*** Official BATMAN BEGINS Discussion Thread - Page 6

I dunno. I have a friend that actually made a duplicate of the suit and saw the suit in person. The mask itself is pretty thin, but with the mouth opening showing less skin, it just gives the "fat" illusion. Plus, I think he might be wearing a "hero" head shaper under that cowl that made him even more "fat"
You really can't expect much with latex. It'll offer good movement like when you see him climbing the pipe on a buiding, but there's no way he can pull off gymnist type moves. A spin kick might be the suits limits.
Even in the comics, it just depends on the writer. But in this movie, he really doesn't say much. He talks to Gordon and Rachel, but those are the main people. Even when going after the badguys, he just drops in and out.


I'm going to combine my answer since they're all related. In the comics, Bruce never wanted an all black suit. He wanted to be invisible, but not completely. The ears and the logo are based off the Year One design. He had shorter ears and never had the yellow emblem. It's also not his trademark suit anymore and hasn't been for a long time now. In the comics, he went back to the shorter ears and no yellow oval.

My first reaction on the costume was "meh". I saw it months before the official publicity shots from my friend who had excellent sources. He explained that unlike the other suits where it was just made to make Batman look muscular, this new suit was to be completely explained. And it does. It's an armour suit first and a bat suit second. It's the same with all his gadgets as well. After considering all that, it's a great looking suit with a lot of fine detail missed because Batman just flies through the screen too quickly.

And sorry for picking on your post :b

With $15 million in one day, it will likely (at least according to boxofficemojo.com) bring in $65 million over its three day weeekend and $100 million for the 5 day period, but probably not enough to bring Hollywood over its much hyped slump.

Heres how the past 4 films performed, in millions:

Batman: Opening ($40) Overall ($251)
Batman Returns: Opening ($45) Overall ($160)
Batman Forever: Opening ($52) Overall ($185)
Batman & Robin: Opening ($42) Overall ($107)

Of course, this is just stateside alone.

Alot of good movies have come out that have done decent business, but they (forecasters and studio execs) seemed more concerned with box office numbers and whether "this weekend is better thn the same period a year ago" figures to give a damn. Hopefully I'm not one by what I posted

Just saw this by the way, and not only is it better than the last 4 Batmans combined, but the best film so far this year.

Gene Shalit is a hack and neverending defender of the lowest common denominator. His print must have been really defective, because this film is no where near as literally dark as the 1989 film. The Washington Post critic seems to fear a movie that strives for something outside their preordained box. It practically reads, "a superhero film shouldn't be doing this!" I think I agree with this. Superman: The Movie remains my favorite, but it has objective flaws that Batman Begins does not. A movie like the first Superman is unachievable today because the world it was made in is not today, and no one will ever be able to have Geoffrey Unsworth light their picture again. Batman Begins speaks with an entirely different vocubulary, but expresses it's message atleast as clearly. Together, the two films are almost like opposite sides of the same coin. Both go down with Spider-Man 2 as the only truely great superhero films. This is flat out wrong. The entire suit is matte black; the cape absorbs all light, while the suit itself reflects back a bit which makes it seem less dark on film. But even considering, it never looks anything close to navy blue. Grey, maybe, but not navy blue.

i guess its too early to get an idea of just how well ordinary audiences are going to take to this, but does anyone expect -if Warner holds to its announced plans of making Begins one of the first HD DVD titles- that this film could help accelerate the embracing of that format?

WB seems happy with the 15 M Wednesday.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...3&cs=1&s=h&p=0

I doubt one film will accelerate the format. It will take many films across varying genre's and appeals in order to kick start the format. Also, its much too early to tell which films will make the format popular and which ones will not.

Besides, the film is pretty dark, and doesnt seem to be enough to showcase how well it would perform on HD DVD. A film like Star Wars: Ep 3 or something with much more levels of color, detail, and cinematography.

Dont get me wrong, the film will (hopefully) do great business and will give the franchise that needed level of creativity and direction it needs. HD-DVD will need to be out for some time and a number of titles available to make consumers accesible to it and popularize the format.

