Batman Begins Things Batman Begins got Right/Wrong

[darknight7]

Bale's wasn't good? and How is that true?

Bale's what wasn't good? Lol, sorry Two-Face..but you got me lost there pal

PS: long time no see around these parts how's it going?

--dk7

 

[Two-Face]

"Bale. His bat-voice is not good either, sounds too forced. SO TRUE!"


I'm asking, how is that true?


I'm fine, I'm just staying away from spoiler section until I see TDK.

 

[darknight7]

"Bale. His bat-voice is not good either, sounds too forced. SO TRUE!"


I'm asking, how is that true?


I'm fine, I'm just staying away from spoiler section until I see TDK.

Ya, very smart move. Im trying to stick to only the art thread and that is it... as well as the virals.

Oh and Bale's voice as Batman was just too much for me. He sounded like he had a cold at times.

Don't get me wrong, there were moments when I thought it was cool...

ex. - When he talks to Gordon: "A storm's coming." LOVE that line and love how he presents it. Also the escalation conversation, he sounds good there as well.

But there are some scenes when it sounds like he has a frog in his throat, and the mask is squishing his neck, and he has a stuffed nose...lol...

I know some people loved his voice, and others hated it...

but Im on a fine line. I really thouhgt he sounded cool at parts...but at others...he sounded silly. That's all

--dk7

 

[Nightwing1977]

lol he could always dye his hair t: it would've been a dramatic difference indicating time had passed based on his different look. But actually it has more to do with me always wanting to have seen the most classic Alfred look in live action film.

They should've make a Time Machine & get Caine when he made "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" to play Alfred from Bruce "8-20". And keep Caine as he is now when BB took place in present time. Isn't that special?

 

[roach]

Actually I thought this was one of the film's strongest points.
Here's why:
Children never actually chase their goals. I wanted to be a cowboy when I was Bruce's age, I'm sure some of you wanted to be rock stars etc. But kids don't have the common sense or the motivation to chase those kinds of goals, they're really just imaginative fantasies. Your goals as a child are rarely in line as your goals as an adult: thats why adult bruce has to make the decision to become Batman. Children just aren't focused enough.

That, and the fact that the comics always seemed to gloss over his teen and college years. He just turned adult over night and became a master chemist/blackbelt/detective in what looks like his twenties, then becomes Batman in his thirties. I don't know which comic you mean, but I don't remember it being suggested that he went off to train any earlier than his 20s?

Yes normal children dont chase their goals. Bruce was anything but normal. I feel it would have been more believeable for Bruce to have been working at this for his life than for only a few years

 

[napcoman]

Why is it that no human beings were affected by the microwave emitter? All the water was vaporized, so why weren't humans (considering that we are made up mostly of water)?

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

-Batmobile can go REALLY fast this time and now the speed of a golf cart.

Did you see Batman '89? In the scene with Bats taking Vikki to the Batcave, the Batmobile is hauling ass...

 

[Lobster Charlie]

They used a lot of speed-up photography in Batman 89. That thing could barely make a fast left turn.

 

[Nightwing1977]

Did you see Batman '89? In the scene with Bats taking Vikki to the Batcave, the Batmobile is hauling ass...

Google is banned, so there no point in replying to him anymore. Just a head up.

 

[El Payaso]

They used a lot of speed-up photography in Batman 89. That thing could barely make a fast left turn.

Then again they used a lot of scale models for the Tumbler, that thing could barely run over an old tile roof.

But that's what the effects are for.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

He didnt act like Emo/Parker or Skywalker, not once in BB did you see Bruce in crying rage. Keaton's portrayal of Batman wasnt right for the time period that film took place in, If batman'89 would have been an adaptation of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, he would have been perfect.

"Everything my father built...cry cry cry". I agree with the previous poster, he often turned Bruce into a whiney b*tch.

The best movie to ever delve into the psyche of Batman is Return of the Joker, as Joker put it "Behind all the sturm and bat-o-rangs, you're just a little boy in a playsuit, crying for mommy and daddy! It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic". That's the point that Batman Begins misses. YOU CAN'T SHOW BRUCE CRYING. He doesn't cry, he covers up his feelings with anger and intense determination. Bale cried way too much, and it takes away from Bruce's super serious manner.

