Unknown Soldier
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After this this horribly misguided thread, I decided I had to go back and watch this movie for the first time in what had to be almost 20 years. I had forgotten just how long it has been since it was 1989.
In 1989, there was no Internet. There were no cell phones. The primary recorded music medium was the cassette tape, the CD had been introduced more than a half decade prior but would not reach mainstream success until the 1990's. If you needed to call someone, you looked through a phone book, then you picked up a landline phone and called them and hoped they were there to answer. Microsoft Windows 2.11 was the version of Windows then, Windows 3.0 would be released in 1990. Guys, the Tim Burton 1989 Batman movie is really old.
So I watched this movie, and let me be clear about this, it's really dated. The Joker, played with sadistic glee by Jack Nicholson, struts around with a guy who carries a boom box. No one even knows what a boom box is anymore, and if you don't know, Google it and read the Wikipedia entry. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Okay, you're back? I'll continue. The Gotham P.D. drive around in cars so old that there probably aren't any running examples on roads today. You might see one in a museum. People walk around with paper maps lost in cities, they look through phone books, then dig around in paper newspaper archives to find old articles. For God's sakes, this was an era when people though Prince was cool enough to contribute a bunch of songs to a major motion picture!
As I watched this film, I realized two things. First off, the 1980's were a really weird and fucked up decade and this movie epitomizes a lot of that. Second, and this is the really important point, the Batman mythos is essentially timeless. Batman drives around in a Batmobile that looked awesome in 1989 and looks awesome now. He flies around in a Batwing which hasn't been replicated even with 2015 technology. He keeps the same gadgets in his utility belt that he has had for nearly a century. Nothing about the mythology has really changed between 1989 and 2015.
Which is why, despite some really dated references, this movie is also timeless. Batman dueled with the 1989 Jack Nicholson Joker in much the same way he would duel with the 2008 Heath Ledger Joker nearly two decades later. This isn't purely coincidence, both films drew inspiration from the 1988 oneshot The Killing Joke and both Nicholson and Ledger to an extent patterned their wildly different interpretations of the Joker on the same original material.
The two Tim Burton films, and I'll only briefly mention Batman Returns here because this post is about the first film, are wildly different from Christopher Nolan's trilogy because they are simultaneously more campy and yet also considerably darker in tone. Nicholson's Joker is a sadistic killer who enjoys burning people to a crisp with a 10,000 volt joy buzzer in his palm when he shakes a man's hand. Despite this, he is also an incredibly comedic character who regularly steals every scene he is in with a completely hilarious performance. There's a real element of comic book original camp throughout the film. For lack of a better word, it's really cheesy in a lot of places and that helps offset the relentless bleakness of it's sadistic violence and of Batman and Joker's destined duel to the death at the end of the film.
Despite it's advanced age, the special effects hold up quite well throughout the film. Hollywood would not really see extensive usage of CG in films until 2 years later when James Cameron unveiled Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991. All the special effects in this film were done with miniatures and other physical effects. You really can tell the Batwing is a tiny model which was shot and overlaid over the sky behind it. Despite this, it's convincing enough unlike bad CG that you're willing to go with the illusion. Much as with Blade Runner (1982), good physical FX really stand the test of time.
What the 1989 movie really nails is the sheer atmosphere of Gotham City and it's environs. The appearance of Gotham in Burton's film is iconic for a good reason, and this carried over to the beloved Batman: The Animated Series, the sequel films, and even to Nolan's trilogy. This movie put the Gothic in Gotham and it served as the primary model for the Batman: Arkham Asylum series of games as well. The sheer epic scale, the urban ugliness, the weird pseudo-art deco + Gothic architecture of this Gotham would influence how it appeared in all media ever since.
Of course we all know Danny Elfman's score for this film is a masterpiece, the title theme was of course reused in Batman: The Animated Series and it stands as one of the most recognizable pieces of movie theme music today. Even if you've never seen the original 1989 film, you probably could hear the piece and immediately associate it with Batman.
