BvS Batman's fighting style - new Batman, what should his fighting style be like ?

[Batmannerism]

Hi People,

Here's a thread for all of you who, like myself, have a background in martial arts or an interest in fight sports, or maybe are connoisseurs of kung fu flicks, or just enjoy a good cinematic smackdown.

Nolan's Batflicks brought KFM into the public consciousness, and revived
ninjitsu (well since the Turtles anyway).
Should Snyder's Batfleck have a different fighting style ? What sort of
moves should he use ? Bale's Batman relied primary on elbows, headbutts,
hammerfists and the right cross, with an odd front kick (although he does
show a greater variety of kicks in Batman Begins).
Previous Batmen, well besides Adam West, utilised more kicks (Keaton's
Batman throws a side-kick in his first appearance, Kilmer's Batman does
a few roundhouses and spinning hook kicks) . Should Snyder go back to that, or stick with the gritty practicality of KFM.

Personally, I'd like Batman to be an even dirtier fighter, and throw in some
joint locks. I like the KFM, but I think Bats needs to mix it up even more
and throw in a lot dirtier tactics and techniques

In the comics, Bats does whatever he needs to, to win, short of killing.

I'd love to see Batman break more bones, be a lot more ruthless. Yes, punches are quick, and can be very effective (which makes sense when fighting a gang) but it behoves Batman to be particularly nasty,
as in kicking/stomping on knee joint, and definitely kicking some thug in the groin. The sequences in TDKR when he fights about 7 of Bane's thugs shows some reasonable tactics (stacking, shielding) but Bats needs to be
more surgical with his strikes.

Personally, as a fan of UFC, I'd love to see him either take more of an Anderson Silva or Jon Jones approach, mixing up a variety of striking techniques, perhaps with Silva's almost magical timing. (sometimes the
guy's looked like he was fighting in the matrix, check out the Silva vs
Forrest Griffin fight).

I don't even mind seeing Bats eye-gouge, bite and keep the headbutts !
To be honest, he was dumb standing in front of Bane and swinging away,
I'd like to see Bats aim for his enemies weakpoints.

So that's me. But do you guys want so see something more acrobatic
( like Richard Grayson as Batman) although in films its hard to do acrobatic
stuff in all that rubber. But should Batman be more matrix-kung-fu like ?

Snyder showed some very deft fight choreography in Watchmen, bordering on kung-fu, but very brutal, (the Comedian vs Ozymandias fight in the opening sequence is terrific, stylish but savage). Should Batman be a bit
more like that ?

I would want Batman to be more Ozymandias than Comedian, brutal and
technical.



Another terrific fighting style inspiration is the work Jeff Imada did
choreographing the fights in the Bourne movies (if You haven't seen them go see Bourne Ultimatum, best fist fights EVER!) that works for both gangs, and individuals (although Bourne does fight to kill when he has to).
You see a similar style used on Jonathon Nolan's "Person of Interest" which is essentially a TV show where Batman has been split into two people,
the genius and the ass-kicker.

The underlying question here is how far Snyder should depart from Nolan's
interpretation ?


Now that's my opinion. But what do you guys think ? More kung fu (should he get all Crouching Tiger, ) or more street-fighting (and no, not Ryu or Chun Li)?

 

[DvilDog]

As long as they show Bats doing a showtime kick off a wall or fence I'm good!

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

I want them to depart pretty darn far (he'd have to in order to fight Supes) but not to the point that it's cartoonish (IE. Batman without jumbo armor taking on Supes head-on).

 

[Boom]

Bring back the keysi. Drunken elbow fighting FOR LIFE.


In all seriousness, a mix-match of various martial arts styles.

 

[Bathead]

I personally think they should at least look at the trailers for the Arkham games to get an idea of how a proper Batman fight should be choreographed.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

Kicks for opponents several feet away, stealth choke holds for armed foes, and punches for people Batman wants to teach a lesson. And bolas for escaping enemies

 

[matt47]

I really want them to stray far away from the tdk trilogy.
The fights in begins were difficult to watch because you cant see him!
I know thats what they were going for and i liked it in the first fight in the batsuit but the one at the start and end were not good IMO.
dark knight. Eh..probably the best but not enough.
Rises...oh mate..the fights were terrible! In nwarly every fight scene you can obviously see the hits arent connecting and at times random badies fall on their arses! Was every hard to watch..

I just want batman to be quick and precise, so precise that you can tell he has been doing this for a looong time. So he seems like he got no time for playing. Wouldlike to see some krav maga in there..

 

[Asgard]

Kanga Fu,

 

[TheNextNolan22]

I personally think they should at least look at the trailers for the Arkham games to get an idea of how a proper Batman fight should be choreographed.

This.