This for me is where Begins really screwed the pooch. The origin for Batman is very sound. Joe Chill, a John Doe, comes out and kills his parents while Bruce is fanaticizing in his head about Zorro. The point of him coming out of that rousing adventure film was that his fanatasy world is shattered and the real world comes and smacks him in the face. On any other occasion Bruce would've cried and wept over his dead parents, but on this occasion, when he feels invincible, he doesn't. He gets angry at the world for being so cruel, and because the cops can't find this killer who feels the need to protect people against all Joe Chills.

In Begins they try to paint Chill as the sympathetic figure. "Oh, it wasn't his fault, it was the League of Shadows economics and the big bad corrupt men in Gotham who drove him to crime". Batman doesn't make those types of distinctions. In fact he's always been one to move up the latter; from user, to dealer, to pusher to ring leader and beyond. They killed that aspect of the character, turning him into a glorified ninja.

That brings me to my second problem, this whole "I'm going to kill Joe Chill" took away the entire foundation for Batman. Batman is the jack of all trades. Begins tried to make him too believable and in effect made him less believeable. In the comics, he builds most of his equipment, meaning we have to believe in addition to being an Olympic level athlete and a world class detective/forensic scientist he is a great engineer. In Begins the approach seems to indicate this idea is unbelievable so instead he gets all his tech from Lucius Fox. This firstly makes Bruce seem dumb, and secondly makes us wonder "If Wayne industries built all this tech, why don't the people responsible for it make the Batman-Bruce Wayne connection". Granted Lucius might cover for him, even with his lame excuses, but what about the other engineers, draftmens and many many other machinists who went into making that pieace of equipment. They might not feel so inclined, especially if the devision of Wayne industries they worked for was going south.

 

[hegele]

"Everything my father built...cry cry cry". I agree with the previous poster, he often turned Bruce into a whiney b*tch.

The best movie to ever delve into the psyche of Batman is Return of the Joker, as Joker put it "Behind all the sturm and bat-o-rangs, you're just a little boy in a playsuit, crying for mommy and daddy! It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic". That's the point that Batman Begins misses. YOU CAN'T SHOW BRUCE CRYING. He doesn't cry, he covers up his feelings with anger and intense determination. Bale cried way too much, and it takes away from Bruce's super serious manner.

This for me is where Begins really screwed the pooch. The origin for Batman is very sound. Joe Chill, a John Doe, comes out and kills his parents while Bruce is fanaticizing in his head about Zorro. The point of him coming out of that rousing adventure film was that his fanatasy world is shattered and the real world comes and smacks him in the face. On any other occasion Bruce would've cried and wept over his dead parents, but on this occasion, when he feels invincible, he doesn't. He gets angry at the world for being so cruel, and because the cops can't find this killer who feels the need to protect people against all Joe Chills.

In Begins they try to paint Chill as the sympathetic figure. "Oh, it wasn't his fault, it was the League of Shadows economics and the big bad corrupt men in Gotham who drove him to crime". Batman doesn't make those types of distinctions. In fact he's always been one to move up the latter; from user, to dealer, to pusher to ring leader and beyond. They killed that aspect of the character, turning him into a glorified ninja.

That brings me to my second problem, this whole "I'm going to kill Joe Chill" took away the entire foundation for Batman. Batman is the jack of all trades. Begins tried to make him too believable and in effect made him less believeable. In the comics, he builds most of his equipment, meaning we have to believe in addition to being an Olympic level athlete and a world class detective/forensic scientist he is a great engineer. In Begins the approach seems to indicate this idea is unbelievable so instead he gets all his tech from Lucius Fox. This firstly makes Bruce seem dumb, and secondly makes us wonder "If Wayne industries built all this tech, why don't the people responsible for it make the Batman-Bruce Wayne connection". Granted Lucius might cover for him, even with his lame excuses, but what about the other engineers, draftmens and many many other machinists who went into making that pieace of equipment. They might not feel so inclined, especially if the devision of Wayne industries they worked for was going south.

