15 years of Batman and Robin

[Wayne49]

For all of the over correction that occurred as a result of this film, it can safely be said that now it has gone too far the other way. Even though BVS made a huge chunk of money from it's extremely front loaded opening weekend, that film actually had bigger drops after the opening weekend and left theaters quicker than B&R. It's now become equally as campy for Batman to be TOO SERIOUS with Affleck overacting in the cowl and creating his own mark of shame on the franchise. Martha anyone?

Still on about that rubbish? Affleck is not any more laughable or campy than Bale's overacting with that idiotic voice, and speaking in grandiose terms about his moral code, only to get people killed anyway. Or betraying everything he stood for to protect a criminal. Come on now!

Mark of shame, my ass.  If you still think Batman and Superman stopped their dispute because their mothers share the same name...well, I don't know what to tell you.

What is rubbish? No one is asking you to not like Affleck. If he's your favorite, God love ya. I'm simply stating the film financially had bigger drops and left theaters faster than any Batman film of modern record. And what makes it's especially insulting is the fact it opened in a noncompetitive month like March. It didn't survive for even 90 days. In fact it didn't even survive 80 days. B&R was released in the middle of the Summer schedule and held together over three months. Which film you love or hate and how you rank them will always be subjective. But there's nothing subjective about the fact the public ran this film out of theaters faster than any other Batman movie since the modern movies started with Keaton. I'm not counting the Adam West movie in the 60's or the serials.

OPINION: The Martha scene (for me) remains impossibly embarrassing. It's one thing to knowingly play to a camp theme like B&R did. It's something entirely different to construct a fundamental barrier between Batman and Superman that entirely rides on Wayne saying, " Even if there is a ONE PERCENT chance that he is our enemy, we must take that as an ABSOLUTE certainty!" That statement alone is so over-the-top it really suggests that Wayne is not only paranoid, but at bare minimum a clinical schizophrenic all rooted in his scars from his past. The film goes to great lengths to establish this.

So please... PLEASE... forgive me if Superman uttering "Martha" at such a unnatural and unrealistic moment to denote his own earthbound mom is a notion that would somehow take Batman out of a kill strike which he finds himself in with all of his emotional reasoning completely lost to the moment. It's such a ridiculous leap of logic, I doubt even the Superfriends cartoon would go there. And even allowing for the rest of the exposition in the film, which is minimal, it's IMPOSSIBLE to not laugh out loud at the end when you see a somber Batman calling Superman his friend with as much remorse as he had hatred earlier. It makes Batman look like a complete buffoon having these wild slides in opinion based on whatever emotional maze you catch him in. He's worse than a teenager.

That's why I always say Batman as a concept will always ride on a fragile edge between ludicrous and entertaining. It's a guy dressed up like a bat to fight crime. How you walk in with that idea often dictates how you will take to each new film on the subject. Personally I think Burton has been the best because he made the world around Batman semi-surreal. He stylized that world so Batman could translate. But more importantly he allowed the outfit to do the work. Keaton's eyes really did much of the talking in that mask. He treated Batman as a state of mind.

Val Kilmer really copied Keaton through the first half of Forever before bringing his own personality to the role. Clooney I don't feel really brought any notions to Batman as much as he did Bruce Wayne. We can blame him or Schumacher, but Batman's alternate personality was absent in B&R which probably did more to alienate people than anything. It broke the allusion that Batman and Bruce Wayne could exist in the same world and no one notice.

Christian Bale's performance certainly plays to a wider issue because Nolan tries to cater to this idea that Batman could be a corporate hidden product of sorts. Of course what kills that concept immediately is when he uses a concept vehicle that HAD to be recognized by any number of engineers that originals drafted the vehicle for the defense department. That alone made me roll my eyes in Batman Begins. Did he overdo it on the vocal exchange? I would certainly give you that. Without a doubt that can be laughed at in many places. But to underscore those moments only reinforces the issues with BVS which tries to emulate the darker themes of the Dark Knight.

But to reiterate, the "shame" of the series comes from this film being billed as the second coming during a noncommercial period for films, and the movie gets run out of theaters faster than any modern film of it's kind in the Batman series. If you're being objective at all, it's hard to argue against the grand collapse this film suffered.

