The Dark Knight - Grading & Discussion

Just want to clarify: The only Burton films were Batman and Batman Returns, the first two starring Michael Keaton in the title role. Batman Forever and Batman & Robin were both directed by Joel Schumacher.

 

I would like to hope that Robin never shows up in any of these movies. Batman is cool. Batman and Robin not so much. Batman, Robin, and Batgirl is a definate hell no. Just leave it all with Batman, Fox, Alfred, and Gordon.

 

WE NEED THE BAT-A-RANG!!!

 

Well...to be fair The Dark Knight has only been out for SIX DAYS, while the other two have been out for a couple of months, so I think it's safe to say The Dark Knight will catch up.

Wow, that's awesome.

 

Wow, fantastic review. And nice to see Burton's Batman getting a little bit of respect too. I definitely agree TDK's story and themes blow the other one out of the water, but I think we have to be fair and realize Burton was essentially just trying to make a fun and stylish comic book movie with his Batman (which I think he succeeded brilliantly at); Nolan had completely different objectives in mind.

Nolan's Batman is certainly compelling and thrilling, but I don't think you could really call it "fun." At least not in the traditional superhero movie way.

 

I believe Burton helped produce BF though. Or was at least given a producer credit after the fact (I refuse to believe he had anything to do with actually making that movie ).

 

Jackson,

I think what I liked about your review the most was that you didn't dis Tim Burton's Batman. It's really easy to dis something original if a remake is so much better, but I find it that in this case, it's fun to see two completely different, but good interpretations of Batman and The Joker. I haven't seen Burton's Batman in a long time, but I remember liking it and Jack Nicholson is one of my favorite actors. He was a great Joker. However, under Nolan's interpretation, Ledger was a better Joker, but that doesn't take anything away from Jack. It was just different.

 

I think Batgirl can be cool at times. Robin? Never.

 

Yeah, he merely had a producer credit because he was originally contracted to do it, but WB decided they didn't want him after Batman Returns.

 

^ Yeah I remember that. Their exact reasoning: too dark...

 

Yeah Burton says in the BR special features that he was actually willing to make another one and had some ideas, but during the studio meeting it slowly dawned on him that they didn't want him anymore. They were saying stuff like "are you sure you don't want to get away from the Batman thing and make something else now?"

 

^ I really wonder what his ideas were. I remember reading that he had an arc planned with Two-Face for the third film and Bruce wanting to hang up the batsuit (I know that's what we got but he would have had a much better execution I think).

 

I don't know of anyone who really hates the '89 Batman movie or even trashes it now that we have the Nolan movies. It's usually the Schumacher films that get the bashing for camping things up too much.

 

I think everything played out pretty much the way it should have. The Burton movies, although they may look a bit light and campy now, were surprisingly dark at the time-- and about as dark as people would have accepted from the superhero genre (there's no way something like TDK would have played as well back then).

Plus Nolan's films are very much a product of their time (with all it's allusions to 9/11 and terrorism, etc); they probably would have been a lot more toned down, and not nearly as dark and powerful, 19 years ago.

In fact we should probably thank Schumacher's movies too, otherwise Warners probably wouldn't take that big break and want to go off in such a totally different direction with the character later on.

 

His little throwing-star like things are this vesion's bat-a-rang.

 

THEN THIS MOVIE IS TEH SCUK!!!

 

I went through a period where I hated Batman 89, and I still pretty seriously dislike it except for a few moments. It has nothing to do with camp - it's that it's a poor adaptation, and it's the Batman fan in me that gets annoyed. From the beginning I didn't like Nicholson's Joker, because I don't think Jack even tried to bury his own persona, so it really was a kind of half-assed Joker. Ledger's performance really points that up. Besides that Vicki Vale was freaking obnoxious. I remember the second time I saw it, I counted - she screams something like 26 times. Keaton and the art direction are really the only good things about the movie, which just isn't enough to save it. As for Schumacher, I wish everyone would just let it go already.

 

Yeah, it's amazing isn't it? The '89 movie looked dark and serious back then but now? Not nearly as much.

 

A lot of what you say has been coming into focus for me over the last few years, but back in '89, I didn't see it because I was just getting into Batman. Becoming more aware of the touches that Burton added haven't hurt my view of the movie though. I still see it as a classic and something that really shook up the franchise.

I wonder if we'll ever get a Joker that makes Ledger's look lame or at least less than ideal. I like Ledger's Joker too, but he does fit with the times and times change.

 

Well I've never cared that much about the adaptation thing, which is probably why I never had a problem with the 89 movie. Although personally I think it's a lot closer to the comics-- at least the early ones from the 40s -- than people give it credit for.