Well stated, but I have several disagreements. Firstly. Begins is a film, batman, although a superhero, is still a man. I want to see a man. I don't want to see a john wayne type who hides his feeling behind a cold stare and a "cool" stature. I want to see an emotional struggle. This guy is trying to save a metropolis of a city by himself. I'm tired of "cool" hero types not being allowed to enter an emotional space for the audience. This isn't 300.

Secondly, the origin you've written about isn't the Begins origin. That one might work in the comics, Begins took a different approach that was just as much, if not more psychologically and emotionally powerful, as Bruces fear ends up killing his parents. This is a new approach that i think works amazingly well and adds wonderful new layers to Bruce's psyche.

Thirdly, i personally would have hated to see him build everything himself. The same reason i would have hated to see peter parker make his web thingys in Spidey 1. Too much. They already build one aspect, its pushing it to assume he is wonderfully skilled in every area. And this is purely a cinematic thing for me. The comics can have the perfect humanoid Wayne, i like seeing a guy use what he has, and why shouldn't he? Batman moves too fast and in the dark for anyone to see what equipment he has anyway. Aside from the tumbler, which does bring up some problems.

I have some nitpicks about Begins too:

1; I didn't think the whole Dawes/D.A. love thing was necessary. especially since she is seeing Dent in the sequel. You would think a girl wouldn't go for the new boss right after the old one died.


2. the editing for the last action piece, basically the last 20 minutes was just too jarring and rushed.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Thirdly, i personally would have hated to see him build everything himself. The same reason i would have hated to see peter parker make his web thingys in Spidey 1. Too much. They already build one aspect, its pushing it to assume he is wonderfully skilled in every area. And this is purely a cinematic thing for me. The comics can have the perfect humanoid Wayne, i like seeing a guy use what he has, and why shouldn't he? Batman moves too fast and in the dark for anyone to see what equipment he has anyway. Aside from the tumbler, which does bring up some problems.
.

You don't have to be a genius to buy parts and assemble something yourself, like they did with the suit, and consequently those scenes played out very well. Then the car, the cape, the equipment, even the belt all come directly from other designers, engineers and Waynetech employees. Doesn't work for me. I'd be fine if Bruce was buying engines and car parts, using a variety of resources and people to help him. This movie though focused more or less on one very narrow source: namely a prototype division of WayneTech. Conversely, with the costume you had several dealers from all points of the globe supplying various aspects of the costume.

That makes sense to me. Getting an entire and recognizeable car from Waynetech doesn't. Compound that with the fact that most of his other tech comes from there and you can see the paper trail Bruce is building right back to his doorstep.

Furthermore Bruce doesn't have to be an expert in all fields, just really, really smart. For example, the line "was I suppose to understand any of that?" was an absolute killer for me. No, Batman doesn't have to know how to synthesize andidotes while in a coma, but in this movie they showed him as being unable to understand often times the knowledge being presented to him. In some regards we can say Batman is young and learning, but my problem is if you want to show Batman young and learning establish that element much earlier. Most of his origin in that movie solely focused on the fighting, making him look downright inept at the other areas: detective work, forensics, science, engineering, etc.

That's, in the end why Joe Chill's hearing was a distraction for me. It distracted from Bruce's development. Rather than have this boy become a determined crimefighter through his own strength and will, we saw a very aimless character waste valuable time. Time in the movie that could have been spent establishing his zest and determination to learn about crime fighting and criminals.

I thought another problem, was Joe Chill being caught showed the effectiveness of the police. Bruce is someone who works outside the system, who believes it can't work. He came to this conclusion when his parents' murderer was never brought to trail or caught. Gotham in this movie seemed much less corrupt, and much more efficient at dealing with crime. Batman started more of a "War on poverty" or a "War on bad men who wronged him personally" than a true "War on Crime". Whether you liked the outcome or not, Joe Chill served his time and was released a sincerely repentant man.

In addition, back to a criticism you had made, Joe Chill's release was really more of a plot device to bring Rachel Dawes into the story rather than to really further Bruce's development. Rachel Dawes ends up pushing him, or at the very least guiding him to become Batman. I find this troubling as well, since something essential to the Batman story is how his family (Alfred) seemed to try to dissuade him from becoming Batman. While Rachel never actively tells him what to do, her impact ends up being more profound than his parent's death in a way. His parent's death turned him into a murderer (would be murderer), then Rachel convinces him otherwise.

