Category Archives: Editorial

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Thirteen : A Brief Aside, Followed By A Recap Of Where We Are Now

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

 

By most, if not all. accounts, Neal Adams is one of the most significant artists to ever draw the Caped Crusader — some might even argue the most significant. You’d never guess as much, though, if you were unfamiliar with Adams’ previous work and  all you ever saw of his art was the picture of a rather deranged-looking Bruce Wayne reproduced above.  To be fair, though, said panel is from the pages of Batman : Odyssey, truly one of the most flabbergasting superhero comics I’ve ever laid eyes on, and which DC will be collecting in hardcover format just a few short days from now (assuming they stick to their publishing schedule, which is sometimes a rather iffy proposition).

When word first got out that Adams was returning to Batman, reaction in the fan community was ecstatic — when the first issue of the series itself came out, though, reality set in and people suddenly remembered that while Adams was — and for the most part remains, don’t let that pic sway you too much — a fantastic visual storyteller, he’s also, well — a unique, shall we say, writer, as evidenced in the past by his creations such as Ms. Mystic (still the only comic I’ve ever seen that shows a deer in the woods throwing up!) and the astonishingly stupid  Skateman. Needless to say, once it became  apparent  (like, on page one of issue one) that Batman : Odyssey was going to have a lot more to do with Adams riding his many personal hobby-horses than it was going to concern itself with indulging in trivialities like telling an actual coherent story, negative reaction was both swift and merciless.

On the most liminal level, I suppose, the numerous (and voluminous) critics are right — there’s no doubt that Batman : Odyssey is a tremendously self-indulgent work, with Adams ensuring prominent roles for all his favorite supporting characters such as Ra’s Al Ghul (who he co-created) and contriving a “plot,” painfully circuitous as it is, that somehow manages to get Batman riding on the back of a fucking pterodactyl inside the center of the Earth, thus ensuring that he gets a chance to expound — at great length! — about the “hollow Earth,” or, as he prefers to call them, “expanding Earth,” theories that he holds near and dear to his heart. I’ve even seen this series referred to as the comics equivalent of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room on more than one occasion.

But you know what? I’m here today to tell you that all the naysayers out there are wrong. Sort of. Sure, Batman : Odyssey makes no rational sense whatsoever — that’s the best thing about it! Whatever happened to liking a book just because it’s pure, stupid, unadulterated fun? We’re talking about a guy who dresses up like a bat and fights crime! It’s too late to demand to “grittiness” and “realism” in a Batman story from the very outset! Just roll with it, folks, and enjoy the unhinged ride! Besides, if Grant Morrison wrote a comic that featured Batman riding around on dinosaurs inside the center of the Earth, he’d be getting praise heaped on him for being “post-ironic,” and for “celebrating the nonsensical values inherent in the super-hero genre” — yet when Adams does it it’s proof that he’s “lost a step,” is “out of touch with the modern comics readership,” and, most insultingly, that he might be just plain “losing his grip on reality.” What’s up with that double-standard?

Okay, yes, Neal’s older now, and his art is a lot more —- uhhhmmmm — “free-form,” to be generous about it,  and loosey-goosey than it used to be, but it’s still head and shoulders above any of the guys working on the monthly Bat-books today, all of whom are determined to reflect in their visual renderings the oh-so-somber tones of the uber-serious writers like Scott Snyder who are handling  the scripting chores. All in all, while it admittedly goes waaaaayyyyy too far in the other direction, Batman : Odyssey is the perfect antidote to the modern version of the Dark Knight Detective, which has become mired in the act of taking itself far too seriously for its own good.

Most of the book, too, is narrated by a curiously shirtless Bruce Wayne, which brings us around to , I suppose, the actual subject of today’s post, which is the next step in the plot of our hypothetical Batman I movie, namely the “official” return of Bruce Wayne to Gotham City.

As you’ll recall if you’ve been following this series of posts, when last we left things, our guy Bruce had hopped a train west in preparation for catching a flight back home that was to signal the public end to his decade-plus-long sojourn to parts unknown. Needless to say, we know what the press and public doesn’t, which is that Gotham’s favorite (read : wealthiest) son has actually been ducking in and out of town for a couple years putting his “batcave” together, and setting to work as the as-yet-unnamed “bat-vigilante” in the evenings, as well (so as to avoid one rather obvious, but to my knowledge never-before-asked, question, namely : isn’t it awfully convenient that the Batman starts to turn up in town at pretty much the same time as the return of the prodigal Mr. Wayne?). We then segued into a series of brief introductory segments featuring  most of the more prominent members of the series’ supporting cast — Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent, and Selina Kyle/Catwoman, respectively — and now it’s time to pick things back up with the media circus that’s sure to greet Brucie-Boy from the moment he touches down on the tarmac.

