Batman Returns fans united

[Damiean Dark]

Keaton in Batman Returns was the ultimate portrayel of the batman character but i do think B89 just trumps it as a film.

 

[Bat Attack]

Batman was more of a blockbuster, Batman Returns was more artsy. IMO.

 

[Catman]

Batman was more of a blockbuster, Batman Returns was more artsy. IMO.

I tend to see it that way as well.

 

[House_of_El]

Kick a$$ movie.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

Keaton in Batman Returns was the ultimate portrayel of the batman character but i do think B89 just trumps it as a film.

I disagree, I think Keaton's performance was much better, more assured, in Batman. In Returns, he is much more self-aware and adds small elements of comedy. In the first movie, he's so focused and intent, it's scary. He always knows what to do. Take the moment where the first of the Joker's Goons jumps towards him in the cathedral. Batman waits until the last moment, and finally shoots that weird thing out of his glove to take him down.

In Returns, Batman shows signs of panic when the Batmobile is rushing toward the alleyway and he can't figure out which button activates the Batmissile.

 

[DaRkVeNgeanCe]

Like Keaton had said in the extras to the dvd before starting the second film he had to go back and think how he had played the character, since he never played a character twice up until then, it seemed to be a little hard for him. He asked Burton how to go about it, and he said to just go with whatever, to flow, Keaton had said trying to get back into character was like him playing the character like acting like himself lol. I actually think that his portrayal of Wayne was pretty close to the one he did in the first, but his Batman was definetly different. The first scene where he saves Selina, that was along the lines of the character he played in the first film, but after that he just dosent flow the way he did before, the way he fights...moves, talks to Catwoman, (though when he confronts Penguin in front of Shrecks store, that was pretty close to the no-nonsense we got from him in the end of 89 when he confronts Joker in the Cathedral) just about everything is different, and just to say I did like the suit in Returns but nowhere near as much as the first, though Returns is slicker and more precise it somehow took away from the way he acted in it, and the darkness. I very much hated how Keaton added the small bits of humor while in the suit considering how brutal and "no-nonsense" he was in the first (except for the "you weigh a little more than 108" line), and Burton had told Keaton to go with it, I just wasnt used to it and up to this day still pick that out as one of the "few" things I dont like about Returns. I could keep going, but honestly I do love Batman Returns as a Tim Burton film, but not as a "true" Batman movie.

 

[Catman]

I disagree, I think Keaton's performance was much better, more assured, in Batman. In Returns, he is much more self-aware and adds small elements of comedy. In the first movie, he's so focused and intent, it's scary. He always knows what to do. Take the moment where the first of the Joker's Goons jumps towards him in the cathedral. Batman waits until the last moment, and finally shoots that weird thing out of his glove to take him down.

In Returns, Batman shows signs of panic when the Batmobile is rushing toward the alleyway and he can't figure out which button activates the Batmissile.

The character simply evolved. In B89 he was just doing his thing. In Returns he started to question himself. Bruce Wayne was tempted to give his crimefighting ways. That's why we get a different performance. This really isn't the same Batman from the first one. In the first one he was the upset little kid seeking revenger. In the second he was an adult questioning the decisions in his life.

Like Keaton had said in the extras to the dvd before starting the second film he had to go back and think how he had played the character, since he never played a character twice up until then, it seemed to be a little hard for him. He asked Burton how to go about it, and he said to just go with whatever, to flow, Keaton had said trying to get back into character was like him playing the character like acting like himself lol. I actually think that his portrayal of Wayne was pretty close to the one he did in the first, but his Batman was definetly different. The first scene where he saves Selina, that was along the lines of the character he played in the first film, but after that he just dosent flow the way he did before, the way he fights...moves, talks to Catwoman, (though when he confronts Penguin in front of Shrecks store, that was pretty close to the no-nonsense we got from him in the end of 89 when he confronts Joker in the Cathedral) just about everything is different, and just to say I did like the suit in Returns but nowhere near as much as the first, though Returns is slicker and more precise it somehow took away from the way he acted in it, and the darkness. I very much hated how Keaton added the small bits of humor while in the suit considering how brutal and "no-nonsense" he was in the first (except for the "you weigh a little more than 108" line), and Burton had told Keaton to go with it, I just wasnt used to it and up to this day still pick that out as one of the "few" things I dont like about Returns. I could keep going, but honestly I do love Batman Returns as a Tim Burton film, but not as a "true" Batman movie.