As you point out though Rachel becomes pointless after that, becoming little more than Dent's girlfriend in the second movie, and frankly a role that could've been filled by Dent from the beginning (as Nolan had originally planned). Dent also probably would not have had the same impact as Rachel, but would've been more important to the plot overall.

 

[S.A.A.D.]

My problems with Batman Begins are:

-Batman seems a bit too dependent
(ie Alfred saving him twice,Fox making him whatever it was after he got fear gassed,Rachel defeating Scarecrow with a taser,Gordon destroying the train base so the microwave emitter would be destroyed)
-Batman delivering lines bad because of Bale(Bale's voice didn't sound good at times)-The Batmobile (the design for it was terrible)
-Not enough of the detective side was shown
-Some of the fighting involving Batman went by too quick
-The Batmobile going over roof toops (those sequences are really silly IMO)

 

[YsoSerious]

Somebody answer this-Why is Bruce Wayne always upset about his father's death but never really talks about his mom? Does he not miss her ? Maybe it was because she let Rachel's mom raise him.

 

[Riven]

Somebody answer this-Why is Bruce Wayne always upset about his father's death but never really talks about his mom? Does he not miss her ? Maybe it was because she let Rachel's mom raise him.

Of course Bruce misses his mother, he misses her just as much as his dad. It's just that the motif Nolan chose was that of the father. In BB, all of Bruce's actions are ways of proving himself to his dad. The movie is jam-packed with surrogate fathers (Alfred, Ducard, Fox) and there's constant talk of preserving the father's memory, his legacy, his name, etc.

To make Bruce's quest more symbolically laden, Nolan chose to focus Bruce's grief more on the father figure, but that doesn't mean he doesn't miss his mom just as much...

 

[Nightwing1977]

Of course Bruce misses his mother, he misses her just as much as his dad. It's just that the motif Nolan chose was that of the father. In BB, all of Bruce's actions are ways of proving himself to his dad. The movie is jam-packed with surrogate fathers (Alfred, Ducard, Fox) and there's constant talk of preserving the father's memory, his legacy, his name, etc.

To make Bruce's quest more symbolically laden, Nolan chose to focus Bruce's grief more on the father figure, but that doesn't mean he doesn't miss his mom just as much...

I agree. While I can see some think he doesn't care for his mom with him barely being around with her like his dad or the actress not getting enough screen time, but I'm sure he does love her in the movie. It just it seem to focus more on Bruce's dad teaching him about how things run.

 

[Danielson]

I was perfectly fine with Bales Bat-voice. It sounded like he was a guy trying to be intimidating in a Batsuit, remember, it's Batman BEGINS, not we catch up to Batman just as he's rounding up another random criminal like he was in every other Batman movie.


Too many people seem to think that in Batman Begins, Batman should be absolutely perfect, he's not, they illustrated that and he was still working the kinks out.



As for him not wanting to get revenge from a young age, that's not true either, watch that one trailer "I saw something in the darkness, something frightening, something that wouldn't stop until it got it's revenge...me" from an early age, he felt pain and wanted to get rid of it. But it wasn't until he got older that he found out HOW to do this. When he was "young and stupid" he was just going to kill Joe Chill, but then he learned that that's not the best way.


Which leads to the point of Joe being killed, I LOVE that he got killed. I think it'd be stupid if he never got caught and Bats was seeking him. Bruce didn't kill Joe, he saw Joe get killed, saw the injustice and wanted to fix Gotham not just of the criminals like Joe, but of the corrupt system in Gotham.



My only problems with Begins. Well, I couldn't stand the line "HOW ABOUT THIS" when Ras says that he hasn't learned anything new, real cliche comic line and I just can't stand lines like that. The fights scenes too, I want to be able to see Bats kicking the crap out of the badguys, not a swirling mess of cape, the dock scene it fit, and even with the criminals in asia, but not later on.