[thecolorsblend]

Still on about that rubbish? Affleck is not any more laughable or campy

Not directed at you specifically but I really wish people would stop abusing the terms "camp", "campy" and all that. The "camp" idiom has a specific meaning. Nothing Affleck did in BVS or Suicide Squad even remotely approaches camp.

[riddler]

Still on about that rubbish? Affleck is not any more laughable or campy than Bale's overacting with that idiotic voice, and speaking in grandiose terms about his moral code, only to get people killed anyway. Or betraying everything he stood for to protect a criminal. Come on now!

Mark of shame, my ass.  If you still think Batman and Superman stopped their dispute because their mothers share the same name...well, I don't know what to tell you.

Still better than Batman betraying everything he stands for by trying to murder another hero and never facing any consequences for it.

We all get it. Bruce saw him as a person because by their moms having the same name, he saw himself as the monster, etc. etc.. It's all still because their mom's have the same name though. Otherwise Bruce would have murdered Clark right there. That's a problem. Have a very great day!

God bless you all!

No that's not the point. Batman/Bruce is fearful of Superman because he perceives him as an alien with the power to wipe out the human race. During their fight Batman learns that Superman isn't so different, he has humans he protects and cares for, he considers his family to be human and Batman was about to do to the Kents what Joe Chill did to his family. He stops when Lois helps him realize that superman isn't the enemy, he's just trying to protect the ones he loves.

[The Dark Knight]

Still on about that rubbish? Affleck is not any more laughable or campy

Not directed at you specifically but I really wish people would stop abusing the terms "camp", "campy" and all that. The "camp" idiom has a specific meaning. Nothing Affleck did in BVS or Suicide Squad even remotely approaches camp.

Yep. Campy is nothing to be ashamed about anyway. What's not to love? A roaring fire. Marshmallows. Looking at the stars. Keeping a loaded and cocked 44 Magnum in your back pocket in case of bears and serial killers. Good times folks.

[Dagenspear]

No that's not the point. Batman/Bruce is fearful of Superman because he perceives him as an alien with the power to wipe out the human race. During their fight Batman learns that Superman isn't so different, he has humans he protects and cares for, he considers his family to be human and Batman was about to do to the Kents what Joe Chill did to his family. He stops when Lois helps him realize that superman isn't the enemy, he's just trying to protect the ones he loves.

The point is that Batman tries to murder someone because they exist. It doesn't matter why he tries. He still tries and would have without Lois or the Martha thing to make him see Superman as a person. But Batman doesn't see anything during the fight. He sees it after the fight, when Superman is down for the count. Superman is an alien with the power to wipe out the human race. That means nothing and doesn't give Batman license to murder someone. Killing criminals is messed up for Batman, but broken Batman the movie's trying to show how he can become better, sure, I'll accept it, but the minute the movie decides that Batman's going to murder Superman just for existing is the minute he's closer to Owlman than any Batman. Have a very great day!

God bless you all!

[The Laughing Fish]

What is rubbish? No one is asking you to not like Affleck. If he's your favorite, God love ya.

That's not what I said. I'm talking about your reaction to that Martha scene.

As for box office? Sure, the movie had a drop. But it also made more than enough to stay afloat. Judging by it under superficial terms, its box office can be compared to that of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, despite that movie gaining critical acclaim. Keep in mind, I personally don't care too much box office results. The Winter Solider, for example, is a far better film than Civil War, in my opinion, but its $714 million gross is quite tame compared to the latter's billion dollar gross revenue. Does that make Civil War better? I don't think so. What I'm saying is box office isn't always a reliable indicator concerning quality.

Besides, the film made lots of money on home video.

OPINION: The Martha scene (for me) remains impossibly embarrassing. It's one thing to knowingly play to a camp theme like B&R did. It's something entirely different to construct a fundamental barrier between Batman and Superman that entirely rides on Wayne saying, " Even if there is a ONE PERCENT chance that he is our enemy, we must take that as an ABSOLUTE certainty!" That statement alone is so over-the-top it really suggests that Wayne is not only paranoid, but at bare minimum a clinical schizophrenic all rooted in his scars from his past. The film goes to great lengths to establish this.

