The Ice Princess and Her Tragic Fate

[Edd Grayson]

Yes, she might be a funny character herself but given the situation she was in I cannot laugh at her/

[The Dark Knight]

Yes, she might be a funny character herself but given the situation she was in I cannot laugh at her/

No matter. I am a sociopath in need of a naturopath.

I find the scenarios funny. Posing for what she assumes is a photo only to get a batarang lodged somewhere on her person.
Falling to her death because she needed a step by step walkthrough on how to step off a ledge.
When she falls to her death she successfully lights the Christmas Tree, only to release a swarm of bats.

[Edd Grayson]

I just think: "What if it was me up there..." 

[johnnygobbs]

Yes, she might be a funny character herself but given the situation she was in I cannot laugh at her/

No matter. I am a sociopath in need of a naturopath.

I find the scenarios funny. Posing for what she assumes is a photo only to get a batarang lodged somewhere on her person.
Falling to her death because she needed a step by step walkthrough on how to step off a ledge.
When she falls to her death she successfully lights the Christmas Tree, only to release a swarm of bats.

To be honest, it's the scenes before her brutal kidnap that I find funny, where she's 'rehearsing' how to light a Christmas Tree.    Also, mistaking a Batarang for a camera and the Penguin for a talent scout.    Although even those genuinely funny moments are simultaneously quite chilling as we pretty much know what the Penguin is going to use the Batarang for. 

Anyone who has seen the film 'Heathers' will be familiar with Daniel Waters' very dark sense of humour.  That film was a comedy but it effectively revolved around the murders of the popular but bitchy and stupid kids at high school.  The semi-comical death of the Ice Princess in 'Batman Returns' seems a semi-comic extension of that misanthropic theme. 

It's probably worth mentioning that in the initial draft for 'Batman Returns' Chip Shreck, Batman's equivalent of the dumb, thuggish jocks in 'Heathers' (just as the Ice Princess is the equivalent of the stuck-up, bimbo popular girls in the same film), undergoes a similarly semi-comic death when he falls into Catwoman's traps and dies in a sandpit.

[Edd Grayson]

johnnygobbs, Heathers was different. All those who died were real douchebags (they were teens and most teens can be d-bags, I know) while the Ice Princess was innocent.

[Catwoman]

no matter how dumb the character was i guess we can all agree that the fact that we are talking about her so much 21 years later is proof that cristi conaway did a hell of a job lol.

[Edd Grayson]

I feel that, for Batman Returns, every actor, from Michael Keaton to the one who played the newspaper boy did a very good job.

Cristi Conaway is the definition of a damsel in distress in Batman Returns.

[johnnygobbs]

johnnygobbs, Heathers was different. All those who died were real douchebags (they were teens and most teens can be d-bags, I know) while the Ice Princess was innocent.

I disagree.  Maybe it didn't come across so well in the final film because Burton et al cut the scene of the Ice Princess shoving an old lady to the ground during the Red Triangle Gang's attack on the tree-lighting ceremony but I still got the impression that the character was meant to be a self-absorbed vain idiot whose foolishness led to her unfortunate fate.

Anyway, nobody deserves to die, not even the 'real douchebags' from 'Heathers'.  They were just stuck-up self-absorbed kids especially the girls (okay, maybe the two jocks were worse - after all, what did they have to offer their high-school but 'date rape and AIDS jokes'?) and judging from what we see of the Ice Princess don't you think she would have probably have belonged to one of those fashionable, popular but stuck-up 'mean girl' cliques?  Do you think she got crowned 'Ice Princess' because of her talent or awareness about social issues/current affairs (after all, did she even know who the Penguin was?)

[johnnygobbs]

no matter how dumb the character was i guess we can all agree that the fact that we are talking about her so much 21 years later is proof that cristi conaway did a hell of a job lol.

How dumb do you think she was Catwoman?

Anyway, we should try and organise an interview with Cristi Conaway for the site.  Maybe a 21 Years Anniversary type thing. 

[Edd Grayson]

I agree johnnygobbs, but I guess I have a weakness for young, attractive, helpless and well dressed ladies. Can you blame me?