I hope Nolan stays on board to do more Batmans if they are willing to invest in them. They sort of wasted tiem and money, not to mention underperformed expectations with the past 2 films, and in soem ways the first 2.

Adam said something in his review that I'd like to discuss and agree with, sort of as a defense against the "bad fight editing" complaint.

He compared Batman to a horror movie monster (to paraphrase) and I felt that was exactly what Nolan gave us. For the criminals this is a horror film, as the are silently picked off one by one like characters in an Alien film. I liked that effect, I liked that Nolan didn't go James Bond/Jackie Chan choreographed fighting for Batman. He's not invulnerable and the very point of being scary is to avoid lots of fighting by instilling fear into the hearts of criminals.

So as guys are quickly picked off from the shadows, as strikes are cut so quickly that things are over before they begin, that feels like the Batman method to me and it gave greater understanding to what these tough guys feared. After all, these are thugs bred in a world of tough guy fighting, so a hard hitting man who can fight wouldn't scare them the least. That is something they can identify with.

On the other hand, a monster that strikes from the shadows, that is everywhere and nowhere, that would scare them. Batman is the unknown, he is not Wolverine nor Spidey (although Wolverine might scare criminals with his outright comfort in killing them).



Comparing Burton's first to BB its not even close. As I watched Batman last year after having seen 2 X-Men and Spidey films the idea that Burton's film was "dark" in tone became laughable. Wolverine deals out more suffering in just the school attack in X2 than Keaton's Batman ever did.

What we thought was shocking was that the JOKER was so violent, rather than being the cute goofy TV Joker. It was a comic film in which people could get hurt...but Batman was rarely willing to do the hurting or scaring. Mostly he was beating guys up and solving puzzles.

Now I still like that film, but it was shot in a very cartoonish manner that hardly seems dark in tone when compared to this round of comic films. And for Batman that is wrong. Batman is not Superman because he can't afford to be Mr. Nice Guy and he is driven by pain and hate as much as a desire for justice. It's one thing to be given powers and decide to use them for good, and quite another to be so motivated to take down criminals that you CREATE your "powers" on your own over decades.

That is what makes Batman (and Punisher) different. That is why a darker Batman was needed to capture the real character. And that is what Nolan has done IMO.


BTW, I loved the Scarecrow ending. It put him in his place as a weak man who used chemicals to compensate for his weakness. He was clearly a bully, not a criminal, not a "villain" in the true sense, not like the others who appeared to be willing to go toe to toe on even footing to get what they wanted.

Plus it means the Scarecrow is still on the loose, as are many of the other criminals from Arkham.


BOX OFFICE
I think this film will have legs. People might not have been hyped for more Batman, but any great film will get viewers if it gives them something fresh. The one thing Cinderella Man has going against it is coming behind Seabiscuit and Million Dollar Baby, as well as Howard's more bland style.

But Nolan's film is a real treat, something new, interesting and unique. And it's a real hero film, not just a superhero film. Begins could hang in the top 10 for a couple of months and earn slowly as the main option for people when other tentpoles come out lame.

The previous four Batman movies never gave Bruce Wayne much depth at all, and so when I saw Bruce Wayne, I saw Batman without his costume. Batman Begins gave Bruce so much depth that I had a hard time adjusting to the fact that he became Batman, and I saw him instead as Bruce Wayne with a costume. To me, this isn't a movie about Batman; it's about Bruce Wayne. Maybe it's the contemporary filming style and the utter realism of the film that's throwing me off. I grew up with the more fantasy-based styles of Burton and Schumacher, and Nolan's style is so different that it's completely thrown me for a loop. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I've seen it twice in two days, and I haven't gotten much sleep the past couple of nights, so I'm going to go to sleep now to try to collect my thoughts.

Ya you knw I had a day to think about it and I originally gave the closeup of the fight scenes as a negative, but thinking about it it played to how thhe criminals were seeing this, the quick flashes, the blur, retribution that seems to come out of nowhere. I like it.

