My Lego Gotham

[Furstmobile]

Beautiful stuff GB, but what you're building is the 1992 DC Comics "Old Gotham" from the Destroyer story.

The skyline in Nigel Phelps' original charcoal drawings looks completely different, the Grissom building and cathedral tower are nowhere to be found in the 90's comics. According to the editors, they weren't permitted to replicate any prop or building exactly from the films, or they gladly would have. They commissioned Phelps to create a new Gotham for the comic book. Burton wasn't interested in the police perspective or the Wayne corporations, hence why the locations were never designed for the movie. In every old publication related to the movie and indeed the Academy Awards graphics when they hand a pair of Oscars to Peter Young and Furst to recognize the work of the film's art department, it is always these rougher, cruder drawings made for the movie. Old Wayne Tower wasn't created until 92 and now all these misguided, half-baked Anton Furst tribute sites have everyone believing they were just using unused concept art from the movie or proceeding under the assumption that Furst drew it all because of publicity photos/video showing him adding detail to a finished Axis Chemicals drawing.

[GBglide]

I am aware that the comics and movie buildings are different, I intend to do them all eventually. 
As to who made them is immaterial, I love them all regardless.

Thanks for the encouragement.

[GBglide]

I had an interesting idea: What buildings from the drawings would the members of this site like me to do next?

[GBglide]

This time it's the Flugelheim Art Museum. Most buildings come from just drawings and I have a lot of artistic license, not so with buildings that were actual models.
Still, I had to make several compromises/interpretations to make it fit at the scale I'm doing the buildings.
Since I source parts from all over the planet, I will not be ordering bricks for this one until the Corona virus dies down.

Edit: Made the tower thinner.

[GBglide]

This one is the O'Neil Building, It's from the movie.


I'm increasingly frustrated that I can't make them taller. I set the top height with the Cathedral & Wayne Tower, I don't want to make any other buildings taller than that.
I get too drawn in trying to recreate the details on the movie buildings.

Should I recreate this building thinner and less detailed, or should I move on? Any opinions would be appreciated.

[GBglide]

O.K. after careful examination of photos here is what I found.

In the movie the Flugelheim and the Cathedral are several blocks apart, and is about half the size of the Cathedral.


On the set they were right next to each other. Plus, the Flugelheim was almost as large as the foot of the Cathedral.


The model of the Flugelheim is much different than shown in the movie.


In the film the top of the Flugelheim looks completely different (and different from that in other scenes not shown here).


Here is a shot from the movie where the Cathedral isn't even where it should be! (compare to the first pic)


Final assessment: The movie makes building tops out scale from street level and moves buildings around to give the feel of a much larger city than there really was.
The Flugelheim (though shown in the model) is probably meant to be a different building than the Carl Grissom top.

From now on I must take more artistic license with the movie buildings, making sure the skyline looks accurate over slavishly making buildings look exact.
I will have to redo the Flugelheim, and probably scrap the O'Neil building all together. 

[batz1989]

I wouldn't worry about it. Close analysis of the film shows little continuity in the design and layout of the city. If they didn't care, why should you?

[GBglide]

Yeah, that's the consensus from almost everyone I ask.

[batz1989]

Despite the lack of continuity in the film (something I'm sure the comics theoretically could have fixed) it still annoys me that the Burton Gotham never became the "one and only" Gotham from then on. I mean Gotham looks completely different in every deception! Even Bob Kane said "I envisaged Gotham the way I see it now at Pinewood. They've got it, every building, every trash can, every brick". Unless, it was some legal thing where they couldn't copy the buildings exactly, Burton gave the us the one true Gotham and we didn't take it. (At least for very long, I know they somewhat copied the design of the film in the comics in the 90s until it conveniently got destroyed in an earthquake or something). To me  the Gotham in the '89 film and it's sequel is the only "true" Gotham. Just as much as New York has the Empire State Building or Paris has the louvre, Gotham has its cathedral and the flugelheim. The only thing that comes even close is the Arkham Knight Gotham.

[Thomas Ackermann]

O.K. after careful examination of photos here is what I found.

In the movie the Flugelheim and the Cathedral are several blocks apart, and is about half the size of the Cathedral.

When you watch the image carefully, you can see that the cathedral tower is not shown from the same side, it looks like the matte painting is showing the skyline from the other side. So what you suspect to be the flugelheim museum would be right side of the cathedral.

The model of the Flugelheim is much different than shown in the movie.


In fact, the model of the flugeheim museum was used in the scene when the batwing escapes with the baloons and almost hit the cathedral (it's shown for only half second), in other scenes it looks different because the matte paintings where different from the miniature models used

In the film the top of the Flugelheim looks completely different (and different from that in other scenes not shown here).


I belive that this is not really meant to be the flugelheim museum, there is a scene in the movie when the Joker looks up to spot the batwing, with the city hall building in the middle (that is what has grissoms apartment on top, to the right is what should be on top of the flugelheim museum.) These airshots do not match the ground environment, they're always different and not accurate. For example at the begin of the movie, you can see a top down shot from the cathedral with batman sneaking away. You can see the street in front of the cathedral, it should be a one way street but cars are driving left and right. Building footprints looks completly different,...when the scene is shown that i have mentioned before (Joker spots the batwing at the parade) the same scene is showing at the end of the movie when Vicky Vale is walking down the alley, but it is mirrored