Stallone Slams Batman

[phantom stranger]

Keep pumpin' that iron, Sly. You'll never be half as good an actor as Keaton.

"It was that first Batman movie," he said, referring to the 1989 film starring Michael Keaton, an actor never known for biceps. "The action movies changed radically when it became possible to Velcro your muscles on. It was the beginning of a new era. The visual took over. The special effects became more important than the single person. That was the beginning of the end."

...

"I wish I had thought of Velcro muscles myself," Stallone mused. "I didn't have to go to the gym for all those years, all the hours wedded to the iron game, as we call it," he said, a reference to weight training.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/07/comiccon-2010-expendables-stallone-willis-schwarzenegger.html

[johnnygobbs]

To be fair, if you think about it Stallone's not really slamming Batman.  He doesn't state that the special effects were more important than the story, or direction, or acting for instance.  He seems to be lamenting the fact that from Batman onwards the concept was more important than the star (i.e. the likes of him and Scharzeneggar for instance who pretty much ruled 1980s action films).  It was simply the 'beginning of the end' for the likes of him, Scharzeneggar and various other meathead action stars.

As it happens, I'm relieved Batman did revolutionise the genre.  Although Die Hard, which I am a big fan of, predates Batman for the most part the action films that immediately came before Batman were stupid, lumbering and entirely devoid of subtlety and wit.  If Batman and the aforementioned Die Hard helped change that and herald an era of 'smarter' action films, which I think they did to some extent, in which the script, direction, acting and yes, the effects, were more important than having some musclebound, steroidal hunk rewriting American politics in some silly Cold War era nonsense than I'm glad.

[phantom stranger]

But that's just the thing--he makes it seem like the story behind '89 had nothing to do with its success. To be fair, it probably would've been a hit even if it had sucked. But only because the audience had never seen anything like it before.

But these days, it takes a lot more than great SFX to get people to see your movie. I can think of numerous big budget sci-fi epics and even a few superhero films that bombed, despite their amazing visuals. They just weren't written well--all the "velcro" in the world can't hide that.

[johnnygobbs]

But that's just the thing--he makes it seem like the story behind '89 had nothing to do with its success. To be fair. it probably would've been a hit even if it had sucked. But only because the audience had never seen anything like it before.

But these days, it takes a lot more than great SFX to get people to see your movie. I can think of numerous big budget sci-fi epics and even a few superhero films that bombed, despite their amazing visuals. They just weren't written well--all the "velcro" in the world can't hide that.

I take offence when people slam Batman since it's one of my favourite films, but to be honest in this instance I think Stallone is only talking about one aspect of the film, i.e. Batman's body-suit versus Stallone's real muscles, although the irony is that for all his complaints about Batman's augmented musculature, most of the 'muscle men' of the 80s took copious amounts of steroids to got their physique.

In any case, by today's standards Batman's effects feel very authentic mainly because practically all of it was still optical as oposed to digital/CGI oreintated.

[Grissom]

What I think Stallone fails to realise is that it's not about, or just about velcro muscles, but the suit was an armor against bullets and other weapons. Come on Sly, he needed the suit and one of the great things about Batman '89 is that the characters propelled the events, not the events were there and the characters were in the midst. That's why the story aspect excelled, classic good vs. evil.


BTW, Keaton worked out for three months, even doing kickboxing training, before filming Batman '89, so suit or not, he was fit. 

[phantom stranger]

Two more points:

1) No matter how muscular you are, you're going to need molded muscles if you're wearing anything other than tights. John Wesley Shipp was ripped back when he was doing "The Flash" but even his suit had molded muscles

2) At the time, there was still some ambiguity over whether Batman was a man, monster, or some combination of both. Having molded muscles helped keep the mystery alive. By the time Batman Returns came along, it was common knowledge that Batman was just a guy in a suit so there was no need for the suit to have muscles.

That's why it made no sense for the later two films to have molded muscles, complete with nipples. At that point, everyone knew that Batman wasn't a creature so there was no need to have the suit look like a body.

[The Dark Knight]

Just on this point, the evolution of the suit, I was thinking about the finale of B89. When Batman givess the police the signal, it features a more traditional emblem opposed to the chest emblem that appears throughout the film. I wonder if this was the point when he changed his chest emblem, or suit for that matter? Or the emblem first, and the suit change occured later.

The searchlight symbol was obviously designed by Batman, and it was a well covered public event. It was like an official launch for him, stepping out the shadows in a way and putting his official brand and image out there. Especially after Joker's true colours were revealed, and Batman put him down. People could not say he and the Joker were one and the same in terms of intent anymore.

I love the B89 chest emblem as much as anyone, but as he was in his early years, he was still perfecting his image, and by BR, he's fully established. And as said, the muscle suit evolved and so on.

[Paul (ral)]

The same symbol was already on the Batmobile's wheels and in the overall shape of the Batwing.

[The Dark Knight]

Yep, I had that in the back of my mind while typing.

As we know, that emblem eventually went on his chest as well. I'm just wondering when in fact he decided to change the old one over to match the rest of his gear. The launch of the batsignal seems like a good time as any, personally.

I wonder if he used one version of the symbol as a trial, before settling on one he liked?

[phantom stranger]

I started a thread about the '89 symbol a while back:

http://www.batmanmovieonline.com/forum/index.php?topic=714.0