If Burton stayed on for a third movie...

[CoolAsICE]

No, in general, as a FILM. Yes, it is different. That doesn't make it good.

When was the last time you watched either of them? Because I used to share your opinion, but I've watched both of them recently, and my opinion has completely reversed.

B89, while decent, is hardly a work of art. There is a lot of campiness, and the action scenes/effects are weak (partly due to the fact that it was made in '89). The overall plot/scripting is very average, and nothing to marvel over. The acting is decent, but not great.

BR, meanwhile, is a very artistic and well-crafted film. Yeah, it has some weak points, but overall it's a great movie, and much more compelling than the first. The acting is top-notch, and the dialogue is great.

 

[JLBats]

When was the last time you watched either of them? Because I used to share your opinion, but I've watched both of them recently, and my opinion has completely reversed.

B89, while decent, is hardly a work of art. There is a lot of campiness, and the action scenes/effects are weak (partly due to the fact that it was made in '89). The overall plot/scripting is very average, and nothing to marvel over. The acting is decent, but not great.

BR, meanwhile, is a very artistic and well-crafted film. Yeah, it has some weak points, but overall it's a great movie, and much more compelling than the first. The acting is top-notch, and the dialogue is great.

I don't CARE which one is better. I think they are both GREAT. But they are not as good as Begins in any way shape or form.

 

[BatmanRules33]

I don't CARE which one is better. I think they are both GREAT. But they are not as good as Begins in any way shape or form.

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you see, this kind of comment totally is WRONG. they are as good as you think they are. there ARE ppl in the world that think BR is better then BB. there are also ppl who think B89 is better then BB. then there are ppl who think BF and B&R are actually better then them all. its alla bout opinion. i also thought there was alot of hollywood ness in BB, and what i like about burtons films is they werent very hollywoodish, they were outside of the mainstream, which IMO is what batman is, an outcast. same with his villians.



and you just cant top michelle pieffer as catwoman.

 

[JLBats]

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you see, this kind of comment totally is WRONG. they are as good as you think they are. there ARE ppl in the world that think BR is better then BB. there are also ppl who think B89 is better then BB. then there are ppl who think BF and B&R are actually better then them all. its alla bout opinion. i also thought there was alot of hollywood ness in BB, and what i like about burtons films is they werent very hollywoodish, they were outside of the mainstream, which IMO is what batman is, an outcast. same with his villians.



and you just cant top michelle pieffer as catwoman.

Ah, I could go back and edit, but I meant that to be taken as my opinion, sorry. I really don't think there was very much Hollywood in Begins, partially because they had a mostly British crew. They had extremely developed characters, a fairly unhappy ending, a whole lot of freaky imagery, existentialism, etc...

 

[BatmanRules33]

Ah, I could go back and edit, but I meant that to be taken as my opinion, sorry. I really don't think there was very much Hollywood in Begins, partially because they had a mostly British crew. They had extremely developed characters, a fairly unhappy ending, a whole lot of freaky imagery, existentialism, etc...

freaky imagry in Begins? well, when compared to the freaky imagry in burtons bat films, i dare to compare. burtons films have TONS of freaky ****, BB hardly had that much compared to burton. the fear gas bat is the ONLY freaky thing that comes to mind. when i think of retruns and B89, i think of peguin, eeeww, joker talkin to a dead corpse, catwoman all messed up smashing things, etc, ETC.

and i wouldnt say EXTREMELY developed characters, but hey, its your opinion....

 

[JLBats]

freaky imagry in Begins? well, when compared to the freaky imagry in burtons bat films, i dare to compare. burtons films have TONS of freaky ****, BB hardly had that much compared to burton. the fear gas bat is the ONLY freaky thing that comes to mind. when i think of retruns and B89, i think of peguin, eeeww, joker talkin to a dead corpse, catwoman all messed up smashing things, etc, ETC.

and i wouldnt say EXTREMELY developed characters, but hey, its your opinion....

Yes, it is, and the characters were actually quite developed. Pretty much everyone had an arc, you know? And I wasn't comparing the freaky imagery of the two films, I was just saying Begins has freaky imagery in it in general.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

I genuinely love Batman '89, Returns, Forever and Begins. I'm amazed that we've had such a varied, creative and entertaining series of film so far. Whatever you say about them, not one has come close to being a typical bland Hollywood blockbuster. They're not even action movies first and foremost.

I think we've been very lucky with the Batman series. B&R was lame, but that was the only one.