We’ll get to all that tomorrow, though. For now, I leave you with one last thought vis a vis all the Neal Adams-bashing that’s been going on in the comics world over the last year-plus : guess who’s getting the last laugh? Neal Adams, “senile and over the hill” as he is, just inked an apparently-quite-lucrative deal to write and draw a six-part, sure-to-be-heavily-promoted, X-Men “event”-style miniseries for Marvel. It’ll probably be scoffed at by the quasi-sophisticated “elite” readership out there — you know, the folks  who, if they were so fucking discerning, wouldn’t be reading superhero comics in the first place — but sell like hotcakes regardless. And while it’s sure to make very little, if any, conventionally-defined sense, it’ll probably still be better than Avengers Vs. X-Men by a ludicrously wide margin.

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Twelve : A Few Words About Catwoman

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

 

It occurs to me that before we delve into the “meat,” so to speak, of our story any further, I should take a brief step back and say explain what I have in mind for Catwoman , at least conceptually, in our little hypothetical series, and since my last post ended with her on-screen introduction, and I’ve mentioned a time or eight that she will be playing a major part in the Batman I, II, and III trilogy, now is probably as good a time as any to give folks an idea of what I view the “ideal” Catwoman for this series to be like.

Which doesn’t mean I’m going to drop names as to who should be playing her. Sorry. Casting ideas are waaaaayyyy down the road a piece, after our plot is all laid out, so we’re not going anywhere near all that — yet. Can’t say I blame you for trying, though!

Anyway, as you know, I never pic our introductory graphics for these pieces by accident, so if you want to know what sort of Catwoman I’m picturing for this series, she’s right there on top of this post. I know, I know — a real Julie Newmar style “feline fatale” would be great, but that , again, (sigh) “just wouldn’t fly with a contemporary audience,” and is also way heavier on the camp than her character requirements in this reboot call for, where — without giving a way too much! — she’s going to go from Batman’s flirtatious friend/foe to essentially “full-time” love interest to, at a very crucial point, the voice of his conscience.

But, again, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. Obviously, Catwoman is always going to be sexy — she can’t help herself! — but we don;t want to go too overtly heavy on the sex appeal a la the Halle Berry version of the character. The PVC bondage look of Michelle Pfeiffer’s incarnation is out, too. And Anne Hathaway’s super-contemporary look is a bit too non-feline and frankly eschews the more “old school” vibe we’re going with from top to bottom here.

So — the cartoon Catwoman it is. Not, of course, that I would want, or even expect, her to look exactly like that once she hits the screen. I’m just saying that her overall visual aesthetic should be based on, or at the very least inspired by, that sort of look. It’s a map, not the destination itself. Just so we’re clear on that.

One thing that I definitely want to emphasize in this series, and that I thought Nolan did a nice job with is The Dark Knight Rises, is that Batman and Catwoman come from very different “sides of the tracks,” so to speak, socio-economically speaking. While I wouldn’t come right on out and portray her as being a prostitute like Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli did in Batman : Year One, it should be clear that she’s seen her fair share of hard times and that she isn;t necessarily proud of everything she’s done to provide for herself and, as we’ve already seen in our last post, her younger sister. This is somebody that’s called Catwoman not just because she loves her furry feline friends, but because she’s had to bite, scratch, and claw for everything she’s got.

So that’s how I see the overall shape of her character, with several blanks to be filled in as we continue filling in plot details. On a “housekeeping” note, I’ll be taking the next couple days off from doing any sort of blogging, but this series should be resuming on either Wednesday or Thursday. I’ll be doing quite a bit of writing on horror movies during the month of October, but should hopefully still have time to do one or two entries in this Batman series every week, as well, so look for something a bit more balanced in terms of my overall output in the days and weeks to come — I won’t be ignoring this series for two or three weeks as I did a little while back there, but I won’t be making new entries almost daily as I’ve managed to do for the last week or two, either. I think one or twice a week — heck ,maybe three times — is enough to sustain the interest of most folks without having this series consume all my writing time, but we shall see.

In any case, as always, I look forward to your thoughts, dear reader, on today’s matter at hand. What sort of Catwoman would you consider to be ideal?