 

[manofsteel4life]

I hope we some great avoiding technics

 

[WoodyROM]

This.

Exactly like that

 

[cryptic name]

My money's on Batman fighting like this:

[YT]PA0SarFs60w[/YT]

And I'm cool with that.

 

[shallbecomeabat]

My money's on Batman fighting like this:

[YT]PA0SarFs60w[/YT]

And I'm cool with that.

Yeah, that would be cool, but to me it was always a bit too music video like.
I know a lot of people hated the Nolan fight scenes, but I loved them because they were dirty and hectic and ugly and raw.

Sure, I don't want Snyder to redo that, so I guess the Watchmen action would be cool, if he would dirty it up a bit and loose the slo-mo.

What I would really hate would be this Scott Adkins B-movie, roundhouse, spinkick, jumping around, kick, kick, spinkick, roundhouse style. That looks SO FAKE and cheesy, especially if they amp up the speed of the footage to make it sem faster... Urgh... I am too old for this "look at me, I am cool" fighting style. Noone would ever fight that way.
Nolans KFM style at least tried togive the viewer a sense of realism, because of its close quarter nature and a lot of blocks and counters. Nobody just takes a few roundhouse kicks to the face without putting their arms up to block that... outside of B-movie action fare or the Blade franchise of course.

I would like a new moveset, that is brutal and straight forward, but maybe a tiny bit more flashy than KFM. No spins, no jumping, not too many kicks, no "look at me!" Martial arts and nothing too hectic like something out of a kung fu movie. Its important for Batman to be a great fighter, who is fighting with results in mind and not looking good doing it. If he can put the guy down with a mean headbut, or a body tackle, he will go for it and not choose to do a 360 in the air and then give the guy a spinkick to look cool. He should be a economical fighter.

So, yeah, the more I think about, something like the Watchmen style fights, especially the fight against Veid at the end or the alleyway fight, would be great.

 

[spider-neil]

Get rid of that Keysi rubbish.
Batman is supposed to be one of the greatest martial artists on the planet.
Look at the Batman vs Bane fight. Don't get me wrong, it's engaging and brutal but I always imagined that fight to be like Bruce Lee vs a hulking beast. Pure technique and skill vs a relentless machine but in the movie Batman shows next to no technique at all and pretty much tries to go strength vs strength with Bane (which was stupid on the part of Batman).

I want to see genuine martial arts moves. Anyone can be in the Batman costume, so hire a martial artist and pull the camera back so we can see the blasted moves.

That said, I see Batman having one genuine fight in this movie, the fight that establishes that Batman is a Badass (probably against street thugs). Beyond that I think it will be brains and tactics when the inevitable Superman confrontation happens.

 

[The Shape]

My money's on Batman fighting like this:

[YT]PA0SarFs60w[/YT]

And I'm cool with that.

I know Snyder switched up his visual style for MOS, which I like a lot. I don't want him to go back to the ridiculous over-use of slow motion that he's known for.

Having said that, I think Batman deserves to have at least 1 or 2 badass slo-mo shots like the clip you just posted.

 

[TheNextNolan22]

If the slo-mo style does come back, make it count. Use it maybe 2-3 times and not over do it. Maybe use it to get over a really brutal blow during a fight scene. I was kind of hoping for at least one during the Zod/Superman fight in MOS haha.

 

[cryptic name]

I know Snyder switched up his visual style for MOS, which I like a lot. I don't want him to go back to the ridiculous over-use of slow motion that he's known for.

Having said that, I think Batman deserves to have at least 1 or 2 badass slo-mo shots like the clip you just posted.

I agree 100%, ease up in the speed ramping and slow motion, but I really think Nite Owl is our window into Snyder's Batman as far as style. In the perfect world that I dream of, the fight scenes would be more in the vein of The Raid.

 

[The Shape]

If the slo-mo style does come back, make it count. Use it maybe 2-3 times and not over do it. Maybe use it to get over a really brutal blow during a fight scene. I was kind of hoping for at least one during the Zod/Superman fight in MOS haha.

I was waiting for one in MOS, as well.

You see, the slo-mo needs to be used as a tool and not a crutch. When 80% of your film is in slow motion, it stops being cool. It becomes "normal", almost like watching a movie with no slo-mo. The best way to use it is almost like a punctuation mark. Imagine during the final act of this Superman/Batman film, once Batman and Supes are finally working together, we get an epic slow motion shot of the two of them performing a joint takedown or something.

 

[Batmannerism]

Yeah, that would be cool, but to me it was always a bit too music video like.
I know a lot of people hated the Nolan fight scenes, but I loved them because they were dirty and hectic and ugly and raw.

Sure, I don't want Snyder to redo that, so I guess the Watchmen action would be cool, if he would dirty it up a bit and loose the slo-mo.

