The Batman Reboot: How This Could Be a Good Thing For a new Bruce Wayne I’d suggest casting someone in their early to mid-20’s and sign them on to a multiple picture deal so we don’t have a Keaton/Kilmer/Clooney fiasco. They need to keep the same actors onboard as best as they can. Obviously, they’d want someone who has the acting chops to do justice to one of the most popular comic book icons of all time, right? Well, at least I hope they would. Truthfully I liked Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne (I hated his Batman voice though) and I’m sad to see him go, but if they’re going to reboot it they should find someone as talented as Christian Bale, not some pretty face who will appease the Disney Channel zombies. I have a bad feeling the higher-ups will have an attitude towards Batman after Nolan steps down like “Well, there goes the best Batman we’ll ever get, might as well not try and just start spitting these movies out and grab all that cash the franchise will make based on the name alone.” I kind of get the feeling that’s what happened after Tim Burton’s movies. If you’re going to reboot Batman, set out to do something better than anything everyone had done before, it might not pay off, but effort goes a long way. Can you imagine a Batman movie that did away with the gritty realism and rules of the Nolan-Verse and gave you an epic battle between Batman and a villain like Mr. Freeze? I’m not talking about a muscle-headed, pun spouting future former governor of California. What I’m talking about is a true threat to Gotham City in the form of a horrific killer with an icy demeanor who we can sympathize with because everything he’s doing he’s doing for his wife. How about a Riddler that isn’t played by a rubber faced comedian, but someone who can pull off a genius whose ego had driven him dangerously over the edge and into a serial killer who leaves clues behind compulsively? What about a Killer Croc and a Solomon Grundy who can fit in seamlessly and believably into this new Batman world. The proposed reboot would need to be different from Nolan’s take. I say blend the seriousness and the intriguing characters Nolan gave us and mix them in with the dark and gothic fantasy setting that Tim Burton was responsible for back in 89’. While we’re at it let’s, say we take out the strict realism of Nolan’s universe, and tone down some of Burton’s more outrageous ideas from his two movies. Just ignore Joel Schumacher’s movies altogether, please. I think we can all agree that’d definitely be for the best, right? Making a successful Batman movie isn’t hard; all they’d need to do is respect the source material. Look back to the stories that Bob Kane first created; they were dark and mysterious. That goofy late 40’s to 50’s era Batman stuff was only there because comic books had been unfairly written off as something only kids would ever enjoy, so Batman lost his edge and became ‘kid friendly’. These days, most writers and as well as Nolan have tapped into the darker side of Batman and his foes, and guess what? Batman is a huge success. This means something, and should not be ignored by the future franchise. Tim Burton had the right ideas, he just casted actors who chewed up scenery like the shark from Jaws chewed up Amity Island citizens. The bad guys were so outlandish and over the top that they took over and Batman played second fiddle. Let’s face it; since Batman is a dark and brooding chap (when he’s done right, of course) he’s not going to be the life of any party. What can be done to counter that is to make Bruce Wayne the interesting one. He’s the other side of Batman, and he should be witty, funny, charming, and an all around interesting guy when he’s not wearing the cape and cowl. The villains should be true to the established mythology without being enslaved to it; let’s not have a Penguin that’s needlessly physically deformed, or have the Joker turn out to be Thomas and Martha Wayne’s killer. That’s not who the characters are, or how they fit into Batman’s universe. Don’t follow the comics word by word, but use them as the jumping off point. What Heath Ledger did with the Joker was brilliant, it was something new without betraying the character. Another one of Nolan’s rules that’s worth mentioning is his refusal to include Robin. I understand that the idea of having a teenage ward become the sidekick of Batman is a bit silly, I do, but Robin has a very important part in the Batman mythos. He’s one of the only things keeping Batman from losing himself to his personal demons. I believe he should be included, and for the love of god he should not be played by a late 20’s year old actor. They should cast someone young, no older than 16 and handle him seriously. The cool and endearing thing about the first Robin (or Dick Grayson if you care enough to make the distinction) is he is exactly like Bruce Wayne in the way that they both watched their parents murdered right before their eyes. Unlike Bruce Wayne, however, Robin kept his optimism. He was what Batman could have become if he hadn’t been driven completely insane with his sense of duty to Gotham City. This opens a world full of storylines, and an eventual lead in to a separate Nightwing franchise, or perhaps even a Teen Titans movie, which I’m all for. We can finally be given a Batman world that isn’t afraid to go past the realism and give us our favorite bad guys, it would give an acceptable excuse to bring back the Joker for more mayhem and fun, and it’d be a chance to do Robin right. If they reboot Batman, we deserve something that’s new and different without compromising the characters and their development over the years. It’d doable, and hopefully the best of the Batman movies are still on the horizon, only time will tell, and until then keep that Bat-Signal shining brightly in the sky, because eventually we’ll get the movie we need AND deserve, and hopefully it won’t take us a bunch of franchise reboots to get it.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 22:24:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015