Keaton struggled because Burton is a bad communicator. Some good direction would have helped the man. But, I think Keaton eventually figured it out. You can just tell by watching the film. As for the fighting, the reason its different is because Keaton actually did his stunts this time unlike the first one.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

The character simply evolved. In B89 he was just doing his thing. In Returns he started to question himself. Bruce Wayne was tempted to give his crimefighting ways. That's why we get a different performance. This really isn't the same Batman from the first one. In the first one he was the upset little kid seeking revenger. In the second he was an adult questioning the decisions in his life.

Absolutely, but I'm not talking about the character, I'm talking about Keaton's performance.

 

[Catman]

Absolutely, but I'm not talking about the character, I'm talking about Keaton's performance.

Yeah, but if the character changes than so does the performance. It's like the Lethal Weapon series. In Lethal Weapon, Mel Gibson played Martin Riggs as a depressed and wild cop with a death wish. In Lethal Weapon 4, Gibson played Riggs as a happy-go-lucky cop who's starting to get old so he finally knows how his partner has been feeling for the past 9 years.

 

[DocLathropBrown]

Exactly, Catman. Keaton, in Batman Returns is a much darker and different Batman. I've always said that after getting revenge on Naiper, he got swollowed by his demons and became so much darker, just like the villains we was fighting.

Batman was not a hero in Returns, he's just the least-evil villain. An anti-hero. He doesn't want to protect Gotham from the Penguin, not subconciously. He just wants to keep control of it for himself, instead of letting the Penguin take control of it. It's a power struggle. Sure, the city is safe under Batman's rule, but his attempt to save the city is more out of selfishness than selflessness.

When he confronts the Penguin, when the Penguin asks him if he thinks he'll win, they're silently acknowledging the fact that it is all just a contest, really. A contest in which the winner gets Gotham City.

It is when Bruce recognizes Selina is Catwoman that he puts the pieces together. He sees himself in her exploits, and for the first time since before Naiper, Bruce asks himself: "What have I become?" He realizes how similar he is to Catwoman, and he realizes he let himself go too far.

So after that happens, notice how he stops being ruthless in the second half of the film? It's because he finally saw how far he'd gone, and then he's out to actually save the city again, NOT to take it back into his power. But when Selina can't come back to the "light" with him, when she falls all the way past redemption, it is at the end that Bruce feels particularly lost, drowning in his scarred psyche. He needed Selina, he needed someone to help him through the process of redemption, but when she leaves, he's stuck between heaven-and-hell, in purgatory.

Then, in Forever, he gets that person to guide, to help guide himself. He finds Dick, who he helps off the wrong path and, in the process, finishes saving himself. That talk about "Revenge becoming your whole life" is Bruce telling Dick what will happen to him, because it happened to Bruce himself when Naiper died.

Did I make any sense? It's easy to see the arc Burton was probably going for. And though it wasn't finished in the perfect circumstances (a third Burton film), it was still finished in Forever.

It's all speculation, but I think it makes a lot of damn sense, wouldn't you say? Especially when you add in the fact that Burton allegedly wrote the outline for Forever, which had the resolution of the Batman character arc, including the "revenge" speech. It is with this revelation that the significence of Batman's ruthlessness in Returns can be seen. He was setting up Batman to be redeemed. And it's funny.... Burton seems like such a scatterbrained guy, you'd never expect something of that caliber out of him.