What I would really hate would be this Scott Adkins B-movie, roundhouse, spinkick, jumping around, kick, kick, spinkick, roundhouse style. That looks SO FAKE and cheesy, especially if they amp up the speed of the footage to make it sem faster... Urgh... I am too old for this "look at me, I am cool" fighting style. Noone would ever fight that way.
Nolans KFM style at least tried togive the viewer a sense of realism, because of its close quarter nature and a lot of blocks and counters. Nobody just takes a few roundhouse kicks to the face without putting their arms up to block that... outside of B-movie action fare or the Blade franchise of course.

I would like a new moveset, that is brutal and straight forward, but maybe a tiny bit more flashy than KFM. No spins, no jumping, not too many kicks, no "look at me!" Martial arts and nothing too hectic like something out of a kung fu movie. Its important for Batman to be a great fighter, who is fighting with results in mind and not looking good doing it. If he can put the guy down with a mean headbut, or a body tackle, he will go for it and not choose to do a 360 in the air and then give the guy a spinkick to look cool. He should be a economical fighter.

So, yeah, the more I think about, something like the Watchmen style fights, especially the fight against Veid at the end or the alleyway fight, would be great.

Agree dude ! I'd forgotten about the alleyway fight, that was particularly brutal (loved the elbow snap) but Snyder does need to lose the slo-mo, it's absence was one of things that made MOS so enjoyable (no need for it).

So, somewhere between Nolan style KFM and Snyder style. I also think Batman should throw those batarang/throwing knives at people (rather than just use them to take out lights) Bats does it all the time in the comics. And really, it'd be pretty damn hard to kill someone with one of them, but they'd certainly slow his enemies down.

Whatever they choose, we want to see Batman who's a surgical fighter, does exactly what's needed to destroy his opponent, and definitely not standing there and slugging it out (like the Bane fight in TDKR, still enjoyed the brutality, but boy did Bats fight like a dumbass).

Might be nice to also see some Aikido, as in young Steven Seagal, Aikido (back in his earlier films he used to really mess people up with shihonage)
particularly if Bats is trying to intimidate some thugs.

I too would not like to see Blade-style fighting or the really show-off stuff.

Cheers !

 

[shallbecomeabat]

I want to see genuine martial arts moves. Anyone can be in the Batman costume, so hire a martial artist and pull the camera back so we can see the blasted moves.

By martial arts you mean fancy jumping around, spinning around, jumpy kung fu stuff? Like he seems to want:

In the perfect world that I dream of, the fight scenes would be more in the vein of The Raid.

That would be my absolute nightmare. No offense.
It would downright ruin the movie for me.
That is exactly the kinda of speed up, "look at me I am awesome" kind of fighting that absolutely hate in every movie. To be fair, I am not a big martial arts movie fan and I hated the Raid and watched the last half hour in fast forward, because I found all that jumping and kicking so boring (which had more to do with the non existing story and therefore non exsiting investment in the action for me).

The thing about Batman is, yes he is one of the greatest fighters/martial artists on the planet, but I would stress the fighter part more than the martial arts one.
Sure he knows kung fu, jeet kune do and all that jazz, but he never uses stuff like that in the comics (at least the modern). He is much more straight forward than that. When you compare his fighting style, how it is drawn almost all of the time, with lets say Daredevils, you will see he fights much more straight up punching, headbutting and kicking instead of really kung fu stuff. He has the skills to do that, but he doesn't fight flashy at all and thats how it should be and, I guess, how it will be. He has the knowledge of all those styles, but he never conforms to any one of those. The only time I want to see lightning fast moves from Bats is when he dodges blows, or deflects them, that would be cool, but when he is on the offense, normal thugs should not warrant anything fancy from him. One quick punch in the face or neck should be enough. He has to make it look easy, not like some sort of performance or dance.

At least thats how I want it. Really no offense againt your opinions, I get that a lot of folks feel that way.
I am glad that the Nolan movies did something I really liked and I hipe that Snyder won't let me down either.

 

[spider-neil]

Batman '66
Batman '89
Batman Returns
Batman Forever
Batman and Robin *shudder*
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight Rises

And in none of these movies does Batman display anything more than competent martial arts skill. For me that's a problem.

 

[The Shape]

Batman '66
Batman '89
Batman Returns
Batman Forever
Batman and Robin *shudder*
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight Rises

And in none of these movies does Batman display anything more than competent martial arts skill. For me that's a problem.

That's about to change.

 

[TheNextNolan22]

Because it's Zack Snyder directing, I think we're going to get the most badass live-action Batman yet.

 

[spider-neil]

That's about to change.

You're speculating

 

[Asteroid-Man]

This.

I want this.