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Why was Tim Burton so content on making Jack Napier responsible for the murder of Bruce's parents?

posted 6 years ago by TMC-4 (19392)
8 replies | jump to latest

I'm not going to go into the fanboy purist perspective of how Joe Chill was really responsible for Thomas and Martha Wayne's deaths. I get that Burton was trying to get across the whole "we created each other" dynamic between Batman and Joker, thus making their feud more personal. But at the end of the day, one of the driving motivations behind Batman’s mindset was the fact that his parents’ killer would never be brought to justice. Plus, having him bring the killer to justice would fundamentally change who he is (you could even argue that Bruce would go so far as to stop being Batman). We already know that Joker is the bad guy and we want Batman to stop him, so we shouldn't have to deal with all of this extra baggage being heaped upon us to cemented that point.

[–] NotoriousRio (12927) 6 years ago

It fit the story Burton was trying to tell, having Joe Chill appear in it for five minutes, wouldn’t have had the same impact, he probably would have been unnamed anyways.

Killing the Joker off fit the story too, but both were bad decisions in my opinion, the studio just wanted a hit movie, and they knew Batman had a ton of well known villains for any future sequels, but having Jack Nicholson return for a sequel would have been a masterstroke! Other than the iconic Batsuit and Batmobile, he was the star of Batman.

[–] TMC-4 (19392) 5 years ago

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tim-burtons-batman-5-behind-the-scenes-things-you-didnt-know-160000729.html

Chilling words… but not ones penned by Hamm, who says he fought — and ultimately lost — a battle with Burton about whether or not to ID the Joker as the killer of Batman’s parents. His drafts purposefully omitted that revelation, instead using the Joe Chill character from comic book continuity. But as production on the film began in 1988, a Writers Guild strike prevented Hamm from doing any further work on the script. Warren Skaaren — who previously worked with Burton and Keaton on Beetlejuice — jumped onboard at that point, with Jonathan Gems and Charles McKeown contributing on-set rewrites and at some point in that process, Burton got his preferred Wayne-killer. (Hamm and Skaaren are the only two writers credited in the finished film, with Hamm receiving an additional “Story by” credit.)

“It’s always bugged me,” he admits now. “I think it’s too neat and symmetrical. Here’s a guy who is driven to put on a suit and fight crime; he’s been preparing for 20 years, and suddenly the first guy he runs into is the guy who popped his parents? I’m like, ‘OK, so is his trauma fixed now? Does he feel better?’ I understand it provides a nice closed narrative for this one movie, but I always thought about the characters as being part of a larger continuity.”

[–] Stratego (29190) 5 years ago

“It’s always bugged me,” he admits now. “I think it’s too neat and symmetrical. Here’s a guy who is driven to put on a suit and fight crime; he’s been preparing for 20 years, and suddenly the first guy he runs into is the guy who popped his parents? I’m like, ‘OK, so is his trauma fixed now? Does he feel better?’ I understand it provides a nice closed narrative for this one movie, but I always thought about the characters as being part of a larger continuity.”

I actually agree with Hamm on this!

[–] MickyMac (2935) 6 years ago

It was kind of a downplayed origin/early years story.

[–] HellboundHero (9) 5 years ago

Batman doesn't fight crime just because he can't bring his parents' killer to justice, that would be a pretty selfish reason for being Batman. The fact is, even bringing his parent's killer to justice doesn't change the fact that his parents are dead, and it doesn't change the fact that Gotham is still a screwed up city even without the killer of his parents walking the streets and that if he stands by and does nothing, other people would suffer the pain and injustice that he and his parents suffered. Bruce may have been inspired to become Batman by the loss of his parents, but what keeps him going is he hates all crime, not just the crime that personally affects him.

[–] TMC-4 (19392) 5 years ago

That's kind of what I'm trying to get across. Burton having Joker be responsible just trivializes Batman's mission (plus, it's contrived as f**k). It just becomes a standard '80s revenge action-movie. From a different perspective, you would think that Batman wants to fight Joker for messing with his girlfriend along with coincidentally killing his parents many years ago.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7393) 5 years ago

I'm one of the few who didn't mind the change. Though I can understand comics fans' complaints about it. It's how I feel about Sand Man being Uncle Ben's killer in Spider-Man 3. I do like that line though that Jack/Joker says, "You ever danced with the Devil by the pale moonlight?"

[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

I liked the "we created each other" thing, and Burton considered that concept to be at the heart of the story then great, because I think it's a way cool idea.

No, it's not the same as the comics origin story, but it does reinforce how similar Batman is to his criminal enemies, yet how different.