Batman Forever Novelization by Peter David

[BatmAngelus]

Has anyone read this?  I personally consider this a hidden gem and honestly, the best version of the Batman Forever story, out of the proposed fan cuts and drafts found online, with a lot of character exploration and added/alternate scenes by Peter David.

Another advantage to reading it in novel form is that you can picture the film differently.  Want to picture Michael Keaton and Billy Dee Williams returning?  Try it out.  Want to hear less over-the-top line readings from Two-Face and Riddler?  You can imagine that too.  Imagine the Elfman Batman theme playing as the Burton Batmobile drives through a Furst/Welch type Gotham?  Certainly.

Some major and easter egg elements unique to the novel:
- Multiple prologues, beginning with Bruce Wayne's descent into the Batcave.  A couple references to B89 here with him being haunted by Jack Napier's "dance with the devil by the pale moonlight."  At the end, when Bruce sees the bat, Peter David describes, ""And with the cries of the leathery creatures providing an ungodly orchestral tone, the young man danced with the devil in the pale moonlight..."
Then, Young Edward Nygma reading about the deaths of the Waynes in a newspaper and immediately identifying with the loner Bruce Wayne (David describes the newspaper seen in B89 with young Bruce staring at the camera), setting up how he idolizes Wayne in the story.  This newspaper remains in Nygma's possession through his life and Bruce notices it in his shrine/cubicle in Wayne Enterprises.

We jump a decade or so and the next scene is Batman and Harvey Dent meeting on a rooftop during the events of Batman Returns when Batman gives the location of the Red Triangle Circus to clear his name after the Penguins' attack.  Dent reluctantly agrees to work with Batman from now on if Batman promises to protect him.  (which sets up why Dent feels so betrayed when he gets hit by the acid.  There's a flashback where Dent says "Some protection" when Batman tries to visit him in the hospital.  This shades a bit dimension on Two-Face's rather one-note revenge scheme).

The story then transitions to present day, but does it start with the Arkham Asylum deleted opening with Dr. Burton? 

Nope.  It's an introduction to Dr. Chase Meridian who gets mugged. 

And to her rescue comes...Dick Grayson.  Afterwards, Dick's father reprimands him for putting himself in harm's way, but Dick doesn't see it as any different from risking his life on the trapeze.

Then, we go to Arkham Asylum.  Except it's not the Dr. Burton scene from the script. 

It's introducing the Arkham guard with a gambling problem, who's agreed to break Two-Face out.  This is a rather dark and twisted scene that leads into the Dr. Burton opening. 

We're finally to the point where the original script begins and it's page 42!
While the deleted scene on the DVD shows that the guard is alive when Burton finds him, the writer takes a different approach.  Let's just say, he explains where the blood came from in the "THE BAT MUST DIE" message.

- Lucius Fox cameo at Wayne Enterprises before Bruce visits the department.  Also, Harvey is on Bruce's mind when he's at the company and there's a reference to B:TAS of Bruce saving him from Poison Ivy (obviously, no knew that Poison Ivy would show up in the next movie).

- One of the deleted scenes from the movie has Two-Face saying, "You're a killer, too" to Batman in the opening action sequence. 
In the novel, Bruce is actually haunted by his words.  After his failed attempt to capture Two-Face from the helicopter, he reviews footage of Dr. Burton interviewing Two-Face at Arkham and he hallucinates Two-Face repeating the line to him through the TV.

- The morning before Bruce visits/meets Chase at her office, Alfred goes to Bruce's bedroom, only to find it empty.  He immediately goes into the Batcave, knowing he'd find him there.  Sound famliar?
Peter David adds another layer, describing Alfred's momentary panic.  Is this finally "the one morning" when Bruce never made it back home? 

- Another layer that Peter David adds: During the fight at the circus, Bruce takes down a thug and points a gun at Two-Face, but stops himself. 

This is right when Two-Face shoots down the Graysons.  Bruce is haunted later, when the police arrive.  He swore never to use guns.  But should he have pulled the trigger?  Maybe the Graysons would have been alive.

