It's the 70s with cellphones. I made a joke about DC Sliding time years ago, trying to calculate when was the earliest that an adult Batman would have been an 8 year old to have seen The Legend of Zorro (2005) or the Mask of Zorro (1998) and thus credit Antonio Bandaras in large for the creation of the Batman persona in young Bruce's mind.
Zorro the Musical? I read a shitty little mini years ago, no idea which one, but it seems that Bruce was so guilty about forcing his parents to see Finding Nemo again (this is not a joke) that he butched up his memories, so that their deaths would seem plausible to him if they were killed seeing a hard core adult action movie (From an 8 year old' perspective.) like Zorro. (Actually I htink it was just the art. There was a clown fish on the movie screen and I just worked everything out from that.) If your parents are going to be killed by a movie, some movies are less embarrassing then others.
If by Donal's character, you're referring to Harvey Bullock, he's been around since the '70s, so he would be go with Penguin and Batman there, not Fish Mooney.
I'm not sure how popular that particular musical is, which is relevant because the aforementioned viral marketing specifically uses the phrase 'popular musical' in describing the activity that had brought the Wayne family out onto the streets of Gotham.
Is Spider-Man still running? I have a friend who lives in a PG 13 hole, raising children. About a week ago I showed her the pilot to Smash. Over the freaking moon, she was, and then she asked: "Is there another one on next week?"
The idea that the Waynes were killed after seeing Zorro originated with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns in 1986, and is not immutable gospel. For the first four and a half decades in which the origin story was told, it was just an unspecified movie. In the first screen adaptation of the origin, the 1985 Super Powers Team episode "The Fear" by Alan Burnett, the movie was Robin Hood (implicitly explaining the name he later gave his sidekick). And of course in Batman Begins it was an opera (Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito, though it's often misidentified as Die Fledermaus, whose title means "The Bat").
Some us don't believe that any comics had been printed before Dark Knight. It's like trying to explain dinosaurs to a Christian who insists that the Earth is six thousand years old. Faith is more important than facts.
Well, tonight's the night and I'm looking forward to it! Should prove to be interesting or at the very least an entertaining distraction for an hour. The aspect I'm mostly looking forward to is the actor playing The Penguin. From the pre-airing stuff I think this guy is going to really stand out as an actor and make the character really something special. Maybe not as extremely, but I think he's going to do for The Penguin what Heath Ledger did for The Joker. Really define the role and make it his own. Which, I'd love to see done for The Penguin in order to wash off the horrible stench that still lingers from Burton's take on him in Batman Returns.
Yeah, Robin Taylor looks like he's going to be an awesome Oswald. I think his voice is a little weak -- Burgess Meredith is a hard act to follow -- but in looks and performance, he seems superb.
Burton made his Penguin a little too grotesque but DeVito was still pretty good and embodied the character quite well. That said, I'm also looking forward to this version.
DeVito did a good job, sure, but the origins given to The Penguin and the look of him was over-the-top. The Penguin isn't supposed to be grossly deformed or anything like that he's just supposed to odd-looking enough to remind people of a Penguin. Not you know, actually look like a penguin! Looks like this series' take on it is going to be that Oswald is simple going to have some disability to his mobility that makes him walk oddly, reminding people of a penguin. His facial features are, roughly, "penguin like" but it looks like his walk is the larger part of it.
It looks to me (we'll know for sure in four hours or so) that what happens in the pilot is that he gets badly beaten, which is why he's limping when he gets picked up by the people who call him a penguin. Whether he retains the limp or just the nickname remains to be seen.
That's kind of what I gathered but, at the same time, the guys who picked him up say, "Anyone ever tell you when you walk you look like a penguin?" which I interpreted as the show's way of telling us "he walks funny so this is how he got his nickname." He also seems to have a "No, I never hear that at all. " sort of reaction to it. (Like someone who hears this all of the time, like if you have a certain name. I for one get asked all of the time if I'm related to a star who shares the same last name as me, phonetically. His is spelled differently.) I think in some of the quick clips later on it seems like he walks with a similar gait at other points in the episode which, for all we know, spans days. But, granted, could also span one or two days. Anyway, be interesting the see the route they go with his character. I just think it'll be great to finally see a good, faithful, live-action adaptation of the character. (Burgess Meredith aside. He was great but, it was the campy 1960s Batman series/movie.) I've always felt that he could have/should have been used in the the Nolan Batman movies since they had already built an organized crime framework in it. I'm "least" excited to see the versions of Catwoman and Poison Ivy in this series. First of all, those characters are usually very, very, sexualized in the comics and movies (and to certain degree in the cartoons) so making them children is a bit of an odd choice and awkward. And while young PI could be interesting to see how she grows (heh) over the course of the series as maybe an extreme Eco-Terrorist, I'm not so sure about Catwoman being a young child who's apparently an adept cat burglar. I get the concept of a "life of crime" but at the same time it just seems odd she literally spends her entire life as a cat burglar? And she's, apparently, a skilled one as a child living off the streets?! I see no need to introduce other child characters other than Bruce Wayne and introducing child versions of other DC characters seems to tread a little too close to Smallville "it's a small world" territory where Bruce just happens to have some connection, or have met, all of his future foes as a child. Possibly to the point of straining the credibility of his maintaining a secret identity in the future. (Granted, the series isn't a Smallvillian origin story for Batman and is more focused on Gordon's earlier years as a beat cop.) But, man, how long before Gordon investigates a crime in a traveling circus featuring the Flying Graysons and their teenage child (Dick's future father) or a classmate of Bruce's runs for school-president and likes to make choices by flipping a coin? Hopefully they won't goo *too* much down the Smallville route and make the world so small we see early versions of every Batman character. (Again, I realize Bruce/proto-Batman isn't the focus character here but it seems he plays a significant role, so I wonder if the show is going to drop in on his life from time-to-time/bounce between his story and Jim's.)
I found the first episode to be a little too sanitized and lacking in 'punch'. Most network procedurals are like that, like The Mentalist. The characters aren't grabbing me enough either. If it weren't a Batman show, I'd move on. I'll stick with it though in hopes that something might jell. Agents of SHIELD started off this way, after all. I went from barely interested to more interested there. Robin Lord Taylor was a real standout as predicted. Young Bruce's presence adds to the show but I'm still curious as to how he'll be plausibly included in a Jim Gordon series. Will he drop in on the future commissioner from time to time as a kid interested in crime-fighting? Looks like Bruce will get involved with our young Michelle Pfeiffer soon enough. Shades of Smallville.
It was okay and definitely felt comic book-ish. It didn't wow me, but I'll tune in again next week to see if it starts to grab me. I didn't find it that violent, certainly not after watching things like Boardwalk Empire and Game Of Thrones.
It was pretty good, some of it felt odd (like the face-pointed GoPro shots during Gordon's pursuit of the presumed shooter) worth watching again next week to see where it goes. Some odd tonal things though and it also felt rushed, like parts of it were sort of missing. I'm intrigued.
Yeah, it has possibility to it. I just wonder how the procedural aspects will play out. Seems like Nygma is their forensics/evidence guy that should be interesting.