Census Rate Batman films 1-8

Have you guys seen the College Humour Badman videos? Specifically, the nuke one and the one with Batman being obsessed with sex?

 

My favorites (in order) are:

- The Dark Knight Rises (the only Batman film to ever make me literally cry)
- The Dark Knight
- Batman Begins

- Batman (1966 - shark-repellent bat-spray... need I say more?)

- Batman (1989)
- Batman Returns

The other films (live action) never happened.

 

But some of them are better than Live Action movies, Transformers the Movie being a good example.

If an animated movie has better action scenes, better acting, better script and a better story than a Live Action movie, how it is not better?

 

Just for all those who demanded that the 1966 Batman film be included, check out this piece of awesomeness from Mattel, an official action figure of Cesar Romero's Joker:



INCLUDING THE MOUSTACHE!!!



And the rest:

 

No, but I'll check out the site. And upon reflection, the most outlandish moment is probably when Bane stands before the prison, whips out Gordon's confessional, reads it, and supposedly blows the minds of Gotham.

Even if I was a criminal, there'd be two things I'd be telling my fellow citizens.

First-- "You know, there's a fairly high probability that that masked psychotic is lying. Probably forged the letter himself. Sounds like something a masked psychotic would do."

Second--"Who gives a ----? Gordon may work for The Man, but I don't recall him blowing up a stadium, plunging the city into chaos, and threatening millions with annihilation."

 

The one about the Dent Act?

If that's what ur talking about, you must have forgot that Bane took that letter from Gordon

 

You don't read very good do you?

 

I read great

 

Your sig is too big again. It's taking up close to 87% of the thread space that this forum has.

 

Uhh what? My sig is fine, size is only 6, ain't that large

 

It's causing the forums to collapse upon themselves. Users are disappearing without a trace. The oceans are opening up revealing inter-dimensional beings with the desire to destroy cities.

 

Can I just say that I'm really glad we've got another thread where we can talk about silly drawings and cartoons of a man dressed up as a Dracula?

It leaves us so much more room to talk about the serious, extremely dramatic and respectable live-action films of a man dressed up as a Dracula.

Rises did one thing absolutely right, and that was pay homage to Batman '66:



I think my main problem with Rises was how much it wanted to be an allusive, self-referential comic book movie, but it just couldn't laugh at itself enough. For a series that was very clever in adapting the more comic book-y moments and aspects of its story, it certainly went off the deep end for the final film. The League of Shadows was more like an international terrorist organization than a bunch of mysterious, ageless ninjas determined to save the world by killing everyone. Sure, they mention their illustrious history, but it's not too big a part of the story, at least on the surface.

The Dark Knight gives us the first supercriminal - not necessarily supervillain - who is really just a Nietzsche wannabe with serious planning and manipulation skills. There's a theme of escalation, and it works, and it all feels very natural and plausible. The Joker is a madman, and he's scary because he could be real. Two-Face is a man pushed to the brink who gets caught in an explosion; there's no mention of prior disorder or past abuse, and he's not even suffering from dissociative identity disorder, he just snaps and latches on to chance as his thing. Again, all plausible.

Rises, however, has Batman coming out of retirement to fight a supervillain who wants to blow up Gotham and hides out in the sewer before literally taking over the city and holding it hostage. Bane has an underground lair. Bane's also really just the muscle for Talia whose entire plan was to work her way onto the Wayne Enterprises board of directors, seduce Bruce so he'd trust her, then use her position to turn the fusion reactor into a bomb and hold the city hostage because Bruce "killed" her father. These guys are flat-out comic book supervillains existing in the real world, and it's kind of jarring. Hardy was fantastic as Bane, and the movie was very entertaining, but it misses the mark of the previous two films simply because it didn't really have the same tone and grounded reality the first two did.

 

I absolutely disagree with this on all points! And I don't even like the Transformers films.

 

I saw one video, could have been College Humour but it had Riddler in it with Batman and he was giving Batman stupid riddles and Batman couldn't figure it out and was giving stupid answers. Ill try and find it. It went like, "what comes out of a gun?" And Batman was like, "Injustice."

 

I saw the one where Batman keeps changing his voice.

 

No. He has to get back to the US, not Alpha Centauri.

 

The following contains language that upsets both the baby Jesus and his unicorn pal Trevor. If you don't like words that upset Jesus, don't click:



"In an order that would surprise you!"



Great parodies that highlight how insipid Rises was.

 

But you haven't answered the question, if an animated movie is superior in all ways (and some are) how can it be worse?