I seriously don't understand your opposition to this premise to the first place. The film depicted a traumatised Batman who rationalised his hatred following the devastation he witnessed at Metropolis. The film even spelled out this Batman has a history of seeing good people who become corrupt. It is really out of the ordinary for him to react the way he did?

Besides, you must really hate the idea of Batman being the most psychologically disturbed out of all the Justice League heroes, because this wasn't the first time he took such a drastic and paranoid stance. In Justice League: Doom he created contingency plans against the JL in case if any of them were to go rogue one day. You might not like the paranoid side of him, but it's a valid interpretation for a such a psychologically-troubled character.

Anyway, I've actually posted once that this "1% chance" was inspired by former Vice-President Dick Cheney's justification for the US government's much-maligned stance on the War on Terror. It's too long to post here, so I'll post you the link for you to read and get your review:
http://www.batman-online.com/forum/index.php?topic=3274.msg54200#msg54200

So please... PLEASE... forgive me if Superman uttering "Martha" at such a unnatural and unrealistic moment to denote his own earthbound mom

We've already discussed about this before in great detail before, and I can't believe you still literally think that Batman stopped his rage against Superman because both of their mothers share the same name. You completely disregarded, yet again, that Superman also emphasised that somebody has taken this Martha hostage i.e. "You're letting him" and "Find him!". Not to mention the fact that Batman not only realised Lex had taken advantage of his blind rage and used it to manipulate him to kill Superman, he finally woke up and realised he was about to kill somebody's son, and become indirectly responsible for another person's death. Which would make him no better than the scumbag who murdered his parents - hence why we got those flashbacks of their deaths during that scene.

If you were criticising Superman for referring to his mother's first name because nobody talks like that in real life, okay, that would actually be fair. If you were criticising that the conclusion of the fight could've been prevented if Superman tried a little harder to tell what's going on, that would be your prerogative.

But the idea that Superman and Batman settled their differences aside because both their mothers are named Martha is not only a gross misunderstanding of what's going on in that scene, it's foolish, quite frankly. You don't have to like how it was written, but continuing to misunderstand that scene is deliberate on your part.

And even allowing for the rest of the exposition in the film, which is minimal, it's IMPOSSIBLE to not laugh out loud at the end when you see a somber Batman calling Superman his friend with as much remorse as he had hatred earlier. It makes Batman look like a complete buffoon having these wild slides in opinion based on whatever emotional maze you catch him in. He's worse than a teenager.

If you're referring to the scene where Batman tells Martha "I'm a friend of your son's" after rescuing her, a perfectly good rebuttal to that is he was trying to comfort her in any way he could. Which makes sense after all the hell she had been through.

Besides that, I find your dismissal of this to be completely cynical. The film definitely doesn't shy away from the fact this Batman was a shell of his former self, but that was the whole point. This was a man who was broken by a violent world full of tragedy that ultimately was breaking him, and didn't realise he was becoming everything he stood against until he nearly executed Superman. He spends the last half hour trying to redeem himself by rescuing Martha Kent, helping out in stopping Doomsday, even secretly paid for Clark's funeral, vowing he would not let him down in death by honouring his memory in his desire to create the Justice League. Apart from maybe Batman Forever, what other Batman movies do you know where the character actually has a redemption arc? Where he makes amends for mistakes?

[The Laughing Fish]

Christian Bale's performance certainly plays to a wider issue because Nolan tries to cater to this idea that Batman could be a corporate hidden product of sorts. Of course what kills that concept immediately is when he uses a concept vehicle that HAD to be recognized by any number of engineers that originals drafted the vehicle for the defense department. That alone made me roll my eyes in Batman Begins. Did he overdo it on the vocal exchange? I would certainly give you that. Without a doubt that can be laughed at in many places. But to underscore those moments only reinforces the issues with BVS which tries to emulate the darker themes of the Dark Knight.

