Originally posted by Reborn Again
I quite enjoyed Burton's rendition of Penguin. The Dark Knight vs the Bird Man of Gotham. Dark & sinister to the end. Well, except for the army of remote controlled penguins. Now that was rediculous!
The thing is that the Penguin really isn't a dark and sinister character. He's a crooked businessman, really. It feels as though they chose a villian and then, when they realized he didn't fit the tone of the movie, they completely changed the villian around until he did.
Stand up as a Batman fan and tell me how you feel about-
Commissioner Gordon being relegated to the role of a bumbling fat gasbag.
The character of proud incorruptible cop Detective Bullock being used and changed to cowardly corrupt sell-out cop Eckhart.
The Joker "dancing" around to a Prince song in an art Museum for the sake of a movie soundtrack tie-in lesson in merchandising that Schumacher would have been proud of.
The near anonymous feral-slim Joker having an origin story as a short fat thug named Jack Napier and being the man responsible for the killing of the Elder Wayne's - pissing on 50 years of Batman mythos and whistling a happy tune while the steam rises.
Batman, a hero with a pathological aversion to guns and killing strafes the streets of gotham with machinegun fire during the Jokers parade. He also remotely drops a bomb in the chemical plant, indiscriminately killing who knows how many people.
The only batman film that wasn't offensive to the comic book batman was B&R, because it wasn't pretending to BE the Dark Knight, it was out to have fun.
And guess what? Doesn't matter - Batman and Batman Returns were still great movies. They gang-****ed Catwomans origin in B returns and it still kicked mighty ass.
We are never going to get movie versions of comic heros that are %100 faithfull to the comic because the comics themselves screw about with 30-40-50 years of continuity as-and-when they like. Most of those stories are dumb, some stink BAD and are best forgotten - if you want to be TRUE to the comics a batman origin movie would have to be set in the 1940's and Spider-man in the 1960's: is that what you want? Is it? IS IT FANBOYS??? No. I didn't think so, so shut your yaps.
What we will get if we are lucky is a watchable movie that treats the subject JUST seriously enough. If you are such a manic fanboy that the very IDEA organic webbing or a batmobile with BIG wheels ruins your life, stay out of the theatre. The rest of us can relax eat the popcorn and give thanks that we are finaly getting a reasonable quality superhero product.
Originally posted by Mr Zero
if you want to be TRUE to the comics a batman origin movie would have to be set in the 1940's and Spider-man in the 1960's: is that what you want? Is it? IS IT FANBOYS??
I've read the first Batman comic (in an Archive edition), and I've read the most recent, and Batman's origin hasn't changed. It's been retold, sure, but it's exactly the same now as it was back then. I don't know what the you think you're getting at, but it is perfectly obvious that the story can be modernized without being utterly screwed up, since the only time-specific parts of Batman's origins are the movie they went to and the make of the gun that was used. You make an inane statement, scream at us, call us manic fanboys for wanting a faithful adaption, and act condescending--I hope you're not trying to pass yourself off as the voice of reason here, because that's sure not how you're coming off.
Originally posted by Gregory
Batman's origin hasn't changed. It's been retold, sure, but it's exactly the same now as it was back then.
Horsepoop.
In 1939 an unamed mugger shoots both Martha and Jonathan Wayne and wee bruce promises to avenge them by spending his life fighting all criminals - with (for several issues) a GUN.
In 1948 we are told that a mugger named Joe Chill shoots Jonathan Wayne and Martha promptly dies of a heart attack. Young Bruce vows to avenge them by training so he can bring his parents killer to justice.. AND fight all criminals - as an afterthought.
You can say those are more or less the same if you like, but my point is that not even the comics can agree on what is "cannon" Batman and whiney fanboy bleating about the "facts" being changed is pointless.
True to the spirit of the character is the best we can hope for.
Originally posted by Mr Zero
Horsepoop.In 1939 an unamed mugger shoots both Martha and Jonathan Wayne and wee bruce promises to avenge them by spending his life fighting all criminals - with (for several issues) a GUN.
In 1948 we are told that a mugger named Joe Chill shoots Jonathan Wayne and Martha promptly dies of a heart attack. Young Bruce vows to avenge them by training so he can bring his parents killer to justice.. AND fight all criminals - as an afterthought.
You can say those are more or less the same if you like, but my point is that not even the comics can agree on what is "cannon" Batman and whiney fanboy bleating about the "facts" being changed is pointless.
True to the spirit of the character is the best we can hope for.
There you go with the "fanboy" thing again. And this time, "whiney" as well. But I never said that the Batman story was never changed, did I? I said it's the same now as it is then, which is true: the Joe Chill thing was given up as a bad experiment as retconned out durring the Crisis On Infinite Earths. I know that Batman killed people originally; that, too, was retconned out, and is irrelivent to the origin of Batman, which was the matter under discussion.
I quite agree that the movie should be true to the spirit of the character; it's a pitty that instead of doing that, they made him a killer, dispite the fact that his refusal to kill criminals is, in fact, a major part of his character. The fact is, that you're right: comic book characters do change with time, and some minor variation is to be expected. Did Bruce Wayne's father lost his temper and hit Bruce the day before he and Martha were shot? It's shown in one issue of Batman, and never alluded to ever again, so maybe, maybe not. I don't care about stuff like that; it's relatively minor. Having Batman kill people, by contrast, is not relatively minor, nor are some of the other changes they made.
ok ok ok ok ok Batman Sucks, it relly does, Who in there right mind would think Arnie was a great Mr Freeze???
Or that Clooney would be a perfect Batman, or Sliverstone would be a good blonded Batgirl who does not even share the family name of Gordan.
Wait Wrong Batman movie sorry.
The cool one was 1989, With Keaton and Nickson, Great lines, great acting and the He stole my Balloons line.
That was a classic.