Hot Toys Announce Batman Returns License

[Maglor]

Eh, logged in at 12:10ish, checked out a couple of threads, saw DarkMagic's post and made a 5 min post. I'm not as invested in this thing as you might think.

What else can we discuss in here? A teaser image from well over a year ago? A December 2012 preview that hasn't even happened yet?

I'm anxiously waiting for a reply for my damaged Batmobile from Sideshow. The last thing I want to come and read is "Burton and Schumacher is teh same", ya know?

No one is saying that.

 

[Maglor]

Also, that's seriously impressive if you can compose a post that epic in 5 minutes. It took me longer than that to read it.

 

[a-dev]

Great analysis up there Difabio.

 

[DiFabio]

From the first time I saw Forever and B&R I saw the Schumacher Batmobiles as being updates to the Burton Batmobile. They were based on the same long hood design. They are just flamboyant, reflecting the directors vision.

Wrong.

Anton Furst's vision. Also nothing flamboyant about it.

To focus on how impractical the design is when Keaton's Batmobile was already perfect is waaaaay over thinking it.

Except we're talking about story and continuity.

This beauty doesn't just change from this,

To these,

Overnight. That's sort of insulting.

What does a reboot Batmobile look like? The Tumbler.

Well, if "long hood, flamboyant" designs are similar/the same enough, couldn't I say that the Furst Batmobile and Tumbler are both black with pod-like vehicles that emerge from them and that they both reflect a "director's vision"?

So no, that isn't what a reboot looks like, that's what a reimagining of the Batmobile looks like from a different creative team. The '89/Returns Batmobile has more in common with the Begins/TDK Batmobile than it does it's flashy counterparts.

 

[TheFiend]

Yeah, I enjoy reading Difabio's Bat-posts.

 

[snoop101]

Batman Forever is and was always meant to be a sequel. Ive never thought of it as it's "own" movie.

 

[TheFiend]

Ugh, I hate those Schumacher mobiles. They're are just incredibly ugly. They're both overdone but that B&J mobile is waaay overdone.

 

[DiFabio]

Great analysis up there Difabio.

Thanks man.

This discussion actually reminds me of "Terminator 3 is in the same universe/continuity as T1 and T2" (which it's not, just like this).

My question to that is, how did John go from being 10, to 13 and when did he have time to go to "Mike Kripke's basement" when he was hanging out with a different red head,

They're both overdone but that B&J mobile is waaay overdone.

BJ Mobile?

 

[Maglor]

Yeah and I didn't miss those.


- Michael Gough returning as Alfred
- Pat Hingle returning as Gordon
- "Skin tight vinyl and a whip"
- "My parents were also murdered by a madman"




Yup, and it outweighs the above.



- Schumacher and Co. refer to it as a "reinvention", "theirs", "new" and "fresh take"

- New vision with different tone

- Michael Keaton becomes Val Kilmer and Billy Dee Williams becomes Tommy Lee Jones

- Gotham, the suit, the Batmobile, etc. are radically different, revised and rebuilt from the ground up

- Characterization of Bruce Wayne/Batman is changed dramatically to the point where it's a new character

- Bruce has a completely different motivation and origin for becoming Batman

- "I've never been in love before Alfred", referring to Chase Meridian despite the two ladies in Burton's films

I'm not going to do a point-by-point response. DarkMagic already did that. Besides, it would take me a heck of a lot longer than 5 minutes to do it.

Here's my basic problem with the above argument: The points that tie the series together carry much more weight. If Schumacher was trying to say, 'this is a different continuity' none of them would be there. He was clearly building his character and story on the original continuity, you just don't like where he went with it.

I did refer to it as a "soft reboot" and compared it to the recent Bond films didn't I? You even agreed with me.

Here's what I said:

It does make it confusing I agree. I like your term "soft reboot".

To me that means, "it's still a sequel, but we are going to give Batman and Gotham an update, a facelift." They had their cake and ate it too.

A straight reboot or a traditional sequel would have made this all more clearcut, but that's not what we got. So this debate has no right answer. I see all 4 as being in the same continuity, but to some extent I keep the Schumacher films divorced from the Burton films, because I prefer the Burton films so much. When I watch them I give no thought to where Schumacher went with the character.

That's probably similar to how you watch Begins and TDK - divorcing yourself from where Nolan went with the character in TDKR.

And I thought you agreed with me.

I see "soft reboot" as same series, new vision. Like I said, they had their cake and ate it too. And I understand why you don't like it.

When I watch '89 and Returns I'm not thinking about Forever. However, when I watch Forever, I do see it as a sequel with an evolving Bruce Wayne. One who is less disturbed, and more super-hero-y.

Honestly, I do have some cognitive dissonance about the whole thing, but at no point do I try to wash it all away by saying that Schumacher wasn't making a 3rd and 4th movie in a series.

It's clear that WB always considered BF and B&R to be sequels to the Burton films. I just dismiss them as such.

^^^ This guy's honest.