Honestly Wayne, I notice that every time I mention a serious writing flaw in the Nolan trilogy, you never address any of these points, particularly when compared to BvS. Yes, I did mention Bale's voice acting and have complained about Nolan's approach towards realism many times in the past. But those things are quite small compared to the sloppy writing, as the examples I mentioned earlier, e.g:

• The inconsistent and nonsensical no-kill stance where he kills villains anyway but won't kill the mass-murdering Joker. How the hell does that make any sense? The film constantly flip flips and glosses over this blatant inconsistency that it insults the audience's intelligence. And people still call this rubbish "realistic, cerebral writing"?
• How he blindly falls into every trap and gets manipulated by the likes of Joker, Catwoman (which Bruce knows she's a criminal who already robbed him TWICE and played her part in bankrupting him before she locked him up in a cage with Bane. Incredibly, he still trusts her after this, and he only gets vindicated for it because of plot convenience). All made worse when in Batman Begins, Bruce supposedly traveled the world and started committing some crimes in the hopes of learning how the criminal mind works. Well, it clearly didn't work because he learned absolutely nothing.
  
  At least when Batman was manipulated emotionally in BvS, he was psychologically damaged and struggled to deal powerless after and coping never-ending tragedy, which Lex took advantage of to force a battle with Superman. What was Bale's excuse for constantly getting manipulated and not learning from his mistakes?
  
  Once again, if you want to talk about ridiculous character transformations, what about the way Harvey Dent became Two-Face? One minute Harvey would do anything to stop the Joker in order to protect Rachel, but in the next, he's listening to the Joker's nonsense and let's himself to be manipulated into starting a killing spree. Despite knowing Joker succeeded in getting Rachel killed. I think it's hysterical and even hypocritical that you criticise the Martha scene so much when unlike Batman, Dent knew he was being manipulated by his own tormentor! It doesn't matter how mentally ill Two-Face was, he had a hatred for anyone who dared to harm him and Rachel. I laughed at that garbage, and even more so when people ate it up. Destroyed any sympathy I had for him.
• How he corrupted his own symbolism and betrayed everything he stood for by taking the fall for Two-Face and mislead Gotham for eight years, which came back to haunt him as Bane easily exposed the truth under already chaotic circumstances. Had Batman told the truth, the Dent Act would never have existed, but he wouldn't have any blood on his hands. How the hell can anybody still say TDK had a great ending despite this I'll never know.
• The supposed theme that being Batman was a temporary phase for Gotham to undergo social reform at the end of Rises isn't true because Blake is taking over the mantle. While Bruce runs away with Selina in a completely forced romance as Gotham faces an uncertain future, if you think about it.

There is even less to no logic to what Batman does in this trilogy, and yet, you think BvS made Batman look like an incompetent buffoonish teenager in comparison? Seriously, how?

If you like the Nolan trilogy better as a spectacle than BvS, hey, go for it. But how can you honestly account for all these problems and say the writing here was better?

[Wayne49]

So please... PLEASE... forgive me if Superman uttering "Martha" at such a unnatural and unrealistic moment to denote his own earthbound mom

We've already discussed about this before in great detail before, and I can't believe you still literally think that Batman stopped his rage against Superman because both of their mothers share the same name. You completely disregarded, yet again, that Superman also emphasised that somebody has taken this Martha hostage i.e. "You're letting him" and "Find him!". Not to mention the fact that Batman not only realised Lex had taken advantage of his blind rage and used it to manipulate him to kill Superman, he finally woke up and realised he was about to kill somebody's son, and become indirectly responsible for another person's death. Which would make him no better than the scumbag who murdered his parents - hence why we got those flashbacks of their deaths during that scene.

If you were criticising Superman for referring to his mother's first name because nobody talks like that in real life, okay, that would actually be fair. If you were criticising that the conclusion of the fight could've been prevented if Superman tried a little harder to tell what's going on, that would be your prerogative.

But the idea that Superman and Batman settled their differences aside because both their mothers are named Martha is not only a gross misunderstanding of what's going on in that scene, it's foolish, quite frankly. You don't have to like how it was written, but continuing to misunderstand that scene is deliberate on your part.

