DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond
- Thread starter dahj
- Start date
Yikes...
I liked the idea of Ben Affleck as Batman but my biggest complaint was that he was far too hulking. I want my Batman to look more like Daredevil, thanks.
The Snyder Batman looks exactly like Daredevil.
I've probably mentioned this before, but I've always pictured Bruce Wayne to look more like Bruce Lee in 'Enter the Dragon'.
Well defined but lithe and quick and able to avoid punches, not built like a tank.
Affleck looked like he could barely move, then to have him CGI-ing about rooftops fighting Parademons took me right out of the movie sometimes.
Well defined but lithe and quick and able to avoid punches, not built like a tank.
Affleck looked like he could barely move, then to have him CGI-ing about rooftops fighting Parademons took me right out of the movie sometimes.
I also don't think that Batman needs to be gritty and dark. His world can be, but what people often miss is that Batman himself is a symbol of hope. Nolan got that right -- Batman dispels the darkness of Gotham by offering its people something brighter to believe in. The very act of being Batman is how Bruce Wayne rises above the darkness of his past and turns it into something better. Writers and fans who see it just as a dysfunctional obsession are missing the point (although the Harley Quinn animated series did a brilliant take on that idea, proof that no idea is always bad).
I agree with you--I was responding to the idea that if you want to be gritty and dark then you have to kill. The Batman (2022) was about what you are describing as well.
I don't think.Batman has to kill; I think it should be on the list of necessary.
But, Batman means many different things to many different people and will draw writers based on their own interests.
But, Batman means many different things to many different people and will draw writers based on their own interests.
Was there ever a moment in the comics where Batman struggled with having to kill, but still went through it? To draw a parallel, the Arrowverse's version of Oliver Queen was constantly at war with himself about killing his enemies vs maiming them, eventually settling on a 'if the situation necessitates it' clause.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the huge bulky Batman, I like him to be believable as someone who could move fast and be more agile. I prefer Bale or Patinson over Affleck.
As for him killing, I guess it's not quite as horrible as I thought, there have been some great version of the character who have killed. I guess I just kind of like the whole idea of his parents' death being a motivation for him to not want to kill.
The Snyder Batman looks exactly like Daredevil.
Nice.Exactly though, his DD physique is what I was thinking.
I was going to stay out of this, but fine.
Yes, at the core of the character of Batman is his personal believe that he will not kill. And liberties have definitely been taken with that on screen.
I'm not well versed enough in the comics to know if the 'main' Batman (the character has been rebooted often enough to realise there are a lot of takes on the character) ever killed, or if that was only in Elseworld/one-shot comics. What I do know, and this goes for many of the 'I don't kill' characters in the comics.... Some of the damage done to goons and bad guys over the years was more than bad enough to be very life threatening. Saying you don't kill but leaving people severely beaten up in places where medical care will very possibly not arrive on time to save them.....
I never read Spider-Man comics because as a kid we hardly got them here, but I once read this interesting post, well over a decade ago, could have been here, might have been elsewhere.... Spidey also doesn't kill. But the way he slings some thugs through the air and having them come crashing into walls or whatnot, causing so much severe blunt force trauma that survival is very unlikely... Or hell, even if the person lives but is paralized from the neck down... Their old lives would be over.
In the end, yes. I do believe that a 'true' adaption of Batman should be one where he does not kill, is the most correct one. However, Snyder's take did so many other things right when it comes to the Dark Knight, creating a character that has elements from many versions from the comics, that together with Nolan's Batman, he is the onscreen version I like the best. Warts and all.
Yes, at the core of the character of Batman is his personal believe that he will not kill. And liberties have definitely been taken with that on screen.
I'm not well versed enough in the comics to know if the 'main' Batman (the character has been rebooted often enough to realise there are a lot of takes on the character) ever killed, or if that was only in Elseworld/one-shot comics. What I do know, and this goes for many of the 'I don't kill' characters in the comics.... Some of the damage done to goons and bad guys over the years was more than bad enough to be very life threatening. Saying you don't kill but leaving people severely beaten up in places where medical care will very possibly not arrive on time to save them.....
I never read Spider-Man comics because as a kid we hardly got them here, but I once read this interesting post, well over a decade ago, could have been here, might have been elsewhere.... Spidey also doesn't kill. But the way he slings some thugs through the air and having them come crashing into walls or whatnot, causing so much severe blunt force trauma that survival is very unlikely... Or hell, even if the person lives but is paralized from the neck down... Their old lives would be over.