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Eleven : Other Principal Players

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Hello once again, friends, and welcome to yet another in this seemingly endless series on relaunching the Batman franchise for the silver screen. Our introductory graphic this time around comes from the rather lackluster Batman : Earth One graphic novel, which I don’t really recommend anyone actually read, but I’m kicking things off with this picture because it’s a pretty accurate depiction of how I’m thinking Jim Gordon ought to look in this movie, and where this story falls for him chronologically in terms of his career. More about which in a very brief moment —

So, as we left things yesterday, Bruce Wayne was on his way back to Gotham, having headed west Boxcar Willie-style and spent most of the trip daydreaming about his past, giving us a pastiche of origin/background scenes to either tell us what we already know about his origins or tease us with aspects we may not be as familiar with. It seems to me that this point in our hypothetical Batman I  would be a pretty good time to introduce our other key cast members before lunging into the media circus that will await Batman in his “civilian” identity when he “officially” returns home.

First off I think police commissioner Jim Gordon (who, it should be noted, will be holding the “top cop” job from the start of this series) merits a quick intro, and while I hate to say “any scene showing him to be a good cop at this point will do,” the truth of the matter is — any scene showing him to be a good cop at this point will do. I’m thinking a little confrontation with his former partner, the hopelessly corrupt Lieutenant Flass, would serve our purposes well, maybe with Gordon on the right side of a set of cell bars and Flass on the wrong side, with some dialogue between them along the lines of Gordon near-taunting Flass about being sent upriver along with the rest of Carmine Falcone’s men, while Flass retorts limply with something like “way to sell out your old partner, Jimmy-boy, you got to the top on the backs of 80 good cops you sold out,” and Gordon responding with “80 cops, maybe, but good cops? Don’t kid yourself, Flass — anyway, just came to say goodbye, Harvey Dent will be seeing you in court in a few hours, and he’s batting .1000 with his conviction rate.”

Which will, of course, naturally lead to a scene showing Harvey Dent, maybe eating a bowl of cereal at home, with his wife, Gilda, in the background. He’s got a newspaper opened up next to him on the table, and Gilda asks who’s on his docket that day. He mentions the names of four Falcone deputies, including Flass. She says he must be feeling confident since he doesn’t have any legal briefs in front of him. “Just catching up on what’s happening around town?” She takes the paper and says “what is happening around town — besides you and Gordon finally cleaning up all the garbage?” At this point she takes a look at the article he was reading and says “ahhhh, the notorious cat-burglar — is she on your radar screen next?” “No need to be jealous, honey, the truth is she won’t be on my radar screen until Jim and his boys actually catch her,” all of which, of course, will lead us to —

A rather shabby-chic, semi-Bohemian-looking apartment in an obviously run-down part of town, where, dawn breaking, a lithe figure slinks in through an open window in a rather skin-tight outfit. She shoos about a dozen cats aside before reaching into a sewed-in compartment on her costume and taking out a couple pearl necklaces, diamond rings, and a wad of large bills, which she quickly locks away in a safe in her closet. A disembodies voice asks “Selina? Is that you? And we see the voice belongs to a 16-or 17-year old girl who’s still in bed, a few cats laying around her. Selina removes her mask and goggles, leans over her young charge, kisses her on the forehead, says “ssshhhh — yes, it’s me — just back from work — go on back to sleep, you’ve still got an hour or so before school,” and with that, we’ve “met,” at least in passing, the three most significant supporting cast members in our series not named Alfred.

So that’s the intros out of the way — next up we’ll have the much-talked-about-on-this-blog-already “return” of Bruce Wayne to Gotham, so please check back tomorrow if you’re interested in the details of just exactly how all that’s going to play out!

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Ten : Flashbacks And Origins

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

 

If you’ll recall, when we left things yesterday, the basic plot background for our hypothetical Batman I  was pretty well underway, and Bruce Wayne was hopping onto the back of a boxcar to make his way westward in preparation for catching a flight there that would mark his “official” return to Gotham City. Which probably, and quite naturally, makes you wonder why I would choose to kick this post off with the cover to the classic 1970s Batman origin story “There Is No Hope In Crime Alley!” by Denny O’Neil and Dick Giordano (who was in full Neal Adams rip-off mode at the time, like a lot of the comics industry).

Well, friends, that’s because I figure that this type of scene would give us the best opportunity to give this flick the closest thing I really want it to have to an “origin of the Batman” sequence, which would consist largely of flashbacks running across Bruce’s bat-brain as he takes in scenic views of the vast American landscape. Ideally, I wouldn’t think this montage would need to last more than four or five minutes, but it should hit on all the following key points:

It should start with the by-now-ubiquitous murder of young Bruce Wayne’s parents, followed by a scene of him dropping out of a prestigious prep school, followed by several scenes of intense martial arts and physical stamina training in a wilderness environment where he’s seen side-by-side with numerous other black-clad “ninja-type” guys (spoiler alert! This will be revealed to be Ra’s Al Ghul and his “League Of Shadows” outfit in the second film of our imaginary series), finally wrapping up with some scenes showing the Batman’s earliest exploits rounding up the Gotham crime lords as we laid out in our last little installment here.

