JCC BATMAN 89: Celebrating 30 years

Eckhart's chest was moving; ergo Batman never killed Dent!!111!!111!

 

I believe in this thread being about Batman '89.

So I guess the movie came out at Batman's 50th anniversary, then. That's pretty neat!

 

I can't beleive it's been 25 years since it came out, wow. I remember I had recorded it off of HBO and played it so much that film started to deteriorate. It still has one of my all time favorite movie quotes "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" No one can do the Joker like Jack

 

Oh, Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger would have a word with you.

 

I had never seen anything like Batmania. I was too young to witness the craze for ROTJ, other than the television spots, the commercials for the toys and people wearing shirts. But the"Batman" craze was something else. I had gotten the Toy Biz figures that Christmas, along with the Riddler and Mr. Freeze from the Toy Biz DC Comics line. Got the novelization in May and read it within 24 hours. Watched the repeats of the 60's series which I hadn't seen, outside of the film. I even had two shirts.

http://ebid.s3.amazonaws.com/upload_big/8/8/0/1226058034-14163-0.jpg[/img

Only in a smaller size. And another shirt, which I cannot find a pic of, which had the logo, but the colors were different. It went from yellow to purple, vertically.

Yep. Also twenty five years ago was...

 

My brother and I both had Batman action figures based on the '89 film. Though, oddly enough, while they were clearly intended to be identical, the two figures were different in appearance. Mine was taller and leaner while his was shorter and had a wider face. Poor consistency at the toy factory, I suppose. Regardless, the figures were able to "zip line" via a cable attached to their utility belts.

They looked like this dude here:


A cousin of mine had a toy of the '89 Batmobile, which could launch missiles from the hood. I just had the McDonald's Happy Meal Batman Returns Batmobile.

 

ERTL Batmobiles or GTFO, IMO.

You also forgot the excellent Licence to Kill from 1989, sinister.

 

I have a Hot Wheels model of the '89 Batmobile that a girlfriend in college got me

Looks like this one:


The canopy can open and close, and there are guns under the hood. The wheels also move and the cockpit seems to be given sufficient care to detail.

 

As well as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, which also opened the same day as Batman. That is also streaming on Netflix starting today. In August was The Abyss and Casualties of War.
Also from that summer was the Ghostbusters II Slimer Sundae available at Hardee's, and a little ghost alarm zapper thing that was recalled because of small parts. I still have one.
Back to Batman, I put it on the break room TV yesterday and someone in his early 40s couldn't remember it. "With Jack Nicholson? I never saw that one." I just don't know. I guess it's a brain cells thing.

 

I had this one too! So cool to actually see it in the package! I remember finding all sorts of things to attach that belt to and have Batman zip-line his way to the rescue. Batman is by far the greatest super-hero of all time, FACT. How inspiring is this guy?!? Too bad there aren't millionaires/billionaires out there that would do the same thing, though the government would just hunt him down and label him a terrorist, still he is the only hero that even has a chance of being real. Long Live the Bat!

 

Jack is the best Joker hands down in my personal opinion. I never really thought Hamill's take was in the same league and Ledger gets way more credit than he deserves for Dark Knight. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that the usual people in Hollywood wanted to feel worthy about the performance after his unfortunate demise. Personally I think Ledger's Joker lost sight somewhat of the character. He just seemed to lick his lips a lot and was otherwise just a brutal killer. In contrast, Nicholson's take, for me, mixes the right amount of the outlandish clown persona with the chilling maniac genius underneath.

 

Heresy!

There is only ever one greatest superhero!

Spoiler

 

No way, Batman has no super powers and still defeats the Boy Scout. Agree to disagree. LOL! I hope they portray both of these heroes well in Dawn of Justice.

 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Jack Nicholson's Joker was simply Jack being Jack in clown make up. Hammy, campy, awkwardly lecherous and, tbh, not as menacing a Joker as other versions of the character. Just a bit edgier and crazier than Cesar Romero's, IMO. But lacking, I dunno, the unpredictability and sense of barely contained, world-destroying malice that other versions of bat**** crazy Joker have displayed. But get Mark to start THAT cackle, or watch Heath's pencil magic trick, and, well, what else is there to say?

 

This was the first film I ever lined up for.

 

One must take Frank Miller's interpretation with a few grains of salt.

 

I had that one. There were actually three variants.



There was more than one Joker, but I had this one. I got him a few months after I had gotten Batman and Bob.



Didn't know there was a Two-Face figure.

 

I had that Joker too! Children today probably don't know the joys of sitting around with your favorite action hero toys and having to use your imagination all afternoon long to entertain themselves but I hope they do. Anybody remember this one? By Batman Returns the faces looked a lot more like Keaton/Nicholson.

 

Love that Joker!

 

Forgotten Jedi, those figures I believe pre-dated Batman Returns but were better looking sculpts than the ToyBiz one above. I'm reasonably sure I had the first wave - All black, blue-on-blue, and gold/black costumes.

i.e:
http://www.legionsofgotham.org/ActionFigures/Movie/TDKC/TDKCwallscalerbat.jpg
http://www.legionsofgotham.org/ActionFigures/Movie/TDKC/TDKCcrimeattackBat.jpg I also had this, memories! http://www.legionsofgotham.org/ActionFigures/Movie/TDKC/TDKCbrucewayne.jpg

 

I desperately want the Hot Toys 1/6th scale Michael Keaton Batman figure but it's like $200 and also I don't think I'm quite ready to be that nerdy.

 

Why were there three?

My brother had this one. I had Penguin, though he looked more like the traditional Penguin than Danny DeVito.

 

Speaking as someone who has no nostalgia for this movie or was in any way attuned to what a pop culture phenomenon it was (I was born in 87), I have to say that I watched this movie once a couple years ago, and I will certainly never watch it again. I thought it was unequivocally awful.

 

That's so funny because I have the same Batmobile!

And I'm pretty sure I have that old Batman too.

A little off topic but not really since it was inspired by the 89 movie...I remember whenever I went over to my grandparents house with my parents when I was young, every now and then they would have a new Batman TAS figure for me. I remember playing with that TAS Batmobile in his driveway all the time. I would just spend HOURS driving that thing around.