I’ve gotta admit, I wasn’t a particularly big fan of Nolan’s Batman. I’ve rewatched it twice, and both times it failed to impress me further. Damn. And while I don’t ‘hate’ the batmobile, I think Burton’s take on it was stellar, while Nolan’s was merely a bit stupid and impractical.
But that is far surpassed by the new ‘batpod’… Ehm; it looks stupid. Dammit.
Yeah, but I bet if someone rolled that up to your front door saying “take it for a spin” you’d be on it like white on rice :P
Yeah, but I’m easy like that :)
heh… from the title of the post i came to the conclusion that this was about a new iPod (skin)… ;P
“a bit stupid and impractical”
Absolutely! I want one.
Mind you, let it be know that I’ve never said I wouldn’t want one if offered for free (or cheaply even) :P
It seems we agree on the important matters.
While I thought Batman Begins was far better than Batman Forever and Batman & Robin_, I’ve never thought it was as re-watchable as the two original Burton ones. There’s just something about some movies that make them re-watchable again and again, and then there are other movies that are by all standards good movies — just not watchable (Dancer in the Dark). So I agree, Batman Begins was a pretty good reboot, but it was really just an okay movie.
I hate that they’re replacing Katie Holmes in the new one… just write her out for crying out loud.
As for the BatPod… Maybe it’s got a jog-wheel? Heh heh heh… Maybe it needs iTunes to be refueled? Heh heh heh…
I said the same thing about the new Batmobile in Nolan’s first film. I hated it when I first saw it. Then in the film I loved it. It fit. I’ll reserve judgment until later.
Granted. Burtons Batman was awesome! Classic no doubt about it. They where batman of the 90’ies. (and a little of the 80’ies) and I love them. I own them on DVD. But Nolans is much more like the Batman I want to see as an adult. Bad and dark. It’s left the cartoony feel that Burton started (and Joel Schumacher later raped.)
I gotta tell you right now I love the new Batmobile design more than the Burton design. But I loved the Burton design when it came out. Oh my favorite part of the Amiga game was to drive the batmobile through Gotham and take the corners on two wheels by shooting wires around the lamp posts …
I really can’t see a lot of that BatPod in the picture, but it looks like it follows the design of Nolans batmobile. So if you don’t like it that’s probably why. Nolans batmobile may look impractical but its designed to look like a military project. It’s designed to be a bad ass destroyer. And the way the frotn wheels are suspended … cool! Great design IMO … AND I like Burtons batmobile but in a completely different way – but not less. But I think that may be nostalgic reasons more than the actual look of it.
Dude, rush hour!
I. want. one. Stupid pedestrians milling around on the road like sheep? No worries, open up the twin carbines to clear a path.. wicked.
Burton’s bat mobile(s) were based on a very stylised design.. but then nolan’sis actually based, iirc on a ‘military’ inspired design the original comic author came up with some years back.
Whilst I like the old skool bat mobiles, I’ve always “wanted” the bad ass humvee meets APC.
“Where does he get all those wonderful toys?”.
Let it be said, to each his own! I was a huge fan of the Burton Batman but a larger fan of Miller’s Dark Knight (hence the ‘tank’). Having said that, Batman Begins was for me, what I had hoped Burton’s Batman would be like-which was of course, very ‘Burotonesque’ whereas Batman Begins-while no disservice towards Nolan-was ‘Milleresque’.
I really like Burton’s Batman as a film but I like Batman Begins for it’s Batman (sans Bale’s BatVoice).
As much as I like Burton’s Batman (and pretty much every Tim Burton film), I am very very glad that Christopher Nolan eschewed the flamboyance of the previous Batman films in favor of a more realistic tone.
Of course, I didn’t want to see a rehash of the first Batman. Yes, it was a classic, but there’s no way in hell a Burton-esque remake would’ve worked these days.
And as cool as it was, I don’t miss the original batmobile. Remember, the goal in Batman Begins was to bring the series back down to Earth by incorporating more realism. There’s no way in hell the company making Burton’s batmobile wouldn’t have known who it was for and leaked it to the press.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see what the gripe is. It’s a fine film by a talented director. Besides, according to all the comic book people, Batman Begins is a lot more true to the source material and is damn near right out of the comics.
Or maybe I just like my movies with a larger dose of cynicism than you, Michael. ;)
Nah, I like the bike. I also think Batman Begins was only half-decent, but since all other Batman movies were incredibly bad, Batman Begins is a veritable masterpiece. It’s hard to translate him into movies proper. I’ve seen the movie a couple of times, and I still don’t think it rivals X-Men and X-Men 2, but it’s a decent movie adaption of the modern Batman comics with a good injection of Frank Miller. I’ll take it, even though I think it could be better.
