Batman Returns (1992) | The Superhero Rewind Commentary Project

Captain Logan and Austin watch and discuss Batman Returns... finally, for the last time! Probably!
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[@joehung1552]

Alfred turning on the Penguin is the beginning symptoms of McGregor's Syndrome.

[@checkerstheinventor]

The world building is off the charts!!

[@darthbobo9445]

One of my favorite parts of these streams is you guys trying to decipher Tom's super chats. It always makes me laugh

[@checkerstheinventor]

I love watching behind the scenes videos of this movie. There are some very cool effects they accomplished.

[@checkerstheinventor]

It does really feel like Michael Keaton playing Batman in the flash was done more for financial reasons than plot. It didn’t feel like the same universe and it would have made much for sense for it to be Affleck. Kind of disappointing that they used up the Keaton return to do THAT instead of making a Batman Beyond in the Burtonverse or something akin to that.

[@Smee319]

He was supposed to stick around and be the DCEU Batman for a while. Unfortunately, plans changed and other filmed appearances by Keaton have been cut and probably won't be seen. As it is, it leaves his role in The Flash feeling like a waste.

[@raynwolfsbane2084]

It felt like the same universe to me. I wanted to know the story behind the suits and how Bruce dealt with losing Alfred.

[@raynwolfsbane2084]

I think they made the belt black in The Flash so as not to draw attention to it. It makes sense since Batman wouldn't want his opponents noticing that's where all his weapons are stashed.

[@GregOrCreg]

I agree that this film is more about atmosphere, theme and subtext, and that it doesn't have the tighest story. A lot of it requires 'fill-in-the-blanks' thinking for stuff that is merely hinted at rather than made particularly explicit.

[@makura5705]

At the point where Alfred refers to Penguin as a grotesque is after the Ice Princess has been murdered so I think that tracks.

[@GregOrCreg]

Great point. Alfred, as a devoted servant, would have felt bad about what happened to the princess, so, it makes sense that he'd dismiss a sewer-dweller, like Penguin, in such a way.

[@Geekvolution]

Before that, he asks Bruce if they can watch "something with dignity" instead of Penguin giving a speech on tv. He turns on him before the ice princess.

[@makura5705]

@@Geekvolution That scene comes after Batman and Penguin have had their face to face meet where they have their “you don’t think you’ll win do you?” So Bruce coulda been all “I told you so!” offscreen.

[@GregOrCreg]

@@Geekvolution True, but by that stage, Bruce has already digged dirt on The Penguin (i.e. the microfiche scene), and both Bruce and Alfred have good reason for suspecting that The Penguin is aligned with The Red Triangle Circus Gang. Alfred's nature tends to be a little snobby in much media (particularly earlier iterations) so the jab about 'class and dignity' is very much in character, but he only says something particularly mean with respect to The Penguin's appearance after the whole frame-up plot, and even then 'ghastly grotesque' could be as much a jab at The Penguin's personality as it is at his mutated appearance.

[@GregOrCreg]

Great commentary. PS: I'm half-Portugeuse and qualified as a lawyer, so not sure if I count with respect to that last exchange. lol.

[@walter_the_wobot2349]

I love this movie for what it is, but i would have preferred a more traditional sequel. Can't wait for the sequel novel by John Jackson Miller.

[@GregOrCreg]

I worry that it will ruin the canon, so, I hope John Jackson Miller sticks as close to the novelisations as possible and doesn't try to retcon anything in them.

[@walter_the_wobot2349]

@@GregOrCreg Batman has no canon. All the sequels are Elseworld tales from different earths. I’ve read all of JJM’s Star Wars books and he puts incredible effort to make his stories fit and not contradict the EU canon or the new Disney canon (which Disney themselves have already contradicted)

[@GregOrCreg]

@@walter_the_wobot2349 I was just thinking of canon to the Burton films, but I'm happy to take JJM's book as an Elsewhere follow-up (if it doesn't match my headcanon of the Burtonverse).

