Gotham - Season 1
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Reposting (and slightly editing) a comment of mine from Tor.com:
One thing that virtually all the screen adaptations have in common: They make the mistake of interpreting "Crime Alley" as an actual alley, of the sort that a rich couple would have no conceivable reason to take their child into at night. In fact, when Crime Alley was introduced in 1976 in Detective Comics #457 by Denny O'Neil and Dick Giordano, it was introduced thusly:
(That last being the story title. All ellipses are from the original text -- I've deleted nothing.)
So "Crime Alley" is just a nickname for the Park Row neighborhood -- it's not a literal alley. The artwork shows that the spot where the killings occurred -- or the spot where Batman stops a mugging and gets inordinately angry at the mugger for daring to draw a gun on him there, on the exact spot and anniversary of his parents' murder -- as the sidewalk in front of a row of brownstones, just a couple of doors down from the movie theater (which has become a porno theater in the story's present day).
Before that, in the original 1939 depiction of Batman's origin and later in 1948's "The Origin of Batman," the murder occurred on a street corner right under a streetlight. So in the comics, it was consistently portrayed for decades as a crime that happened right out in the open, making it all the more shocking and brazen. In O'Neil's version, the fact that such a brutal crime happens in an upscale neighborhood just adds to the shock, to the extent that it scars the reputation of Park Row forever and triggers its decline into a slum as the well-to-do residents flee. The tendency of TV and movies to put it in a literal back alley, the kind of place where you expect a crime to happen, detracts from that impact, and creates the impression that the Waynes were killed as much through their own carelessness as Joe Chill's brazenness (of course you should never blame the victim, but the impression exists nonetheless).
The only accurate screen portrayal is in Batman: The Animated Series. "Appointment in Crime Alley" (by comics scribe Gerry Conway) portrays it just as O'Neil did, as the former Park Row, now become a slum neighborhood. The actual site of the murder is shown as a sidewalk under an elevated train track. A couple of dozen episodes later (and presumably a year later in story time, since they're both on the anniversary), "I Am the Night" shows the same, but now the tracks are wider, the sidewalk under them looking darker and more enclosed.
But then there's the hallucination sequence in "Dreams in Darkness" where Batman sees his parents in a surreal, twisted alley and they then walk into a tunnel that becomes the barrel of a giant revolver. And Justice League Unlimited's "For the Man Who Has Everything," supposedly set in the same universe, shows it in Bruce's memory/dream as an alley directly across the street from the movie theater showing The Mark of Zorro. So that's another one that gets it wrong. B:TAS is really the only adaptation that followed O'Neil's intention behind the name "Crime Alley," and yet it was inconsistent about it, and never actually got to show the murder.
I think Barbara Kean's upscale apartment would qualify.
I noticed that too. Also, if Selina really loves cats, she shouldn't give them milk. Adult cats can't digest lactose.
Yeah, it'd make far more sense if Thomas and Martha Wayne were killed "randomly" while walking down a presumably safe street in an upscale neighborhood of Gotham, going to meet Alfred on the otherside of an area cars can't get to/a one-way or something along those lines. It'd be a lot easier to accept or at least ignore that these people were killed, randomly, while doing something fairly normal or at least not crazily risky.
I get part of it is the "image" of things, a dark alley is a more dramatic place for a crime to occur than a well-lit street in an upscale neighborhood. But the former just leaves the idea of why a well-to-do couple would walk down an alley with their young son in tow? It treads closely into "victim blaming", sure, but there's always cases where you look at the victim of a crime and sort of say they maybe didn't do everything they could to prevent the crime from happening.
Say I have something expensive sitting on my car seat and I park my car in a high-crime area and I leave the windows down and doors unlocked. Hell, let's say I even left my keys in the car.
Now, that's not saying I *deserved* to have my item/car stolen but you can also say that maybe I didn't do everything I could to prevent the crime from happening.
Which is why I *always* leave my car locked with the windows up. And if I have to leave anything potentially valuable behind I hide it, under the seat, or place something over it inconspicuously. (Ideally, I don't leave valuable in the car, though.) I try and to mitigate my risk. No matter where I am I always lock my doors and have my windows up.
Again, not victim blaming here, but sometimes you kind-of have to do things to ease your risk. Walking down an alley with your young soon in a crime-heavy city? Sort of risky.
I get part of it is the "image" of things, a dark alley is a more dramatic place for a crime to occur than a well-lit street in an upscale neighborhood. But the former just leaves the idea of why a well-to-do couple would walk down an alley with their young son in tow? It treads closely into "victim blaming", sure, but there's always cases where you look at the victim of a crime and sort of say they maybe didn't do everything they could to prevent the crime from happening.
Say I have something expensive sitting on my car seat and I park my car in a high-crime area and I leave the windows down and doors unlocked. Hell, let's say I even left my keys in the car.
Now, that's not saying I *deserved* to have my item/car stolen but you can also say that maybe I didn't do everything I could to prevent the crime from happening.
Which is why I *always* leave my car locked with the windows up. And if I have to leave anything potentially valuable behind I hide it, under the seat, or place something over it inconspicuously. (Ideally, I don't leave valuable in the car, though.) I try and to mitigate my risk. No matter where I am I always lock my doors and have my windows up.
