Bruce and Batman), but it's worthwhile overall and occasionally brilliant -- heck, it's worth it just for "Over the Edge" and "Mad Love." And the visual style can be gotten used to. Heck, it took me a while to get used to the original B:TAS design style. It may be hard to remember in this age where extreme stylization is routine in US TV animation, but at the time, it was unprecedented for a serious action-adventure animated series to have such cartoony, caricatured designs. It took me weeks, if not years, to get used to a Batman whose chin alone was as big as the whole rest of his face.

[ancient]

The women (Harley aside) and the Joker really didn't look like, well, people in the redesign. The huge heads and the weird skin-colors on Ivy and Catwoman was really off-putting to me. I didn't really like the new perma-Batman that replaced Bruce either.

Never-the-less, I still like TNBA. I like both Penguins, but I like the human Penguin slightly more. The character redesigns aren't enough to put me off it.

[Reverend]

I rather thought the redesign of Scarecrow was definitive.
Freeze looked good (though he looked even better in Batman Beyond), the Joker, I honestly didn't like any less than the BTAS version, since I have issues with that version too (again, BB improved on both.) Penguin, as has already pointed out was much improved, Bane looked much better, as did croc, Nightwing and Robin were both a welcome change. Poisen Ivy is a tough one since I see the new version showing how she'd become less and less human, though oddly I wish they'd made her barefoot like in "Almost Got 'Im", she never looked better than she did in that episode. Catwoman is a tough character to get right and I didn't much like either costume, though the new brunette Selina looked much better. Most of the others (Harley, Twoface, Scarface) were for the most part unchanged, so I don't think the change was as bad as some seam to think.

Either way, by the time they got to JLU I think they had the "perfect" style for the subject matter, at least within the constraints of format, budget and time.

[Lonemagpie]

I only have some VHS tapes - I feel an upgrade coming on...

[Frontier]

Oooh!

Pretty new box!

I dunno. If there where many more new extras, I would do it. For B:TAS, I'd double-dip. I mean, some things are so good, double-dipping is a prerequisite. You know? But they have to put on the gravy to justify it. Something juicy to make it less... repetitive.

Doubt I can do it here.

I'm already dishing out $209 for the entire "Real Ghostbusters" series on DVD in November. This, in spite of the fact I know this time next year, it will be released for $125 or such. I already regret it, it's money I don't have... but RGB are my childhood PERSONIFIED! Beyond TMNT, Beyond GI Joe, beyond Power Rangers, Batman, everything else! RGB defines me as a kid, and I can't stand the thought of it existing in full on DVD and me not owning it.

[Christopher]

Reverend wrote:

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I rather thought the redesign of Scarecrow was definitive.
...Bane looked much better...
Catwoman is a tough character to get right and I didn't much like either costume, though the new brunette Selina looked much better.

I agree with all these statements. The new Scarecrow was genuinely scary, something the old one never was. And not just the redesign, but the new Jeffrey Combs voice as well. It's a shame we only got one Scarecrow episode in TNBA. (And no Riddler episode, although the new Riddler design was probably the worst of them all, so it's no great loss.)

The DC comics set in the animated continuity did a story explaining the change in Selina's look. Basically, she discovered that the cosmetics company that made her blonde hair dye engaged in cruel animal testing. I don't know if they did one explaining how Penguin changed. (I'm assuming he got radical cosmetic surgery and liposuction.)

Most of the others (Harley, Twoface, Scarface) were for the most part unchanged, so I don't think the change was as bad as some seam to think.

Harley was fine, but I didn't like the new Two-Face look much. As for Scarface, both he and the Ventriloquist were radically redesigned. But the TNBA Scarface/Wesker episode was really good.

[Reverend]

He was? I honestly didn't notice. That is not beyond the general slimming and streamlining most of the male characters were treated to. One of the major flaws of BAT, I'm always though is how all the men seam to have such huge hips. While some of the women admittedly looked a little too pixie like, in an odd way I think it suited Barbara at least. There's something about the old design that made her look a little to young for me, though that might have as much to do with the original voice actress too.

As for the Riddler, I think he's an almost impossible character to write for. Nobody can ever seam to decide if he's a vanilla Joker of a campy Luthor. Personally I've always thought he should be played as something closer to The Question (and not just because of the ? fixation.) That is a fierce intelligence but misunderstood and a notch or two past that old genius/madness line.

As for Oswald, it wasn't just his character design. I liked that they made him a semi-legit businessman, somewhat filling the void left by all the old mob bosses. A more stable presence that Batman can intentionally keep in place to block anyone more dangerous muscling in.

[Christopher]

Reverend wrote:

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While some of the women admittedly looked a little too pixie like, in an odd way I think it suited Barbara at least. There's something about the old design that made her look a little to young for me, though that might have as much to do with the original voice actress too.

We saw in B:TAS that Babs was in college alongside Dick, and she seems to have been a year or two behind him, since she wasn't graduating along with him in TNBA's "Old Wounds" flashbacks. So she was probably 18-19 in B:TAS and a few years older in TNBA. (The odd thing is that Mystery of the Batwoman has her away at college and treats that like a recent development. I figure that was grad school.)

As for the Riddler, I think he's an almost impossible character to write for. Nobody can ever seam to decide if he's a vanilla Joker of a campy Luthor. Personally I've always thought he should be played as something closer to The Question (and not just because of the ? fixation.) That is a fierce intelligence but misunderstood and a notch or two past that old genius/madness line.

Well, that's kind of the way he was played in B:TAS. He wasn't Joker-like at all, but a smart, calculating, debonair figure who prided himself on his intellectual superiority. Unfortunately, the first couple of Riddler episodes were undermined by seriously lame riddles and an overdependence on computer-game plot gimmicks. The only one that really depicted him credibly as a shrewd intellect was "Riddler's Reform."

The version of the Riddler in The Batman was actually more effective. He was seriously creepy and cold there, effectively played by Robert Englund, and in the show's fourth season, TNBA veteran Stan Berkowitz gave him a tragic origin story that felt more B:TAS-like than the B:TAS Riddler's rather pedestrian origin.

As for Oswald, it wasn't just his character design. I liked that they made him a semi-legit businessman, somewhat filling the void left by all the old mob bosses. A more stable presence that Batman can intentionally keep in place to block anyone more dangerous muscling in.

Yeah, the Iceberg Lounge was an interesting new twist. I like it that Dini has introduced it in the Batman comics he's writing these days. Although he's working in the main DC universe now, his Batman comics almost feel like they could be in the B:TAS continuity (but with more overt violence). Actually, in Dini's comics, both Penguin and Riddler have gone nominally straight, with Riddler hiring himself out as a consulting detective. They're both still kind of disreputable businessmen, but actually staying within the law, unlike TNBA's Penguin, who was still a gangster using his legitimate business as a front.

Actually, though, my problem with B:TAS was that there were too many mob bosses. Aside from Thorne, the only one we saw more than once was Stromwell, and that was only twice. Otherwise, new mob bosses kept coming out of the woodwork and disappearing again. Particularly in Mask of the Phantasm, where we were introduced to at least three major mob bosses we'd never heard of before but who'd supposedly been around for decades. One of them even had a line about how Batman had never leaned on them before, which is hard to reconcile with his approach toward mobsters in the show. It would've been nice to have more continuity there.