The Official Batman Returns Thread - Part 3

[ThePhantasm]

I can see how it would be explained that she survived without supernatural help, but even if the explanation is supernatural, it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the film. It fits in Burton's world to me.

I mean, let's face it, this is a world in which a little monster baby was raised by penguins...

 

[The Joker]

There is no way anybody could survive a fall like that, and then get up and walk away. I dont care what universe it is, that would be stupid. So for me, she is resurrected by cats. Which is dumb anyway, but this is a universe where monsters exist. When somebody falls from tall heights in these movies...dead is dead.

The falls with the awnings, and the kitty litter truck I can buy someone surviving unscathed without so much as a sprained ankle to show for it in a fantasy world like this. But the most perplexing one, even for a fantasy universe, is getting shot four times at close range, and then running around on the Gotham rooftops a couple of nights later. Whether the bullets hit vital organs or not, nobody is going to be skittering around high rooftops Catwoman style after taking four bullets.

Even Mystique in X-Men Days of Future Past was limping around, and she only took one bullet to the leg.

 

[ThePhantasm]

Yeah... the bullets are harder to explain, basically because she was originally supposed to die there, and they refilmed the ending.

Schreck even looks at his gun like "wtf why isn't this killing her"

 

[BatLobster]

I think even if Burton didn't think of it as supernatural, the movie itself does send some mixed messages, even if that's partially a result of studio notes. The confusion is out there because the movie isn't really too concerned with clarifying itself. Burton was never the most literal filmmaker.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

A reason why he's one of my favourites.

It's like asking where Edward Scissorhands got the huge blocks of ice from that he sculpts at the end of the movie. It's a fairytale... I don't need to know and frankly I don't want to know.

 

[BatLobster]

Yeah, I didn't mean that in a negative way. You just have to take the movie as a dark Burton fairytale and roll with it, much moreso than the original. But it's easy to understand why the confusion/dispute is out there.

 

[Irony-Man]

Burton's Batman films are Batman as seen thru the eyes of German expressionism.

Nolan's Batman film is Batman as seen thru the eyes of early 70's realism - they are akin to Scorcese or Coppola's work in their attention to gritty realism and somewhat morally ambiguous heroes.

Both interpretations are valid and should be enjoyed as expression's of their creator's vision. Burton imagined a world full of grotesque (meaning larger than life) characters inhabiting a city which was itself a character in the film. Burton's films could not stray from their Gotham setting, or indeed acknowledge the existence of the outside world because Gotham was the films' only reality. As such any supernatural element was simply a part of that reality. We accept Selina's transformation because it exists in this reality. Any supernatural elements perceived only add to this reality. Of course there can be a supernatural explanation, it blends seamlessly into this Batman universe.

Nolan's approach, rather than make a film where Batman fit in as another player in a hyper-realistic world, was to make a world as close as possible to our own reality and then see how a character like Batman would function in that world. Supernatural elements would only distract from the created reality of his Batman universe.

As they are interpretations and wholly independent from one another they don't have to fit into the larger Batman canon. Like Hamlet, Batman is a character whose story could be told over and over again by different filmmakers' each adding their own unique spin to him.

BTW, Schumacher's Batman films represent Batman as portrayed by 1960's gay cinema.

 

[shauner111]

The falls with the awnings, and the kitty litter truck I can buy someone surviving unscathed without so much as a sprained ankle to show for it in a fantasy world like this. But the most perplexing one, even for a fantasy universe, is getting shot four times at close range, and then running around on the Gotham rooftops a couple of nights later. Whether the bullets hit vital organs or not, nobody is going to be skittering around high rooftops Catwoman style after taking four bullets.

Even Mystique in X-Men Days of Future Past was limping around, and she only took one bullet to the leg.

True dat.

 

[regwec]

Even Mystique in X-Men Days of Future Past was limping around, and she only took one bullet to the leg.

That is a different and unrelated film.

I think Burton's style is to paint with broad strokes, and to tell a tightly wrought melodrama in the most atmospheric (even operatic) way possible. In that sense, I don't think it really matters whether Selina's survival was supernatural or not. The point is that the whole thing was a life-changing experience, that tickled the beast within.

 

[The Joker]

Yeah... the bullets are harder to explain, basically because she was originally supposed to die there, and they refilmed the ending.

Schreck even looks at his gun like "wtf why isn't this killing her"

Exactly. Schreck is looking at her like she's some sort of abnormal being.

That is a different and unrelated film.