I think you hit on something essential here about the necessity for Batman here; the way the movie presented it, the biggest problem with Gotham was complacency and the status quo. Thomas Wayne was a foil to Ducard because he shook up the normal state of things. As such, Batman's methods are essential to his purpose. A Batman who is simply the biggest bully in a city of bullies would have a limited and short-term impact on the society. Like that old schoolyard game king of the hill, eventually he would be toppled by a meaner bully with less noble goals. By making Batman more an idea, a personification of fear, it shakes things up. This was evidenced by the formerly complacent D.A. taking a stand on the shipment that he dies for. Similarly, the police department was forced into action. Batman is the shatterpoint that sets all of the other tides of change into motion. It's what makes the ending optimistic when half the city is destroyed and a couple blocks have been driven mentally insane. It may not be immediately better, but atleast things have been shaken up. Gotham has a chance. More interesting to me was the offhand remark about the exit polls being phenominal. That matters a hell of a lot more than the first day gross for a film like this. We may have a much-smaller-scale Titanic on our hands here. I brought the film up today at work, and my all-female co-workers had not only heard of the film, but heard good things. This bodes well, I believe.

Yea, exit polls have been higher for this film than almost any other so far this year. It should over perform its expectations, and have fuel to burn by summer end. I predict at least $200-250 million by its end, with another $200 million atl east over seas. Critics seem on board as well for a rare like of a dark comic film.

I also think what makes this Batman much better and more accesible even to those unfamiliar with the franchise is you don't have to see the previous films to get this one, or know anything about the comics or its history. This gives background story and character development and adds action when needed without overpowering the story, something none of the opther films managed to accomplish. In fact, other directors should should take a hint from Nolan, who I think could add a new level of originality to Hollywood. Memento certainly proved that, and while BB is a new step up (summer blockbuster, franchise, all star cast) he handled this much better than newer directors, or those who walk off the music video set to direct actual films.

They also strayed away from the all to common trend of action films with over the top editing and action scenes. The fight scenes are right on par with previous comic films (Spidey and X-Men) by having them not be computerized or heavily edited, nor being to violent or long.

Bale was the perfect Batman, in and out of the costume. I hope he continues though to stay on the samll screen and act in independent films, because he has done much better there than in bigger pictures, because he has said he does not like the attention and other things the come with being in big budget or much hyped films. I still cant believe he went from that skeleton frame in "The Machinist" to the bulked up superhero in BB. I dont imagine many actors with his level of commitment and workmanship, and he will certainly be an actor to continue to follow.

I also thought the casting was well chosen, especially Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman. I especially liked Oldman as Gordon and hope he chooses to be a good guy in more films as opposed to over playign the villain like he does so well. I think he has said he wants to step into more likeable roles since he wants to do films his kids can actually see him in. Liam Neeson, while great here, plays the mentor/teacher thing a little too often.

I liked Keaton as just Batman, but not Bruce Wayne. I hardly remember the last 2 films and so do many, and arguably they made little impression on movie goers other than turn people off to Batman and comic-film transitions. Burtons' films were fine in terms of visual style and production, but lacked the level of character that actually gace Batman a face other than the mask. Schumacher ruined it by making Gotham the exact opposite of what it would be, and giving us such a cliche and nothing original. It's he same thing that directors had and have been doing in so many films that it not only becomes boring, but gives us little hope that anyone will get it right. I can't help but look back and rememebr the Prince songs in "Batman" or the neon phony sets of the last two films. They took so much away from the films that it would have taken a miracle to get the franchise back to where it belonged.

I like Batman much more than other comic heroes because he is not born with special powers or changed by some accident in nature. He is completely human and deals with more emotion and complexity because of it, because he is more mortal and can not fall back on his powers when confronted with evil. This is much more difficult to bring to the screen, because we all know what Spidey looks like swinging around buildings or Superman flying across the sky. These films often over due it with unconvincing CGI and looked plain boring. I'm sure other feel and think the same.