I was giving some serious thought as to whether this flashback montage should be in black and white or color, and finally decided on the simple answer of : frankly, it doesn’t really matter. I’m sure a skilled director can pull it off either way and maybe making the whole thing B&W would be a little bit too obvious. In any case, that’s about as “deep” into the origins as we really need this story to go for our purposes. As the scene concludes, we can show Bruce jumping off the train into the quiet, just-post-dawn West Coast morning, and when we next join him, it will be an in entirely different, complete-media-circus-type atmosphere.

I suppose, short and sweet as it is, that’s probably as good a spot as any to leave things for today, since slow, steady, and methodical is our MO here with this series, I’ll just “tease” tomorrow’s installment by saying this — we’ll be leaving Bruce Wayne for a short while and meeting our other principal players, namely Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent, and Selina Kyle before we get back to the star of the show, so their various methods of introduction will be what we take a look at a short 24 hours (or less) from now.

Until then, as always, I welcome any thoughts, criticisms, concerns, critiques, etc. that you, dear reader, may have about today’s (admittedly rather brief) addition to this little ongoing blogging opus-of-sorts I’m in the midst of here.

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Nine : The Story Takes Shape

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

 

The above image, in case you hadn’t figured it out, is an updating of the classic Batman “quick-version” origin story, “The Legend Of The Batman – Who He Is And How He Came To Be” by Bill Finger and Bob Kane that I included with the last post. This modernized version was done for the Jeph Loeb/Jim Lee Batman storyline “Hush,” which is considered something of a modern “classic” even though, for my money, it pretty much sucks. I’ve never been a fan of Lee’s art, and the story here is essentially another drawn-out murder mystery by Loeb a la his “Long Halloween” storyline, and in point of fact he even employs the exact same plot conceit to disguise the identity of the true killer that he used in that previous series! All of which has precisely zero to do, specifically, with the hypothetical storyline of our hypothetical Bat-trilogy, save for one thing — folks who have read the “Hush” story should know that the Batman/Catwoman relationship depicted therein will have a big influence on how I see their relationship developing in this series. In an ideal world, I suppose, we’d just be able with this new series to come right out and admit a couple less-than-well-kept secrets about the Batman — namely that he’s gay and that he has a taste for a bit of, as the British would so politely put it, “rough trade,” but I think the world is, sadly, about 20 years years away from being ready and able to accept an openly gay Batman, so in this trilogy we’re going to keep up the pretense, paper-thin as it’s getting to be at this point, that the Caped Crusader is, indeed, heterosexual.

But we’re a good few posts away from really getting into the “meat” of how I see the whole Batman/Catwoman relationship evolving, being that we just wrapped up our pre-credit “teaser” sequence, the credits themselves have just rolled, and the there’s already a bit of a conundrum brewing in the audience’s mind as to whether or not this really is the Batman we’ve always known — as in, Bruce Wayne — at all.

Our first scene after the credits roll would be to see Bruce Wayne examining a large computer screen in the nearly-completed Batcave, and as the ever-reliable Alfred Pennyworth enters, they’ll exchange some dialogue about how two years of intense legwork are nearly complete — the cave itself, where Wayne has essentially been living and training, is all set, the “Bat vigilante” is firmly fixed in the public mind as a force that seems to be on their side, and their super-computer has been able to pin all the crime lords in town barring Vincent Lucchesi with plenty of criminal charges. Now is the time for the next phase in Bruce Wayne’s master plan to begin — he’ll “return” to Gotham officially, stake his claim to Wayne Enterprises through a surrogate, take the reins of the Thomas And Martha Wayne Foundation himself as his “day job,” and at night he’ll concentrate on nailing Lucchesi in his “Bat-vigilante” persona.

For that, though, he’ll need some help — and he’s zeroed in on two people on the “inside” that he’s made a calculated determination he can trust — new police commissioner Jim Gordon and new DA Harvey Dent. His period of working alone is over, and now that he’s delivered every other big crime lord in town to them, he’s earned a level of trust and respect from both these men. Lucchesi’s going to be a tougher nut to crack, though, because unlike the other guys, who could all be tied to the drug trade eventually through various phony business set-ups, bank accounts, etc., Gotham’s last “crime lord” doesn’t actually seem to be involved in the drug trade at all — the strangest thing Bruce Wayne/Batman has been able to come across in regards to Lucchesi is his well-concealed , even more well-concealed than the other guys were in regards to their involvement with the drug trade, orchestration of the shipment of large amounts of a perfectly legal, albeit quite dangerous, form of liquefied fertilizer into town, which naturally has Batman thinking that he’s working on a massive bomb of some sort.