It's an analogy to another fantasy comic book movie (even more so than Returns) with super powered beings, time travel, and giant invulnerable futuristic robots. Mystique has no reason to shake off gun shot wounds, hence why she limps for the rest of the movie, as anyone would after getting shot in the leg. Which is why it sticks out why Catwoman is seemingly unharmed at the end of Returns running around rooftops after she took four gun shots at close range recently.

 

[regwec]

Yes, but neither film is real. Either can contrive events to occur to whatever effect is desired in the interest of drama. You may as well complain that different vampire movies adopt different "rules".

 

[The Joker]

I never said neither film is real. Batman Returns constructs a world where people can and do die and get injured by gun shots, falls off buildings, and any other injuries any normal person would be killed or severely injured by. But Selina Kyle can seemingly walk off gun shot wounds. Hence why Schreck looks so perplexed and disturbed when he's shooting her and she's still coming at him.

The analogy to Days of Future Past is that although it's a movie filled with super powered beings and time travel and all kinds of absurd fantasy, it still adheres to a basic set of rules. Mystique has a power that can change her into anyone she likes, but that power doesn't make her immune to bullets like Wolverine who has a quick healing factor power. So when she gets shot, even if it's just once in the leg, it affects her. Which makes sense. There's no reason why it wouldn't.

Just like there's no reason why Selina shouldn't have been affected the same way, worse in fact since she took four gun shots, unless she's actually supernatural.

Your remark about vampires is redundant. Vampires are still night creatures immune to light, drink blood etc. Changing small tropes like crosses affecting some but not others doesn't change the core nature of the creatures. You're still dealing with supernatural creatures. Is there some breed of human being that doesn't get affected physically at all by gun shots?

What reason would a supposedly normal human being have for being able to walk off four gun shot wounds a couple of days later and be running around rooftops? Even if you buy that she can fall out an office window through awnings, fall off a roof into a kitty litter truck, and fall from the sky into a glass greenhouse, and not have so much as a sprained ankle to show for any of these three falls, the four gun shots is just too perplexing and stand out like a sore thumb. I could even buy her surviving the four gun shots if they didn't hit any vital areas, but even if they didn't she would not be going around anywhere without being severely debilitated physically, much less skittering around rooftops Catwoman style like there's nothing wrong with her at all.

That's why it's important to have basic set of internal logic and rules in these movies. Just saying they're not real and fantasy based doesn't cut it. Batman could sprout two heads, and what it's just a fantasy movie so that would be ok? Of course not. There has to be a reason for it.

 

[regwec]

Well, it would depend what the director was trying to convey with the imagery, and whether the style of the film was otherwise surrealist.

You speak of "internal logic", and yet you are exporting the supposed logic of one movie into another. That's external logic, if anything, and it doesn't make sense.

 

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

I think Burton's style is to paint with broad strokes, and to tell a tightly wrought melodrama in the most atmospheric (even operatic) way possible. In that sense, I don't think it really matters whether Selina's survival was supernatural or not. The point is that the whole thing was a life-changing experience, that tickled the beast within.

We have a winner.

 

[The Joker]

The imagery doesn't suggest a non supernatural being. On the contrary it does the total opposite because she looks like she's dead when she falls out that window. It's in the winter air, when she hits the ground you see her breath plume out, then nothing. No more breathing. She looks as white as sheet, and still does when she revives and goes home. She looks like the living dead. It's not like the movie doesn't flat out say it multiple times either, with her going around the whole movie saying she has nine lives. If we never saw her survive any severe injuries unscathed I'd just chalk that up to her being crazy saying that.

I'm not exporting logic of one movie onto another. I'm making an analogy between two movies that are fantasy based, both do absurd things, but the difference being one actually makes sense in the context of the world it's based in, and the other one doesn't, not if Selina is supposed to be a normal person instead of supernatural. Likewise Mystique is not supernatural or has any power that makes her invulnerable to gun shots. She's not immune to bullet injuries. She has no reason to be.

But nobody can explain why Catwoman is in this movie.

 

[shauner111]

Yes, but neither film is real. Either can contrive events to occur to whatever effect is desired in the interest of drama. You may as well complain that different vampire movies adopt different "rules".

I find this to be a lazy argument. It's as if it's OK to say 'this movie here didn't make sense but i like these movies over HERE so ill just excuse it cuz u know what? It's a movie, it's a fantasy, none of it is real". To what? Just to win an argument?

