The Official Batman Returns Thread - Part 2

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Still gets a chuckle out of me... t:

 

[Comics N' Toons]

i like the idea of casting Catwoman/Selina as a secretary and not a master thief. The idea that she becomes a villain/anti-hero and is not a hooker/master thief to begin with, gives a different dimension to the character.

 

[shauner111]

I personally don't like it. I find it's too simple. She's a timid secretary who gets stomped on by everyone, then an accident happens which changes her, makes her fed up with men/women/life and wants to hurt everyone. Then of course in her fall she suddenly is a master acrobat/whip handler and has the characteristics of a cat. Even bringing the superstition of "9 lives" to life while drinking gallons of milk and being hungry for live birds, resorting to licking herself.

I mean it's right out of a spider-man comic. It doesn't belong with Selina Kyle. You can look at Electro next spring in TASM 2 to see the same story but with a black man. He's nerdy, works under a higher power. Gets stomped on by everyone, accident happens, then he's powerful, etc. Spider-Man villains and MANY other villains have had this origin and characterization for ages.

It's just not Catwoman to me. I find it simplifies her character too much. Makes her into a cliché.

 

[The Joker]

I never really saw Pfeiffer's Catwoman as anti-hero. The only time she does a noble act is when she saves that lady from a mugger, and that seemed to be mainly so she could test her fighting prowess out.

The rest of the movie she's blowing things up, getting involved in the kidnapping of an innocent person, framing Batman, and murdering her boss.

 

[Two-Face]

I prefer BTAS catwoman the most over TDKR Catwoman and BR Catwoman.

 

[milost]

Then of course in her fall she suddenly is a master acrobat/whip handler and has the characteristics of a cat. Even bringing the superstition of "9 lives" to life while drinking gallons of milk and being hungry for live birds, resorting to licking herself.

Exaggeration.

 

[Comics N' Toons]

I prefer BTAS catwoman the most over TDKR Catwoman and BR Catwoman.

Yes! In many ways, the BTAS Catwoman is the best Catwoman ever, even including some of her comics interpretations.

 

[shauner111]

Exaggeration.

Really? I recall everything I listed happening with the exception of gallons (plural) of milk being drunk. She is everything I listed. She still drank a ton of milk and that was only thrown in there to slam it into the heads of the audience that she's indeed a cat.

I never really saw Pfeiffer's Catwoman as anti-hero. The only time she does a noble act is when she saves that lady from a mugger, and that seemed to be mainly so she could test her fighting prowess out.

The rest of the movie she's blowing things up, getting involved in the kidnapping of an innocent person, framing Batman, and murdering her boss.

Yeah she's a straight up villain in my eyes. She has her moments that could lead to her falling out of that but she's not an anti-hero.

 

[milost]

Really? I recall everything I listed happening with the exception of gallons (plural) of milk being drunk. She is everything I listed. She still drank a ton of milk and that was only thrown in there to slam it into the heads of the audience that she's indeed a cat.

- She was athletic before the fall. She had a life that we never saw before the fall. The original script (Waters original draft) actually went into a great deal about how she acquired her "acrobats" and fighting skills, it was self defense classes. It was because of her overbearing mother (which is actually in the film via phone calls on the answer machine if I recall correctly). It's about all repression.


You don't seem to have a problem with the TDKR Selina wearing a hi-tech costume from god knows where. That's never explained. Or how about her being able to back flip out of a two-three story window? Or all of her moves? They're never explained and never even hinted at . . . they just are.


- She didn't drink gallons of milk, she took a big swig out of whatever was in her refrigerator right before her frustrated break down. In the scene prior to her fall (when she's first in her apartment) we see her feeding that milk to her cat. She's not there drinking it for the audience just to do it. It's set up prior to that in another scene.



Now you say she's "simple", well, again, do you like the TDKR Catwoman? She's pretty one-dimensional as well. She's practically a plot device and only there to service the story as a "happy ending" for Bruce. That's it. Batman Returns actually puts that idea on it's head, by giving the Catwoman character her OWN will and refusing Batman and that idea of a "fairy tale, happy ending".