In the end, yes. I do believe that a 'true' adaption of Batman should be one where he does not kill, is the most correct one. However, Snyder's take did so many other things right when it comes to the Dark Knight, creating a character that has elements from many versions from the comics, that together with Nolan's Batman, he is the onscreen version I like the best. Warts and all.
Current reader. The answer is still no (I'm obviously talking about intentional kills, not, "the bad guy slips and hits his head because he's running from Batman.").
This is a wonderful little story set when Bruce was training, which well explains that the "no killing" thing can be very effective.
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As a rule, no. There have been rare exceptions, but they've been controversial.
That's imposing too much realism onto adventure fiction. If you're going to be realistic about it, you could just as easily argue that Batman himself would be unable to recover fully from the frequent injuries he sustains, that his career would be over by his mid-30s at the latest because he would've accumulated more career injuries than any pro athlete. Or you could argue that Batman would've been killed the first time he joined the Justice League in going up against a superstrong or superfast villain. Heck, even outside of superhero fiction, even in supposedly "realistic" stories, action heroes routinely shake off shoulder wounds that would realistically leave them unable to move their arm, recover from being concussed frequently without a trace of brain damage, fire thousands of bullets indoors without suffering permanent hearing loss, are harmlessly thrown through the air by nearby explosions that would realistically have killed them instantly through circulatory overpressure shock, etc.
If you're going to suspend disbelief about the heroes' ability to withstand all that, it's a double standard not to do so for the villains. By the conceits of the genre, if they're still breathing at the end of the fight, they'll be all right eventually.
Which doesn't mean he's right to argue that it's wrong in general for Batman not to be a killer. He's entitled to do things his own way, but to insist it's the only legitimate way is petty and arrogant.
In terms of the Batman physique thing, I guess it’s a bit like your gym instructor or personal trainer asking what your goals are and what you want to achieve! Is a lean, toned Batman “better” than a muscular, bulky one? Or is it just down to personal preference.
I always had Bale in mind after reading The Long Halloween around the same time as seeing American Psycho. He was bulkier in BB than in the latter, which I think was maybe as a result of coming off The Machinist, where he was skeletal, and then achieving mass and weight very quickly. I’ve always wondered if he also opted to get so muscular because he was opposite Liam Neeson, who is that bit taller than him.
Much like Daniel Craig in QoS, he slimmed down a bit for his second outing (IIRC, Craig reckoned that his Casino Royale Bond would’ve just come out of the armed forces and been hitting out of the gym with nothing else to do), Bale slimmed down a bit but still looked pretty stacked.
I can rationalise Batfleck getting so bulky on the basis that he’s older, slowing down, has been injured (as his shirtless scene in JL showed), without access to Bale’s magic rope, is putting on mass etc so as to make up for that loss of speed and flexibility (but as someone said, Snyder wanted him to look like TDKR. In fact, I think I read somewhere that he told Affleck’s trainer that he wanted him to look like Pumping Iron-era Arnie).
R-Batz (who apparently hated working out to get in shape) works for me as having that Bruce Lee lither build for jumping off rooftops etc.
I always had Bale in mind after reading The Long Halloween around the same time as seeing American Psycho. He was bulkier in BB than in the latter, which I think was maybe as a result of coming off The Machinist, where he was skeletal, and then achieving mass and weight very quickly. I’ve always wondered if he also opted to get so muscular because he was opposite Liam Neeson, who is that bit taller than him.
Much like Daniel Craig in QoS, he slimmed down a bit for his second outing (IIRC, Craig reckoned that his Casino Royale Bond would’ve just come out of the armed forces and been hitting out of the gym with nothing else to do), Bale slimmed down a bit but still looked pretty stacked.
I can rationalise Batfleck getting so bulky on the basis that he’s older, slowing down, has been injured (as his shirtless scene in JL showed), without access to Bale’s magic rope, is putting on mass etc so as to make up for that loss of speed and flexibility (but as someone said, Snyder wanted him to look like TDKR. In fact, I think I read somewhere that he told Affleck’s trainer that he wanted him to look like Pumping Iron-era Arnie).
R-Batz (who apparently hated working out to get in shape) works for me as having that Bruce Lee lither build for jumping off rooftops etc.
Cool article; thanks for the link
Oh, this we absolutely agree on.