20 YEARS!?

[trinityvixen]

It's been twenty years since Tim Burton's Batman was released.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of that movie, but that doesn't mean that the fact that it's two decades old now isn't a tad staggering. There was a time when Tim Burton wasn't really anybody. When rubber suits weren't as big of a joke as capes or spandex. That time has been over for two decades.

Wow.

Incedentally, I find the io9 meta about the sequels interesting for one reason: there are other people who, like me, infinitely prefer Batman Returns to Batman. feiran and I, in one of our many uncanny bonding moments, have declared that Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman was the A-#1 lesbian crush of our lives. At the time that movie came out, I was, what, ten? And I still thought she was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. I got mocked pretty handily, but I went as Catwoman for Halloween in fifth grade. I remember thinking that the black shirt with puffy-paint faux stitches my mom made--to supplement the inferior store-bought costume pieces--was fanastic.

So, I'm biased. I loved that movie to pieces for Catwoman, and I admit that. But overall? Even without Catwoman, I'd still prefer to watch Batman Returns to Batman, I think. It's a lot more Burton-esque of the two Burton Batman movies, and I love his aesthetic even if I don't always love his movies. (Case in point: love these Alice in Wonderland pictures, but I'd love it better if we could just toss out the plot and the movie and pretend this was an intense photo shoot instead.) It's just nice to know that there are other nerds on the internet who agree with me. That doesn't happen often enough.


PS: LEGO Batman is ridiculously adorable. Each LEGO game tries to tweak the formula without really redoing anything major. While LEGO Indiana Jones faltered by trying to branch out from the one character really worth a darn in that franchise--that would be Indy, Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls notwithstanding--LEGO Batman soars because there are so many player characters worth playing with different skill sets that actually make sense. Well, sorta. I mean, it makes sense that Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, and the Joker are immune to toxic waste--Ivy's is a natural immunity that goes with her very poisonous nature, Freeze is safely tucked away in his suit, and the Joker survived a full-body dip in acid, so what could toxic waste really do to him any more? Killer Croc is pushing it though--he may be more resilient to damage in general, but toxic waste exposure isn't like being hit really hard. And It makes zero sense that Two-Face is similarly immune to that sort of exposure. I call shenanigans on that.

Otherwise, I'm in love! Especially the part where you get to play the three-story, five-level-per-story game both from Batman's side and the villains'. Also, Batman has different Bat-suits. Schumaker would be proud. (So would Adam West, surely.)

Comments

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

Batman Returns is superior simply for the fact that Paul Rubens is in it.

And I think out of all the Batman movies, Batman Returns has the only female character worth a damn (Rachel Dawes can SUCK IT. Well, I don't really have to say that 'cause she's dead).

Re Alice in Wonderland pics: My GAWD, Helena Bonham Queen of Hearts Carter looks fantastic. I'm on the fence with Johnny Depp right now, but I'll probably be all for it once the movie comes out.

The whole thing looks like a Gothic Lolita's ultimate fantasy. Fitting!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I was going, "Wait, who was Paul Rubens in Batman Returns..." for two seconds before I actually thought about it. Yeah, he was the Penguin's dad, right? Man, tiny cameo.

I loved Catwoman like I loved breathing. Batman Returns was the first movie I ever saw more than once in the theaters. Everything she did made me squeal with awesome. Michelle Pfeiffer walked this incredibly narrow line between psychotic and vulnerable while being really take-charge and bitchy (in a good way!). I was drooooooling, and I'm not ashamed. A year ago, when they had costumes from and fashions inspired by comic book movies on display, I had to be, like, physically removed from the display of the Catwoman outfit. (Movie magic at work: it doesn't look half so sleek up close as it does in the movie. Also, Michelle Pfeiffer is tiny.)

And you're totally right: she's the only female character worth a damn. I love how silly and girlish she starts out--so pathetic but still relatable. Then Christopher Walken pushes her out a window and she becomes vengeance on three-inch heels. YUM.

