We were contacted by Benjamin Robinson. He had written a thesis for his university degree course and asked if we would share it with everyone else. The following is a message from Benjamin. Follow the link below to download the thesis in PDF and Word formats.

Hello all, first and foremost welcome to a great Batman movie website. It is truly amazing the amount of Batman movie information and pictures you can find here! The night that I saw Batman in 1989, completely changed my life. The film truly transported me to another world, in another time and I learned the power of the cinema. From that day forth I became obsessed with movies and BATMAN!

I received a double major bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa in 2002 in Cinema and Communication/Media Studies. After moving to California trying to become a movie director, I went back to school in 2004 for a Masters degree at Chapman University in Orange , California . The first year of the two year program I tried to determine what my thesis topic would be. Knowing that it would need to be something that I could research and write about for a whole year, I knew it needed to be something I really loved. What better to write my Master's thesis on that the movie that began my love in the first place. At first my thesis topic idea was far too broad. I wanted to do an entire encapsulation of Batman on the silver screen from his 1940s movie serials all the way to Batman Begins ? all along stating how the interpretations were true to the character and where they went wrong. Ultimately I dwindled the topic down to just Batman and Batman Returns with a brief history of the Batman character and changes he underwent before 1989s film.

My thesis is titled: Batman and Batman Returns: Adapting a Comic Book Superhero to the Silver Screen. The goal of the thesis was to study adapting comic books into movies using Batman and Batman Returns as specific case studies. In the thesis I discuss the major differences in the adaptation of the Batman character in the two films. Even though these films have the same director, Tim Burton, they are two very different films with different takes on the character. Batman (1989), I say, functions as an example of a deliberately "faithful" mainstream Hollywood studio adaptation of a comic book film, and Batman Returns (1992) I discuss as a "freer" auteur director's reinterpretation of the character.

I am very honored to have my thesis here on Batmanmovieonline.com. Hopefully it can be read by many people who love the character and these movies as much as I do. If you would like to contact me to talk Batman, offer me a job on the next picture, or even to tell me my claims are flat wrong you can e-mail me at: batmanbenjamin@yahoo.com

Thanks and enjoy!

Download the thesis - Adobe PDF or Word Document

[Please note that the Acknowledgements in the thesis thank "Raleagh" at "batmanmovieonline.com". The website is now called Batman-Online.com and Raleagh=Ral=Paul...confused?: Paul (Editor), May 30th 2012]