Again, not victim blaming here, but sometimes you kind-of have to do things to ease your risk. Walking down an alley with your young soon in a crime-heavy city? Sort of risky.
Well, of course, it's hard to blame imaginary people who are just doing what the writers and directors decide they should do. If anyone's culpable, it's the filmmakers for not delving deeply enough into the actual meaning of "Crime Alley." The idea that it's a once-classy neighborhood that's gone to seed and become a slum due to a process of flight and decay that was triggered by the Wayne murders gives some excellent symbolism to the story; maybe it's a little insular that it was that particular murder that started the decline, but it helps tie Bruce's quest directly to Gotham's malaise, since both the man and the city are equally victims of the same act, their fates intertwined. Begins did this to an extent with the whole city, though, so maybe it wasn't so necessary to symbolize it with a specific neighborhood.
Although when I look at the first screen depiction, Alan Burnett's "The Fear" in Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, I realize that the "dark alley" version it introduced fit the theme of Burnett's story, which was about Batman facing his one overriding fear. The flashback shows that Bruce is afraid of the dark, scary alley from the start; he's reluctant to go in because he fears something bad will happen, and indeed the worst imaginable thing happens. So it's effective symbolically in that context, although it does raise the question of why the Waynes didn't share their son's concern. But in other cases, it just seems to be a case of not thinking it through. The place is called "Crime Alley," and we're used to thinking of crimes taking place in back alleys, so it must've been a back alley, right? So they have to come up with excuses for the Waynes to cut through an alley. It probably works best in Begins, where Bruce flees through the rear exit of the opera house and forces his parents to follow -- making it his fault that they were there in the first place. In this version, their deaths were a consequence of his irrational fear in the theater (or at least he'd see it that way), rather than a consequence of their rejection of his sensible fear of the alley. So that gives him more motivation to conquer that fear and feel compelled to make amends.
In the Gotham version, their passage through that alley just seems random. I'm almost wondering if it'll become a plot point: Why did Thomas choose to take his family down that alley? Maybe it'll turn out that he expected to meet someone, or that he was lured there in a way he didn't tell his family about. This will be the first time we've seen a screen series that devoted a whole arc to the investigation of that murder, so I'm sure there will be all sorts of complications and secrets added on to it. Much like how the Silver Age comics accreted a conspiracy onto it: Initially the Waynes were simply shot by a burglar named Joe Chill, but then it turned out that Chill was a hitman hired by gangster Lew Moxon to get revenge on Wayne for testifying against him and sending him to prison. I bet that Gordon will eventually discover something similar about Mister Shiny-Shoes -- that he was a hired gunman for some more shadowy figure. And so maybe the reason for the Waynes going into the alley will be an issue in the conspiracy arc as well.
I have to agree, it's hard to imagine a super wealthy family like the Waynes needing to walk anywhere. Especially when they have personal limo drivers to pick them up at the front of any place they go to (and in fact in the movies and cartoons that's precisely what you see the older Bruce Wayne doing nearly every time he goes out on the town).
So I think really, when it comes down to it, this was all Alfred's fault. If he wasn't slacking with his driving duties, the Waynes would still be alive and Bruce wouldn't be dark and angry and running around in a bat costume.
From what we've seen in the first episode, Gotham could really go either way on the super-powers/supernatural. Yes, the first episode is relatively grounded, but as long as the characters are well-written more comic-booky elements could be introduced without changing the tone of the series.
^Except most Batman characters don't have superpowers, with rare exceptions like Clayface or Poison Ivy (to an extent). For a long time, it's been treated as the most "street-level" and naturalistic part of the DC Universe, and its screen adaptations have often followed suit. In Batman: TAS, you sometimes saw Batman dealing with sci-fi technology like HARDAC, androids, time accelerators, and such, or scientifically mutated creatures like Man-Bat and Tygrus, but the only time he dealt with anything supernatural in B:TAS was in "Avatar." It wasn't until The New Batman Adventures, when he was repositioned as part of a larger, more fantastic universe that included Superman, that he more often encountered supernatural threats and dealt with characters like Dr. Fate and Etrigan. Remember, when Zatanna first appeared in B:TAS, she was just a stage magician. It wasn't until Justice League Unlimited that she was retconned back to an actual sorceress.
And of course the Nolan films, which are the template Gotham is clearly trying to follow[/i], kept things quite grounded, aside from some absurdities of physics like the microwave weapon or the easily bombified fusion reactor.
Besides, one thing that I do not expect from the current spate of DC shows is that they will all approach things the same way. I think that DC/WB is deliberately embracing a diversity of continuities and styles in order to differentiate themselves from Marvel's interconnected approach. Gotham has staked its claim to the "gritty realism" approach, focusing on cops and gangsters and leaving the capes and gimmicks out of it, and I expect they'll continue to do so, now that the CW-verse has ceded that ground with Arrow getting more fantasy-driven and joined by The Flash. Meanwhile we've got Constantine and probably iZombie staking out the more overtly supernatural/horror side of things.
