Batman Forever The Official Batman Forever Thread - Part 2

[Sawyer]

Underrated Wayne Manor. I much prefer it not to look too much like a castle.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Looked great in the movies. Although B:TAS still has my favorite Wayne Manor.

 

[Sawyer]

Oh Goddammit, I’m actually going to have to give these two some credit.

 

[Kane52630]

 

[The Lazarus Pit]

Bravo… still hate these vapid worthless wastes of space. Idolatry is so disgusting, and their family is so detrimental to American culture as a whole. If the world swallowed up the entire Kardashian family it would be a better place.

 

[Drizzle]

Jesus, that's such an obscure reference for those two.

 

[Captain Tired]

Bravo… still hate these vapid worthless wastes of space. Idolatry is so disgusting, and their family is so detrimental to American culture as a whole. If the world swallowed up the entire Kardashian family it would be a better place.

What, even Khloe?!

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

This is cool.

 

[BobJM]

I love the alternate Batmobile design from Forever; it looks like an homage to the Adam West car, which sort of fits with the world Schumacher was building…

A few other rejected designs below…

 

[Sawyer]

 

[Bran The Man]

I loved the Batmobile in the final movie, but the only things I would've changed are lose the top fin and make the side fins bigger.

 

[Sawyer]

Underrated suit.

 

[The Shape]

I think many things about Batman Forever are underrated, the Panther suit included. Watched it again recently and the movie still slaps.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

I get way more enjoyment out of both this and B&R than TDKR or anything from the Bat-Fleck era. I might even go as far as to say The Batman as well.

Batman Forever is without a doubt a fantastic Batman movie.

 

[Drizzle]

I think many things about Batman Forever are underrated, the Panther suit included. Watched it again recently and the movie still slaps.

The most underrated thing about Batman Forever has got to be Val Kilmer IMO. In certain aspects regarding the character, he did a better job than Keaton although in retrospect that's also unfair to Keaton since Forever was the only movie of the Burton-Schumacher era to significantly focus on Bruce as a character.

Personally I would also rank Forever much higher if not for two things. First, Tommy Lee Jones hammed it up way too much as Two-Face as soon as he crosses paths with the Riddler. I get that Jones wasn't a fan of Carrey so he was probably trying to one-up him and he also probably wasn't much of a fan of the script either but that performance should have been reined in a bit. He's sinister enough in the beginning but once he teams up with Riddler he essentially turns into a little kid who tries to copy everything his big brother does. On that note Carrey channeled a little too much of himself as Riddler but I can't fault him too much because Nicholson and Schwarzenegger did the same thing in their movies.

The other thing that I think would have improved the movie is a younger actor playing Robin. I don't have a problem with Chris O'Donnell's performance here but the guy clearly looked his age being in his mid-twenties so it's pretty farfetched to think he'd need Bruce to look after him. Leo DiCaprio would have been more age-appropriate for the part. Too bad he turned it down, his career could have used the boost.

I had that comic when I was a kid and I read it before seeing the movie. It definitely had a much darker tone than the final cut so when I finally saw it I was expecting it to be a. One panel in particular that stood out to me was the death of the Graysons because for some crazy reason they drew it with 100% more blood and Dick's brother is inexplicably missing.

Spoiler

 

[Herofan]

The other thing that I think would have improved the movie is a younger actor playing Robin. I don't have a problem with Chris O'Donnell's performance here but the guy clearly looked his age being in his mid-twenties so it's pretty farfetched to think he'd need Bruce to look after him.

That complaint is often made but I thought he at least looked plausible for 17-18, 19 tops, let alone if you kind of consider by curve in that teenagers are generally played by older actors in films and TV.

 

[Sawyer]

Teenagers are frequently played by young adults, but O’Donnell really didn’t look any younger than college age. Just seemed weird for him to be taken in as a grown man.

 

[Captain Tired]

It's unfortunate that it looks slightly ludicrous for Kilmer to be taking in someone who looks like O'Donnell as his legal ward because, despite that, they do have good chemistry together.

 

[BobJM]

It is a shame. If O’Donnell was cast, then they should jumped straight to Nightwing and shouldn’t have treated him like a kid.

If only WB had the foresight to cast a rising talent like Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He was only 14 in 1995 when Batman Forever was released, but he could have grew with the role and, in time, graduate to Nightwing.

Casting JGL over O’Donnell would have drastically changed the movie, yes, but I think it would have been to the betterment of the film (or another younger actor). One of the movie’s strengths is the flashbacks/backstory for young Bruce—drawing a stronger parallel with an age-appropriate Dick Grayson would have tied those storylines together more neatly.

 

[Herofan]

Hard to see someone JGL age then or most people younger than O'Donnell as being a beneficial ally/partner, plausible crimefighter rather than just going to be endangering himself/frequently kidnapped.

 

[Herofan]

Although I guess DiCaprio then (4 years younger than O'Donnell) would have probably looked more 16-17 and yet also been plausible as a crimefighter partner but not a big change, the writing seemed to suggest/acknowledge that Dick should be in college really soon if not now (so why he needs to be cared for by, live with Bruce is a bit of a contrivance but even that is suggested as being pretty temporary).

 

[BobJM]

Hard to see someone JGL age then or most people younger than O'Donnell as being a beneficial ally/partner, plausible crimefighter rather than just going to be endangering himself/frequently kidnapped.

I mean, that sort of ends up being O’Donnell’s story right? He gets captured in the end for Batman to save.

A younger Robin can work on screen; I think writers just need to hone in on the idea that Dick is Bruce’s “monkey wrench”—just like Miller put it in TDKR. He’s there as a distraction, or working behind the scenes to help Batman

 

[whoknows]

I mean, that sort of ends up being O’Donnell’s story right? He gets captured in the end for Batman to save.

A younger Robin can work on screen; I think writers just need to hone in on the idea that Dick is Bruce’s “monkey wrench”—just like Miller put it in TDKR. He’s there as a distraction, or working behind the scenes to help Batman

He also saves batmans life earlier in the movie, when he grabs him out of the debris. not to mention he saves his life again at the start of batman and robin, from the freeze rocket.

i just read that 3 issue story 'robin and batman' where robin saves batman from killer croc at the end of the book, i enjoyed the book but found it a bit of a stretch that he ko'd croc, but i guess you have to just buy into it, that the kid can fight. I don't know how plausible that would be in a movie though, I guess it could be done with the right actor.
The best example i can think of is the kid Conan in jason mamoas conan film, where kid conan kills a bunch of guys.
I bought that, so i guess it just takes the right fight choreographer to make it look convincing.

 

[BobJM]

Exactly. And you're not wrong--a young child actor certainly wouldn't be able to convincingly drag a grown-adult Batman out of rubble/debris. But I was assuming some fancasting would require some slight alteration to the final film. Maybe he hits Two Face with a slingshot, causing his rocket to miss its target and not fully bury Batman. Just a thought

 

[DarkKnight88]

Easier to understand WB simply wanted to get young teenage girls interested in the Batman series. Thus why Robin was older.