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News Variety Reports Robert Pattinson is the new Batman

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Chasing "realism" in superhero movies, including Batman, is a fool's errand. The very concept of the costumed superhero has "absurdly unrealistic" baked into its DNA. A story about a billionaire ninja who dresses up like a bat to fight clowns has no resemblance to any reality experienced by anyone anywhere ever.

This is why Tim Burton's movies remain the best screen adaptations of Batman. Burton's sensibilities have nothing to do with realism, and no interest in it. His Batman films are playful, phantasmagorical fairy tales, reveling in their comic grotesquerie and extravagant UNreality.

(None of this, BTW, is a commentary on Reeves's film, since it's too early to know what approach he'll take or how successful he will be.)
 
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To me, it looks like the devices on his chest are for climbing. They seem to have teeth like they're supposed to stick into things and grip. My guess is he grabs one in each hand and uses them to climb the sides of brick buildings.
 
Samurai8472 said:
Since this movie is supposed to very personal to Bruce there's speculation he fashions the suit with parts of the guns that killed his parents

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I can see it. The bat symbol also looks like two guns facing each other
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According to the IGN article, this whole ideas was actually first introduced in Detective Comics, so the idea does come from somewhere.
Christopher said:
I think there's a big difference between "I'll base my symbol on something that irrationally frightens me and a lot of other people, especially criminals who are a superstitious and cowardly lot" and "I'll wear the actual physical object that murdered my parents on my chest." The former is understandable -- the latter is sick and depraved.
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I don't think it's that bad, I could see it as a kind of tribute to his parents. Taking what killed them, and making it a part of his Batman persona.
 
The Realist said:
Chasing "realism" in superhero movies, including Batman, is a fool's errand. The very concept of the costumed superhero has "absurdly unrealistic" baked into its DNA. A story about a billionaire ninja who dresses up like a bat to fight clowns has no resemblance to any reality experienced by anyone anywhere ever.
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But it can be grounded more in a semblance of reality than other superhero characters. So, while I can agree to a certain point about most superheroes I will take exception with the idea that there cannot be some grounding for it.

In my opinion, having Batman as a character more grounded allows for the more unrealistic concepts (villains, magic, technology, etc) to be more further explored. I think Batman is unique in that regard.
 
Titans' Bruce Wayne keeps the gun that killed his parents in a glass display case in the Batcave. Wearing it on your chest is only one step more demented.

But then, we're talking about a weirdo who dresses like a giant bat.:shrug:

I like the collar. Otherwise it's pretty much the same as any Batsuit.
 
The Realist said:
Chasing "realism" in superhero movies, including Batman, is a fool's errand. The very concept of the costumed superhero has "absurdly unrealistic" baked into its DNA. A story about a billionaire ninja who dresses up like a bat to fight clowns has no resemblance to any reality experienced by anyone anywhere ever.
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Wrong. Comics have seen a good number of realism-based characters. Batman's first couple of years had him extremely grounded--there was no Felix the Cat's Magic Bag of Tricks utility belts, no wild Bat-vehicle for every occasion, he killed villains when necessary, and was inspired by the crimefighting radio and pulp heroes who were just as grounded. Their abilities and means were not so wild as to be considered sci-fi.
The Green Hornet was the same; he had the then-advanced gas gun and Black Beauty vehicle, but his stories dealt with being a mirror of the kind of realistic crime loose in U.S. society in the 1930s/40s and it was a massive radio hit (the medium of its origin), two successful serials and comics. It resonated with audiences because he operated in a world similar to the real world.
...and its not just those two characters.

All superheroes were not--and do not have to be of the cartoony variety which has colored the genre in a bad way.

This is why Tim Burton's movies remain the best screen adaptations of Batman. Burton's sensibilities have nothing to do with realism, and no interest in it.
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Burton's films were horrible; between his own insecurities about not wanting Batman/Wayne to be a "square jawed hero" (his words circa 1989) actor, and using a short, balding comedic actor in the role, to the garish, foam-filled, artificiality of Batman/Gotham, it was horrible and rather silly. Superman the movie premiered 11 years earlier, and the majority of the film being set in real world locations without going overboard with cartoony art direction was one of the reasons it has remained the only comic adaptation classic from the 20th century.
 
King Daniel Beyond said:
But then, we're talking about a weirdo who dresses like a giant bat.
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I'm so sick of hearing this line. It's an attempt to sound clever that's really just clueless. Batman lives in a universe where hundreds of people in the crimefighting profession wear flamboyant costumes. In that reality it's no more eccentric than it is for a football player to wear a numbered jersey or a chef to wear a tall white hat.

Besides, the reason for his costume has always been crystal-clear since the very first version of his origin story: That criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot and he adopts the image of something that will frighten and demoralize them. It's not about his psychological weaknesses, it's a calculated tactic to target his enemies' psychological weaknesses.
 