I have great faith in Tim Burton's artistic ability. He makes things work--visually--that almost shouldn't. It always helps when he can rope Johnny Depp into it because the two of them are in a gay married movie threesome with Danny Elfman. I think Johnny Depp looks fantastically mad, which is excellent. I'm almost more impressed by how bizarre that these stills can make staid, normal-gorgeous Anne Hathaway look without doing whatever exaggerations as were done to Helena Bonham Carter. Tweedledee and Tweedledum are blah to me. Where's my White Rabbit? Whatever, they're probably still animating it. All I'm saying is that these are some sucker-punch sort of stills, and Burton still manages to be true to his own artistic style while being innovative (more than he's been of late).

Alas, Burton's storytelling has taken a few hits over the years, and I'm not really in love with the change of "Alice being a girl on an adventure just 'cause" to "Alice running away from a man." Not that I'm against changing her motivations to visit Wonderland--I adored American McGee's Alice computer game which reinvisioned Wonderland through the eye of an older, insane Alice. I respect the film maker's right to move in a new direction, I just grate at the idea that it has to be that one. But I'll reserve real judgment until I hear more.

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

That's how much I love Paul Rubens: I notice minor shit like that. :p

The Alice runs away from a man plotline is news to me. What the fuck is that? Burton! What the hell are you doing?

Alas, Burton's storytelling has taken a few hits over the years

So true. I mean, I like his stuff (save Planet of the Apes). But it's been a while since a Burton film has resonated deeply with me. His recent stuff feels almost like he's coasting on his Tim Burtonness. Like his stuff is now quirky just to be quirky. Like it's TIM BURTON™ instead of Tim Burton.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Like his stuff is now quirky just to be quirky. Like it's TIM BURTON™ instead of Tim Burton.

Word. I really liked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the most part--surprisingly so given that the trailer looked impossible to reconcile with any film, let alone a good one--but it still felt like "Oh look, another wacky Tim Burton movie!" Even down to the style in a lot of ways. This one at least looks promisingly colorful in a different sort of way from what Burton's been doing, which is perhaps helped along by the fact that Lewis Carroll's story has its own rather definitive, distinctive artistic ideas. I think Burton works better when challenged rather than enabled, much as Johnny Depp can work miracles out of anything Burton puts together.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I also vastly prefer Batman Returns to Batman. It's been a while since I saw either, so I can't really argue about quality of writing, structure, plot, etc. (I know the score is without a doubt better for the first.) There's basically one reason I prefer the second: a lack of Jack Nicholson.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I remember liking Batman better as a kid, when Nicholson's persona loomed less largely to me. As an older, better-read comics fan, too, I have come to dislike the flaws of the movie (Batman killing people, the Joker being the one who killed his parents being chief among my complaints). Still, it was fairly remarkable in some ways--a lot of which, as with Jaws, stem from the limitations imposed on the film by reality. (The heavy rubber suit making it hard for much of the action to be filmed altered the way the fight scenes played out.)

Batman Returns was, oddly enough for the movie without the Joker, the more insane of the two. It was just cheerfully mad and creepy. (I blame the Circus freaks. CLOWNS ARE ALWAYS SCARY.) The inclusion of a less audacious but no less megalomaniacal villain in Christopher Walken kind of helped ground the movie at the same time that the insanity was ramped up. It was funnier, too, which always sways my opinion. If I can laugh at it, I can enjoy it.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I think structurally, Batman is a much tighter movie. Batman Returns has three villains and the kitchen sink going on, though better integrated than many of its successors. Batman also has the broke-the-mold status for superhero films--it was a real innovation. And set the tone for the beloved animated series. And I can't say enough about the score. That's one of the defining action scores. The soundtrack critic on NPR puts it in his top 10 of movie scores (may even be number 1--I can't be arsed to look it up). So there's a lot to be said for Batman.

