Batman Begins: The Thread

Bat Man
I Am
Bat Man
I Am
Bat Man
I Am
Bat Man
I Am
Bat Man

...

I Am
Bat Man
I Am
Bat Man
I Am
Bat Man
I Am
Bat Man
I Am
Bat Man

I am Batman, Batman I am Batman, Batman I am Batman, Batman I am Batman, Batman I am Batman, Batman I am Batman, Batman I am Batman, Batman I am Batman, Batman I am Batman, Batman

In hindsight it's clear the best Batman movie was Adam West's.

[quote](Also, have you never seen knocked on their ass by an initial rush, followed by wandering around semi-coherent in some altered state? Because that's basically what happened to her.)[/quote]
But it wasn't being knocked on her ass by the initial rush - she was 'about to die,' the superdose was overwhelming her brain (Scarecrow's words), etc.. Logically, she should have been out cold and twitchy until the antidote was administered.

[quote]milo have you never had a hallucinogen before? cuz their effects vary according to people's psychology, they vary in intensity over time, affect people differently, etc. This is a strange "continuity cop" tack for you to take.[/quote]
Except that every last person was immediately terrified of whatever was in front of them - this being Gotham, that's not a shock - except for the kid (who served as a device to make Holmes more of a heroine and throw out some 'I knew Batman would save us' lines).

Real-life 'set and setting' hallucinogen rules didn't apply - it was a weaponized drug that caused terror in everyone we saw use it, except for one convenient character. Otherwise how would the assassins' plot have worked? They needed everyone to go batshit and attack each other - if terror wasn't an inherent consequence of exposure, maybe everyone would have just stared at the wall for a few hours and not destroyed the city.

A) Scarecrow menaces them, causing them to wig out;
B) Unknown people lurch towards them like zombies, causing them to wig out.

Also, the kid WAS wigging out, or did you think that Scarecrow's horse was actually breathing fire at that point?

Everyone is momentarily dazed and then goes insane with terror. The only individual shown without this reaction to all stimuli is the kid (so that his role as a plot device can be fulfilled).

HAHAHAHA!!!

I'm tired of comics fans who hate the Adam West Batman because it's not reverent enough and doesn't show the proper respect for the seriousness of the comic book form.

Let me open myself up to further ridicule by making a wild and poorly thought out analogy:
Batman TV show = Drunken Master
Batman (1989) = Shaolin Soccer
Batman Begins = Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

I venture that if you knew someone's opinion of one set of those three films relative to each other, you could predict their reaction to the other set of three.

It's not like this was the downfall of the movie (that would be, uh, just not really adding up to much), just a convenient plot contrivance (like Holmes' last speech) that stuck out to me. They needed to show Holmes acting heroic and maternal and then have the kid say "see, Batman will save us!" setting up the "I'm not really a spoiled billionaire playboy, I'm a bat" moment.

OK everyone else is already like going at you for this hallucinogen madness BUT I have to make the point that at this point in the movie Rachel Dawes would have no idea that Batman was there protecting her, hence Batman would appear as a menacing, unknown figure. The little boy, OTOH, had already been with Dawes before the water main break AND had already met Batman, making neither an unknown or menacing figure to him. Although xpost roffles ok yr argument is worth it for that playboy v. bat comment.

ALSO xpost
Let me open myself up to further ridicule by making a wild and poorly thought out analogy:
Batman TV show = Drunken Master
Batman (1989) = Shaolin Soccer
Batman Begins = Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Yes you can open yourself up to further ridicule. A) I don't think anyone here so far has hated on Adam West Batman??? B) CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON IS ONE OF THE MOST UNBEARABLE MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN.

Take that as you will.

If we're using "rockist" as "purist-to-be-pandered-to", this doesn't hold up, as in the comics, it's pronounced (though it's actually never really pronouced) RAYz Al Ghul, not RAHZ Al Ghul, and Batman thinks girls are icky.

xpost I fell asleep the first time I saw CTHD. So I was forced to watch it, again. Ugh.

It's implicit in the argument that Batman Begins is the best portrayal of Batman because it's the most serious. The idea is that Adam West (and by extension Burton's movies) don't capture the true spirit of Batman because they are silly, flamboyant and ridiculous while Batman begins has believable characters and an authentic looking city.

Hero is less boring than CTHD.

I almost put Hero in there instead. The analogy works either way. Batman Begins, like CTHD or Hero is widely praised by critics and people who generally find superheroes or kung-fu films to be silly and beneath them.

Or not!

Um, hi, I'm still here refuting your lazy and wildly OffTM assertions. (Also you should have looked at the companion thread linked upthread on I Love Comics before forming your theory.)

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y298/hukl/getout.jpg

I have no idea what you're talking about Dan, but thanks for checking.

I would watch Adam West before I watched the '89 Batman, for sure. This Batman is, I feel, the best not because it's serious (quite frankly I don't see the supposed humorlessness of this Batman, actually, I thought it was played a lot more along the lines of the XMen films where there are jokes made but it's treated like a serious story) but because I feel the casting was perfect and they didn't treat it like a huge joke. I'd actually say the same thing about the '60s Batman--I mean, yeah, it's completely ridiculous but they go whole hog for it, there is no explanation, it's completely silly and by embracing that and not really giving ANY heft to the serious, darker themes in some of the comics, it makes it a more honest portrayal as well, if this makes sense.

XPOST I agree 100% with Milo about Hero except it wasn't as awful as CTHD, mainly I guess for the final scenes where something actually vaguely appeared to have happened.

so walter I don't know what to make of any of your weird generalizations.

There was no fun to be found in Hero, it was just beating me over the head for seven hours with 'look how pretty this swooping figure is,' and 'this is supposed to be deep, I'm not like (insert kung fu director here) with his silly fun, meditate on it for a while 'k'?
Batman begins was plenty fun, I just found that it tried to straddle two or three impulses (series pilot, action film, drama) without focusing on one to my satisfaction.

as I said upthread, the late 50s-60s Batman comics are TOTALLY silly, flamboyant and ridiculous - and that is just as legitimate basis for film/TV interpretation as Batman:Year One. The 60s TV show is, in this respect, just as "true" to its roots as Batman Begins is.

And not to be a pedantic quibbler, but when Bale et all talk about "being true to Bob Kane's vision of Batman" they are talking out their asses (from a pedantic quibbler's POV), as not 10 adventures of Batman the lone vigilante of the night went by before THE SENSATION CHARACTER FIND OF 1940...turned the strip into lighthearted boys' adventure.

xpost, I think you are OTM, Jordan.

-- Huk-L (handsomishbo...), June 22nd, 2005.

the cartoon was way better.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say. Not even in reference to the comics (which I haven't read) but Batman as a larger cultural icon. I got the impression that a lot of the praise for BB was centered around the idea that "finally someone got it right."