 

[BatmanRules33]

I genuinely love Batman '89, Returns, Forever and Begins. I'm amazed that we've had such a varied, creative and entertaining series of film so far. Whatever you say about them, not one has come close to being a typical bland Hollywood blockbuster. They're not even action movies first and foremost.

I think we've been very lucky with the Batman series. B&R was lame, but that was the only one.

yeah i guess your right. i defeintly wouldnt say burtons bat films were htypical hollywood AT ALL, shumchers were pretty much IMO(especially B&R), and begins was more of a mix of action and story.

 

[JLBats]

yeah i guess your right. i defeintly wouldnt say burtons bat films were htypical hollywood AT ALL, shumchers were pretty much IMO(especially B&R), and begins was more of a mix of action and story.

Burton was soooooo not typical Hollywood, you're totally right. And technically Begins CAN'T be, because it was made mostly by Brits and was basically taken completely from the comics

 

[BatmanRules33]

Burton was soooooo not typical Hollywood, you're totally right. And technically Begins CAN'T be, because it was made mostly by Brits and was basically taken completely from the comics

well theres 2 things there. first, it doesnt matter if a film was made in england or not, or by brits, if it comes off as a typical action/adventure movie with a bunch of one liners and no artsiness at all, ppl will mistake it for a hollywood flick (wich is what B89 and begins have in common). burton had alot of artsy stuff in his films DEFINETLY,especially BR, but nolan was just typical kinda boring/spiderman-ish, "doin the formula" stuff, with its only saveing grace is decent stars/acting, IMO.

 

[my0pic_spidey]

no ways..Much as I like 89 and Returns,Burton was completely off the comics and the only redeeiming factor was his unusual style that works everytime(and thats forgiveable) and the entire cast who did an excellent job in portraying their characters. Having watched Begins I have utmost respect for the brits.

 

[The Chairman]

A cool crazy Riddler played by Robin Williams.
http://www.geocities.com/BurtonsBatman3
Would have been cool.

This would have been awesome. BTW, I didn't make this. I wish I did.

 

[nogster]

i just then sat back and watched returns for the first time in years and after watching b89 a month ago and obviously begins IMO begins owns them all when it comes to a batman film. burton's batman films were fantastical, camp and visually great, but batman was a guest star in his own films, and while keaton did a good job with the material, watching it now, he is way too small to be batman. he looked like a spiderman in clunky and slow costume. i was first made aware of this when i came to these forums. i had never thought about it at the time but now after watching bale in begins. i was struggling to watch keaton be my favourite hero.
but the main problem was. not enough batman. wayne/batman really just have a guest role in burton's films. and i dont like the complete character changes of the penguin and catwoman. because of burtons catwoman we got berry's catwoman! destroying a cool characters reputation because of change.
penguin had strands of the real oswald cobblepot but again, the origin totally changed.
BTAS has the definative penguin IMO. why couldnt the penguin been max shreks character,
i did enjoy returns but it is too different from the source material and doesnt do the character true.
begins nailed it.
best batfilm because it is the truest.
and because its about batman dammit.

 

[DocLathropBrown]

hate to say this to ya, Nogster, but there was no camp in Burton's films. Otherwise, pretty good post. Batman was meant to be upsized in Burton's films by being overshadowed by the villains, so MK was supposed to come off as the cool-collected center, even though he was slightly uneven himself. We were supposed to notice him because everyone else was so extreme but he wasn't. It didn't work for everybody. But that's an admirable thing about Burton. He was 29 when he took on B89, he'd only done 2 or 3 major films at that point, B89 was his biggest.

MK said in interviews that Burton was so frayed by the production of B89 that he thinks Burton almost cracked. But MK also said that "That's where the magic happens.... at Tim's frayed edges." I think it's admirable that Burton delivered us something that was unique and accurate to a certain period of Batman comics (The Kane/Finger era).

IMO, about the whole Hollywood-ish talk, B89 was the closest to just being a mindless blockbuster of all of them. Unlike BR, the themes and subdulties don't stick out, anyone can miss them. BR, the art was all over the place. But B89, it's far more buried.

BB is far from your typical action piece, however. It had heart. It had actual story, the choppy fight scenes were the closest it came to typical 'summer blockbuster' status, but it bounced back against that by being intreaguing and powerful. It doesn't even matter if it's accurate to the comics. I judge a film (Especially comic book films, as they often miss this) by weather or not it's any good. Thus why I love the Burton films and BB.... they're real films first, comics book movies second. However, Nolan focused equally on making the film good with making it accurate.