It's not as if Batman Returns makes it clear in the beginning that anybody can survive several gun shot wounds or fall from a rooftop, and they'll survive. It's still the same universe as Batman 89, and Joker fell to his death. Was it higher? Yes. But Selina was still pretty damn high up. Did anything break her fall? Not really. I saw her go through a few things but her falling is still at the same speed and she crashes to the ground. Doesn't she open her eyes like a zombie? Doesn't she look extra pale like the life is literally taken from her? Yes.

She literally has 9 lives. Even if it's bogus and she's lying...she's getting shot and she barely flinches. It's as if she'll only feel the 9th blow or death. Then she dies by Walken. Whether she faked it or not, she got shot point blank. And she's running around on rooftops like it's nobodys business.

 

[Travesty]

It looks more like shes in shock than a zombie. But again, that's just me.

 

[regwec]

I'm afraid I don't really understand either of you. The notion of saying that, because event x had consequence y in one movie, it is unacceptable for it to have consequence z in another, has actually caused me to shake my head more than once.

 

[shauner111]

The way Selina walks into her house, yes, it's more like she's in shock. But i was talking about how she opens her eyes and the way she looks in that moment with the cats surrounding her. And of course, drinking a ton of milk, is that just random? Or because she has cat-like powers now? I would say it's because cats resurrected her, but maybe that's just me. She also apparently has 9 lives after the fall and can get hit by bullets without flinching much.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

The way Selina walks into her house, yes, it's more like she's in shock. But i was talking about how she opens her eyes and the way she looks in that moment with the cats surrounding her. And of course, drinking a ton of milk, is that just random? Or because she has cat-like powers now? I would say it's because cats resurrected her, but maybe that's just me. She also apparently has 9 lives after the fall and can get hit by bullets without flinching much.

Yes, because pouring milk all down your top is the epitome of Cat Powers.

 

[The Joker]

Even if you ignore all that, Shauner. The sudden amazing fighting and athletic abilities, the expert handling of a whip, the love for milk, even in a movie as absurd as this you can write it off to say maybe she took self defense classes in her spare time, and she was just too insecure/scared to use them. The cat like traits like drinking milk is just her mind snapping and her acting crazy. Those kinds of things, even the three bad falls she had and survived unharmed, I can overlook all of them because although it's really unlikely there is a chance she could have survived them without any serious injury. I mean Jackie Chan has walked away from some really bad stunts gone wrong in his movies.

But the four gun shots at close range, there is no way any normal person is walking away from that without being physically debilitated in some big way. Batman Returns is not set in a world where regular people are immune to gun shots like that. Unless of course they are supernatural as the movie constantly has her say, and imply with all her miraculous survivals.

 

[ThePhantasm]

Yes, because pouring milk all down your top is the epitome of Cat Powers.

 

[shauner111]

Yes, because pouring milk all down your top is the epitome of Cat Powers.

You know what im talking about lol, no need to get sarcastic. Obviously i dont mean that exactly. Im saying she's randomly surrounded by cats after falling to her "death". She comes home and the first thing she does, is what a cat would do, she drinks a carton of milk. It could be Burtons nod to the character Catwoman or she has developed traits like a cat. Almost like a spider-man villain dies or gets injured and transforms into some half man, half animal. The same thing is happening here with Catwoman and even Penguin. She literally is a cat-woman in this version. Only, it has more to do with her behavior and the supposed 9 lives.

Even if you ignore all that, Shauner. The sudden amazing fighting and athletic abilities, the expert handling of a whip, the love for milk, even in a movie as absurd as this you can write it off to say maybe she took self defense classes in her spare time, and she was just too insecure/scared to use them. The cat like traits like drinking milk is just her mind snapping and her acting crazy. Those kinds of things, even the three bad falls she had and survived unharmed, I can overlook all of them because although it's really unlikely there is a chance she could have survived them without any serious injury. I mean Jackie Chan has walked away from some really bad stunts gone wrong in his movies.

But the four gun shots at close range, there is no way any normal person is walking away from that without being physically debilitated in some big way. Batman Returns is not set in a world where regular people are immune to gun shots like that. Unless of course they are supernatural as the movie constantly has her say, and imply with all her miraculous survivals.

Yeah. Anybody saying the movie is not supernatural, that's just baffling.

 

[The Joker]

I don't know why some are so resistant to the idea either. There's far more absurd things than that in this movie.

I'd also like to know where exactly on the movie commentary Burton says it wasn't supposed to be supernatural, because I've listened to the scenes where the cats revive her, Schreck shoots her, and the scene where she's seen alive at the end. He doesn't mention it in any of those scenes. So which scene is it does anyone know?

 

[shauner111]

Burtons hair is the most supernatural of the bunch though.