04-30-2005, 05:34 AM
As a life long batman fan I take great umbrage in the overall assertion that any of the batman films, even those done by tim burton, were decent. Although i would say that the ones done by tim burton are more enjoyable to watch than the later the fact remains that the films by Tim Burton absolutely slaughter any semblance of inner character identity in exchange for visual style.
Tim Burton's films repeatedly betray the characters they are based on, although i can't say how much that can be blamed on Burton and how much of it comes to faulty writers. First of all nearly every peripheral character in the original Tim Burton movie is there in name only and has absolutely no resemblence to the actual character in the books. Secondly and more importantly is the fact that Batman kills over 10 people in the original movie if not more, and climactically through his own actions kills the joker as well. This is an ongoing flaw in all of the movies and is just a symptom of the overall character betrayals that all of the movies have perpetrated. If the joker was falling off that building Batman would be 5 feet behind him doing everything in his power to save the dispicable bastard and if these writers/directers had any real idea of what these characters were about the only logical conclusion that the first Burton movie would have had would be Bruce Wayne splattered on the ground right next to the joker.
Another problem with the original Batman movies is that, in large part, they were made off the sudden popularity of the Frank Miller graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. Unfortunately much of this book contains the same type of charcter descrepancies as the movies do. Being as that novel is more of a What-If? story I don't think any continuity based book, or movie for that matter, should base much of it's mood/character on them. And it really is unfortunate because a much better Frank Miller book to base a Batman movie on would be his work in Batman: Year One. I still get a little nauseus when i'm at the comic shop and i hear some crankshaft going on about how great TDKR is and 2 seconds later it becomes apparant that their whole concept of what the Batman universe is about is based on this one book.
On the topic of the new Batman movie, I have complete confidence in it's ability to as accurately as possible translate the characters. They really have gotten the perfect person to play Bruce Wayne. I'm constantly reminded of the beginning of American Psycho: "There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real Me. Only an entity. Something illusory." "I simply am not there."
I also think that any writer or director that might attempt to takle a batman film would sorely lacking if they didn't spend a good bit of time studying the works of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale in The Long Halloween and Dark Victory as well as the graphic novel Arkham Asylum as it is the rawest batman book ever made and as close to the core of these characters as you are likely to get.
Tim Burton's films repeatedly betray the characters they are based on, although i can't say how much that can be blamed on Burton and how much of it comes to faulty writers. First of all nearly every peripheral character in the original Tim Burton movie is there in name only and has absolutely no resemblence to the actual character in the books. Secondly and more importantly is the fact that Batman kills over 10 people in the original movie if not more, and climactically through his own actions kills the joker as well. This is an ongoing flaw in all of the movies and is just a symptom of the overall character betrayals that all of the movies have perpetrated. If the joker was falling off that building Batman would be 5 feet behind him doing everything in his power to save the dispicable bastard and if these writers/directers had any real idea of what these characters were about the only logical conclusion that the first Burton movie would have had would be Bruce Wayne splattered on the ground right next to the joker.
Another problem with the original Batman movies is that, in large part, they were made off the sudden popularity of the Frank Miller graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. Unfortunately much of this book contains the same type of charcter descrepancies as the movies do. Being as that novel is more of a What-If? story I don't think any continuity based book, or movie for that matter, should base much of it's mood/character on them. And it really is unfortunate because a much better Frank Miller book to base a Batman movie on would be his work in Batman: Year One. I still get a little nauseus when i'm at the comic shop and i hear some crankshaft going on about how great TDKR is and 2 seconds later it becomes apparant that their whole concept of what the Batman universe is about is based on this one book.
On the topic of the new Batman movie, I have complete confidence in it's ability to as accurately as possible translate the characters. They really have gotten the perfect person to play Bruce Wayne. I'm constantly reminded of the beginning of American Psycho: "There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real Me. Only an entity. Something illusory." "I simply am not there."
I also think that any writer or director that might attempt to takle a batman film would sorely lacking if they didn't spend a good bit of time studying the works of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale in The Long Halloween and Dark Victory as well as the graphic novel Arkham Asylum as it is the rawest batman book ever made and as close to the core of these characters as you are likely to get.