To call the next movie “The Dark Knight Returns” and then not make it an adaption of Frank Miller’s masterpiece, however, is criminal. But I still have high hopes for it and look forward to it more than any other super hero movie in the pipe.
Now if only Pixar would adapt Watership Down (PG-13 rated), I’d be happy (yes, this makes no sense in this context, but I’ve made it my mission to drop that line into every movie comment I ever make until Pixar actually adapts Watership Down. Join me!)
Stand back, because this gets a bit fanboyish, and it may stain.
First of all, Batman Begins is an inferior movie in almost all respects to Tim Burton’s original Batman, and to some extend also Batman Returns. And for all intents and purposes, those are the only three Batman movies in existence.
Now, the second thing we need to put to sleep right here and now, is the notion of Batman Begins being more ‘realistic’. There is nothing realistic about Batman Begins, at all!
Burton’s Batman is more pure in its aesthetics, where Batman Begins is more gritty and grimy. But you look at Batman Begins and you look out the window, and the two have nothing in common. It is not realistic.
Want some examples? The tumbler has ‘stealth’ mode (which basically means they turn out the lights and hope that their pursuers are stupid as hell). The tumbler can jump… It’s a 5 ton vehicle, that jumps… The maglev train looks like something from a 2070 science fiction movie, as does the rest of main Gotham. The bad guys, who despite Batman’s history with them, are entirely nondescript, use a device that evaporates water (it’s not enough to get the stuff into the water, they have to evaporate it? What?!)
And so on and so forth. Short of the long: Batman Begins is an over-the-top science fiction film.
As for the ‘realistic’ Tumbler?
It was ‘developed by the army’… Really? What army would that be, because I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere in the world. Yeah, looks cool, but from a pragmatic point of view, I would never drive that into combat.
I mean, look at it!
You shoot an RPG at the tumbler, and it practically attracts the grenade, which couldn’t bounce off if it wanted to. And once caught, it would probably end up in some hole in the chassis and the explosion would only be amplified by enclosures on it. It’s NUTS!
Furthermore, everything on that thing looks like they could be bent and broken by a minor collision. Those flaps, wings or whatever they are, look like they would break off at any minor collision.
There is style-over-substance, and then there’s style-over-application, and the tumbler is the latter.
Now look at a real tank.
The two have practically nothing in common except for their size. The Leopard II tank is the exact opposite of the tumbler. It has been honed by real-life experiences of sending these things into hazardous situations.
You want an example of fairly believable military vehicles from the annals of science fiction, take a look at the Aliens dropship:
Or the APC (which, fair enough, doesn’t look particularly capable of handling terrain):
(On behalf of the computer games industry I would like to apologies to James Cameron, Ron Cobb and Syd Mead. Especially about the whole Halo thing. I know we got a good deal on that in the end, but it was a biiit too blatant).
Want me to continue? What about the stuuuupid idea of having Batman slide down the middle when he needs to go really fast, or jump, or whatever the hell that’s all about.
I don’t care who came up with that; it is just downright retarded. It’s an ‘over the top, dad!’ moment, and contrary to what Khaled thinks, Batman sure doesn’t need that. 2000AD is all about being over-much. Batman is about a guy who doesn’t have any powers, who bruises, bleeds and breaks bones; who is driven by his anger and vengeance. Sure, he has toys, but they’re secondary to his drive.
And really; stealth mode? Come on…
And it’s not because I don’t like over-the-top’ness in all its glory; I just don’t think Batman is the franchise to practice it in.
As a matter of fact, in the midst of the over-the-top 80’s jam that is Frank Miller’s Dark Knight, the single coolest moment is when?
That’s right. Batman on a motherfucking horse! (Yeah, there’s an homage to that in Begins, but…)
How about in Miller’s Year One when he’s shooting people with a carabine rifle!
What’s strange is that Burton is actually more true to the real-world’ness of Miller’s Batman than Nolan is. Consider the fact that Burton’s Batmobile shoots out grappling hooks to do sharp turns! Grappling hooks! Psshhh, KLANK, whiiiiiine, posh, wrooooooo-oooooo-oooooop. Not a rocketbooster; a grappling hook!
And despite having gone to ninja-school in the Himalaya’s, how does Batman fight? Like Burton’s Batman.
Hm.
One of my friends made the comparison to Casino Royale. Burton’s Batman’s are the old way of doing things, and Nolan’s Batman was intended to reboot the franchise and bring it into a more modern, ‘blood n’ bruises’ world.
