if this were a prequel to Tim Burton's Batman...

[mrrockey]

If this were a prequel to Tim Burton's Batman instead of a reboot, how many things would have to be changed in order to fit into that film's continuity while still retaining the same basic plot and what things could we add for it to lead into the '89 film?

Discuss...

[riddler]

The killer of the wayne's would need to be addressed. Perhaps have Joe Chill give the order?

While it doesn't break continuity, the Rachel Dawes character would likely need to be removed or have her absence explained.

Avoid Batman teaming up with Gordon- Gordon is clearly unsure if batman is good or bad. As well remove Batman making the headlines of the papers as he is still considered an urban legend in Burtons film.

The entire ending scene would need to be rewritten; can't have the batsignal, can't have Batman meeting gordon and no joker card.

[mrrockey]

The killer of the wayne's would need to be addressed. Perhaps have Joe Chill give the order?

While it doesn't break continuity, the Rachel Dawes character would likely need to be removed or have her absence explained.

Avoid Batman teaming up with Gordon- Gordon is clearly unsure if batman is good or bad. As well remove Batman making the headlines of the papers as he is still considered an urban legend in Burtons film.

The entire ending scene would need to be rewritten; can't have the batsignal, can't have Batman meeting gordon and no joker card.

I think we could have Gordon taking in Commissioner Loeb's place and having him be the guy trying to arrest Batman instead. We could also have Eckhardt taking in Flass'place and hint at him turning over to Grissom and Napier at the end after Falcone's incarceration and have either Alfred or Fox helping Bruce take out the railway instead.

The film could also end with Bruce requesting a sleeker, faster vehicle from Fox after seeing how hard it was for him to escape the police and a new Batsuit with heavier armor, which would explain why the Batmobile and Batsuit looked so different in the '89 film.

[The Laughing Fish]

You forgot to address what to do with Lucius Fox. Hypothetically, it would be weird how he appears a lot in Begins, but suddenly wouldn't even appear or get mentioned in '89 if that was the sequel.

Either Fox also appears in the '89 film and continues to be Bruce's go-to guy to grab equipment, or Fox doesn't exist at all.

[BatmAngelus]

Interesting thread.  I'll play...

- The entire Wayne murder sequence would have to be reworked to fit the 1989 movie.  Bruce's fear of bats probably couldn't play any role in it, partially 'cause they were at the movie theater instead of the opera and partially 'cause Bruce is clearly happy, instead of traumatized, in the flashback sequence in the 1989 film.  They're also leaving with the crowd instead of leaving early through a back alley.

The scene would be a reenactment of the 1989 film.  You could argue it'd be closer to the comics since it'd have a happy night at the movies that ends in tragedy.

- I'd maybe keep Gordon comforting young Bruce.  The only reason 'cause this idea came from the development of the 1989 movie in the first place.

However, Gordon won't have a huge role in the movie, so this may be extraneous.

- Take out everything involving Joe Chill  You COULD possibly have it so that the GCPD catches the "Other Mugger" (if you believe that he was Joe Chill and not Bob) and that in the courtroom sequence, Bruce wants to interrogate Chill first to find out who the actual gunman was, but I feel like that would leave too much of a loose thread since you can't resolve that mystery in this story without treading on the '89 film anyway. 

So I'd scrap it and keep it more like the comics where the killer was never caught, which lead young Bruce to make his vow and begin his travels.

- Armor Easter Eggs.  During his travels around the world, we cpuld actually see Bruce acquire all the armor that ends up in his display room where he talks to Knox and Vicki.

- Replace Rachel Dawes with Talia and make her his ally outside of Alfred.
Continuity-wise, it'd be tough to reconcile having Gordon team up with Batman here only to have a smaller role in the 1989 film.  Or to have Rachel here and have her disappear after this movie.  I even considered replacing Gordon with Harvey Dent but it'd still be awkward to go from giving him a big role in this movie to watching the '89 film with Billy Dee Williams having less than five minutes of screentime.

I propose instead that we include Talia.  Yes, it'd require a lot of rewriting.  But think about it, you'd actually have Ra's and Talia in the same movie, unlike the Nolan trilogy, and it'd make a lot more sense to have her leave Gotham before the events of the 1989 movie 'cause her father's dead and his organization's gone.  Her exit would feel a lot more natural than, say, keeping Rachel and just having her leave the city at the end.

