"Beware the Batman" in 2013! New Animated Series
- Thread starter Admiral_Young
- Start date
Not bad, though the gag about Katana's safety suit in the opening was overboard. I'm not surprised that her look is just her standard outfit with a domino mask; they've spent seven weeks establishing that look for her in our minds, so I didn't expect them to depart from it much now. Plus it saves them having to build a whole new digital model for her.
Barbara is still cool. I loved how she kept talking back to Whale, being thoroughly unimpressed by her own kidnapping. And I loved "When can I get a grapnel?"
Not too convinced by the origins of the Batsignal. With his daughter under threat, you'd think Gordon would've wanted to contact Batman more clandestinely, not in a way the whole city could see. Not sure how he would've managed that, though.
Barbara is still cool. I loved how she kept talking back to Whale, being thoroughly unimpressed by her own kidnapping. And I loved "When can I get a grapnel?"
Not too convinced by the origins of the Batsignal. With his daughter under threat, you'd think Gordon would've wanted to contact Batman more clandestinely, not in a way the whole city could see. Not sure how he would've managed that, though.
It bugged me that she was so Genre Savvy, but didn't warn Our Heroes about the lawyer's fire powers. (She saw him all flame-y when he kidnapped her.)
You'd think that Batman would be smarter than to put her in something so ridiculous. It was a good attempt at humor though in that eye-rolling sort of way.
Still hoping for a Katana/Robin hybrid suit.
Yes she is. She has the makings of a pretty good version of Batgirl if they ever get that far. I wouldn't mind seeing a Batgirl who's girly and precocious instead of overly heroic for an amateur.
Oh, and Katana is lucky enough to not have a cape. I've been thinking lately that Batman's cape probably gets in the way a lot.
Is it bad for me to admit that my interest in this series peaked with "Tests", and then immediately plummeted the moment the Batcomputer went "full-retard" in "Safe?"
^I don't know what you mean by that.
Never would have made that connection myself but it's a pretty apt comparison.
The BatComputer said "Good luck, Batman" before he flew into Wayne Manor; The sort of thing Super Street-Talking Bat-Luge was poking fun at in "Mitefall".
I'll be honest; It still is a bad decision to cut Brave and the Bold off mid-season (Season 3 was planned to 13 episodes, yes, but it's still half of the size of prior seasons) just to take advantage of the Nolanverse and the upcoming third film (which in their defense, they had NO reason to expect it to be the worst of the trilogy).
However, having read many "making of" articles, I'm very glad that Muramaki and Co. are aiming to do far more with the character than Nolan actually did in terms of exploring and utilizing the Dark Knight's vast history for a cool, modern Batman series. As surprising as this may sound to you, I love the fact that they're willing to not only go with less-prominent elements of Bat-lore and run with them, but also make unique changes (Katana being his sidekick rather than Robin, though I'd argue that the specific person at his side is less important than him having someone else there.)
The thing that really kills me is the clear lack of support and forethought CN still has for doing CG series and how much that really affects both this and the recently departed Green Lantern (which I hate because of Timm's bad art direction and initial story, which I'm willing to own as a personal critique, but I stand by it.)
A lot of you may not really get this, but making a series with CG rather than 2D animation is worlds different, which Muramaki touches on in the SDCC article, and is something I've mentioned in the old GL thread and early on in this one.
From personal experience and back and forth with people who are in this field, getting your environment, lighting, and material settings can take weeks to nail down properly, even if you're going for a "cartoony" look like GL and Beware.
Now, with experience with the tools and multiple projects, an artist can get things setup very quickly, but the fact is that you will end up having to rework and redo things over and over, since you're trying to make a virtual environment that not only looks right to the Art Director and Producer, but also ensures that everything in side that space also looks right to them. You can and will often tweak things to work with the character design and cinematography, but this isn't something that an inexperienced team is going to get right very often.
Admittedly, Beware has a FAR better understanding of this than GL did (Timm's signature art style from JL/U looks terrible in three dimensions) but things like Katana having severe wall-eye (something that I know for a fact is the result of taking the character model sheet and plugging it into 3D without any accommodations for camera perspective) and Bruce having to cut off most of his forehead to fit into Batman's cowl (likely the result of a last-minute change to either Wayne or Batman's design) are distracting, and only bring the shortcomings of the team's inexperience with CG work into the forefront.