I was also happy to see CGI either kept to a minimum or used with better success thant previous comic tranitions. Though the bat mobie flying on rooftops is pretty improbable, it never went over the top and kept action pretty grounded. The fight scenes were a big sigh of relief by not using horrible wire work or matrix style fighting. In fact, the car chase was downright stunning and tops the pyro technic spectacles of Michael Bay films anyday.

Did it seem like to anyone that there were some scenes that were perhaps shortened or deleted? I have a feeling the original cut was longer and had a little more character moments, but at 2:20 it was already pushing it. It actually went by faster than I thought. Maybe just small moments missing, but I figure we will see them in the DVD.

I also liked how the ending doesn't tie eveything up (romantic interest, all bad guys dead, city saved). He may have saved the day for now and become a symbol for the city, but he still needs to earn there trust and completely overcome his demons, as well as learn from his mistakes and discover new ways of fighting and utilizing his weapons.

A rare time I have seen a film, and wanted to turn right around and see it again.

Just saw the film.

Holy freaking crap. One of the best movies I have ever seen.

Wow. Just...wow.

"The previous four Batman movies never gave Bruce Wayne much depth at all, and so when I saw Bruce Wayne, I saw Batman without his costume"

The thing is, this movie is so successful where Samm Hamm(writer of 89 Burton film) thought it would fail - which is Batman origin. I clearly remember reading him say in a interview that he cant imagine anything worse than seeing Bruce Wayne put together the Batman suit in the film.He didnt want to get bogged down with the origin and have Batman not appear until a hour into the movie.Everyone knows his parents were killed and he trained, etc so why rehash it.

People came to see Batman so thats what he gave them, making the film start after Batman had been in existance a few weeks.

Batman Begins wouldnt have been possible in 89.Filmaking has come a LONG way in the past 15 years.

I think many of us agree that the way the scenes of "Batman on the hunt" were shot and edited worked, and were spot-on for the character.

However, there were at least 3 fight scenes that had no element of stealth at all, and all of them had that blindingly-fast editing:

--Bruce Wayne fighting in the prison yard

--Batman fighting Ducard's armored SWAT goons

--Batman fighting Ducard on the train

All three sequences were extremely hard to follow and understand because of the editing, and none of them were about Batman striking from nowhere to instill fear.

Nolan may very well have had a reason to show them this way (bring on the commentary! ), but as viewer in the movie theater, seeing an image that large cut that quickly made it frustrating.

I will say, though, that even with the quick edits, Nolan was able to convey the brutality of the fights. As Ducard said, "This is not a dance."

I agree Micheal with the fights you mentioned and would add the Graduation fight where Ducard marked him by slashing his sleeve. In those shots it pulling out the camera a little bit would have been nice. The other fights worked fine for me with the tight shots as it helped establish Batman's quick strike attacks.

The reason being the PG-13 rating, I'm pretty sure.

I remember reading that as well. It is one of the reasons why the Mankiewicz script "The Batman" didn't go into production in the early 80s (among other large problems with that script). It's funny looking over the script now, the Batman origin that almost was.

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/36...html?fromint=1

I saw the film last night. I keep trying to think of something that I didn't like about. I really can't find anything worth complaining about in the film and the fact that I keep thinking about it is definitely a good sign.

I think word of mouth for this movie will be really good. I saw it with 6 other people from work and everyone enjoyed it. Two of them were women too. I can't imagine anyone even slightly interested in the genre not liking this movie.

I finally got through all the posts and just thought I would add a few comments:

1) I've read a lot of complaints about the costume but from what shows up on film I can't see any faults. If I hadn't seen so many photos before the movie was released I don't think I would even have a good idea of what the overall suit looks like. Most of the movie the suit is either flitting in and out of the camera or blending into the darkness so that you can barely see it. Luckily that's the point.

2) I guess I would have liked some of the fight scenes to have wider angles but I dealt with it in the Bourne movies and I can deal with it here too. The close angles are used to create an effect and I like what was done.