The problem is, Burton’s Batman/Bruce Wayne is a considerably more interesting and believable character than Nolan’s. And I love Christian Bale, but contrary to my hopes (I was really rooting for him), he doesn’t do a particularly good Batman… (Reign of Fire; now there’s a movie!).
(And if you ask me, Nick Nolte should’ve played Batman, but I’m nutty like that. Coo coo).
Likewise, Burton’s world is much more like our own, except dark, wet and cold, and that makes it much easier for us to sympathize with Batman.
Because Batman, at his best, in my humble opinion, isn’t science fiction.
Phew.
And I’ve hardly even mentioned the story, which was absolute junk… “Tell me, you went to the trouble of getting this stuff into the water supplies you say? And now you need to evaporate it? Why? Doesn’t water evaporate on its own? And even so, wouldn’t it have been easier to simply contaminate the water with slow-acting poison?”
It’s sloppy complications for complications sake. Something I expected from the Joker (who uses a remarkably similar technique in the first Burton Batman), since he is insane. But if that was the best plan the R’aj’ul or whatever, could come up with, they really need to shape up.
And the batvoice…
Again, IMHO, Keaton’s Batman worked because you believed that there was actually a man behind the mask; not a ‘creature’.
Now, when all is said and done, I really didn’t enjoy much of anything in Batman Begins. I thought the art direction was confused, the characters largely boring and the plot stupid. I had expected and hoped for much more, especially considering Memento (the score grew on me, and I now consider it one of Zimmer’s better).
And Bjørn is right, Watership Down has nothing to do with anything… No, wait, the other thing, calling it The Dark Knight Returns when it isn’t an adaptation is a mockery.
As for the batpod, it looks stupid. It doesn’t look like it’s capable of turning, the canons protrude like on a subpar kitbash and the whole thing is inferior to the thought of Batman grabbing a rifle, knocking a guy off his motorbike and chasing a car through the streets of Gotham.
… Yeah.
PS: Katie Holmes pretty much wrecked the movie for me any time she was on screen.
PPS: Bjørn, consider that Pixar is renowned for their creation of original IP, and recalculate your chances…
DAMN Heilemann!
Your Masada-like defense is hard to argue with. I’m a huge fan of Burton’s version-I saw it at least 6 times while it was still in first run-I’m not as disappointed with Nolan’s film as you. Burton’s films were perfect for their time. Considering all the ways Batman Begins could have gone I think they did it justice. After all, I think the last thing any of us wanted to see was a re-interpretation of Burton’s films. Maybe instead of ‘realistic’ the term ‘earthy’ would be a more suitable description.
P.S. A lot of people have been unduly harsh on Katie Holmes (like you said, just seeing her put you off). I’m no fan of hers by any stretch but given the fact that the her entire role was superfluous, I think she did a decent job of acting. She didn’t have much to work with. You want to talk about bad acting, watch Kim Basinger.
http://binarybonsai.com/archives/2007/06/19/pixar-john-carter-of-mars-what-the/
Recalculating as we speak :)
Damn, that’s cold!
You lost me when you said that Burton’s version was more realistic.
A grapling hook to make a sharp turn would never work in reality, and is an obvious Tim Burton-ism. And a Corvette with “Bat-fins”, a jet engine, and armor that appears from nowhere? Not likely. Nevermind Batman having a voice-activated, computer-controlled, self-driving vehicle in 1989.
I’ll admit that the whole “lean forward to fire/go fast” thing for Nolan’s Batmobile was kind of dumb, and it’s exterior design is one giant shot trap. Regardless of the aesthetics of the Batmobile, though, I appreciated the more realistic approach to it. It was a pre-existing experimental vehicle that Bruce Wayne merely “borrowed”, as opposed to something he had custom-made. And it being a pre-existing vehicle meant for possible military use means no bat-fins.
Nolan’s Gotham City was actual, real life cities cut-and-pasted together, so I don’t see how you can say that it looks like something out of a 2070 futuristic movie and call Burton’s pastel-colored Gotham more realistic. Additionally, I don’t see how you can say that Nolan’s Gotham is too dark and gritty and therefor unrealistic and inferior, then turn right around a few paragraphs later and say that Burton’s Gotham is darker and grittier than reality and therefor superior.
Reality can be pretty damn dark and gritty, and while both directors went for a dingy and grimy look for Gotham, Burton’s was a lot more gothic and had the usual Tim Burton flair, whereas Nolan’s Gotham was more along the lines of “What would New York look like if it was under an economic depression that went on for decades?”