 

[Frank]

DiFabio is speaking my language! I'm glad you mentioned Furst, it really hurts to see him gone so soon after Batman. A genius like that only comes around so often. I think 89 Batman more than any single Batman movie was a perfect confluence of talent, sound, mood, style, restraint, hype and timing. To this day I have never seen a CBM steamroll over an entire generation of kids like that. It was almost Star Wars level devotion!

We also learned you could pull off a darker take on superheroes. It's influenced far more films than Superman did... it can't be gauged strictly by its box office numbers!

Anyway, where the hell is the Bird and the Cat?

 

[DarkMagic]

DiFabio, I respect your opinion, I really do. I even sympathize with it. I personally enjoy the first two Burton movies way more than the last two Schumacher movies in the series. Just like with Superman III and IV, I'd rather the series ended after the first couple of films than shift so dramatically....and in my personal canon, I can and do often ignore those films.

But my personal canon is different than the quote unquote "official" canon. Dunno if you're a big comic reader, but here's an analogy: just like we are perfectly free to personally ignore comic stories that seem way out of character or even DIRECTLY contradict some details of previous issues by other artists/writers...it doesn't change the fact that they are meant to all happen in the same universe. To take it further, I was trying to make a distiction between "vision" and "visuals" a few times but I think you think I'm only talking about "visuals." They are two different things in the context that I mean here. The style of the Batsuit, the Batmobile, Gotham etc, certainly can help or distract from creating a visual link to the styles that came before. But at ultimately a directors visuals are subjective and just superficial when compared to his vision. And by vision I don't mean how things look at all. Christopher Nolan's vision for The Dark Knight wasn't dependent on Maggie Gyllenhaal looking exactly like Katie Holmes, nor was Jon Favreaus vision for Iron Man 2 dependent on Terrence Howard coming back, even though Col Rhodes/ War Machine is a pretty important character for the story he wanted to tell. And that is what I mean by vision...simply what is left when you strip away all the surface layers, of who plays Batman, how the suit is designed, what the Batmobile or the city looks like. Schumacher's vision for Batman Forever, was to tell a story of a Bruce Wayne, who, consistent with the character progression of the previous films was trying to come to grips with his pain, and in the end, is totally accepting of his status as Batman. In Batman '89 it's something that he "has to do"....In Batman Returns he refers to being Batman and Bruce Wayne as being "split down the center"....and in Batman Forever, (spurred on by the competing interests of mentoring Robin as Batman, and loving Chase as Bruce Wayne---distilled in the final death trap scene) he finally progresses to fully accepting his role as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. "Not because I have to be, because I choose to be."

Batman Forever is actually a pretty solid Batman story that shows real character growth/progression of the same character first handled by Keaton and Burton. With some less "flamboyant" visuals and some better dialogue, and maybe if all the props, sets and costumes looked more like they did in Batman Returns, it might've been much easier for people to see past the surface visuals...to the vision.

 

[Frank]

By the way, how much cooler would this guy have been as the Riddler?

Burton's choice before he left the project. It would have completed a "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" triumvirate of bad guys (Nicholson, Devito, Dourif). Love the "Asylum" angle.

Up until he went Depp crazy and put his wife in every single film, Burton had a real gift for casting.

 

[jye4ever]

I'm not going to do a point-by-point response. DarkMagic already did that. Besides, it would take me a heck of a lot longer than 5 minutes to do it.

Here's my basic problem with the above argument: The points that tie the series together carry much more weight. If Schumacher was trying to say, 'this is a different continuity' none of them would be there. He was clearly building his character and story on the original continuity, you just don't like where he went with it.






Here's what I said:



And I thought you agreed with me.

I see "soft reboot" as same series, new vision. Like I said, they had their cake and ate it too. And I understand why you don't like it.

When I watch '89 and Returns I'm not thinking about Forever. However, when I watch Forever, I do see it as a sequel with an evolving Bruce Wayne. One who is less disturbed, and more super-hero-y.

Honestly, I do have some cognitive dissonance about the whole thing, but at no point do I try to wash it all away by saying that Schumacher wasn't making a 3rd and 4th movie in a series.





^^^ This guy's honest.

Are you saying that DiFabio is vacationing on Denial

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

This place is turning into an online community Batman encyclopedia!!!

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

..or a Michael Uslin endorsed online university degree in Batamn-ology.

 

[Frank]

..or a Michael Uslin endorsed online university degree in Batamn-ology.

What's wrong with that Batdamnit?

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Figures..

Where deyz at.

 

[DiFabio]

Figures..

Where deyz at.

They were cancelled.

Hot Toys figured that the Burton films and Schumacher films were one in the same and decided to develop Batman Forever figures instead.

Coming Soon December 2018

I hope I don't get a damaged blue neon glow, Burtonmobile.

 

[Double J]

308 pages and not a single pic of a figure.

 

[jye4ever]

They were cancelled.


Hot Toys figured that the Burton films and Schumacher films were one in the same and decided to develop Batman Forever figures instead.

Coming Soon December 2018