And of course the Nolan films, which are the template Gotham is clearly trying to follow[/i], kept things quite grounded, aside from some absurdities of physics like the microwave weapon or the easily bombified fusion reactor.
Besides, one thing that I do not expect from the current spate of DC shows is that they will all approach things the same way. I think that DC/WB is deliberately embracing a diversity of continuities and styles in order to differentiate themselves from Marvel's interconnected approach. Gotham has staked its claim to the "gritty realism" approach, focusing on cops and gangsters and leaving the capes and gimmicks out of it, and I expect they'll continue to do so, now that the CW-verse has ceded that ground with Arrow getting more fantasy-driven and joined by The Flash. Meanwhile we've got Constantine and probably iZombie staking out the more overtly supernatural/horror side of things.
All I am saying is the series could go either way. Batman in the comics has more than his share of powered enemies and friends. Poison Ivy has already been introduced. There was a nod to Grundy St/Ave already.
It would be neat to see Zatarra introduced for example. He could start as a mentalist helping to with investigations and then could either (or not) be revealed to actually have powers. We could see Man-Bat's serum being developed. We could see the Ventriliquist. There are many possibilities.
As I think was mentioned earlier in this thread, this is a fault of misinterpreting the original story. They are supposed to be walking through a very upscale, safe neighborhood when they are killed. It only earns the moniker "Crime Alley" because of the Waynes' murder.
Theoretically, but I'd be surprised if this particular series did that. Batman adaptations on the whole tend to skew more "mainstream" these days, and this series in particular seems to be solidly ensconced in a naturalistic mode. Of course, so did Arrow in its first season, but it just seems unlikely that a high-profile FOX show from Bruno Heller and Danny Cannon would choose to veer toward fantasy and superpowers.
Not a blessed one of whom appeared in the Nolanverse.
Characters with powers in the comics have been reinterpreted as non-powered in adaptations before. Nolan's Ra's al Ghul had no Lazarus Pit immortality, and Nolan's Bane had no Venom steroids to give him instant muscle growth and superstrength. Arrow turned Count Vertigo into a drug kingpin.
As for Ivy herself, prior adaptations have downplayed her powers. The B:TAS version retained only the immunity to toxins; her control of plants and ability to enslave the will of men were the result of her skills with genetic engineering and chemistry. The Batman and Robin version had the mind-control ability, but again her plants were mutants created by mad science. As for this version of Ivy, if anything I expect she might be portrayed basically as someone who uses her knowledge of exotic plants and their toxins to poison people or create acids or explosives or the like.
How does the Ventriloquist count as someone with superpowers? He's just a guy with a split personality.
But Scarface is often portrayed as a living thing.
Or perhaps they's merely the Ventroliquists interpreation of things - to him Scarface is real.
and for the mooks in his gang - well theysimply got along with it because well they know what happens when they don't.
Blam!
In the stories I've read, at most he's portrayed ambiguously. For instance, when Paul Dini brought in a new character to become the Ventriloquist in the comics after Wesker died, he wrote it so that it seemed as though Scarface might have some real supernatural influence on the new Ventriolquist, or maybe that was just her delusion about what was happening.
And that is probably the way the character will be handled in the series.
Magic and the supernatural would not in any way be out of place in the world of Gotham because it's very much a Noir, which is a genre that pairs well with supernatural/magical elements, so if they wanted to establish that the Scarface doll was in fact very much alive, they could do so.
Maybe in recent years with the rise of urban fantasy, but there is a whole lot of noir that has nothing remotely to do with fantasy or the supernatural. I don't remember Humphrey Bogart ever having to ward off evil spirits. Film noir may allow fantasy, but it certainly does not suggest fantasy by default. You might as well say that magic wouldn't be out of place in a story about a British boarding school because Harry Potter was set in one. Or that every murder mystery can be expected to involve robots just because Asimov wrote The Caves of Steel.
^ You're right that not all Noir incorporates the supernatural, but the PtBs of Gotham could certainly add those elements if they wanted and it wouldn't be out-of-place.
Doesn't Detective Chimp live in Gotham?
Any time someone calls Batman the World's Greatest Detective in Bobo's earshot, he has to completely lose his shit.
Any time someone calls Batman the World's Greatest Detective in Bobo's earshot, he has to completely lose his shit.
But I can't understand why anyone at this point would think they would want to. The whole premise of this show is clearly designed to minimize the comic-booky aspects and make it as "normal" a crime drama as possible. The future superhero is just a kid who will never don a costume until after the series ends, and the villains are just proto-supervillains at a stage in their lives before they adopt their flamboyant personas. The whole approach to this show is to keep as far away from the fanciful elements of the comics as possible while still being set in a version of the Batman universe. Saying it's possible that they could suddenly reverse course and embrace fantasy is like saying, ohh, that it's possible Sleepy Hollow could suddenly begin portraying American history in a grounded and realistic way, or that 24 might give up that whole real-time thing and have Jack Bauer become an Amnesty International spokesman. Sure, it's theoretically possible, but it's in direct opposition to the intent of the series' creators, so it's just about the most unlikely possibility.
Pardon my non comic reading ignorance, but who or what exactly is Detective Chimp? 
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