Would BATMAN AND ROBIN have worked better as an animated film?

[batE]

Hey all,

Well, I've just finished watching B&R on video (or Batman 4 to the uninitiated). Schwarzenegger was pretty poor as freeze, and Chris O'Donnell was not as good a Robin as he was in Batman Forever. Also, it seemed way too campy with the BOING-y sound effects and the dumb ice puns. The overall plot, however, I thought was pretty good, though, which got me thinking -- if this movie had been animated, would it have gone over better for those of you who hated it? If the plot and dialogue were exactly the same but with animation and voice over actors we like (Kevin, Loren, Efrem, etc.) instead of Clooney, Silverstone, et al., would it have been more palatable. Again, the plot would not change -- freeze would still be making the ice engine, Ivy would still want to take the world over and Bane would still be, well, Bane. I think it might have worked better. The action scenes would have been more believable for one.

But maybe I'm grasping, trying to figure out HOW they could have made such schlock.


batE

[The Guard]

Hell no. Freeze never said things like "GRAB THE GEM!!! KILL THE HEROES" In BTAS...

[Maxie Zeus]

Well, it could hardly have been worse. . . . :rolleyes:

[TheScarecrow]

No, it wouldn't have worked out any better because it still would've had the same dialogue and the same bad script.

I don't care how good Conroy and the rest of the BTAS cast are, even they couldn't have made that piece of crap script work out any better then Clooney & company did with the live action Batman & Robin.

The WB should've used a plot similar to Batman: Subzero to introduce Freeze and Batgirl/Barbara Gordon (as she should be... not Alfred's long lost niece) to the live action Batman franchise. Ivy and Bane should've been kept out because the whole "Two villains team up" deal was done to death twice before (Penguin and Catwoman, Two-face and the Riddler) and neither added to the movie.

But alas, it wasn't to be. :mad:

[ZorBrak]

noooooooooooooooooooooooo it would have destryed my love of batman tas or at least severly cripled it becuase I feel it destroyed the movie series continuity with thiings like batgirl not being baraba gordon WTF

[Calico]

Can you picture Batman from TAS pulling out an AMEX??? :p The movie was just a complete waste of time, no saving it alas.

Calico

[Bird Boy]

it could be better if:

they rewrote the script
didn't have stupid lines
changed the outfits
no arnold as freeze

Oh wait..then it'd just be a completely different movie..I'm OK with that though.. :-D

Actually..if you think about it...Sub-Zero could've been the animated B&R...one difference between the two though....Sub-Zero is fun to watch.. :p

-BB

[MatchesMalone]

What is this "Batman and Robin" of which you all speak?

I remember the two Tim Burton films and have a more vague recollection of a third Batman film...but nothing comes to mind when I hear "Batman and Robin" or "Batman 4."

Funny...my mind just goes blank. It's like my mind is trying to blot out a painful memory or something. Wow! Wouldn't it be cool if someone actually did do a film with Mr. Freeze? Now that could be fantastic if handled right.

Maybe someday someone will make a film featuring Mr. Freeze and, perhaps, Poison Ivy. Until that happens, I'll just keep dreamin'... ;)

[Karkull]

Wish I could forget it like you did. The only--only--thing that made that rank piece of s*** palatable was that I was with four other guys who could help me make fun of it in the theater.

Let it be known, now and forevermore, that both Batman Forever and Batman and Robin never should have been made in the first place! They brought new meaning to the words "god-awful." Not only did Schumacher make Batman hokey, he also dragged the whole franchise kicking and screaming into the toliet. Here's how:

Batman Forever was bad, but everyone likes it because Jim Carrey was in it. Don't be fooled--it was just as bad as the other one. Batman was cracking bad jokes (the few that he did tell in the first two films were funny). He and Robin came off as ambiguously gay in this film (and again in the second one) as did the Riddler, who had this sick fascination with him all through the film (and wore those really tight jumpsuits--what was his deal, anyway?). To be fair, however, Jim Carrey did a good job with what he was given, but what he was given was poorly written and poorly thought out--mind control is the Mad Hatter's gimmick, not the Riddler's. Plus, they went back to the goofy Riddler from the 60's--the one that danced and cackled like a poor man's Joker (in fact, Jim Carrey would have been an excellent Joker...sorry Jack). Two-Face was also goofy as hell--the one time in a role that Tommy-Lee Jones wasn't "dark and menacing" was the one time he needed to be it most!

But, as bad as Batman Forever was, Batman and Robin was ten times worse. Let us pause to look back at the ice skates in the feet, the bat credit card, Mr. Freeze's lounging outfit, the grunting Bane, and Bruce's fiance--the one that wasn't explained anywhere in the film. Worst of all, the writers stole heavily from the BTAS episode Heart of Ice for the material with Fries and Nora. Another truly unfortunate thing was that, had the writing been better, Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzenegger could have been good choices. Could. Uma showed that she could play sultry yet dangerous in Pulp Fiction. Arnold showed that he could play the silent, cold-bloodied killer in the Terminator. But, sadly, this was never meant to be, as the poor script turned them into a pair of cackling heads who had no motivation to work together (wouldn't freezing the entire planet kill all the plant life?).