Also, the tumbler is NOT the Batmobile and it isn't supposed to be. You think that 2 months into being Batman Bruce could have a whole friggin' car made? No, the tumbler was a military vehicle, readily available for him to use.

 

[MaJiN]

If I remember correctly; from what I read in the forums back in 04, Nolan and Goyer were working on the concept for a Batman movie which would become TDK's story (as well as the third film) before going over the idea of an origin story which is BB.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Too many people seem to think that in Batman Begins, Batman should be absolutely perfect, he's not, they illustrated that and he was still working the kinks out.

Batman was never perfect, if he was he wouldn't have gone with the most ineffective, most self-destructive means of expressing his feelings over his dead parents. That's what people forget. Batman is OBSESSIVE, and this Batman wasn't, he needed to be pushed to do everything. Batman is so obsessive in fact he pushes everyone else, away from him. This makes Alfred all the more important, because Alfred, after all these years, is the only man still around who will put up with Bruce's bullsh**. This movie killed that. It had Lucius Fox, Alfred, Rachel Dawes and Ra's Al Ghul (Ducard) all become more influencial on Bruce than Bruce himself.

In the original stories most of his "falling outs" with his masters and teachers delt solely with the fact that, after Bruce had learned what he needed from them, he couldn't shake his own selfish needs. With the FBI, he refused to work with the system trying to solve people's problems, and decided his way was better. With master Kirgi, he refused to learn to calm himself and control his emotions, effectively ending his training. With Ducard, he refused to compromise his own morals. In the colleges he attended he refused to make friends, form bonds and stick with one institution, all because they couldn't give him what he wanted. Those are imperfections, even if he was in the right sometimes, he still pushed away those who truly wanted to help him. In this movie he embraced all the help that came his way, making him seem needy, dependent, and even worse, leaving a paper trail of who he was right back to his doorstep.

This ultimately is why this Batman turned out to be some "Ninja-man" rather than any true depiction of the character. This Batman wasn't "working the kinks out", he was having others solve his dilemnas for him. "I need some light weight fabrics", "I need a car", "I need an antidote", "I need, I need, I need, I need...". If Batman was the kind of guy who talked about what he "needed" all the time, there'd be no Batman.

I also don't get how Batman not making a vow and sticking to it is somehow more realistic than "I'm gonna be an angry, immature kid for a while, but in the last 2 or 3 years I'll figure something out". As if I don't exist, or pro-athletes don't exist, or olypmians don't exist. There are people out there who make goals and stick to them, fyi. I hate how it's become a cliche' in Hollywood that for a hero to be "realistic" he has to be unmotivated, lazy and otherwise just like the couch potatoes who watch him, then magically he'll find this super-secret ninja training that takes him from scrawny to brawny in under a year...yeah, that's totally realistic

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Right
- Direction and style
- The creation of the costume
- Bale's portrayal of the Bruce Wayne act
- Oldman and his portrayal of Gordon
- Cillian Murphy and his portrayal of Scarecrow
- Liam Nesson in general
- Rutger Hauer was good in the film
- The use of flashbacks to tell his origin was a far better way to do it than simply telling a linear storyline.
- Arkham Aslyum

Wrong
- The script, argh!
- Bale's bat voice
- The character of Batman was inconsistent
- Focusing too much on the physical elements of Batman, and virtually ignoring the detective aspects and the intelligence that Batman is suppose to possess.
- Revealing the Bruce Wayne identity to too many characters
- Rachel Dawes in general
- The Tumbler, or at least the origins of the Tumbler. If it weren't so recognizeable, I wouldn't have had so much of a problem with it. Had it been built like the suit, that would've been fine.
- Alfred's role in the story was split up amongst too many characters sometimes, he also at times was more "Michael Caine as Alfred" rather than Alfred.

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

"Everything my father built...cry cry cry". I agree with the previous poster, he often turned Bruce into a whiney b*tch.

The best movie to ever delve into the psyche of Batman is Return of the Joker, as Joker put it "Behind all the sturm and bat-o-rangs, you're just a little boy in a playsuit, crying for mommy and daddy! It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic". That's the point that Batman Begins misses. YOU CAN'T SHOW BRUCE CRYING. He doesn't cry, he covers up his feelings with anger and intense determination. Bale cried way too much, and it takes away from Bruce's super serious manner.