Talia could be around from the first act during Bruce's training and give Bruce an additional motivation for sticking around the League of Shadows, since they're falling for each other.  Her arc could then lead her to recognize her father's madness and help Batman stop him at the end.

And because Bruce leaves her father to die at the end, she can't bring herself to stay and be with him and ends up leaving him.

- A new context to "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you
On that note, making it a prequel to the 1989 film could give the movie an interesting arc where Bruce starts off refusing to "be an executioner," but at the end, when he sees how things got worse for Gotham 'cause he saved Ra's from the mountain, he decides to let him die and determines that he'll have to get his hands dirty and do what's necessary.  This costs him Talia and the film ends on a note that he's fully committed to being this figure of vengeance.

No, it's not at all what the usual Batman fan would expect, but it would make sense for the continuity.  The line "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" won't feel as hypocritical, but more of a progression towards the Batman who'll blow up Axis Chemicals and toss a guy off a belltower that we saw in the Burton film.

- Hello, Eckhart, Commissioner Gordon, and Grissom.  Goodbye, Flass, Commissioner Loeb, and Falcone
I agree with mrrockey that Flass would be Lt. Eckhart and Gordon's role would be like Loeb's.  Batman's only operated for about a month when the 1989 movie starts, so these guys should be in a similar situation as they were from that movie.

I think it would probably still work to replace Falcone with Carl Grissom and say that he was freed and cured of the fear toxin at the end.  You could give cameos to Alicia, Bob the Goon, and, maybe even the big man himself, Jack Napier.

- Make Lucius Fox a minor character, closer to the comics. 
Lucius Fox could be cut down to one or two scenes as a small part.  Instead of the Q character, he could be more like he is in the comics and simply give Bruce the tour of the Applied Sciences division.  Bruce then takes everything for himself and builds it.

- Keep the Burton visual continuity. 
I'd keep the costume as the one from the 1989 movie, though maybe with a few tweaks with the updated technology we had in 2005. 
I'd include the explanation from the Dark Knight Returns and Sam Hamm's draft about the yellow oval being a deliberate target so that people don't aim for his head. 
Gotham would look closer to what Anton Furst designed.
And whoever played Batman would have to do the Keaton whisper.

- Move "I'm Batman" to the end  T
his is kinda obvious, but I wouldn't have Batman do the "I'm Batman" to Falcone/Grissom.

In fact,  I wouldn't advise this in the usual Batman origin movie, but it'd work here: Bruce doesn't call himself "Batman" until the end.  This'll keep the impact of the "What are you?"  "I'm Batman" scene from Burton's film and feel like he's claiming his identity as opposed to saying his name to the 29th criminal he's ever stopped.

Taking it a step further, maybe instead of the Gordon ending with the Bat Signal, the film ends where 1989 begins: with the "What are you?"  "I'm Batman" scene.  Batman then jumps off the rooftop and into the camera.  Cut to credits.  Watch the Burton film for the rest.

-Elfman's March Returns The Danny Elfman Batman theme would be back.  Would be awesome if it was gradually hinted at through the first hour and then brought on full force in the scene when he rediscovers the cave.

- Different Bruce Wayne in public.  Bruce would be less of a public figure.  Alfred would be encouraging him to go out there, but I don't see Keaton's Bruce going from buying hotels or drunkenly burning down his house to being anonymous at his own party in the 1989 movie.  He'd mainly be interacting with people involved with his company, as well as Talia.

- No Batmobile.  I feel that the 1989 movie should be the debut of the Furst Batmobile, so I wouldn't put it here, but I don't really like the idea of him having the Tumbler in the Burton continuity either.  Plus he needs to keep a low profile between now and the 1989 movie.

I think the best compromise is if his first vehicle is the Bat Ski Boat from Batman Returns.  He uses that to speed through the sewers to get from place to place, which actually could make more sense than him braving urban traffic in a huge conspicuous car.

- Less Explosive Third Act.  The entire third act would have to be a little more low key, with Batman being less visible to the citizens of Gotham so that Knox's "Eight sightings..." line in the '89 film doesn't seem weird.