Compare B89, BR, BF or BB to something like The Transporter 2 or the Matrix..... there's no question on what the real films are and what the typical action blockbusters are.

And BF, even if it's a shell of what could have been, is a surprisingly deep film, and hits home in some areas (about Bruce) almost as well as BB.

 

[TheJuice]

hate to say this to ya, Nogster, but there was no camp in Burton's films.

Ok, so in BR, penguins that had missiles attached to their backs didn't seem the least bit silly to you?

 

[DocLathropBrown]

See, camp is something silly intended for laughs. What Burton did was make something silly in the setting of his films and incidently make them seem outrageous and a bit darkly humorous. Dark humor and campy humor are two entirely different things. All humor in Burton's films are intended to be dark.

If anyone, for example, finds the idea of innocent creatures carrying weapons of mass destruction actually funny, they're missing the point. It's supposed to be shocking first, laughable second.

 

[nogster]

disagree. seeing penguins scuttling along with rockets on their backs was just laughable to me. and yes.. camp.
there was camp in burtons films. the campy feakshow gang that penguin controlled.
the penguin batmobile video game was campy to me. almost 60s tv show camp.
i thought it was too fantastical and too removed from the source material.
i also watched batman and robin for the first time in years today. i had only seen it once before and was disgusted then. i was just embarrased now.
my god, how bad was that film. if george clooney had better more serious material i think he would of been a very good older and experienced batman/wayne.
he wore the suit well but really the movie was just an updated 60s tv show.
terrible.

 

[JLBats]

disagree. seeing penguins scuttling along with rockets on their backs was just laughable to me. and yes.. camp.
there was camp in burtons films. the campy feakshow gang that penguin controlled.
the penguin batmobile video game was campy to me. almost 60s tv show camp.
i thought it was too fantastical and too removed from the source material.
i also watched batman and robin for the first time in years today. i had only seen it once before and was disgusted then. i was just embarrased now.
my god, how bad was that film. if george clooney had better more serious material i think he would of been a very good older and experienced batman/wayne.
he wore the suit well but really the movie was just an updated 60s tv show.
terrible.

Yes, there was quite a bit of camp in Burton's films. And also they were off tonally from the comics. But I still quite like them.

 

[BatmanRules33]

ok, if ppl are gonna start the "camp" talk, then lets get this straight: ALL COMIC BOOKS AND COMIC BOOK MOVIES HAVE CAMP IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. you simply cannot escape it. i mean, cmon, almost every comic book film i have seen has some form of camp, whether its supposed to be taken seriously or not. not as much camp as say the 60's batman show, but still, its there.



second, i didnt find anything funny or silly about the penguins with rockets. its actually quite disturbing when you think about it. and the way penguin manipulates there little minds, its not cool, makes me hate penguin even more, i mean, hes sending them off to a suicide mission! what a ****!

thats at least how i felt, even when i was smaller. but everyone has there own feelings towards that i guess.

and like DocLathropBrown or whatever the name , LOL, i base a MOVIE off hwo GOOD it is, not tachnically how true it is to the comics, as long as its a good film, and in that area, burton and nolan have done a grand job.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

Compare B89, BR, BF or BB to something like The Transporter 2 or the Matrix..... there's no question on what the real films are and what the typical action blockbusters are.

The Matrix a typical action blockbuster? Did you miss all the religion, mythology, cyber-punk, philosophy, coming-of-age, Martin Campbell, and anime-come-to-life neo-noir?

 

[Vile]

Returns turned Catwoman into a zombie with magic powers and Penguin into a mutant freak with motor oil for blood. Oh yeah, and Batman showed up maybe once or twice.

Entertaining? Hell yeah. A great BATMAN film? That belongs to Begins. I mean, a Batman film about...Batman? Who'd have thunk it. =)

 

[JLBats]

Returns turned Catwoman into a zombie with magic powers and Penguin into a mutant freak with motor oil for blood. Oh yeah, and Batman showed up maybe once or twice.

Entertaining? Hell yeah. A great BATMAN film? That belongs to Begins. I mean, a Batman film about...Batman? Who'd have thunk it. =)

I think if you take B89 and BR as Burton films and not Batman films, they're easier to enjoy.

 

[Vile]

I agree with that - sadly, though, I was looking for a Batman film, NOT a Burton film.

 

[ab38416]

ab38416