Bale's costume is a little too busy and I don't like the bobblehead look.
Burton/Keaton Batman movie
- Thread starter JD
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I was watching the documentary 'The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened' and they're talking about the 89 movie where Batman shows up for the first time and says "I'm Batman". Apparently they cut that scene and the full line is "I'm Batman motherfucker!".
I'd love to see that cut of the movie.
I'd love to see that cut of the movie.
As much as I love TDK, the 89 movie is still my all-time favorite Batman. I just love how dark and operatic and larger than life it is, and Keaton was absolutely perfect as this slightly more unhinged and psychotic Batman (which somehow just felt completely right to me, and much more believable than any other portrayal we've seen, given that this is a guy who runs around the city at night dressed as a bat to avenge his parents' death).
Plus it's got that great music and great Batmobile. And despite the restrictive Batsuit, Keaton still manages to look really damn cool in all the action scenes (my favorite being at the end when he fights the guy in the bell tower).
I have to admit I'm not quite as fond of the sequel though, unlike a lot of people. It's got some cool moments, and Pfeiffer is brilliant as Catwoman of course, but for me the story as a whole just doesn't work quite as well for some reason.
Plus it's got that great music and great Batmobile. And despite the restrictive Batsuit, Keaton still manages to look really damn cool in all the action scenes (my favorite being at the end when he fights the guy in the bell tower).
I have to admit I'm not quite as fond of the sequel though, unlike a lot of people. It's got some cool moments, and Pfeiffer is brilliant as Catwoman of course, but for me the story as a whole just doesn't work quite as well for some reason.
I remember an old interview with Keaton where he talked about the issue and said that the production team couldn't get the cowl right if they made it too flexible or even detached from the costume so he had to perform these quick full body turns to look to the side.
I have seen it when it was originally released and remember the huge hype and box office smash of it.. my friends and me were stoked for such a giant superhero movie release (that was of course way before Marvel started up and before that we only had the shiny Superman movies to go by).
As has been said the production design was first class, especially the Batmobile and the armor (that still looks so cool even today). Over time i started to dislike Nicholson's Joker because he really seemed to be overly cartoonish, maybe i am biased by Ledger's Joker whom i consider an awesome movie Joker and one of the greatest movie villains ever.
One scene however i will love to the end of days.. when Batman flies the Batwing up above Gotham and reaches his peak just inside the moon thus forming another version of the Batsignal. Corny and on the nose as hell but i still love it.
This is one of my all-time favourite movies. And definitely my best Batman movie ever! Everything about it just "worked".
I forgot to mention The Batmobile. At least in the first two Batman movies, it was awesome, easily the best Batmobile design in live action (I slightly prefer the Batman: TAS design overall for being similar, but more streamlined). It got a bit over the top in the next two batman movies (unsurprisingly) and wasn't as good, and then Nolan's "Bat Tumbler" was just an embarrassment. Adam west's Batmobile is iconic, and I like it, but Burton's Batmobile will always be the best live action one for me.
This^
Burton's Gotham had a great feel to it- it was a world where Batman fit in perfectly. Not quite old, not quite new, recognizable enough but markedly different from a city you could visit. The only other film which had a similar city for me was the one used in 'Dark City'.
Heath's Joker was a unique performance- he was crazy but comfortable with that. Jack Nicholson had a lot of fun with his- I think he should have paid them to be in that role.
Nicholson does go a bit over the top at times, but I thought he balanced that out pretty well with some darker and creepier moments, like when he electrocutes the mob boss and then starts to joke around with the charred corpse (which is something I don't think you'd see in many superhero movies made today).
That's what you hire him for.
When it comes to the live action movie Jokers, I think both Nicholson and Ledger both did a great job playing two very different versions of the Joker. I think both versions fit in perfectly with the movie they appeared in. Burton's movie was overall a over the top, and very stylised, so Nicholson's kind of goofy, crazy OTT performance was perfect for that.
But there is no way something like that would have worked anywhere near as well in Nolan's more realistic(ish), serious take on the universe. Ledger's Joker was perfect for that kind of world. We've only seen a few seconds of Leto's performance, but I have a feeling we'll be getting another great, and once again very different performance.
I would rate the major onscreen Jokers that I am familiar with as Hamil, Ledger/Nicholson (tie), Romero, Corey Smith (Lego games).