 

[Catman]

It's easy to see the arc Burton was probably going for. And though it wasn't finished in the perfect circumstances (a third Burton film), it was still finished in Forever.

That's what I like about Forever. It finished what Burton started. The film's biggest flaw is that it wasn't finished by Burton himself.

 

[Mr.E.Nygma]

Batman was more of a blockbuster, Batman Returns was more artsy. IMO.

Interesting thought. With that in mind, BR should have been called Tim Burton's Batman. Every artist signs his creation

 

[dude stannis]

Batman was not a hero in Returns, he's just the least-evil villain. An anti-hero. He doesn't want to protect Gotham from the Penguin, not subconciously. He just wants to keep control of it for himself, instead of letting the Penguin take control of it. It's a power struggle. Sure, the city is safe under Batman's rule, but his attempt to save the city is more out of selfishness than selflessness.

I love Returns, it's my second favourite film of all time and now matter how far you dig, you still keep going deeper. I'd like to expand on your thesis:

Take the Christ allegory given to Penguin, he was born on Christmas, his parents let him float away a la Moses, he hatches a plan to kill the first born children of Gotham and then he dies at 33 (also I beleive the black bile coming from his mouth is an occurance in hell). All the while he's presented as the polar opposite of Batman. Where Batman's parent where taken away from him, Penguins parent where the ones that abandoned him, Bruce Wayne is a handsome and physically superior man, Penguin is grotesque, short, fat. However there's a flipside, the public embrace Penguin, they love him, but they don't give a hoot about Bruce Wayne or Batman anymore, in fact they where more than willing to turn on him once Penguin/Catwoman set him up. Wherever the Penguin goesthe public follow him, his parents grave, his campaign offices, but everybody forgot Bruce Wayne, look at the scene where he's cruising around in the Batmobile spying on Penguin, nobody cares, he's parked there for a good ten minutes, you'd the public would swarm the Batmobile, but they just don't care. He becomes jealous, ("Must you be on only lonely man beast in town?" Alfred inquires). He denies it at first. But at the end he admits to it. ("You're just jealous because I'm a genuine freak and you have to wear a mask!" Penguin screams "You might be right!" Batman admits). Maybe that's the point where Batman stops his ruthlessness and tries to redeem himself and Selina?

When he confronts the Penguin, when the Penguin asks him if he thinks he'll win, they're silently acknowledging the fact that it is all just a contest, really. A contest in which the winner gets Gotham City.

Bravo. I never would've picked up on that. It goes deeper than I what I've been saying.

I'll watch the Burton films again and come back with more.

 

[Agentsands77]

I don't misunderstand BATMAN RETURNS at all - I fully understand a lot of the stuff Burton put in there, and the artistry that went into it. But I don't believe it turns out a coherent film, or that it is really a great "Batman" film.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

I don't misunderstand BATMAN RETURNS at all - I fully understand a lot of the stuff Burton put in there, and the artistry that went into it. But I don't believe it turns out a coherent film, or that it is really a great "Batman" film.

That's always the last resort of the anti-Returns argument: "Alright, so it is good, but it's not proper Batman."

 

[Kevin Roegele]

I love Returns, it's my second favourite film of all time and now matter how far you dig, you still keep going deeper. I'd like to expand on your thesis:

