What were your thoughts on the Original Batman 1989 Trailer?

[LongLiveTheBatman]

I may have been too young to remember it. But for those who got to see it way back when, what were your initial thoughts when you first saw it?

Were you originally skeptical of Keaton before seeing it? How did you feel by the end of the trailer?

[Paul (ral)]

Before Batman 89 I really didn't care all that much about Batman.

My childhood consisted of Superman, Spider-man, Transformers, Ghostbusters (movie and cartoons).

There was no controversy over Keaton for me. I saw him on the cover of a UK Batman magazine in the newsagents and to me...he was Batman. He was badass. And it consumed my summer and many years since!

[Paul (ral)]

Oh and I was 11.

[thecolorsblend]

I was eight when all that stuff was going down so my finger was nowhere anything even remotely resembling the pulse of the fan community. So the whole Keaton stuff was mostly off my radar. But I remember I had some vague notion of "controversy" related to B89 and my dad and I happened to catch the trailer on some Entertainment Tonight type of show. It's a crude trailer even by the standards of the day but it has always mesmerized anybody I've ever seen watch it. You just can't take your eyes off the damn thing even now.

So imagine what it must've been like to watch the thing on TV as part of some Entertainment Tonight special or whatever it was when the thing was brand spankin' new.

Superman is, was and will always be the primary mythological construct of my childhood so I had no vocabulary for Batman or any of the stuff he's shown doing in that trailer. So the mystique of Batman in general coupled with the mystique of that movie in particular... well, the summer of 1989? It was everything you heard about, dude. NO Batman movie since has captured wide audiences imagination the same way.

Not even TDK. Not even close.

[Azrael]

Where I live, it was always the Marvel comics and heroes that were big, at least in the latter part of the 80s when I was the right age, 7-8, to pick up and read superhero comics. Batman was published in the 70s until 1980, but that was before I was even born. (I found about these much later - mostly stories with art by Adams, it's almost tragic they never caught on, maybe they were too expensive due to being full colour on glossy paper)

So, while I knew about Spider-Man, Captain America, Hulk, The Punisher etc. I had never heard of Batman. I was also very young to know anything about Keaton, Burton, Nicholson; there was no internet back then. Boys magazines usually had more stuff about bands like Skid Row or WWF wrestlers like the Ultimate Warrior than Hollywood people.

What probably hooked me to Batman was that he looked like a "bad guy", covering his face, dressed in black etc. but was actually a good guy and the main hero. The first image I ever saw was this

The funny thing is that even after the movie, Batman comics never really caught here. Even to this day, in the wake of Nolan's films, it's Marvel's heroes that remain the most popular and seeing constant publication.

[The Joker]

At a very young age, I remember liking superheros thanks to toy lines like "Super Powers" and "Secret Wars". Which I believe were my introductions to superheros in general as I don't really recall watching cartoons based on the genre that much (nada on anything DC, and if I did watch any Marvel toons, they would have had to have been from the Marvel VHS releases that collected episodes spanning from the 60's to then present day-1980s).

Later on, I distinctly remember watching the Bixby/Ferrigno "The Incredible Hulk" television show in the mornings with my Mom, but that was about it. My main interests at the time were probably Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-Man, G.I. Joe, and Godzilla. Then sometime in early 1989, I saw the Batman '89 trailer, and suddenly my interest in anything Batman skyrocketed! Though if I had to pinpoint it, I don't think I viewed it via Entertainment Tonight, but rather from E! Entertainment Television. Which I think was a new channel at the time,  and one that would often play trailers during commercial breaks. I definately remember seeing the TMNT 1990 trailer On E! for the first time roughly a year later.

But going back to the trailer, I remember thinking it looked so different from anything I had previously seen at that time, and also so damn exciting as well. I was 7 years old at the time and though I had seen Beetlejuice, I really wasn't at all familiar with Michael Keaton but was surprised at how dark and menacing Batman looked on screen. With Jack Nicholson, I think I might have watched "The Witches of Eastwick" and perhaps another movie that he starred in prior, so I atleast was somewhat familiar with him, but was completely captivated by the clips of him as the Joker, and always getting goosebumps at the end of the trailer where Batman quickly turns around with Nicholson's Joker delivering the classic laugh.

So yeah. If I had only been a casual Batman fan prior to seeing the '89 trailer, that definately changed to being a hardcore Batman fan following watching that wonderful trailer. 

[LongLiveTheBatman]

This is all amazing to hear. I never saw this trailer as a kid. The most I could find about it was a through the Batman documentary and a few articles here and there.

It's VERY cool to hear the hype was just like I read about. Batman was the first movie I've ever seen and I wish I could have seen the early trailer.

Someone mentioned it's a little rough and I do agree. No background music or voice over, it's more of a teaser. But I really do love it. I was surprised they showed that much in the trailer.

I love how they pretty much "flexed" and showed how different Keaton looked in the suit. You get that effect right away. In the final shot, it's like a full transformation. I would never have guessed thats Keaton. That trailer may be responsible for a lot of the success of the movie (it garnered the initial hype, which transferred momentum into the next trailer, press talk, batmania before the movie was even released, etc.) I'm sure it would have sold even without that trailer, but I think that first trailer put away the objections and plant the seed in people minds that "Yes this CAN and WILL be a great movie."

Am I crazy or does the footage also look like it has less contrast than in the actual movie? It feels like you can see some extra detail in some shots. Also the final close up with keaton in the mask, it's amazing! I think there's a few seconds more of that take than what we got in the actual movie.

[DarkVengeance]

One of the best teaser trailers for a film of all time.

[Silver Nemesis]

I didn't think this was worth creating a separate thread over, so I'll just post it here. WB/DC has released a new modern trailer for Batman 89. This is not fan made. It's official.

The timing is interesting, given that the new trailer for The Flash is scheduled to debut at the Super Bowl next week.

[GBglide]

I like it except for one, fatal, flaw. Most of the music isn't from Danny Elfman. Otherwise, It would be awesome in my book.