Batman Begins (SPOILERS)

The new Batman comes out tomorrow and I am psyched! I don't know when I'll be going (I would order a ticket for tomorrow but I may have to work late).

Why it might rock:
- Has nothing in common with the previous crappy Batman movies.
- Awesome cast: Christian Bale is the perfect choice for Batman. And the following actors are no slouches:
Gary Oldman- Gordon (I think it's before he's a comissioner)
Morgan Freeman- the guy that arms and equips Batman (Fox or something?)
Michael Caine- Alfred
Liam Neeson- the guy that trains him
Katie Holmes- the requisite girly role

- This flick is all about Batman/Bruce Wayne the man, the character, the vigilante and his origins.

- It looks totally Dark Knight-ish, not the fantastic dreamscapes of Tim Burton (which are often quite nice, just not for Batman) or cheesy camp or homoerotic fetish look of the Schumacker films.

- None of the following actors will appear: Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Arnold Schwarzeneggar

- Neither of the following character will appear: Bat Girl, Robin

- While the Batmobile in the Burton film looked pretty righteous, it was absurd to believe a car like that could be used for what Batman needs. The new one is an ugly, all-terrain monster.

I just hope this film is very violent.

Re: Batman Begins

Morgan Freeman is in it? Damn, I might have to see this movie, despite the fact that I vowed never to pay money to see a Batman film.

Re: Batman Begins

Hyp this one looks to be much different than the previous ones. Personally I liked the Burton ones well enough, but this one is supposed to be grittier.

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I'll grade papers if they are on cable t.v. But other than the first Batman movie, I was pretty unimpressed.

I only saw the first in the theater to see Jack Nicholson, IIRC.

I have heard this one will be different, though. Perhaps I shall see. OR I'll wait half a year and rent it.

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I think Batman Begins is gonna be pretty awesome. And with the recent heatwave, I'd appreciate an over-airconditioned movie theatre.

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You have heatwaves in Canada?

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I only saw the first in the theater to see Jack Nicholson, IIRC

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Though Nicholson is great and I'm a fan, he made a terrible Joker. This is not his fault- he did what he always does on screen. But the Joker is supposed to be a completely looney, eerily insane evil nutjob, not a hip slick baddie with makeup. Also, I don't think any other Joker was scarred with acid- the Joker just smiles a lot because he's insane.

The first two Batman films are like Edward Scissorhands (especially the end of the second, with the snow and the Penguin). I like Edward Scissorhands. But it's not Batman.

One (of many) encouraging thing about the new one is that Bale says they decided to play the Batman character without any comedy. They're probably reserving that for the dry wit of Alfred or Freeman's character, which is perfect. Batman is not a funny guy. He's frightening and will fuck up your shit.

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I'm pretty sure I remember a comic book Joker (although perhaps there's various versions of comic book Joker) had indeed been burned with some chemical

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There have been so many I wouldn't be surprised.
The most frustrating and interesting thing about Batman is that he's been done so many ways (even in comics alone) that there is no "definitive" Batman. Superman and Spiderman, for example, might have different representation on page and screen but their "feel" is the same and everyone knows what they represent: Superman is the alien who becomes all-American and is morally pure, using his powers for good. Spiderman is the everyman dorky guy caught up in things bigger than him.

The only version of Batman that makes sense to contemporary audiences without being absurd is the vengeful, possibly slightly disturbed vigilante who feels that he must act to fight the corruption and filth of his city, using brutality and fear to do what he must. The Dark Knight.

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There's also the villain choices, this time being Ra's Al Ghul and Scarecrow, being played by Ken Watanabe and Cillian Murphy respectively. That sounds good. I kind of wish they'd drop the dual villian thing, though. I guess I might understand it as being a way to get a lot of key Batman villains into the movies without making several dozen just to use them all, but still.

Anyhoo, I'm definitely looking forward to this.

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Ra's Al Gul is meant to be his mentor though, isn't he?

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I just hope this film is very violent.

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I don't think you're going to get your wish fulfilled. I listened to a review of the movie yesterday, and they criticised the cutting of the fight scenes, commenting that they thougt it had been done in a very jerky, uneven fashion to keep the low rating (12A in the UK I believe) which will be similar to Revenge of the Sith.

That may only be in the UK of course.

Otherwise, the review was very positive!

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Hmm, that sounds like our PG-13 (which is the rating for both Sith and Batman). Oh well. I supposed one can hope for an eventual "unrated" DVD.

Ra's Al Gul is meant to be his mentor though, isn't he?

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I dunno... I remember a character with a similar name in the animated series and he kind of tried to act like a mentor so that Batman could marry his daughter and take over his crime syndicate. It was a fantastic story. Not sure if this is the same guy, though.

Maybe what they do with the two villain thing is make one of them a one-off thing that Batman totally destroys (Scarecrow) and make the other a future menace to reak havoc in the sequels.

One rumor I read has The Joker and Harvey Dent in the sequel with Dent turning into Two-Face in the next sequel. The same rumor promised a Batman/Superman flick should each new franchise have three successful films on their own.

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As someone who's never read Batman comics, I have to ask, who are Al Ghul and Scarecrow?

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Just more baddies, like the Joker and Riddler et al.

Al Ghul (at least from the cartoon) is one of those "classy" well-spoken syndicate gentleman leaders. Scarecrow has a pumpkin head, I don't remember why (in the new movie it's just a mask, but I think in the cartoon it was how his face looked).

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Are you talking about the animated series from the early '90's? I used to watch that one a lot. I think I remember the Al Ghul guy. For some reason I'm thinking he's the one that had a daughter that Bruce Wayne dated or something.

Anyway, I'll probably end up seeing the movie tomorrow as I have the day off.

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I don't recall Al Ghul's exact background from anything, but I believe he was supposed to be the head of some guild of assassins, and was very old, since he was being kept alive by immersing himself in vats of.... stuff. Actually, I can't recall enough to make any sense of it, or at least enough sense that I'd be happy with my explanation. And yes, his daughter was involved with Batman in some way or another.

Scarecrow just has a burlap sack on his head, more or less. He was all about studying fears, and for whatever reasons decided to start experimenting on people. An interesting character, depending on how much time you want to spend developing him. In the animated series, he basically just kept showing up with new methods of doing something that would cause fear, such as an episode where he was trying to poison Gotham's water supply so that the whole city would go nuts. And there was one where he was using his knowledge of fears and fear-inducing toxins to rig sporting events. And... that's about all I remember.

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Yeah, Sinclair, I was refering to that series. His daughter was in love with Batman and he was kinda into her but didn't get involved because her father was this crime lord and she was loyal to her dad. And, as GKKR pointed out, he was "immortal." I like that he called Batman "detective." Actually, if I were doing this new flick, I would show a bit of old-school detective work on the part of Batman because that's what he started out as.

Interesting thing about Scarecrow and the fear thing. Batman himself makes a point to master the art of fear, and so I guess they could work it that they are mirror images of each other.

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I just got back from seeing it and it was awesome. It was even better than I thought it was going to be.

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I think they did a really good job with the character relationships, especially Bruce's, from Gordon and Ducard to Alfred and Fox. They set it all up really well to, with how he initially found the Batcave and turned it into his base of operations and how he got all his technology from Fox. The training scenes with Ducard were pretty cool. The Scarecrow worked out better than I thought it would. All in all, they made it all pretty believable. They set it all up nicely for a sequel.

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oh man that's it... I was gonna wait 'till I could see it at the IMAX or with someone, but fuck that, I'm going now, literally... I just hope it ain't sold out