So what's wrong with this movie? Well, for one thing, it barely has a plot. It spends most of it's 2 hours setting up the origin stories of all the characters, focusing in the Joker. There isn't even any time for the real story to begin before Joker is climbing the stairs of Gotham Cathedral for the climax. Despite it's generous running time, there's almost no time for Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale, they meet, they fuck, she finds out he's Batman, and then Joker is kidnapping her because I dunno he wants to fuck her too or something. The whole love triangle story insert would have made more sense if they had dedicated more than 30 seconds to it. There isn't even any time for Batman to fight anybody, all of the so-called fight scenes end in about 10 seconds because they are in such a hurry to get on with the movie.
Then it's already over and you're wondering just what some of the incidental characters were even there for, like the corrupt cop Eckhardt, the mayor of Gotham city, Commissioner Gordon, and especially Harvey Dent who doesn't do anything during his brief appearances other than look eerily like Lando Calrissian. Because of the weird mangling of casting choices later on, Harvey Dent would mysteriously change from a black man to a white man when Tommy Lee Jones took over as Two-Face in Batman Forever 6 years later.
The overall camp factor would influence comic book movies for the next decade, as everything from Dick Tracy (1990), the sequel films barely directed by Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever, Batman & Robin), the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film trilogy, the Darkman trilogy, the weird Stallone Judge Dredd (1995), etc. all tried and failed to emulate Burton's heady cheeseball, mainly because most of these films completely failed to also be as bleak and nihilistic as Burton's films. Even his own sequel Batman Returns failed to have the same charm as it upped the nihilism by a factor of 10 but lost a lot of the campiness which kept the experience balanced.
In general, I don't think any of the various movies which have attempted to portray Batman are perfect. Burton's 2 films have certain merits, Schumacher's 2 films have depressingly few, and Nolan's trilogy have many merits too. But in a lot of ways, the 1989 Batman film is a real classic. It's combination of silliness, over-the-top violence, and underlying element of menace running through the entire affair have not been matched since. Not by Nolan, and certainly not by Schumacher.
Also, dat Prince music, what is this I don't even.
In 1989, there was no Internet. There were no cell phones. The primary recorded music medium was the cassette tape, the CD had been introduced more than a half decade prior but would not reach mainstream success until the 1990's. If you needed to call someone, you looked through a phone book, then you picked up a landline phone and called them and hoped they were there to answer. Microsoft Windows 2.11 was the version of Windows then, Windows 3.0 would be released in 1990. Guys, the Tim Burton 1989 Batman movie is really old.
So I watched this movie, and let me be clear about this, it's really dated. The Joker, played with sadistic glee by Jack Nicholson, struts around with a guy who carries a boom box. No one even knows what a boom box is anymore, and if you don't know, Google it and read the Wikipedia entry. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Okay, you're back? I'll continue. The Gotham P.D. drive around in cars so old that there probably aren't any running examples on roads today. You might see one in a museum. People walk around with paper maps lost in cities, they look through phone books, then dig around in paper newspaper archives to find old articles. For God's sakes, this was an era when people though Prince was cool enough to contribute a bunch of songs to a major motion picture!
As I watched this film, I realized two things. First off, the 1980's were a really weird and fucked up decade and this movie epitomizes a lot of that. Second, and this is the really important point, the Batman mythos is essentially timeless. Batman drives around in a Batmobile that looked awesome in 1989 and looks awesome now. He flies around in a Batwing which hasn't been replicated even with 2015 technology. He keeps the same gadgets in his utility belt that he has had for nearly a century. Nothing about the mythology has really changed between 1989 and 2015.
Which is why, despite some really dated references, this movie is also timeless. Batman dueled with the 1989 Jack Nicholson Joker in much the same way he would duel with the 2008 Heath Ledger Joker nearly two decades later. This isn't purely coincidence, both films drew inspiration from the 1988 oneshot The Killing Joke and both Nicholson and Ledger to an extent patterned their wildly different interpretations of the Joker on the same original material.