Now, hopefully a competent screenwriter quite weave all this into a naturally-enough-sounding conversation that wasn’t too heavy on the info-dump and that would end with Alfred saying something along the lines of “well, all these questions will have to wait, sir, because Bruce Wayne is due in on a flight from San Francisco at noon on Friday.”

“And so I do, Alfred, and so I do.”

“And how, pray tell, do you intend to get to San Francisco undetected, sir?”

“You know, Alfred, I’m feeling a bit nostalgic — I thought I’d hop the rails for old times’ sake.”

I think I’ll leave it at that for now, since the next scene, with a clearly disguised-to-give-him-a-disheveled appearance Bruce Wayne playing hobo and riding in the back of a boxcar is the next crucial stage in the overall setup of the film’s first act and probably deserves a post of its own, so we’ll focus in on that tomorrow.

What say you to our little setup so far, then? Thumbs up? Thumbs down? Still too early to tell? As always, any and all comments are welcome, whether positive, negative, or aggressively neutral!

 

 

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Eight : Finally, The Story Begins!

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

So here we are, after seven posts setting up background, detail, etc., and we’re finally ready to begin exploring the (admittedly skeletal) plot structure I have in place for our new Detroit-filmed, more-emphasis-on-the-detective-and-heroic-aspects-of-the-character Bat-trilogy, which we’re (tentatively, at any rate) simply titling, in succession, Batman I, Batman II, and Batman III.

But first a word about that classic “Legend Of The Batman” panel “by” Bob Kane reproduced above. Like all the classic early Bat-stories, it was drawn by Kane, but the story and all the concepts behind it are the work of comics writer Bill Finger, who Kane conspired with DC management with to completely screw out of his co-creator’s claim to the Batman character. If you want to know how complete and thorough-going was finger’s contribution to the Caped Crusader, consider not only that by most reputable accounts he created Gotham City, The Joker, and Robin, but that when Kane first approached Finger with his idea for a new comics character, he called him — I shit you not — “Birdman,” and wanted him to dress as, no surprise, a bird of some sort. That whole bat idea? It was all Finger’s. And for all his troubles he died dead broke, buried in an unmarked grave, while Kane went on to make millions, and DC billions, off his ideas. So it’s to the immortal, yet criminally unsung, memory of Bill Finger that I dedicate my own admittedly completely unsolicited and sure-to-be-unread-by-anyone-who-could-ever-do-anything-about-them ideas here. Unlike Warners, DC, and Bob Kane himself, at least I have the decency to admit from the outset that none of the work I’m doing here would be possible without the truly mighty imaginings of the late, great Bill Finger. He is the giant the rest of us stand on the shoulders of.

All that aside, fear not, as we’ve already established we’re still talking about a “soft” reboot here that doesn’t concentrate itself terribly heavily on Batman’s origins, although the story does take place early in his career. I just thought for a visual accompaniment to the text here we may as well begin at the character’s beginnings — but fear not, the overall “plan,” such as it is, to “play down” the origin aspects of the story remains in place. And so, without any further ado, here’s how I think I’d begin the initial pre-credits sequence of our hypothetical Batman I —

We’re on the set of a daytime news/chat-type show called “Gotham City Today” or somesuch, with two presenters, one male and one female. The female presenter launches into the top news stories from overnight, the first being that the so-called “Bat vigilante” has stuck again, this time delivering the sixth of seven of Gotham’s most notorious reputed “crime lords” into police custody, along with incriminating computer files that should , in theory, give new district attorney Harvey dent more than enough ammunition to prosecute the guy. Speculation is rampant as to the identity of the “Bat-vigilante,” with most wondering whether or not he’s either a surce within the police department itself or a member of some computer-hacking collective a la “Anonymous,” so complete and thorough are the dossiers he’s been handing over along with the crooks themselves.

The anchorwoman’s male counterpart then cuts in with something along the lines of “but one menace he’s been unable to deliver over to the law is the notorious cat-burglar who’s been prowling Gotham’s rooftops at night, cleaning out the safes of one penthouse apartment after another. She apparently struck again last evening, looting the residence of our own station owner of well over one million dollars in cash, jewelry, and other valuables, leaving only her trademark claw-scratch on one of the paintings in his home.”