Referring to his mother by first name is exactly what I mean. No one does that. And the greater reason why it's so painfully contrived is that it references young Wayne when he hears his father's last words become "Martha". Now come on. That's horribly staged. You know as well as I that when you're building a story you introduce plot points that explain character motivation, play to social metaphors, and in some cases service a plot twist for irony. There's NO logical way Superman can surmise (especially at THAT moment) that a formal reference to his mom through her first name would spark a trauma filled moment only Bruce Wayne knows about.

Yes, we can argue he knew about Wayne's parents being killed. But he can't know about the final words. What Snyder did here is purposely create that death scene to service this plot point later and to me that is ludicrous. That is so forced, it abandons reason.

And I thank you for your character study reference. I understand your perspective on the subject. But seeing Batman as a traumatized vigilante is not something I missed in all this. It's actually been a pretty consistent and tired theme in the Batman franchise. Identifying my cynicism would be spot on in terms of looking at the arc of Batman in film. I compare it to the constant Spider-man reboots. How many times do we need to see Parker in his psychological Underoos learning to be a superhero? I GET IT...

But where this particular story just collapses on itself (for me) is the fact Snyder takes nearly three quarters of the film to build Batman up as this tragic and reluctant hero, then pulls the rug out. In fact he borrows from the Nolan universe by playing to the idea that if you survive long enough as a hero, you could eventually become the villain. That's what is happening to Batman. He's so jaded from loss and betrayal; he has virtually no code left to distinguish himself from the villains.

But keep in mind we're not talking about a young Batman here. We're talking about an aging Batman with much of his life BEHIND him. He's no longer dealing with his angst in a free form clinical manner where you can talk him into a new perspective. He's now living in his rage that is by no means just tied to one moment in his life with his parents. He's the product of a LIFETIME of internal torture so it's instinctive now, not just a mood driven occasion.

So am I saying Batman should be beyond repair? No I'm not. But to spend the majority of a story underscoring his anger and rage only to flip the script is too much for one film. I have read your analysis and I completely understand what you're saying. But you are also adding exposition where the film does not. It's not a matter of me not understanding what the story is implying. What I'm saying is he gets there way too fast given that his attitude and opinion sway wildly in a very short frame. No one with that kind of bruised and clinically ill psyche mends that fast (even with the examples referenced). Batman is operating on a deeper level than the results of one positive outcome in his life.

The human mind does not find hope and rationale from a brief string of moments that can point in a new direction. For one, you have to be open to see it in that way. And second, you have to be receiving it from someone who has sold you on the notion you can entrust what you think their saying or the situation that involves them. Something appearing to be positive to one person does not automatically show itself to be positive in front of others who are jaded by a lifetime of tragedy. Snyder's entire rationale in that final chapter is a huge leap of assumption that Batman can retrain his thinking just because he knows Lex has manipulated him (which actually caters to his angst about humanity) and Superman is not as bad as he thought.

You're arguing that a person can find sudden clarity from very removed circumstances that might share some association, but nothing that addresses loss over a lifetime that feeds the instincts of his perspective. That's an enormous leap to reconcile in one film at the end. Can we agree Batman could eventually find his way to that understanding? Yes, but not this quickly. And not under the duress he's facing both when he's fighting Superman and later in that final battle.

Batman is stepping way outside his immediate circumstances to find that kind of objectivity. To suggest that is to say his suffering was not as deep as it was portrayed because it took very little to overcome it. Snyder dug too deep a hole for Batman to crawl out of at the end and I believe most audiences felt that way, which is why it was beat up so badly both by critics and fans. It felt like Jason taking off his hockey mask and telling the campers he wants to be a Boy Scout instead of kill them. Batman's new attitude at the end is just too neat, too swift, and honestly out of character for how he was presented.


In many ways BVS falls into the same traps you perfectly construct for the Nolan series. And I wouldn't argue against those. We're in agreement there. But it illustrates the trap (and corner) writers and directors fall into when they take this material too serious or apply real life concepts to embellish the character study. In the Nolan series, Bruce Wayne should NEVER have had a no-kill clause because quite frankly he did it allot. And his quandary over the Joker "trapping" him to reveal his identity to stop killings is absurd. Ultimately the Joker is killing these people because he is insane. Trying to transpose blame to Batman based on a completely transparent lie that he would stop killing is an obvious rationale Batman should have concluded. World's greatest detective? Not here.