Returns Selina is cliched? How many times have we seen the bad ass, femme fatale with the witty lines like, "What's the matter, Cat got your tongue". How many stories have we seen where a character wants a "fresh start". How is that anything but, "simple"? The Returns Catwoman is much more developed and "complicated" than Rises Catwoman, but you don't seem to have a problem with her? Seems almost hypocritical to me.


Selina in Batman Returns is a repressed individual. As the audience, we know she's not really so meek and submissive. We see her making fun of herself when Shrek leaves. She makes fun of the whole "secretary" thing. At the apartment, she totally gets how dull her life is, from her mom's concerned phone calls to her boyfriend blowing her off for the weekend. The thing is, she's humble. She's a GOOD person.

Then a crime is committed against her, an injustice. She can't take it anymore and snaps. Seems justifiable to me. She's through being a goody-goody that lets people walk all over her, she's done being repressed. After the trauma of the fall and the walk back to her apartment, she loses it. She cries, she's fed up, she essentially destroys what she was before (all the pink walls, her nice little doll house, her stuffed animals). It's all completely natural.

You're really going to compare her to Electro? Really? He's more like the underdeveloped Edward Nygma character than Selina Kyle.




As for where she falls in the "comics". In the late 80s, early 90s, Selina is an abused individual that's had enough as well. Instead of Max Shreck, the businessman, it's the underworld (pimps, the mob, etc).

 

[milost]

I never really saw Pfeiffer's Catwoman as anti-hero. The only time she does a noble act is when she saves that lady from a mugger, and that seemed to be mainly so she could test her fighting prowess out.

The rest of the movie she's blowing things up, getting involved in the kidnapping of an innocent person, framing Batman, and murdering her boss.

Anti-heroes don't necessarily do noble things. An anti-hero by definition doesn't have heroic virtues or qualitie.

Boba Fett from Star Wars is an anti-hero in popular culture. He doesn't do anything noble. Henry Hill from Goodfellas is practically one of the "bad guys" in the mob and he's an anti-hero. Tony Montana aka, Scarface is also an anti-hero. Jules from Pulp Fiction? Anti-hero. Tyler Durden, Travis Bickle?All anti-heroes that aren't exactly "good" or noble people.


Catwoman is an anti-hero in Batman Returns. She's not necessarily a villain or a hero.

She's blowing things up? Of course. She's blowing up a business tycoon's stores. The same man that wronged her and shoved her out of a window because she was looking through his files. Shrek is the film's villain, Selina is seeking revenge.

As for the Ice Princess, she says it herself that she didn't know the Penguin was going to kill her. She thought the plan was to just frighten her. She even seems to feel bad about it. There's a duality there and she's one of the few female anti-heroes in film.

 

[The Joker]

Anti-heroes don't necessarily do noble things. An anti-hero by definition doesn't have heroic virtues or qualitie. Boba Fett from Star Wars is an anti-hero in popular culture. He doesn't do anything noble. Henry Hill from Goodfellas is practically one of the "bad guys" in the mob and he's an anti-hero. Tony Montana aka, Scarface is also an anti-hero. Jules from Pulp Fiction? Anti-hero. Tyler Durden, Travis Bickle?All anti-heroes that aren't exactly "good" or noble people.

I don't consider any of those characters anti heroes, and until I read your post that is the first time I've ever seen anyone label them anti hero. What makes them anti hero?

Catwoman is an anti-hero in Batman Returns. She's not necessarily a villain or a hero.

She's blowing things up? Of course. She's blowing up a business tycoon's stores. The same man that wronged her and shoved her out of a window because she was looking through his files. Shrek is the film's villain, Selina is seeking revenge.

I know, but her actions were still villainous and wrong. As was her attacking Batman for no reason, then seeking out the Penguin to get rid of him. She set out to get rid of the hero just because he retaliated against her when she attacked him after blowing up a store.

As for the Ice Princess, she says it herself that she didn't know the Penguin was going to kill her. She thought the plan was to just frighten her. She even seems to feel bad about it.