 

I'd have to actually see an example. Currently I cannot think of any.

 

You don't think Hamill does a better Joker than say, Nicholson in the Time Burton Batman movie? Or that Kevin Conroy does a better Batman than any of the actors who have done the character in Live Action movies (even if you rate Bale and/or Keaton better, Conroy surely is superior to Kilmer and Clooney).

What about Megatron in the Transformers movie from the 80s? Frank Welker's portrayal (along with Nimoy when he was Galvatron) was much better than the crappy CGI version voiced by Hugo Weaving in all the Bay movies.

The Clone Wars is superior to the Prequels in many ways, one being that the characters actually have chemistry and decent dialogue

 

Hamill's easily my favourite Joker, but objectively he's on par with Nicholson's take, which is fantastic. I don't think anyone would dispute the Jack Nicholson as the Joker was masterful and excellent and easily one of the best parts of Batman '89.

And I love Conroy, absolutely adore his voice acting, but I've never seen Conroy punch the Joker while wearing the Batsuit, have I? They're different roles with different requirements - Conroy just has to sound the part, while Bale et al had to physically be Batman in addition to doing the voice. I'm not trying to diminish anyone, I'm just saying you can't really do a one-to-one comparison because the demands are so different.

As for Kilmer, say what you will, but I really liked his Batman and Bruce Wayne. Forever remains one of my favourite movies, in part because of nostalgia, but also because it's surprisingly entertaining and fun nearly twenty years after I first watched it as a wee child. This is the first Batman movie where he doesn't kill people and is legitimately heroic (well, generally), and the first Batman movie where he's actually competent. Kilmer certainly doesn't have a huge amount of nuance, but he sells his scenes as Batman really well and comes across as a benevolent but absent-minded Bruce Wayne generally decently. The movie itself...well, I'll talk about that later.

 

Forever has some good lines too:

"Can I persuade you to take a sandwich with your sir?"

"I'll get drive-thru"


And he kinda does kill Two-Face, he creates confusion seemingly knowing he will fall to his death because of his need for his coin. Why else would he have done that? He could simply have escaped while Two-Face was watching his coin toss or attacked him because he wasn't looking.

IMO that falls into the same category as Ra's in Batman Begins.

 

I actually thought Kilmer made a decent Batman. It was just the supporting cast that made the movie so ****ing horrible. Although, it is the only movie where Tommy Lee Jones isn't a cranky old man.

 

You do realize that Batman has had more cartoon series than all his movies put together, right? And arguably, some of those series and spinoff movies are much more better than most of the live action films.

Furthermore, you do realize that Batman is a COMIC BOOK CHARACTER, one that has existed in print in a semi if not continuous matter for three quarters of a century, right? Just to see if we're on the same page here. Because your continuous disdain for the comics Batman sprung from and the many superior animated works that have featured him is simply absurd.

 

Hence why I said he's "legitimately heroic (well, generally)." There are still moments of questionable behaviour, and the coin toss is open for debate, I think - he's given Harvey outs, and to be fair, it's not Batman's fault Two-Face is fixated on the coin. It is totally taking advantage of the guy, but I doubt Batman's plan was, "If I throw these coins, Two-Face will fall and die." But yeah, totally morally grey.

However, his seeming acceptance of Dick's "I'm just gonna kill Two-Face because he killed my parents" isn't morally questionable, as (with subtler and more nuanced direction perhaps) we could see it as Bruce knowing Dick would take the high road.

Let's not forget that Batman is straight-up not incompetent this time around; he soundly trumps Chase Meridian's armchair psychoanalysis, calls her out on thinking bats are rodents, and plainly identifies the obvious bat-shaped Rorschach blot for what it is, a bat Also he breaks down her door, but he heard sounds of a struggle, and it's somehow his fault he doesn't know she has a massive punching bag in her psychiatric practice? Who does that?

The opening scene has Batman straight-up messing up Two-Face's thugs before breaking out of a death trap (this movie actually has the only death traps in all of Batman cinema, which is really depressing when you think about it) using a hearing aid and landing the safe back in the hole it was yanked out from.

And yes, the lines:

"The Batsignal is not a beeper."

"You trying to get under my cape, doctor?"

"It's the car, right? Chicks love the car."

"How about Dick Grayson, College Student?"

"I read your work. Insightful - naive, but insightful."

I just really love this movie. It's easily the most fun of the series.

EDIT: If you look at the script divorced from the visual aesthetic and cast, this movie isn't actually as terrible as people say.