Christopher said:
I'm so sick of hearing this line. It's an attempt to sound clever that's really just clueless. Batman lives in a universe where hundreds of people in the crimefighting profession wear flamboyant costumes. In that reality it's no more eccentric than it is for a football player to wear a numbered jersey or a chef to wear a tall white hat.
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There are Batman adaptations where there are no other superheroes, like Batman (1989) and Batman Begins. How do you justify his wardrobe choices there?
Besides, the reason for his costume has always been crystal-clear since the very first version of his origin story: That criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot and he adopts the image of something that will frighten and demoralize them. It's not about his psychological weaknesses, it's a calculated tactic to target his enemies' psychological weaknesses.
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Which works in comics but is a harder sell in live action.
 
Famously, Richard Donner's watchword in making Superman '78 was "verisimilitude." In watching the film, it's clear this didn't mean "realism," but believability within the movie's own framework, respect for the characters and the genre, and emotional and dramatic honesty in the storytelling.

But not "realism." It's a movie about a superstrong flying laser-eyed space alien wearing longjohns and a cape, and Donner is smart enough to understand that. That's why even "real-world" settings like the Daily Planet are treated as a heightened, comedic hyper-reality, more His Girl Friday than All the President's Men.
 
King Daniel Beyond said:
There are Batman adaptations where there are no other superheroes, like Batman (1989) and Batman Begins. How do you justify his wardrobe choices there?
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Burton's Batman is hardly typical of most portrayals. Burton did play him up as a "weirdo," like most Burton protagonists, and I find it unfortunate that so many people glibly, lazily attribute the same to every incarnation of Batman out of the mistaken impression that it makes them sound clever.

Besides, the other major "no other superheroes" screen interpretation, the Nolan trilogy, is the one that did the most brilliant job of showing why Batman's iconography is not a symptom of insanity but a carefully calculated psyops campaign designed to demoralize criminals while giving law-abiding citizens a symbol to rally behind.
 
The Realist said:
Famously, Richard Donner's watchword in making Superman '78 was "verisimilitude." In watching the film, it's clear this didn't mean "realism," but believability within the movie's own framework, respect for the characters and the genre, and emotional and dramatic honesty in the storytelling.

But not "realism." It's a movie about a superstrong flying laser-eyed space alien wearing longjohns and a cape, and Donner is smart enough to understand that. That's why even "real-world" settings like the Daily Planet are treated as a heightened, comedic hyper-reality, more His Girl Friday than All the President's Men.
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As simplistic as this might sound, Batman is not Superman.
 
Assuming that it is the gun, I think appropriating the criminal's violent apparatus could fit in with incorporating it into a symbol meant to make them tremble. It's not like he made a picture frame out of it that he uses to display his parents' picture.
 
Mr. Adventure said:
Assuming that it is the gun
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It isn't. You just have to look at it closely to see that.

Mr. Adventure said:
I think appropriating the criminal's violent apparatus could fit in with incorporating it into a symbol meant to make them tremble.
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But guns are an everyday tool for criminals. If they were afraid of guns, they wouldn't be hardened criminals in the first place. At most, whatever fear they have of being shot is a mundane, everyday fear, something they understand and take in stride. They're not going to feel nigh-supernatural terror at something they carry around with them all the time. A gun as a symbol would be more frightening to civilians than to criminals, and that's just the opposite of what Batman needs.
 
Christopher said:
But guns are an everyday tool for criminals.
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What I'm saying is he's taking away their instrument of terror and then using it in the bat. As a criminal, if we're to swallow that they are intimidated by a guy dressed as a bat, that if his symbol was made from a broken down gun, one of their instruments of power, it seems like it would be even more effective at making them feel powerless.
 
Mr. Adventure said:
What I'm saying is he's taking away their instrument of terror and then using it in the bat. As a criminal, if we're to swallow that they are intimidated by a guy dressed as a bat, that if his symbol was made from a broken down gun, one of their instruments of power, it seems like it would be even more effective at making them feel powerless.
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That is a huge, deeply implausible reach to try to justify something that is not true because it's not a damn gun.
 
Mr. Adventure said:
What I'm saying is he's taking away their instrument of terror and then using it in the bat. As a criminal, if we're to swallow that they are intimidated by a guy dressed as a bat, that if his symbol was made from a broken down gun, one of their instruments of power, it seems like it would be even more effective at making them feel powerless.
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That's kind of my thing. It's not just that it is a gun-it's that he has taken that tool and dismantled it for his own purposes. To me, it says "I will take your strengths and break them down for my purposes."

Again, this is all reading in to what is probably not even the case. But, the symbolism is more interesting to me than anything else.
 
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