But for me, I still have the memories of seeing it in the theater when I was eight and the many scenes that traumatized me, and still have a frisson of that horror. As opposed to Batman Returns, which I was old enough (and was in a lot of ways less horrific, except for that acid thing) to enjoy immediately. I've rewatched Batman in the last few years, though, and haven't seen Batman Returns in an eon, so it may be a lot worse than I remember. (Though I will always love the music for the scene of Selena coming back from the dead. Yes, I'm talking about the scores a lot, but that's because through middle school, I had three tapes that I listened to exclusively, and they had the Star Wars soundtrack, Last Crusade, Batman and Batman Returns. I can hear that music in my sleep.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Batman is responsible for a lot of the comic-book-movie vocabulary, that is true. I fully believe that.

Interesting point about the music for Selena's return--it is the music I most remember, and I don't pay much attention to scores as a whole. The really slinky and then suddenly sharp strings were very--what's the word that means a sound that calls to mind a specific action/image? Because those lines were perfectly like a cat stretching in mid walk, like they do. It was definitely distinctive and eerie, with the plucking notes between the shriller bow-played notes. Danny Elfman can be so derivative of himself, but sometimes he really outdoes himself.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your point, but even though Batman is innovative, I don't think you can say it "broke the superhero mold" given that there was only one notable superhero film, Superman, made before it.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Also, holy shit those photos.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I know! I am mesmerized by Johnny Depp's make-up. It's just impossible to look at and impossible to look away.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I seem to be in the minority here, but I think it looks awful. I think all three portraits look awful. The shot of Wonderland looks okay, but I am totally disinterested by this.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

No, actually, a lot of people aren't enthused by the portraits. I don't particularly like the warping done to Helena Bonham Carter--she can be plenty scary on her own without such effects. And, of course, we need to see how this all works in motion, not just in stills. But I really do like the Mad Hatter getup. It's recognizably Burton but different enough to be fresh.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Anyone worth their salt places Batman Returns over the first one! Whiners complain it's too dark and that Batman potentially kills a few people, but how can you argue with Willy Walken and the Choc -- er, Toy Factory, the spooky dementedness with which Michelle Pfeiffer plays Catwoman and the movie handles the character (falls 30 stories, then licked back to life by alley cats? Awesome), and just the whole twisted spectacle of the movie? I've been supporting Returns as one of, if not the best comic book film ever, and certainly the best Batman film, The Dark Knight be damned. Until Christopher Nolan introduces a penguin army, he can settle for second place.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I remember being told by everyone I knew--pre-internet fan-polling--that it wasn't a good movie. I'm pretty sure my brother insisted that it had no plot whatsoever. (That might be a fair accusation, actually.) So I'm working from fifteen years or so of false impression that I never corrected because there was never any occasion to do so.

A lot of the acting really grabbed me. As you say, Michelle Pfeiffer was the stand-out, and I actually loved that they gave her a supernatural sort of entrance into her dual life. It was silly, sure, but so are most of the origin stories for the Rogues Gallery. It allowed for an interesting progression from mouse to mountain lion, which was played for humor and pathos and she nailed both.

I still don't know what to say about The Dark Knight. I feel I can't judge it until I see it more than once. But I remember feeling like I'd been gut-punched in the theater. Not necessarily in a bad way, but not in a good way either. I dunno how to explain it. A lot of what I saw was absolutely riveting, and Heath Ledger is vying for my affection as favorite Joker along with the Bruce Timm/Paul Dino/Mark Hamill Joker from Batman: the Animated Series. Like Pfeiffer and Catwoman, Ledger managed to infuse this inherently unstable person with just enough humanity to lure you in. In the Joker's case, it was always a lie, always a way to expose and explode. That was really fun, funny, and horrible. With Catwoman, because she might just be human enough to still love, it's heartbreaking.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

I didn't like LEGO Batman as much as I liked LEGO Star Wars, sadly. I feel its scene-to-scene pacing was very very bad (frenetic fights with hordes of gun-shooting mooks, followed by long stretches of stupid magnet-robin clomping around like a 5-year-old in mommy's shoes).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I like it better than LEGO Indiana Jones in that it has a realistic cadre of characters to play with different skills. Shifting between Bat-suits is a tad annoying, and I think you're right about the encounter pacing. Better than LEGO Star Wars? Mm, probably not, but I still really like it. I'd say that they both have their issues and I like them about the same.