[BatmanFanatic93]

Y'know this is a very intriguing idea & i might consider in making it into a fan-edit cause the idea making batman begins a prequel to B89,BR,& BF is really cool & i'd love to get my hands on making it.
*UPDATE*

I'm gonna do it guys wish me luck 

[mrrockey]

Y'know this is a very intriguing idea & i might consider in making it into a fan-edit cause the idea making batman begins a prequel to B89,BR,& BF is really cool & i'd love to get my hands on making it.
*UPDATE*

I'm gonna do it guys wish me luck 

Good luck! 

[Silver Nemesis]

I think BatmAngelus covered pretty much everything.

One additional change I would suggest would be to replace Jonathan Crane with Hugo Strange. I like the idea of Scarecrow being the main villain in a film rather than an underling, so this way we could save him for a later movie. And of course in the comics Batman battled Strange before he battled the Joker. Instead of Crane's fear gas, it would be Strange's 'Monster Men' serum. You'd probably have to tone the effects of the serum down a bit for budgetary reasons. So instead of it turning people into giant monsters, it would turn them into roided-up berserkers. Then you could throw in a reference to it at the end of Batman 89, explaining that the final Joker goon Batman fights in the cathedral has been injected with the serum.

Another interesting change might be to replace Victor Zsasz with Otis Flannegan. That would explain why Ratcatcher's costume (or one like it) is on display in Wayne Manor in Batman 89 (of course it's unlikely Bruce would display a crime fighting trophy in Wayne Manor rather than the Batcave, but what the hell – it's an Easter egg), and would tie in with BatmAngelus' idea of having Batman use the Batskiboat to stealthily traverse the sewers of Gotham.

[mrrockey]

I think BatmAngelus covered pretty much everything.

One additional change I would suggest would be to replace Jonathan Crane with Hugo Strange. I like the idea of Scarecrow being the main villain in a film rather than an underling, so this way we could save him for a later movie. And of course in the comics Batman battled Strange before he battled the Joker. Instead of Crane's fear gas, it would be Strange's 'Monster Men' serum. You'd probably have to tone the effects of the serum down a bit for budgetary reasons. So instead of it turning people into giant monsters, it would turn them into roided-up berserkers. Then you could throw in a reference to it at the end of Batman 89, explaining that the final Joker goon Batman fights in the cathedral has been injected with the serum.

Another interesting change might be to replace Victor Zsasz with Otis Flannegan. That would explain why Ratcatcher's costume (or one like it) is on display in Wayne Manor in Batman 89 (of course it's unlikely Bruce would display a crime fighting trophy in Wayne Manor rather than the Batcave, but what the hell – it's an Easter egg), and would tie in with BatmAngelus' idea of having Batman use the Batskiboat to stealthily traverse the sewers of Gotham.

I think we've covered most things, the only real problem I could think of with the Batman Begins we have now is that if we get rid of Bruce's fear of bats like BatmAngelus suggested, then one would wonder why Bruce chooses the bat motif over just going with the kinda burglar-ish look he had before donning the Batsuit.

[BatmAngelus]

SN, LOVE those ideas.

As for the bat motif, there are really two ways to go about it:

1) Take out Bruce's phobia completely, but follow the continuity set with Batman Forever and not have young Bruce fall into the cave until after the funeral, where he sees the bat.
 
This interpretation pretty much combines Bruce's vow to his parents with his "I shall become a bat" epiphany into one moment.  My main issue with this has always been that it's missing the "Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot" connection that helps us get from "I want to prevent what happened to me from happening to everyone else by fighting criminals" to "I'm gonna dress up as a bat to frighten those criminals."  It seems like he jumps to an extra epiphany.  But this would serve the same purpose (in less screentime) and follow what was established in the earlier films.

2) If this is strictly a prequel to the Burton films, we can still follow Begins's structure and, arguably, stay truer to the Frank Miller comics by just taking out how Bruce's fear of bats played a part in his parents' deaths.
Like in both the Dark Knight Returns flashback and the opening of Batman Begins, Bruce falls into the cave as a boy and gets traumatized by the bats there.  His parents get murdered after the movie (but no fear of bats are involved).  Then when he sees the bat(s) again as an adult, it reminds him of that fear he had as a kid and that's what prompts him to don the suit.

#2 would probably be the easiest fix and my preference, provided that you're willing to ignore any continuity with Forever.