Back to the female anchor who assures audiences that both the bat-vigilante and the cat-burglar are priorities two and three of new police commissioner Jim Gordon and the aforementioned DA Harvey Dent, right behind the city’s sole remaining crime kingpin, one Vincent Lucchesi (apologies to any and all Italian readers for making the head mobster in town of Italain origin, I’m just not creative enough to come up with anything better, I honestly mean no offense), before segueing into something along the lines of ” — and on a lighter note, all of Gotham is abuzz with the imminent return home on Friday of our city’s most fortunate son, and certain to be most eligible bachelor, Bruce Wane, after twelve years spent abroad. Where all has he been and what’s he been doing? Why is he coming home now? And what are his plans for the future? We’re pleased to say that all that and more will be discussed when yours truly sits down with Mr. Wayne for an exclusive interview here on Gotham City Today next Monday morning.”

And with that little “teaser” in place, we roll our opening credits —

Hopefully that should whet your appetites to keep reading every bit as much as it will whet the audience’s to find out exactly what’s going on here, so I’ll leave it at that for now, but rest assured, I’ll be back tomorrow with more, and all should hopefully become apparent!

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Seven : What’s In A Name?

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

That right there, friends, is my personal favorite Batman logo.

I know, I know — it’s far too campy and cartoonish to fly in today’s movie market, but the hypothetical Bat-trilogy we’re cooking up in this series of posts is, as we’ve established, probably going to have a lot more emphasis on the heroic and detective aspects of the character than it is on the “Dark Knight” aspects. and as such, I like to think having this new trilogy go out under an “old school” logo like that would be a pretty cool thing. And while this particular logo may not be the exact logo from the old Adam West Batman TV show per se, it’s still pretty close, at least thematically, so any way you slice it, I’m sure it’s a no-go.

That being said, there is a somewhat “retro” logo that I think would form a rather apropos visual backbone for this new trilogy, namely this one from the late-80s/early-90s  DC Bat-books —

Sure, it’s still not quite the perfect look, but it’s pretty cool , evokes just the right touch of the past, yet still wouldn’t be totally off-putting to a contemporary audience. It would, of course, inevitably be tinkered and toyed with, but that’s more than okay, since my point isn’t so much that it’s a perfect logo, by any means, merely that its design would form a nice visual basis for whatever sort of logo the series would, inevitably, end up with.

But you know what? It’s not logos I’m here, specifically, to talk about. That’s just a side issue, although one that fits in with what I am actually here to talk about which is — plot details, right? Well, that was the plan. And it’s still the plan. But it’s going to have to wait until Monday because I’m still cooking up a few minor details and tomorrow my free time is limited and I’m firmly committed to reviewing the latest Before Watchmen book for my own website, http://trashfilmguru.wordpress.com. So plot stuff is coming, I promise — on Monday.

What’s the whole subject here today, then? Apart from logos, that is? Well, titles. Because is strikes me that what we’re gonna call these flicks is actually, you know, kind of important. And as good as I thought Batman Begins was as a film, I still think it’s kind of a stupid title. With the whole “Dark Knight” concept being one this series is sort of moving away from, or at least toning down, starting things off with a flick called something like The Dark Knight Returns is out, too — and would just cause confusion with the Frank Miller book of the same name, anyway.

The basic title of Batman is probably a no-go, too, since it’s been used twice already, in both the 1960s and 1980s, but I do, ideally, want this series to have more a Batman feel than a Dark Knight feel, so what does that leave us with? I have to admit it was something I was kind of struggling with in my mind, until I realized that sometimes the most basic names are the best, and sometimes the most workable solutions to problems are hiding in plain sight, to wit —

How about we just call these things Batman I, Batman II, and Batman III? Sure, it’s basic, maybe even (okay, definitely) unimaginative, but what the heck? Most of the folks out there would just say they want a ticket for “Batman,” whichever “Batman” it is, when they get to the box office anyway, so it’s definitely functional, at any rate. And yes, the idea of putting a I in the title of the first flick might be a bit presumptuous, but having “Episode I” in the title for The Phantom Menace didn’t hurt its performance at the gate any (nor did uniformly horrible reviews), and for a more current example of the same concept working out okay take a look at Atlas Shrugged, Part I, which has a sequel on the way even though the first movie lost tens of millions of dollars and was laughed off even by many of the same members of the “Cult Of Rand” at which it was squarely — and, frankly, solely — aimed. So maybe openly stating one’s intent to make more films in a series in the title of the first film is one way to guarantee that said successive films will happen?

Nah. I think that that theory’s a pretty dubious one at best, too, and I know full well that Atlas Shrugged, Part II  is only happening because a couple of Rand-fans with very deep pockets agreed to finance a trilogy from the outset, but still — I think Batman I, II, and III works (or rather would  work, mustn’t get ahead of myself) just fine, even if it doesn’t exactly reek of brilliance and/or originality.