Take the Christ allegory given to Penguin, he was born on Christmas, his parents let him float away a la Moses, he hatches a plan to kill the first born children of Gotham and then he dies at 33 (also I beleive the black bile coming from his mouth is an occurance in hell). All the while he's presented as the polar opposite of Batman. Where Batman's parent where taken away from him, Penguins parent where the ones that abandoned him, Bruce Wayne is a handsome and physically superior man, Penguin is grotesque, short, fat. However there's a flipside, the public embrace Penguin, they love him, but they don't give a hoot about Bruce Wayne or Batman anymore, in fact they where more than willing to turn on him once Penguin/Catwoman set him up. Wherever the Penguin goesthe public follow him, his parents grave, his campaign offices, but everybody forgot Bruce Wayne, look at the scene where he's cruising around in the Batmobile spying on Penguin, nobody cares, he's parked there for a good ten minutes, you'd the public would swarm the Batmobile, but they just don't care. He becomes jealous, ("Must you be on only lonely man beast in town?" Alfred inquires). He denies it at first. But at the end he admits to it. ("You're just jealous because I'm a genuine freak and you have to wear a mask!" Penguin screams "You might be right!" Batman admits). Maybe that's the point where Batman stops his ruthlessness and tries to redeem himself and Selina?



Bravo. I never would've picked up on that. It goes deeper than I what I've been saying.

I'll watch the Burton films again and come back with more.

The Penguin plotline is extremely similar to that of Jack Skellington's in The Nightmare Before Christmas.

 

[Agentsands77]

That's always the last resort of the anti-Returns argument: "Alright, so it is good, but it's not proper Batman."

But it *isn't* "proper Batman."

But that's a secondary argument. Back to the primary argument, it never comes together as a coherent film. RETURNS is something of a mish-mash. An often delightful, beautiful, and well-acted mish-mash, but it's still a mish-mash. BATMAN RETURNS' script is appallingly bad, and it's a testimony to Tim Burton, Bo Welch, and the cast's talent that they make the film work.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

But it *isn't* "proper Batman."

But that's a secondary argument. Back to the primary argument, it never comes together as a coherent film. RETURNS is something of a mish-mash. An often delightful, beautiful, and well-acted mish-mash, but it's still a mish-mash. BATMAN RETURNS' script is appallingly bad, and it's a testimony to Tim Burton, Bo Welch, and the cast's talent that they make the film work.

I don't agree with you, but I really appreciate that you use proper criticism, and criticise the film as a film. So many arguments seem to consist of, "the Penguin isn't like that in the comics," and so on.

How can you say the script is appalling? In what way does it fail, in your eyes? I'm the first to admit it's weak in terms of adventure-narrative pacing, and contains little actual progressive plotting (it's more constant clashes/interactions between the characters until they're almost all dead), but to concentrate on that would take away from the movie's, abd Burton's. real strengths. Look at Planet of the Apes - Burton tried to tell a straight forward adventure movie, and it didn't work at all.

 

[Agentsands77]

I don't agree with you, but I really appreciate that you use proper criticism, and criticise the film as a film. So many arguments seem to consist of, "the Penguin isn't like that in the comics," and so on.

Well, thank you. I don't truly mind that BATMAN RETURNS deviates from the source, though I do acknowledge that it's only loosely related to its source material. This is Batman reinterpreted as a dream (or nightmare, depending on how you look at it).

How can you say the script is appalling? In what way does it fail, in your eyes? I'm the first to admit it's weak in terms of adventure-narrative pacing, and contains little actual progressive plotting (it's more constant clashes/interactions between the characters until they're almost all dead), but to concentrate on that would take away from the movie's, abd Burton's. real strengths. Look at Planet of the Apes - Burton tried to tell a straight forward adventure movie, and it didn't work at all.

Well, I'd never demand BATMAN RETURNS be plot-driven. As you say, Burton's never worked well with a plot-driven story.

However, I find the script terrible not because it's not plot driven, but because it's muddled. Just because the film is character-driven rather than plot-driven doesn't mean that the movie can't (or shouldn't) have a clear focus. But BATMAN RETURNS has no focus. In my opinion, the center of BATMAN RETURNS really should be on Batman/Selina, and I think most of us agree that should be the case, especially given that Burton's trying to explore Batman's duality. And, IMO, it doesn't feel like it is.

An oft-cited criticism is that Batman doesn't feel like the focal point of BATMAN RETURNS, and while this argument is often stated by people without any nuance, I think it essentially holds true. Daniel Waters said that when writing BATMAN RETURNS, he and Burton had the hardest time figuring out what to do with him, and that he was far more interested in Catwoman. It shows.