As for the microwave emitter, that’s something the US military is actually researching, so it’s not like they pulled it out of nowhere. Sure, the whole “put hallicinogens in the water and then rapidly vaporize the water to get everyone on a bad trip” was contrived, but it was explained well and not very hard to follow. Plus, they said right in the movie itself that the goal was not just to kill everyone in the city (as you pointed out, merely poisoning the water would be sufficient for that), but to make a worldwide spectacle out of it.
Lastly, I don’t think Nolan’s Batman’s fighting style is anything like Burton’s. Hell, Nolan hired some martial arts guys to create a new style just for the movie, and (to me) the two don’t really look all that similar.
It’s also worth explicity stating that I love both Batman AND Batman Begins. They’re both good movies in my mind, and are just different. I like them for different reasons, and don’t really consider them to be in competition with each other.
Alright, let me rephrase: More tangible.
Compare the tumbler, which can ‘jump’, though it’s never truly explained just how that works, and go into ‘stealth’ mode, again unexplained, with the old Batmobile, which shoots out a grappling hook!
Yes, it also comes with armor and voice control, but again, both of those are in my opinion more tangible than inertia-free jumping and magic-stealth technology.
Yeah, I agree, the idea is cool. Even if it would instantly reveal Batman as someone connected with Wayne Industries, but hey… :)
If you remember this sequence, where the sky train, elevated high above the streets all run into a building, I rest my case (and that was when Bruce Wayne was a child, mind you).
I couldn’t find the place where I call both of the Gotham’s dark and gritty, but pronounce one bad and one good because of it.
But I don’t care much for the look of Nolan’s Chicago-meets-Singapore Gotham. Too many browns… But that’s more a matter of taste than anything.
The same could be said about Bond’s invisible car (I forget which movie), but that doesn’t mean it works as a dramatic device. In fact, I think it makes most people chuckle a bit and then nudge what could otherwise have been an intense dramatic story down to ‘whatever’.
It isn’t whether or not it’s explained well or hard to follow, it’s the fact that a) it’s stupid because now that they’re putting something in the water, why not just pour copious amounts of cyanide in there rather than some maniacal plan? Again, as I said, if it had been a lunatic character, like the Joker, it could have worked. But it wasn’t.
As for making a spectacle out of it, I’m sure an easier, more tangible way (there’s that word again) could be found…
As I said, I believe that it’s Batman’s force that it is human drama more than it is a ‘what if’ story (except for the ‘what if a man dressed like a bat’-part). Hanging your story-coat on a nail of ‘what if we could evaporate water with a device’ is shaky business, and in my opinion it diluted the drama and the characters of the movie.
Whether or not the two fighting styles are similar, I’ll leave to a side-by-side viewing.
PS: I should really fix my Textile plugin.
You said:
“Burton’s Batman is more pure in its aesthetics, where Batman Begins is more gritty and grimy. But you look at Batman Begins and you look out the window, and the two have nothing in common. It is not realistic.”
and then
“Burton’s world is much more like our own, except dark, wet and cold”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you meant, but to me that reads as saying that Nolan’s Gotham was dark and gritty, and Burton’s Gotham was dark and gritty, yet Burton’s Gotham is better for it, whereas Nolan’s is worse.
I’m not saying that I think Nolan’s Gotham is superior, but I don’t think it’s inferior either. It’s just a different take: a major American city rotting from the inside out vs. a major American city with a gothic bent.
Let me clean that up a bit:
Burton’s world is more of a caricature than Nolan’s. Burton’s aesthetics aren’t ‘real’ as such (pop-gothicism? Goth expressionism?), but nor are they, for the most part, ‘fantastic’. Nolan’s Gotham on the other hand has the texture of our world, but with fantastic proportions; like Lang’s Metropolis, dipped in Shanghai.
My point was, that Burton’s Gotham, while it is more expressionistic than it is real, feels more like a foreign city on a dark, rainy November night, than Nolan’s Gotham, which is too fantastic to really exist anywhere in the world today (except perhaps Dubai?).
Don’t get me wrong; I’m happy they tried going in a different direction than Burton; they shouldn’t be faulted for that. I just don’t see eye to eye with their interpretation of Batman and Gotham.
I love you guys.
The Tumbler mixes design elements from an F-117 Stealth Bomber and a Lamborghini Countach among others (they have pretty much the same stacatto look to them). I must say I really like it for taking things in a WAY more brutal direction. I doesn’t make sence as an army vehicle, and it has a bloody rocket thingy…lame. BUT it does make you react. Which is good, I think.
First you didn’t think Spiderman 3 was a turd, and next you actually claim – I have trouble even typing this – that Nolans Batman Begins is inferior to the da-na-na-na-na-na-na-Batmaaaan of Burton.
It’s official – you and I do not see eye to eye on matters of comics and movies.