Bruce cries in the comics, read the The Long Halloween, shows Bruce crying at his mother's grave on Mothers day. Adult Bruce cried ONCE in that film so now he's "emo parker?" Batman is still in his infancy, he still has feelings, he has yet to become to "super serious" avenger that we all know, people forget the fact that this is Batman BEGINS, he has to evolve into the Batman we all know.

 

[Paste Pot Pete]

Furthermore Bruce doesn't have to be an expert in all fields, just really, really smart. For example, the line "was I suppose to understand any of that?" was an absolute killer for me. No, Batman doesn't have to know how to synthesize andidotes while in a coma, but in this movie they showed him as being unable to understand often times the knowledge being presented to him.

He was acting. I always thought that was pretty obvious; his tone and way of speaking changes drastically when he realizes Lucius is in the room. He was getting right into it with Alfred - "It was some kind of hallucinogen, weaponized in aerosol form..."; then he realizes Lucius is there, and he tries to put his act back on, joking about drug parties and such.

That's what was great about their relationship, there's an unspoken truth between them. Bruce knows that Lucius knows, but he still feels that it's his responsibility to play as dumb as possible, even though he knows Fox ain't buying it.

 

[vanman0254]

I tend to disagree about the script, I believed it made the origin of Batman much more believable. Was it perfect? No. But when Bruce took off to China he did so b/c he was told that he would never understand the underworld of crime, so he took off to do just that.

Instead of being psycho-obsessed Batman at first (which I believe he was not in comics) he is a man learning about what it will take to save Gotham from itself. BB in my opinion chooses the more believable option that Bruce feels somewhat responsible for his parent's death. In addition to that, Bruce feels compelled to continue his father's work at saving Gotham. Therefore, Batman is a product of guilt and pride, not some insane obsession. Those two feelings are more common and drive more people to do things, than a "goal-orientated" Batman.

From my understanding of the comics, Batman BECOMES psycho-obsessed with his job not because of his parents, but because of the never-ending crime wave. He becomes frustrated that every time he locks up a villain, another comes along. It becomes like a never-ending battle that DRIVES him to a new level of madness. I think we'll get more of that in TDK, but the origin story of Batman shouldn't automatically make that leap. There are reasons behind why people like athletes and olympians become so "goal-orientated." Often times there is an event or string of events that PUSH them to become that way, but first they must have feelings and reactions to those events and then hide those away with these super focus. BB was about how Bruce perceives his parents death and how he BEGINS to cope with it.

The line in the TDK trailer "I know the man I have to become" his foreshadowing the deeply disturbed and borderline psychotic Batman that emerges after he begins to hide and lock away his feelings of guilt associated with his parents' death.

I think Nolan got a lot right in BB, and in particular made a strong foundation for what Batman is to become. Was he as smart as he should have been? Probably not, no. But I think we'll have a couple of movies to see Batman gain knowledge and learn to become a better detective. My hope is that more of that is explored in TDK and really highlighted in the final Nolan installment. Nolan got so much right about Batman, especially when you compare it to other comic movies. Spiderman, X-Men, '89 Batman and most of the Superman movies really missed key elements (in my opinion) of what made that character/superhero great (ie: Spidey's wit). Batman on the other hand delivered an origin story that made Batman both complex and accessible, something that is not easy to do.

 

[murdock_matt]

I'm watching the DVD right now, and I remembered something I thought of when first watching the movie in theaters. I'm sure it's been discussed over the past few years... but here goes.

Fox didn't sit in the lab and build every bit of the Tumbler. There had to be dozens of people working on it. He talks about tests and how the military passed on it because the bridge didn't work. Surely those people will see the Batmobile on the news and talk about where the vehicle came from. Then Wayne Enterprises would be questioned about it. Someone would eventually connect the resurfacing of Bruce Wayne with the appearance of the Batman.

But then again... whatever. If you nitpick at ANYTHING long enough, you'll find faults. Fact remains that the movie was enjoyable. That's all that matters.