- Small bit for Burton fans, but Batman does have a moment where he gets out of the Batmobile and says "Shields."

- Dick's alleyway fight and confrontation with Batman are very different.  In a semi-comical moment, Dick arrives in the Batmobile and tries to get out, putting a cape over his face like Bela Lugosi.  Dick actually loses the battle with the thugs until Batman rescues him and uses knockout gas to take everyone out.  Dick wakes up in the Batmobile and starts beating on Batman there, causing the Batmobile to crash.

- We go into Batman's thoughts as he's nearly buried alive by Two-Face, with him wondering if he's been seeking death this whole time to return to his parents. 

Of course Robin has to go ahead and ruin it and save his life.

- Added scene where Gordon and Bullock (yes, Bullock has a minor role in the book) try to get one of Two-Face's thugs to talk, after he gets captured from the assault on Nygma's party.  The thug reluctantly agrees but suddenly, screams and dies.  Cut to Claw Island, revealing that Nygma's implanted all of Harvey's thugs with devices that'd blow their neural pathways if they squealed.  "It's so difficult to find good help these days."

- Biggest change to Chase Meridian- after Batman visits her bedroom, she pulls out a tape recorder and dictates the latest notes on the Bruce Wayne/Batman case.  Like Silver St. Cloud, she actually figured out from Bruce's fighting at the circus that he was Batman and felt her relationship with Bruce would give her a chance to study him and find what makes him tick.  She realizes now how manipulative she's been after Batman leaves her bedroom and, in anger/guilt, destroys the tape.  But Batman's heard it from across the rooftop and decides it's time to confess the truth to Chase and settle down.

- Two-Face believes Batman died after getting buried alive and attempts to kill Riddler at Claw Island.  Nygma reveals, like in the movie, that not only is Batman still alive, but also the Box found out that he's also Bruce Wayne.

- When Chase is captured by Riddler, she warns him that he's been frying his brain, foreshadowing his fate at the end.

- The biggest change at the end is that when Batman throws the coins up to trick Two-Face, Two-Face falls..."two yards."  Landing on a girder.  "Did you think it'd be that easy?  Did you?"  He and Robin have a final confrontation where Robin points out that Two-Face doesn't have the guts to make his own decisions.  Harvey flips one last time...then lets go of the girder, committing suicide.

For some excerpts and analysis of the Harvey Dent rooftop meeting, the Arkham breakout, and the alternate version of Two-Face's death: http://about-faces.livejournal.com/29288.html

[Paul (ral)]

Great write up. I think I either have the book, or I unsuccessfully bid on it once....the hunt through my boxes starts!!

[thecolorsblend]

- The biggest change at the end is that when Batman throws the coins up to trick Two-Face, Two-Face falls..."two yards."  Landing on a girder.  "Did you think it'd be that easy?  Did you?"  He and Robin have a final confrontation where Robin points out that Two-Face doesn't have the guts to make his own decisions.  Harvey flips one last time...then lets go of the girder, committing suicide.

Holy crap, that is DARK!!

[BatmAngelus]

^ His last words, when looking at the coin- "It seems...we were right the first time.  You are a man after our own heart.  And you managed to rip it out.  You owe us, kid."
Then he lets go without making a sound.  Robin's shocked, saying he didn't want to kill him, but Batman assures him.  "You just showed Two-Face his real face.  The rest was his decision.  Maybe his first genuine decision in years."

A few other things:

- The Batman sonar suit is planted throughout, where Alfred mentions that it nearly killed Bruce one time.  Later, in the Riddler's first trap, where the giant grating comes down, Batman has to take the risk and enable the feature that almost killed him: boot thrusters.  Yep, Batman flies through the grating, like he's Iron Man.

- Riddler's appearance in the final confrontation is very different.  He's described as having a "question marked shaved in the back of his head."  Perhaps this has some tie to the rumors of that look being for Robin Williams when he was under consideration for the role?

