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There will never be any other Batman like this one.

posted 5 years ago by LetThemEatCake (2717)
15 replies | jump to latest

Democratic identity politics obsessed cinephile dudebros neckbeards can push their Nolan biased agenda all they want, always taking digs at the first 4 films as if they were some embarrassment, they even apologize whenever one of them is brave enough to say they liked them, but the truth is that, cinematically, all original four are works of art, and definitive Batman adaptations, just like The Animated Series is, which owes its existence and tone to this first movie. This was it, there will never be anything even remotely this good ever again from DC.

[–] MisterE (704) 5 years ago

DC should bring back Michael Keaton for another Batman movie.

[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 5 years ago

why? it's not about casting. These films can't be replicated anymore.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7387) 5 years ago

Sorry. But I like the first 2 Burton films. But Batman Forever and Batman and Robin weren't very good.

[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 5 years ago

why not?

[–] captainbucky (15252) 5 years ago

You know why

[–] Bosdog6777 (817) 5 years ago

I don't could you explain it

[–] captainbucky (15252) 5 years ago

Only if you say please to explain

[–] TheUltimateHippo (2250) 5 years ago

The Nolan films were much better but the burton films were still good. The Schumacher films and the DC universe films are trash

[–] ThrillerTalk (1118) 5 years ago

I agree that the 3rd and 4th films aren't as iconic but for me, they're still fun movies that I like to go back to every once in a while. Something tells me the movies had to be toned down so that parents could be more accepting of allowing their children to go see the movie much like what happened with the 90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie series.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I unashamedly love the first two Burton Batman films, and I even derive some pleasure from the derided Schumacher sequels, but I don't see what it has to do with politics.

If anything, it is the Nolan films, with their anti-OWS and pro-war on terror undercurrents, that are more likely to appeal to Republicans and conservatives, whereas the Burton films, with their satirical swipes at 80s/Reagan America and corporate capitalism, and the supremely campy Schumacher films with their explicitly queer fetishization of the male body (bat-nipples anyone?), are the Batman franchise entries that register most with arty and progressive left-wing types, myself included.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7387) 5 years ago

What you just posted Malkovich is really stupid. So to you the kid friendly Shoemocker films are better just because of a few shots in the movie that are made to arouse gay people. I would hate to know your opinion on the comics.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

"What you just posted Malkovich is really stupid. So to you the kid friendly Shoemocker films are better just because of a few shots in the movie that are made to arouse gay people."

Maybe if I'd actually said that, you'd have a point.

As it happens, my favourite Batman films are the first Tim Burton Batman film closely followed by Nolan's The Dark Knight. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Batman Returns, The Dark Knight Rises and Batman Begins make up the rest of my top six Batman films list.

So, in no way do I consider the Schumacher films to be better. All I'm saying is that they have entertainment value. And that the Burton and Schumacher films strike me as more progressive on balance than the Nolan ones (but from an entirely objective non-political POV, the Nolan films are ace).

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

One thing to remember about the first Batman movie is that there was one particular element that made the project very exciting going in:

Jack Nicholson being willing to play the Joker.

Nicholson saying "yes" elevated the entire project. This was intentional. Marlon Brando saying "Yes" to Superman back in 1978 made THAT movie a prestige picture.

Nicholson was to one generation what Brando was to another: if not the greatest living actor, one of them. And the one most connected to a youthful audience.

And Brando only did a 20 minute cameo in Superman. Nicholson committed to the biggest role in Batman, and gave us about a half hour of "the regular Jack Nicholson face" before being dipped in acid and allowing a superstar to look like a clown.

When it started to become known in the press that Nicholson was "considering" playing the Joker, suddenly Batman looked like a very big movie indeed. Keep in mind that Nicholson had been turning down big commercial pictures and summer/Xmas blockbusters for years. He turned down The Sting, Close Encounters, Superman(Lex Luthor) and many other "pop movies" to sustain a "prestige career" When Mad Jack started to say yes to the Joker...it was big news indeed.

And then he wavered. And then another name popped up: Robin Williams. And suddenly the idea of Batman as a potential classic died on the vine.

And then Jack signed up. And history was made.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I know that later generations felt Jack Nicholson circa 1989 was wrong for the Joker. Too heavy in face, especially too heavy in body. But it didn't matter. He had been in ground-breaking classics: Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge, The Last Detail, Chinatown, Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining(his "Joker audition"); Terms of Endearment. He was one of the superstars of his era, and of those superstars, he was the quality one other than Pacino(who might have made an interesting Joker, too, yes?) and DeNiro.

Nicholson wasn't quite the top box office man when he made Batman, but the movie paid him off handsomely for cashing in on his prestige: a rumored $60 million in percentages for the movies and the tie-in toys. Jack was re-invented for the 90's --- making waves in A Few Good Men("You Can't Handle the Truth!") winning another Oscar for As Good As it Gets -- surviving as a Lion in Winter.

And Batman made those final two decades(to date) of stardom possible.

In the "versus" category, well, yes Heath Ledger won the Oscar for HIS Joker(posthumously) and HIS Joker is an incredible turn with a lot more psychotic madness to the playing(plus a little Church Lady). But nobody was much ANTICIPATING Heath Ledger as they had Nicholson. Jack's Joker was from the face and a voice we'd known forever(like all great stars); Heath was a total surprise(and then gone forever -- and what kind of career could he have sustained trying to live up to the Joker?)

My point here is that one reason Tim Burton's Batman was such an event when it first came out and remains apart from the others is that in landing Jack Nicholson to do it, the movie instantly became a film in the canon of an actor who made great movies. (Not all of them were great -- see "Goin' South -- but Jack's record was better than most.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

A couple of other short-term superstars signed up to play Batman baddies -- Jim Carrey and Schwarzenegger -- but they lacked Nicholson's gravitas. Came the 2000's, I think it was the Spider-Man producers who realized you didn't have to give half the profits to a superstar to get a superhero movie made --- Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina would be just fine for Spidey; Liam Neeson and Heath Ledger were fine for Bats.

All of which made Jack Nicholson's willingness to be the Joker all the more meaningful all these decades later.