I’ll be back Monday with — I swear! — the first plot details, but until then you’ve got 48 hours to tell me why this idea is brilliant, stupid, or somewhere in the middle —

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Six : Should It Stay Or Should It Go? Part Two

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

I’ll be honest — I’ve never played the apparently-insanely-popular Batman : Arkham City video game — or any Batman-related video game, for that matter  As far as I understand it, though, the idea behind it is that there’s been a jailbreak of some sort at Arkham Asylum and all the “lunatic” criminals — uhhhmmmm — “housed” there are now loose on the streets of Gotham.

Neat idea, and it seems to be catching, as there’s an Arkham City comic book mini-series being published by DC as we speak. Wonder where they got it the concept from in the first place? Oh yeah — it was the central plot conceit in the third act of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, although the video game, apparently, ups the ante quite considerably.

All of which leads us, in an admittedly rather roundabout way, to the subject of today’s “What I’d Do Next With The Who ‘Batman’ Movie Franchise” thing, namely — which specific plot points and/or characters from Nolan’s trilogy would I keep in the franchise’s inevitable relaunch (which, if you’ll recall, is going to be of the “soft” variety)? Well, let’s take a look at precisely that —

As preamble, let me state that I need, once again, to beg your indulgence, dear reader, for a day or so here because all I’m going to do here today is give you a laundry list of the specific items I’d keep, but not go so far as to explain why. Fear not, though, the why is coming — and in detail! — over the next several days as I lay out in detail the specific plotline I have in mind for the new hypothetical trilogy we’re planning here (we did, in fact, decide it was going to be another trilogy a few weeks back, remember? I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t). So here’s what I’d keep, and tomorrow I’ll start in on why I’m keeping this stuff — or rather, my plot outline should, if its communicated even semi-coherently (always a gamble with me) demonstrate on its face this “why” factor I’m harping on about.

Needless to say, the “Arkham jailbreak” idea makes the cut. I have no desire to have it be on as grand a scale as the video game probably depicts, or even as grand as Nolan’s original iteration of the event, but it’s gonna be in there, as is the guy who was behind it in the movie, Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka The Scarecrow, although in somewhat reduced form. I like The Scarecrow. I like the whole “fear gas” thing. I think it worked, and can work again, albeit with a different spin, I think, on things. And speaking of villains —

My hypothetical new trilogy will, indeed, feature many of the same principal baddies as Nolan’s films. I’m thinking, specifically, that in addition to The Scarecrow, we’ll be looking at Harve “Two-Face” Dent again, in a dramatically expanded role, Ra’s Al Ghul in a somewhat reduced role (and not until the second film), The Joker is an essentially similar role (lead villain in the second film), and Catwoman in, like Two-Face, a very much expanded role. In fact, as I’m looking at things right now, but Harvey Dent and Selina Kyle will feature prominently in all three imaginary (sigh) films of our imaginary (sigh again) trilogy.

As for what else I’d keep from the Nolan flicks, I’m thinking the idea of a somewhat younger Bruce Wayne (at least to start with) is a keeper, as are supporting cast members Lucius Fox, corrupt cop Lieutenant Flass, and, of course, Alfred Pennyworth and Jim Gordon. There will be differences in how they’re depicted, though, that range from the subtle to the radically different.

I guess that’s what we call a bit of a “teaser” for the next installment in this series of posts, isn’t it? Well, rest assured, friends, I’m on a definite roll here (even if it’s only in my own mind), and part seven of this ever-evolving thang will go up at some point tomorrow, barring unforeseen calamity of some sort, knock wood.I hope to see you back here then as I begin to take these pieces, add in some others (naturally), and then show you just how I think this whole unwieldy jigsaw should be put together.

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise ? Take Five : Should It Stay Or Should It Go? Part One

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

It’s funny how life works, isn’t it? Three weeks ago I said I’d be back here in a week to continue this series on how I think the Batman film franchise should be relaunched, and that week off became two, became three — anyway, I apologize, but I’m back. I could bore you with the usual litany of excuses as to why my absence was longer than expected, all of which are, in this case, true — busy at work, lots of shit going on outside of work, etc., but I’ll spare you all that (whoops!, guess I sort of subjected you to them in an off-handed manner already), and simply say for those of you who actually look forward to these little rants of mine, I sincerely apologize for the delay.

That being said, not all my time between posts has been wasted. For example, I had the good fortune to purchase, and subsequently read, an excellent little book by one Dr. Julian Darius, published under the auspices of his own imprint, Sequart Literacy & Research Organization, called Improving The Foundations : Batman Begins From Comics To Screen that’s set me to thinking about all this shit in a far more serious and cohesive manner than I had before.