IMO this is the best movie I've seen this year. I can't wait to see it again.

if you strip away all the technological polish, that could only have been achieved now, this film -at its core- really strikes me as something that would have come out of the 70's.

gritty (in the sense that it offers up a world view where corruption has permeated every level of society- from the street thug, to the justice system, to the CEO of a major corporation), extremely character driven, intelligent exploration of (somewhat) more mature situations and themes & (for the most part) not dumbed down, and yet bankrolled by a major studio and released during the summer.

oh, there is one thing that i really wish could be changed.

when Batman rips Falcone thru the roof of the car and they have the "who are you?" exchange-i wish they would reloop that so that Bale says "I'm the Bat-man" and not "I'm Batman".

Putting the 'the' in would intimate that he is this ... vauge, wierd, thing.
on the other hand , to leave it out implies he is saying 'my name is..."

like the majority of criticisms i have with the film, its a nit pick, but i really think that would have been...a little more special.
a little more of something all its own.
as it is now, the line reading, for me, came off more as a homage to the first Burton film, than as something that belonged here in this film.

Even looking for it I missed the quick sighting of the penguin in Arkham. On that note, I like that they integrated Arkham instead of just showing it as the ending place for the criminally insane like previous attempts.

I loved it as an homage to the Burton film. Here they just taken what the '89 film attempted, threw it on the ground, kicked it a few times, then peed on it for good measure, just totally redefining what was capable with the character, and then delivering that famous line was more victory speech than homage.

i understand what you're saying Adam.
and that thought i expressed was not something that immedately came to me.
in the moment, as the scene was unreeling, i felt the same thing that you expressed, however a short time after wards it struck me that with all of Bruce's talk about being a symbol that that is how he should have expressed it.
"i'm not a who, i'm a what"

it stands to reason that the media eventually would adopt a more causal way of referencing him and leaving out the "The", but i think this film should have at least started with that.

i have never before been dogmatic on the use of 'The" for this characters name.
i used to laugh and roll my eyes at people making a big deal one way or the other about something so trivial- but in this case i think there would definitely be a point to using it.

when the line comes, people would still be flashing back to the Burton film, but the subtle inclusion of the article would give the line a different, and i think more powerful, resonance.

I agree. That was the only time during the movie that I got pulled out of it and thought "hey, that didn't really work". Adding the "the" in there would have been som much better, for the reasons you state above. But I do believe they kept it the way they did as a direct reference to "Batman".

I think it was shorten. I remember the very early reviews of people saying it's close to three hours long. Of course, "close" isn't really defined, so the 2:20 mark may be it. But I remember a scene in the trailer where an Arkham inmate falls through the roof and onto the ground. He then says, Batman's coming. But there was nothing close to that in the actual movie.

I can almost imagine Goyer and Nolan having an "I'm Batman/I'm The Bat-Man" exchange similar to the above posts. Everything was handled with such thought--I respected all the choices, even if I didn't love them. I'd have liked to see a bit more of the fighting, but agree it totally works for Batman's debut at the waterfront.
As JoshB mentioned, to me some scenes felt short (or changed too abruptly), and could have used another beat or two, just a bit more air...but I'd have been happy to sit through a 4-hour movie!
Can't wait for a 2nd viewing, this time at Imax. This forum has been a real treat to read, especially hearing the reactions of members who had been anticipating this film as much as I did.

I don't really get this "The" Batman thing. I saw the film, loved it, and had NO problem with that line. He isn't THE Batman, the same as with Superman, Spider-Man, etc.

Nice! I've heard so many people talking about going tonight, most of them women. (Ladies Love Christian Bale)

the first early appearences of the character always refer to him as 'the Batman'.
"the Batman leaps across...
"the Wounded Batman picks himself off the floor..."
etc

without the article 'the', Batman becomes his name.
like "hi Freeze, I'm Batman" or
"here's my Am Ex card, you can see its made out to Batman."

he wants to be a shadowy symbol, not a familiar character.
with the article there, the phrase becomes a vauge description of what he is (a bat-like man) rather than his call name.