So it's not that I give the Nolan series a pass. I don't. But the iconic meeting between Superman and Batman was advertised as something most people would universally want to see. In the comics, you had two entirely different operating principles in play which served as the rub between these two heroes. Superman never became that hero from the comics in Snyder's version, so the rub had to come from a darker origin that made them both pretty dysfunctional. Snyder had to sell his idea and quite honestly audiences didn't like it.

I think that is why allot of people reacted as they did to the particulars on Batman and quite honestly Superman as well. Snyder does not create likable characters. When I watched it, I didn't find that I cared for either one. They were both so conflicted and bitter, it felt more like a mercy killing to just let them both die. So Snyder never gave it the kind of grandeur a film of this kind should have had. A suicidal Batman meets the death of Superman was way too much weight to put on a film that should have farmed out a better story for people to celebrate rather than mourn and feud over.

And of course now we're about to get a complete tonal flip in Justice League as every hero will likely have a one-liner every five minutes. So Justice League will have to carry some of the liability from this movie. In the final analysis (for myself) I think Snyder gambled too much on the philosophical side of the story instead of building on basic fundamental differences that didn't require as much angst to uncover a ray of hope.

All the analysis in the world doesn't take away from the fact as a superhero film there's not much to celebrate. And yes, we can go there on other films in the series too. But right now we're talking about BVS and for me the movie had a load of potential but missed out because of Snyder's tendencies to make characters too cynical and unlikable. Justice League is having to correct that direction, so we'll see what that does for continuity of the established characters.

[riddler]

Circling back to Batman and Robin, it's been brought up in this thread that DC may have since gone too far in the other directions after Batman and Robin. This may be why they are so afraid to have a little fun with their films or terrified to add any humour or jokes and attempt to make everything grounded and realistic. I think in turn this helped the Schumacher films image, it's a nice change of pace to get a lighter version of the character and a Bat film that sets out to entertain us instead of take itself too seriously. Some go as far as to say that the reason why Batman and Gotham became so unrecognizable is that Nolan and Bale were borderline embarrassed to be making a film out of a comic book. Say what you will about the Schumacher films, they embrace the source material more than any other solo Batman films.

[Wayne49]

Circling back to Batman and Robin, it's been brought up in this thread that DC may have since gone too far in the other directions after Batman and Robin. This may be why they are so afraid to have a little fun with their films or terrified to add any humour or jokes and attempt to make everything grounded and realistic. I think in turn this helped the Schumacher films image, it's a nice change of pace to get a lighter version of the character and a Bat film that sets out to entertain us instead of take itself too seriously. Some go as far as to say that the reason why Batman and Gotham became so unrecognizable is that Nolan and Bale were borderline embarrassed to be making a film out of a comic book. Say what you will about the Schumacher films, they embrace the source material more than any other solo Batman films.

I think the Schumacher films are the most HONEST with the material. Look at cartoons like the Brave and the Bold. Very stylized and aimed at the Silver age of Batman I think that's primarily where the Schumacher films lean. Everything else has pretty much been a rewrite of Frank Miller which is getting pretty old. You have to let these heroes breath a bit. I have absolutely no problem with an occasional dark and edgy Batman. I think if the concept has demonstrated anything, it's that Batman has the flexibility to play to more than just one idea. He's not a one note hero.

But I think the fake hysteria over B&R created this dark rut we've been in for the past decade. The funny thing is Schumacher was a reaction from Studios to Burton being too dark with Returns. So it's all relative if you look at the marketplace and what people were wanting for it's day.  And from my perspective B&R is not THAT removed from Forever. I think they are both pretty much of the same mindset. I didn't hear a soul complaining about Forever when it came out. And actually it took some time for even B&R to get it's distinction. It wasn't really until the social media age that fanboys took out their anger on that film and cemented it's legacy.  It doesn't really matter. The movie still sells to this day and it's merchandise line is constantly in demand on Ebay. Just a quick scan of sold auctions on Ebay revealed 23 copies of B&R sold in August alone. Batman Forever 16 copies. It's Batman. The license is healthy no matter which movie you pick.