I wasn't talking about that. I'm talking about her willing participation in abducting the Ice Princess in the first place just to get Batman.

Her guilt over the death of the Ice Princess doesn't necessarily make her not a villain, any more than the fat clown having an attack of conscience about Penguin's plan to kill babies.

I'm sorry but she was rather naive here, too. What did she think was going to happen? The Ice Princess was just going to be set free afterward and not tell the Police who really abducted her? What did she think was going to happen when she left her standing on that ledge? What was the plan there, how was Penguin supposed to just scare her and frame Batman in front of everyone at the same time?

 

[milost]

So your reasoning seems to be that an anti-hero is essentially a hero. Anti-heroes aren't heroic per se and lack heroic qualities. Catwoman fits the bill, especially with how conflicted she is.

What are some anti-heroes to you? What are your favorite ones?

 

[Cain]

Someone sent me this link earlier today. Nothing most of us didn't already know but still a good read and perhaps some food for thought for newer SHH posters.

http://comicsbeat.com/the-alcott-analysis-batman-returns/

 

[The Joker]

No I'm not saying an anti hero is essentially a hero. But the word hero is in the name for a reason. Some of my personal favorites:

- The Man with No Name played by Eastwood in his westerns
- Rorschach in Watchmen
- Leon from Leon
- Snake Plissken in Escape From New York

 

[TruerToTheCore]

Well, anti-hero is a term with many meanings. Don Quijote is also sometimes called an anti-hero. As is the Punisher... As you can see, it can refer to a morally upright person that just lacks any other heroic traits or to someone who is morally corrupt but still fights for the right thing...

Don't get me started on the anti-villain! Years ago I thought it was someone with evil goals but who achieves them by legal methods. Then I learned it's supposed to refer to someone with good intentions but bad methods... where we are back to the anti-hero.

 

[regwec]

No I'm not saying an anti hero is essentially a hero. But the word hero is in the name for a reason. Some of my personal favorites:

- The Man with No Name played by Eastwood in his westerns
- Rorschach in Watchmen
- Leon from Leon
- Snake Plissken in Escape From New York

Broadly speaking, those are closer to "hero" than "anti". Rorschach, particularly, is vindicated as the most noble of them all at the end. Blondie is easily the least worst gunfighter in the spaghetti trilogy.

An antihero, to me, is not just a hero who is roguish or ambiguous. It is closer to a character who is morally wrong, but nevertheless sympathetic or enjoyable. Travolta and Jackson were antiheroes in "Pulp Fiction", for instance.

 

[Brain Damage]

Caught this film on TV last night with some friends.

Made for a terrific night

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Someone sent me this link earlier today. Nothing most of us didn't already know but still a good read and perhaps some food for thought for newer SHH posters.

http://comicsbeat.com/the-alcott-analysis-batman-returns/

That about sums up my love of this movie...

As pungent and revelatory as Batman was, Returns is even more so, a chilly, overflowing cauldron of perversity, thrills and dark surrealism. As Burtonesque as the first movie is, Returns offers a purer vision of Burtonism, irrational and passionate. It fails to cohere as a narrative, it’s more like some kind of nightmare dreamscape of curdled ambitions, wounded egos and bisected personalities. (Discussion of the weird Christian symbolism alone could take up another post.) Rarely has a director been given this kind of money to be this kind of weird.

 

[Comics N' Toons]

that article didn't paint a very appealing picture, IMO

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

that article didn't paint a very appealing picture, IMO

No I know... but like I said before, it's the things people hate in this movie that i generally love.

It truly is a quirky arthouse film in the disguise of a summer blockbuster.

 

[Comics N' Toons]

yeah. I'd agree with that statement. In my opinion, it kept enough of what B89 did to be a Batman film. But Burton is nut and the film is over the top!

 

[Kane52630]

http://kane52630.tumblr.com/post/57030149579/bruce-and-selina-batman-returns-the-dark-knight

 

[ThePhantasm]

Nice.

 

[regwec]

Damn. Hathaway's Selina was such an acute disappointment to me.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

She was decent... but she could have been soooo much more.

I honestly think Nolan restrained the character too much.