Waters' script also makes terrible jumps without explanation. For example, the Batmobile plans. No explanation whatsoever. And it doesn't previously establish anything about a remote-controlled penguin army, so they suddenly appear without explanation (and, for what it's worth, I think the penguin army is entirely too silly and unnecessary - the film could have survived just fine on the "murder the firstborn of Gotham" storyline).

Furthermore, I don't think Burton's strength is complex storytelling. I have yet to see a film of his that was able to successfully balance multiple story threads. Burton's best films are generally simple stories that he expands upon in highly imaginative ways. EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, ED WOOD, or even BIG FISH - these films all have a clear emotional center and a clear narrative focus, even though they're hardly plot-driven. BATMAN RETURNS offers no such clear story. We have tons of different characters placed on a seemingly equal plane, and it's not clear where our emotional center is.

 

[House_of_El]

Exactly, Catman. Keaton, in Batman Returns is a much darker and different Batman. I've always said that after getting revenge on Naiper, he got swollowed by his demons and became so much darker, just like the villains we was fighting.

Batman was not a hero in Returns, he's just the least-evil villain. An anti-hero. He doesn't want to protect Gotham from the Penguin, not subconciously. He just wants to keep control of it for himself, instead of letting the Penguin take control of it. It's a power struggle. Sure, the city is safe under Batman's rule, but his attempt to save the city is more out of selfishness than selflessness.

When he confronts the Penguin, when the Penguin asks him if he thinks he'll win, they're silently acknowledging the fact that it is all just a contest, really. A contest in which the winner gets Gotham City.

It is when Bruce recognizes Selina is Catwoman that he puts the pieces together. He sees himself in her exploits, and for the first time since before Naiper, Bruce asks himself: "What have I become?" He realizes how similar he is to Catwoman, and he realizes he let himself go too far.

So after that happens, notice how he stops being ruthless in the second half of the film? It's because he finally saw how far he'd gone, and then he's out to actually save the city again, NOT to take it back into his power. But when Selina can't come back to the "light" with him, when she falls all the way past redemption, it is at the end that Bruce feels particularly lost, drowning in his scarred psyche. He needed Selina, he needed someone to help him through the process of redemption, but when she leaves, he's stuck between heaven-and-hell, in purgatory.

Then, in Forever, he gets that person to guide, to help guide himself. He finds Dick, who he helps off the wrong path and, in the process, finishes saving himself. That talk about "Revenge becoming your whole life" is Bruce telling Dick what will happen to him, because it happened to Bruce himself when Naiper died.

Did I make any sense? It's easy to see the arc Burton was probably going for. And though it wasn't finished in the perfect circumstances (a third Burton film), it was still finished in Forever.

It's all speculation, but I think it makes a lot of damn sense, wouldn't you say? Especially when you add in the fact that Burton allegedly wrote the outline for Forever, which had the resolution of the Batman character arc, including the "revenge" speech. It is with this revelation that the significence of Batman's ruthlessness in Returns can be seen. He was setting up Batman to be redeemed. And it's funny.... Burton seems like such a scatterbrained guy, you'd never expect something of that caliber out of him.

You made a good point. I never really saw it that way.....

 

[dude stannis]

The Penguin plotline is extremely similar to that of Jack Skellington's in The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Does that go with, or against, what I said? If I just got pwned without realising it I'm going to cry as I haven't seen Nightmare.

 

[Bat Attack]

You should watch it. Now.

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

someone please youtube the scene where Batman first shows up in the film. him coming in the batmobile, takes down a couple of the penguin's goons, and finally saving selina. that's my fav scene in the whole movie.

 

[Catman]

^ Not on YouTube, but I did find this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWhFBNL2zYY

 

[El Payaso]

^ Man, that's youtube.