Oh, and then there's the writing. I'll save that for another post because I have class soon, and I could go on for hours on that trainwreck.
I still don't see what that has to do with the phrase "full-retard" (and yes, I have seen Tropic Thunder so I recognize the allusion; I just don't see how it connects to this).
Is that what they did? I thought it was just that CN was unwilling to produce a show for longer than 65 episodes, because starting a new show instead lets them sell new toys. If you look at CN's Ben 10 franchise, it also gets reinvented with a new series (though nominally in the same continuity) every few years -- the original ran 52 episodes, Alien Force ran 46, Ultimate Alien ran 52, and now they've revamped it as Omniverse. They ended Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated after 52 episodes as well. The original Teen Titans was ended at 65 episodes. Justice League ran for 52 episodes before being revamped as JLU. TB&TB made it a full 65 episodes, which I think is about the maximum we can expect from any CN show.
It's Murakami, not Muramaki.
If anything, I'm surprised more people don't feel that way. I don't understand the attitude some people have that a new Batman show should just keep recycling the same characters the old shows used. If B:TAS had thought that way, we never would've gotten Two-Face, Ivy, Ra's, Croc, Scarface, the Victor Fries version of Mr. Freeze, Lucius Fox, or Leslie Thompkins, let along Harley, Montoya, Veronica Vreeland, etc. There's still so much material in the comics waiting to be mined and reinvented -- I say go for it.
As I remarked earlier, I think it's intentional artistic license. The "ears" increase the apparent height of Batman's head, and that alters our expectations of where his eyes should fall in relation. It wouldn't be the first time that an animated show or a comic has taken such liberties with characters' proportions in and out of helmets/costumes.
I think there would be less issue with the lesser known characters if even one of them had been written well. Its something thats become noticeable as the show has gone on. while I wasn't a fan of the decision, they could have done something with the obscure characters, but they haven't. Outside of Humpty Dumpty (who was somewhat interesting, atleast for what he was), they all suck. Lady Shiva completely misses the point, Silver Monkey is about as generic as you can get with the martial arts supervillain, Magpie is just another crazy person, Anarky wasn't that interesting, Tobias Whale is a generic mobster, and Pyg/Toad were just crazy eco terrorists. You can talk all you want about B:TAS making obscure characters famous, but it had good writers to do that. Mr. Freeze had people like Paul Dini and Bruce Timm to remake him, while the people working on BTB don't seem to have 1/10th the skill of either of those guys when it comes to trying to revamp characters like this. There are several people working on BTB who can do great work, but BTB has been a constant disappointment. For whatever reason, they just can't get Batman or his villains right (or even entertaining most of the time), and after eight episodes I don't see that changing. Maybe if they had a few seasons to work out their problems it could be a good show, but these days when even excellent shows like Young Justice can't stay on tV, BTB doesn't really have a chance to get better. At this point, the sooner its cancelled the sooner people can start working on something else. I'm still going to keep watching for awhile, but I've basically given up hope of this being anything more than a sometimes ok but mostly mediocre Batman show. Honestly, as much as I hated the early seasons, I think even The Batman kept me more entertained during its horrible start. It managed to turn around and become a good show, but it was lucky. If it was being made today, it would almost certainly have been cancelled before its third season. I don't see BTB being given the chance to improve, and even if it was there is no guarentee that the people working on it could improve what they're doing. I can't find much about its ratings, although one site says its first three episodes had lower ratings than the GL cartoon, which isn't surprising.
I was just reading an interview with Watson/Murakami from a few months ago. He was saying that they wanted to bring in fans of the GL cartoon and Young Justice, along with new fans, but there is nothing here to suggest that the people who worked on YJ had anything to do with this show. Obviously a few did, but there hasn't been one episode of BTB that has approached the quality of Young Justice. Its average at best, mediocre most of the time, and I think its going to be a one season, easily forgotten show. Maybe I'm wrong and for some reason it will stay around for awhile, but unless it improves it might be the first solidly mediocre DC cartoon I've seen. Not bad enough that I hate it, but not interesting enough to care much about excerpt with the things that annoy me.