But there is no way something like that would have worked anywhere near as well in Nolan's more realistic(ish), serious take on the universe. Ledger's Joker was perfect for that kind of world. We've only seen a few seconds of Leto's performance, but I have a feeling we'll be getting another great, and once again very different performance.
I would rate the major onscreen Jokers that I am familiar with as Hamil, Ledger/Nicholson (tie), Romero, Corey Smith (Lego games).
I remember the summer of 89 and that fall and Christmas. I remember not liking the movie originally because it just got Batman wrong and I remember having to watch that movie a half a dozen times because by Christmas it was always on somebody's VHS.
Now that the decades have passed I find it much more watchable despite Kim Bassinger's incessant screaming but I find it watchable as a Burton film. I like Burton's work for the most part and I like Returns more than I like Batman 89. And I love Elfman's score.
Now that the decades have passed I find it much more watchable despite Kim Bassinger's incessant screaming but I find it watchable as a Burton film. I like Burton's work for the most part and I like Returns more than I like Batman 89. And I love Elfman's score.
I guess getting Batman 'wrong' depends on which Batman you considered 'yours'. Was it The Dark Knight Returns? Because at that point there was either that or the Adam West (silver age I suppose) Batman.
I think as others have mentioned upthread, there really isn't any version of Batman in the comics remotely like Burton's Batman. It is an entity unto itself. There are many different takes on Batman--the most influential in 89 probably would have been Neal Adams version--that are equally valid. But Burton's Batman had never really been seen before and has not been seen since. It was produced at a time when people who didn't really read comics associated the character with the Adam West television series so at the time Burton's version was hailed as serious and violent even though today it seems closer to the 60s version of the character than contemporary versions.
Stylistically Burton's Batman influenced the character a lot. In the years since Gotham has been portrayed much differently. We probably never would have had the wonderful animated series, with its great music. And we might never have had the Nolan movies.
I think Burton's Batman was most like the earliest version of Batman in Detective Comics (1939).
This thread made me want to watch the movie again, so I did last night on blu-ray along with some of the extras. A few observations:
- The dialogue is pretty unsophisticated by today's standards. This isn't a movie that would pass muster if it came out now.
- Nicholson was indeed a pretty good Joker. For a while, I thought of him as Jack Nicholson as Jack Nicholson as the Joker, you know, playing himself a little too much and trying to show off, but he really does immerse himself into the role to a fair degree. He also got more face time than I remember. He was in his flesh-tone make-up a lot.
- Keaton is a pretty good actor. He transitioned quite well from long-haired gregarious comedian to socially awkward and withdrawn billionaire. I thought that his Bruce Wayne had a lot of substance on par with what we saw in Bale.
- Sean Young was supposed to be Vicki Vale but had to back out after a horse-riding accident and she believes that her career was derailed because of it. Kim Basinger was hired very quickly and I thought that she turned out to be a spectacular choice. I prefer her to Young. Young in turn would have been a much better choice for Catwoman in the sequel. I've never been as keen on Michelle Pfeiffer as everyone else.
- I learned that Robin was supposed to be in the film but was cut because he was too extraneous. It was also agreed that him not being in the film was consistent with the fact that even in the comics, Robin didn't show up right away. Here's the Robin sequence re-enacted.
- This movie wasn't solely Burton's vision. The producers and Bob Kane wanted to get back to doing Batman right according to how he was first portrayed and get away from the comedic Adam West version that was in the public consciouness at the time for decades.
- There was a map of Gotham which was really a map of Vancouver. The name "Gotham City" was written across the map in bold dark letters but the areas in and around Vancouver weren't relabelled. It's easy to miss since the scene is so brief. I paused the movie because I was curious about what layout they used for Gotham only to find that it was an existing city.
- I didn't see as much of the batmobile as I remember but it was enough. It looked like they had to add a few driving sequences just so that we could see it as much as possible.
Oh god, I completely forgot about that! I love this movie, but during a recent rewatch, my wife and I were starting to count how many times she screamed. If it were a drinking game, you'd be blitzed!
Agreed. The movie seemed pretty clearly inspired by the pulpier 30s and 40s comics with it's harder-edged Batman (and that era was obviously a big influence on the design work as well), so I never really understood why some fans didn't think it was at all faithful to the character.
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