[@walter_the_wobot2349]

@@GregOrCreg Batman Returns is not a sequel to B89. Burton didn’t view it as a sequel, just another tale about Batman. Keaton isn’t playing the same guy in Returns as he did in 89. The city and Wayne manor isn’t the same. No way it takes place in the same world.

[@GregOrCreg]

@@walter_the_wobot2349 But the sequel novel you refer to is supposedly meant to bridge the gap between the two films, and it feels to me as if it's set in the same universe. Bruce, Alfred and Gordon are played by the same actors, and there are references to Alfred letting Vicki into the Batcave.

[@thomasmurphy8187]

I had never heard of a third writer coming in after Daniel Waters. I never would’ve guessed. I’ve seen Heathers and just based on that, much of this film looked like it was playing to his sensibilities.

[@brucejohnson86]

I don't understand how someone could view returns as just more 89. Drastically different and for the worse in my opinion. That being said, review the nexus comics. I mean c'mon, guy.

[@Weezing336]

Returns seems to be about something but its antagonists are so irredeemable and we never get to know this Batman who's running around murdering people, so it's ultimately just a nasty unpleasant film by the end. Burton's style and love for monsters/outcasts could have worked here but I don't know how he thought these villains were worthy of our love and sympathy.

[@thomasmurphy8187]

Objectively speaking there are better live action Batman films. But Returns is my favourite easily. By all accounts I shouldn’t like it. Very off the path departures from source material. Burton’s vision can be self indulgent. The social commentary with Selina about the struggles that women face comes across as shallow and a tad manipulative. And yet I latched on to this movie in a big way. The look is still cool, the music is some of Elfman’s best and the committed and transformative performances by DeVito and Pfeiffer are memorable. There can be a real operatic bleakness to the film in parts that really works. This is more of a mood/atmosphere/experience movie and it resonates with me personally.

[@checkerstheinventor]

Yeah I feel the same way. I still like the Dark Knight better overall but this movie has stuck with me to this day and I watch it every year. The production design, costumes, and score are my favorite in any Batman movie. The script is a giant mess but it’s easy to overlook on a casual viewing, especially if you are watching it in a group

[@raynwolfsbane2084]

Agreed. I've grown to love this one more and more over time. The score, the atmosphere and the tone is delightfully Gothic. I really wish we'd gotten to see Burton's take on more Batman villains like Two-Face, Killer Croc and Clayface.

[@GregOrCreg]

No disrespect, but the people of Gotham *only* accepted The Penguin because of Max's plan with the 'kidnapped baby'. Prior to that, Penguin, as is revealed via Bruce's research, had been a circus exhibit to be mocked and hated. And the local papers were talking about the 'mysterious penguin man'. If it had been that easy for him to rise to the surface and be accepted by Gotham, why didn't he do it earlier? The film doesn't spell this out, because it respects our intelligence, but it's all implied by the false way the image consultants act and people dismissing The Penguin as an 'ugly bird-man with fish breath'. That's all they ever thought of him, but they were hiding it behind a veneer of faux-friendliness, which I believe Burton hates even more than open contempt. Bear in mind that they were readily armed with eggs and tomatoes for the rally in which they turned against him.

[@Geekvolution]

Right but my point is, once he seems to prove he's a hero, they drop their prejudices and accept him based on his actions. That's way more enlightened and open-minded than half the humans in X-Men. And then they turn on him because he's two-faced, not because he's deformed and looks like a monster.

[@GregOrCreg]

@@Geekvolution Penguin is presented as a hero to them, and an unthreatening one at that (he may be 'ugly' but he's short, ungainly and physically unprepossessing). By contrast, Magneto, along with his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, is a super-powered individual who can, and did, cause immense harm to the general population. I'm not defending the humans in X-Men, but I don't see them as necessarily worse than the fickle rubes in Batman Returns. I don't think the Gothamites presented in this film are necessarily good kind people so much as idiots (i.e. the type of people who would leave their kids at home without minders, and fall quickly for Penguin's transparently-obvious plan).