I was just reading an interview with Watson/Murakami from a few months ago. He was saying that they wanted to bring in fans of the GL cartoon and Young Justice, along with new fans, but there is nothing here to suggest that the people who worked on YJ had anything to do with this show. Obviously a few did, but there hasn't been one episode of BTB that has approached the quality of Young Justice. Its average at best, mediocre most of the time, and I think its going to be a one season, easily forgotten show. Maybe I'm wrong and for some reason it will stay around for awhile, but unless it improves it might be the first solidly mediocre DC cartoon I've seen. Not bad enough that I hate it, but not interesting enough to care much about excerpt with the things that annoy me.
I thought Cyborg was a return to form with a solid story, some interesting twists and with some occasionally nice camerawork and direction.
Had a callback this week, maybe says more about Batman than an anthropomorphic computer, something he added to give a little comfort or whatever.
Had a callback this week, maybe says more about Batman than an anthropomorphic computer, something he added to give a little comfort or whatever.
Not bad. Cypher was a very creepy villain, certainly the most interesting one this show has had since Magpie, though in a very different way. We didn't learn anything about him as a character, but his power and his visuals were just so unusual and disturbing.
But I didn't understand the logic behind the way Katana defeated him. Okay, so he feels what his captives feel. Why would a kiss short him out like that, rather than just, you know, being enjoyable? So the ending didn't make any sense.
It took a bit of searching to find out the origins of this character, since a search for Cypher as a comics character leads overwhelmingly to sites about Doug Ramsey of the New Mutants (the guy whose power to translate any language is held up as an exemplar of a lame power, though I think it'd be rather awesome to have). But here's what I found:
http://www.comicvine.com/cypher/4005-74195/
The original character is named Avery Twombey (really), and was created by Chuck Dixon, Michael Netzer, and Scott Hanna in 1993. He's a corporate spy who "has the ability to mesmerize and hypnotize his victims using his precise voice," and is a thin-faced, bald man with glasses. So they really reinterpreted him here.
It's interesting that this is the first time they've shown the full-length version of the main titles. Perhaps it's because Katana is included in them as part of the team, in costume (such as it is), and they didn't want to debut it until she'd attained that status in the story. Or maybe it's just that the episode ran a bit short. We'll see what they do next week.
But I didn't understand the logic behind the way Katana defeated him. Okay, so he feels what his captives feel. Why would a kiss short him out like that, rather than just, you know, being enjoyable? So the ending didn't make any sense.
It took a bit of searching to find out the origins of this character, since a search for Cypher as a comics character leads overwhelmingly to sites about Doug Ramsey of the New Mutants (the guy whose power to translate any language is held up as an exemplar of a lame power, though I think it'd be rather awesome to have). But here's what I found:
http://www.comicvine.com/cypher/4005-74195/
The original character is named Avery Twombey (really), and was created by Chuck Dixon, Michael Netzer, and Scott Hanna in 1993. He's a corporate spy who "has the ability to mesmerize and hypnotize his victims using his precise voice," and is a thin-faced, bald man with glasses. So they really reinterpreted him here.
It's interesting that this is the first time they've shown the full-length version of the main titles. Perhaps it's because Katana is included in them as part of the team, in costume (such as it is), and they didn't want to debut it until she'd attained that status in the story. Or maybe it's just that the episode ran a bit short. We'll see what they do next week.
Can't remember her boyfriend's name but that guy seems like he would be really emotional about a kiss, maybe it was the emotional state not just the physical? Or maybe it's because Katana is just that f'n hot.
^His name is Jason Burr. And okay, I can buy her kiss having quite an effect on a guy, but actual electrocution is a bit much. I would've preferred it if it had just taken Cypher off guard long enough for Batman or Katana to take him down some other way.
The kiss was a clever way to go about things. It really threw him off.
I like how the batmobile has a proper steering wheel. A lot of scifi cars have something different like KITT does in order to look cool or futuristic but anything other than a complete wheel is impractical because it has less area to grip for those long turns. I thought about that when I was driving the other day and took notice here.
I like how the batmobile has a proper steering wheel. A lot of scifi cars have something different like KITT does in order to look cool or futuristic but anything other than a complete wheel is impractical because it has less area to grip for those long turns. I thought about that when I was driving the other day and took notice here.
Twas OK this week. My biggest problem is that I find both the League of Assassins and Anarky to be generic and lame.
I've been playing too much of the new Grand Theft Auto lately, I kept flashing back to it during the nerve gas raid, lol.
I've been playing too much of the new Grand Theft Auto lately, I kept flashing back to it during the nerve gas raid, lol.
Similar threads
