BR penguin army concept art

[The Dark Knight]

Found this link with some unused Penguin army designs:

http://io9.com/5986489/batman-begins-concept-art-reveals-unused-penguins-armed-with-buzzsaws-and-boxing-gloves

[gordonblu]

Looking through them, I'm glad they limited themselves to the rocket launchers for the film. It sure is fun to look at the artwork though. Thanks for sharing!

[The Dark Knight]

Definitely, the missiles were the best choice. I always took the penguin army as 'from afar' creatures, not up close and personal.

[Bobthegoon89]

Doesn't the penguin commando sequence of the film come in for a lot of criticism these days from fans? Personally I love that sequence. It's funny and pretty amazing how they did it. How many other movies do you see a scene as bizarre and memorable as this? But I hear certain fans are less than impressed with it and lord knows why. You'll often read an emotionally *groan* in articles on the film. I'll quote Danny Devito himself on this: "Who can hate a penguin?"!

I've always believed if Nolan had used The Penguin instead of a scene like this you'd have a Penguin with an army of Bane-like mercenaries in body armour armed with grenades and machine guns firing away instead. Frankly that wouldn't be well, The Penguin. I'm sure the guys who made the animated series would have thought of a scene like this if the movie hadn't done it first. And I don't how many times I've seen a Penguin comic story where he uses birds and penguins to carry gadget laden robberies and such. So what's the problem???

[The Dark Knight]

In all honesty, I never really understood the embarrassment some people have about the image of penguins with rockets. In any case, the inclusion of the remote control features helps. The penguin are walking themselves, they're not robots. But they're going to a point of origin. Think of them as drones. Going out and doing a deed without getting your flippers dirty. There is some form of rough science behind it – which is frankly all we need. The ignition of the rockets didn't seem that hard, either. Just hit fire. Nothing intensive. But at the heart it's a comic book. Where people would accept it just fine there.

[gordonblu]

I love the penguin army. It's one of the highlights of the film for me. The mixture of absurdity and drama is perfect, and Danny scores it with one of his best action cues (just behind "Attack of the Batwing by a fraction). We need more penguin army moments in CBMs.

[thecolorsblend]

It's funny to me that the movie which people regard as the very darkest of that series and which caused WB to shift gears and reinvent the franchise has a sequence with an army of penguins.

This trend in comic movies began with grounded and kinda, sorta realistic stories. And that was back in 1998. We've had 15 years of fairly realistic comic book movies this whole time. Ultimately, I think that all peaked with the Nolan movies. So I guess I can see why an entire generation thinks Batman Returns is "campy". It's not that they know wtf camp even is, they're just used to something else.

[DarkVengeance]

Those are some badass designs, but totally unnecessary for the film itself.