The two Tim Burton films, and I'll only briefly mention Batman Returns here because this post is about the first film, are wildly different from Christopher Nolan's trilogy because they are simultaneously more campy and yet also considerably darker in tone. Nicholson's Joker is a sadistic killer who enjoys burning people to a crisp with a 10,000 volt joy buzzer in his palm when he shakes a man's hand. Despite this, he is also an incredibly comedic character who regularly steals every scene he is in with a completely hilarious performance. There's a real element of comic book original camp throughout the film. For lack of a better word, it's really cheesy in a lot of places and that helps offset the relentless bleakness of it's sadistic violence and of Batman and Joker's destined duel to the death at the end of the film.
Despite it's advanced age, the special effects hold up quite well throughout the film. Hollywood would not really see extensive usage of CG in films until 2 years later when James Cameron unveiled Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991. All the special effects in this film were done with miniatures and other physical effects. You really can tell the Batwing is a tiny model which was shot and overlaid over the sky behind it. Despite this, it's convincing enough unlike bad CG that you're willing to go with the illusion. Much as with Blade Runner (1982), good physical FX really stand the test of time.
What the 1989 movie really nails is the sheer atmosphere of Gotham City and it's environs. The appearance of Gotham in Burton's film is iconic for a good reason, and this carried over to the beloved Batman: The Animated Series, the sequel films, and even to Nolan's trilogy. This movie put the Gothic in Gotham and it served as the primary model for the Batman: Arkham Asylum series of games as well. The sheer epic scale, the urban ugliness, the weird pseudo-art deco + Gothic architecture of this Gotham would influence how it appeared in all media ever since.
Of course we all know Danny Elfman's score for this film is a masterpiece, the title theme was of course reused in Batman: The Animated Series and it stands as one of the most recognizable pieces of movie theme music today. Even if you've never seen the original 1989 film, you probably could hear the piece and immediately associate it with Batman.
So what's wrong with this movie? Well, for one thing, it barely has a plot. It spends most of it's 2 hours setting up the origin stories of all the characters, focusing in the Joker. There isn't even any time for the real story to begin before Joker is climbing the stairs of Gotham Cathedral for the climax. Despite it's generous running time, there's almost no time for Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale, they meet, they fuck, she finds out he's Batman, and then Joker is kidnapping her because I dunno he wants to fuck her too or something. The whole love triangle story insert would have made more sense if they had dedicated more than 30 seconds to it. There isn't even any time for Batman to fight anybody, all of the so-called fight scenes end in about 10 seconds because they are in such a hurry to get on with the movie.
Then it's already over and you're wondering just what some of the incidental characters were even there for, like the corrupt cop Eckhardt, the mayor of Gotham city, Commissioner Gordon, and especially Harvey Dent who doesn't do anything during his brief appearances other than look eerily like Lando Calrissian. Because of the weird mangling of casting choices later on, Harvey Dent would mysteriously change from a black man to a white man when Tommy Lee Jones took over as Two-Face in Batman Forever 6 years later.
The overall camp factor would influence comic book movies for the next decade, as everything from Dick Tracy (1990), the sequel films barely directed by Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever, Batman & Robin), the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film trilogy, the Darkman trilogy, the weird Stallone Judge Dredd (1995), etc. all tried and failed to emulate Burton's heady cheeseball, mainly because most of these films completely failed to also be as bleak and nihilistic as Burton's films. Even his own sequel Batman Returns failed to have the same charm as it upped the nihilism by a factor of 10 but lost a lot of the campiness which kept the experience balanced.
In general, I don't think any of the various movies which have attempted to portray Batman are perfect. Burton's 2 films have certain merits, Schumacher's 2 films have depressingly few, and Nolan's trilogy have many merits too. But in a lot of ways, the 1989 Batman film is a real classic. It's combination of silliness, over-the-top violence, and underlying element of menace running through the entire affair have not been matched since. Not by Nolan, and certainly not by Schumacher.
Also, dat Prince music, what is this I don't even.