Also, Riddler appears in a big muscular form-fitting bodysuit and makes a joke about being "Arnold Schwarzynygma." 
The suit splits open right after asking if Bruce and Batman can co-exist, revealing he's back in his usual question mark leotard.  Why the suit switch?  He states, "I know who I really am.  Let's help you decide, once and for all, who you really are."

- Riddler asks Batman a final riddle: "What is without taste or sound, all around, but can't be found?"  Batman's answer is "Death" which leads him to say "This is all just one giant death trap."

- An interesting subtle change is that Batman's riddle starts "I see without feeling" vs. the movie's "I see without seeing."  This may have been a weird typo, since the movie's line makes more sense.

- Batman's only catches Chase since Robin's able to brace himself from inside the tube.  Batman tries to get to Robin, but gets attacked by Two-Face, who wears a halogen light on his head to blind Batman's sonar lenses.  Batman tosses his Batarang blindly at Two-Face when he flips the coin (That's another change, by the way, he doesn't throw a handful of coins at him, I was wrong before).  His hope is that Two-Face would be "stymied, unable to decide."  He doesn't expect Two-Face to actually lunge for it.  The rest of the scene plays out as I described above, where Two-Face catches the girder.

- When Batman says that he had to save him both, he brings up that it would've been impossible for him to rescue both Chase and Robin.  "Fortunately, I had help," as he looks to Robin, who's holding Chase's unconscious body (She's knocked out during the entire Claw Island confrontation, which I suppose makes sense since she says and does nothing during it anyway).

- When Riddler gets admitted to Arkham, they give him Harvey's old cell.

Peter David's own thoughts of the movie can be found here:
http://www.peterdavid.net/2011/07/01/movie-review-batman-forever/

There's an old saying that, if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage. No one knows better than I the deficiencies in the script credited to Lee Batchler, Janet Scott Batchler, and Akiva Goldsman, because I had to try to shore it up in the Batman Forever novelization. Since my story length was more than twice that of the screenplay, I had lots of room to make the script workable. Director Joel Schumacher didn't get that option, nor did the actors get entire additional scenes explaining just what the hell their characters were supposed to be about. Consequently, they never really seem to know.

The plot? The plot displays the singular achievement of being incredibly complicated and, at the same time, ludicrously simple: Bruce Wayne/Batman must die. Everything else is bells and whistles. Two-Face (irritatingly called "Harvey Two-Face" at several points, making him almost sound like a Native American) hates Batman for reasons that are murky. Edward Nygma is obsessed with Bruce Wayne for reasons that are murkier. Yet that, combined with Dick Grayson's revenge kick and the juvenile Batman-fixation by "Doctor" Chase Meridian (named after two banks and yet a few dimes short of a dollar) is the sum and substance of the movie.

Reading his thoughts on the movie/the script, you can see why he tried to make certain changes and tried to provide more depth to Chase, Riddler, and Two-Face.

[Azrael]

Have two copies of this, the original and translated, and I actually read both. David's work is one of the few novelizations that really justify the existence of movie novelizations, reading it while having the film's visuals in your mind makes for a better Batman Forever. I always pictured VK and a more serious TLJ in the roles, though.

[illgetdrivethrough]

I bought this for pennies on amazon a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it.

[The Laughing Fish]

Also, Riddler appears in a big muscular form-fitting bodysuit and makes a joke about being "Arnold Schwarzynygma." 

Why can't I help but wonder this was the inspiration for the final boss of the Genesis (Mega Drive)/SNES video game?



Anyway, the three hour audiobook of this novel is uploaded on YouTube.

Fun fact: Rene Auberjonois, who played Dr. Burton in the movie, did the narration for the audiobook. But be warned, he makes goofy voices every time he reads Two-Face and Riddler's lines.

[Slash Man]

I was friends with Peter David's nephew in college, and he often told me that I could get anything I wanted signed. Is it bad that my mind first jumped to the Batman Forever novelization?