Darius’ little tome essentially tracks back all the various threads that went into Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and while the whole book makes for some pretty fascinating reading, I have to admit that the stuff I found most interesting was in the section that covered the various version of Batman that didn’t make it to the big (and small) screens in the period between Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin debacle and Nolan’s first flick. I won’t rehash any of it here because I honestly want folks who are interested to read Darius’ book, as well as to support Sequart because they’re a fine bunch of folks, but I will say this much — reading through all that has given me a much better understanding of what won’t work when the time comes to relaunch Batman on celluloid and, more importantly perhaps, why it won’t work.

All of which brings me, rather neatly, full-circle in terms of where I’d been intending to take this series of posts anyway. I promised this next segment would deal with the elements I’d keep from the Nolan series, but before I delve into the nitty-gritty of the details, which I’ll do tomorrow, let me just state for the record the one overarching philosophical approach practiced by Nolan and screenwriter David S. Goyer that I would most definitely stick with : a “scattershot,” pick-n’-choose approach to adapting/borrowing material from the comics and reformulating all these disparate elements into a version that works best for cinema.

While a more literalist approach to translating the Dark Knight’s origins to the silver screen would have been to say “let’s just do a pretty faithful adaptation of Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli’s Batman : Year One” — an approach the studio even tried by bringing in Miller himself to write a treatment based on his comic — the Nolan/Goyer tandem was happy to borrow some of the best, or at least best-suited-for-cinematic-adaptation, elements not only from Year One, but from the old 1970s Batman stories by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams, from the previously-discussed-in-these-parts Batman : The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, and even from Miller’s legendary, though-in-no-way-an-origin-story Batman : The Dark Knight Returns. And as the Nolan bat-series wore on, they continued this approach of borrowing liberally from disparate periods of the Caped Crusader’s history and adapting the stuff they were grabbing to better suit their overall vision (Bane certainly didn’t start out as a vigilante for the 99% crowd, for instance — he was just a typical 1990s ripped-on-‘roids villain in a wrestling mask).

So even more than any particular plot details, I think the most valuable lesson whoever Warners hires to helm the next chapter in the Caped Crusader’s cinematic exploits can take from Nolan is this overall “take what you want and put it all together in whatever way suits you best” approach. Details matter, to be sure, and we’ll delve into those a bit more tomorrow, but for the time being, since I promised to be almost painstakingly focused/ incremental here, I just wanted to set the stage beforehand by saying that approach is one that I think by and large served the last Bat-trilogy well, at least in terms of overall concept if not always in its execution, and that I can think of no coherent reason to chuck it overboard and go for a more “this must be just like the comics” approach that’s only going to make die-hard, long-time readers of Batman’s adventures on the printed page happy while alienating pretty much anyone and everyone else. And on that note, I’ll save the rest for tomorrow’s (I promise!) installment.

One Million Hits and Counting!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Photograph by Erin Nicole Bowman

Just a few minutes ago, we reached a milestone here at Through the Shattered Lens.  What was that milestone?  Well, as you might have guessed from the picture above, this site has now been viewed over a million times!

YAY!

I can still remember the day that Arleigh first invited me to help him with his site.  Back then, the site was still known as Unobtainium 13 and I was so incredibly flattered to be asked to contribute.  My first review for this site was of the odd 1970s blaxploitation film Welcome Home, Brother Charles and I remember how nervous I was when I first posted it and how happy I was when I discovered that the old saying was indeed true: If you write it, someone will read it.  And, sometimes, if you’re really, really lucky, they’ll leave you a nice comment.

Back then, we had one subscriber* and we were excited if we just managed to get 500 views a day.  The site has grown a lot since then and, two years after I first wrote that review of Welcome Home, Brother Charles, I can truly say that I still love writing for this site just as much as I did during those first few months.  And I’m looking forward to continuing to write for this site for as long as Arleigh is willing to put up with me.

Finally, allow me to take a moment to thank two very special groups of people.

First off, thank you to my fellow Shattered Lens contributors for all that they’ve done and all that they continue to do for this site.  This site, which is a true labor of love, could never have grown without each and every one you.  On a personal note, I feel as if I’ve grown up along with this site and for that, I will always be beyond grateful.

Finally, thank you to everyone who has ever taken a chance and visited this site.

Whether you were looking for a film review, a music review, a comic review, a video game review, a grindhouse movie trailer, a pulp artist profile, the latest in anime, or a hottie of a day, thank you!

Thank you for visiting, thank you for reading, thank you for subscribing, thank you for voting, and thank you for commenting!

Thank you for giving all of us this moment.

I hope that, over the past two years, we’ve been able to entertain, enlighten, and engage you and I hope that we’ll continue to do so for the next two years as well!

Here’s to the next million views!

Photograph by Erin Nicole Bowman

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* Hi, KO!