Both these films should be buried in the cold, cold ground.

:o

Sorry, just needed to get this off my chest.

[batE]

You know, I never thought of SubZero as being a possible animated B&R -- but it makes sense. And yes, it was about ten times better than the live-action B&R, though I did not like the animation that much.

I actually kind of liked Batman Forever, though I loathe Val Kilmer and I can't stand Jim Carrey. I love the Riddler, though, so I was jazzed about a movie with him in it.

As much as I hate Kilmer, though, Clooney was a billion times worse as Batman. He grinned through the whole movie . . . where was the darkness? The brooding? I didn't see it. And what was with all the butt shots when the guys ere getting suited up? Silliness. And Ah-nold was just laughably bad, which makes me think Schmauker wanted to do an Adam West-ish camp movie BUT with the established "dark" characers and dark feel that Burton had introduced.

Also, why did they make Bane a silly, barely conversant joke? In TAS and the comics, the man is fluent in at least two languages, and he's pretty witty. In this "big budget" film, they couldn't write in a part that had Bane actually say anything?


But if B&R is not an argument NOT to make a live-action BB movie (if they ever dust that script off), I don't know what is.



batE

[MatchesMalone]

I read somewhere that Joel Schumacher's explanation for the total crap that is Batman and Robin was that the studio was pressuring him to do it "over the top" and campy. He went on to say that he owes the "Bat-fans" a serious Batman film.

At the time, I remember thinking, "NOOO!! Please don't let this guy have ANOTHER shot. He's done too much damage already."

[Failure]

Wasnt Sub-Zero released around the time B&R came out?

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by Failure
Wasnt Sub-Zero released around the time B&R came out?

It was supposed to be released in conjunction with B&R, but was delayed for a few months. Cynics said it was because WB was embarrassed by the fact that the cheapo DTV was far superior to the hugely expensive live-action movie. :p

[James Harvey]

Almost every review I read for Sub-Zero compared it to B & R and essentially bashed the live action movie. I will say that the sepcial effects in B & R were pretty good, although sometimes felt out of place.

[Barb Gordon]

I think that almost everyone likes Subzero more than B&R, I do at least. If they had made Batman 4 animated, well, that would have rocked! But they would have ceratinly needed to rewrite the script. If you were to take that movie script and make it animated, it'd still be a disaster, and it would make people wary of animated Batman then. Shumacher should never be allowed to even touch a Batman script of any kind for the rest of his life. He's already overkilled it by making two crappy, cheesy, neon-light shows that just happened to have something to do with Batman. Gotham City went from being dark and creepy in the first movie to having mammoth statues, neon everything in the last two movies. I feel sorry for the actors that got pulled into those two movies, and I hate the script writers for screwing with Barbara's history and making her a damn blond -_- *shudder* and having the audacity to use Silverstone. I know Clooney always says he regrets having done Batman because he get it a bad name. But it wasn't all him, he probably would have done fine with a better script and without Schumacher...mmmm, 'kay, done venting! lol.

Barb^-^

[James Harvey]

Clooney once stated his main ambition to do the movie was becuase he was getting a big check, and he'd be financially secure. By doing this movie for the money, that would also help fund the movies he did afterwards. Every movie since B & R he has done for very low. The odd thing is? All of his movies since B & R have been good (Three Kings, Out of Sight, for example).

[Nightflower]

Originally posted by MatchesMalone
I read somewhere that Joel Schumacher's explanation for the total crap that is Batman and Robin was that the studio was pressuring him to do it "over the top" and campy. He went on to say that he owes the "Bat-fans" a serious Batman film.

At the time, I remember thinking, "NOOO!! Please don't let this guy have ANOTHER shot. He's done too much damage already."

Ahh yes, always blame it on the parents.

Why was Bane demoted to such a bumbling idiot? I guess they figured "big guy...must have little brain." Plus, they didn't really have room for another intelligent villain (THAT would be pushing it), so they made him more of a one-dimensional henchman for Ivy.

[Karkull]

Y'know, I can't really blame George Clooney. He really took a bullet for Schumacher when it flopped, but it wasn't his fault that the director screwed up. He's a great actor, but he just wasn't Batman material.

[SSNTails]

The B&R Bane is very different from the BTAS one. B&R's Bane was just a cell inmate with juices forced into him. The BTAS Bane was a guy who actually developed the formula himself (a chemist?) and used it by his own will.

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by SSNTails
The B&R Bane is very different from the BTAS one. B&R's Bane was just a cell inmate with juices forced into him. The BTAS Bane was a guy who actually developed the formula himself (a chemist?) and used it by his own will.

Actually, wasn't it shown in BTAS' "Bane" that he was a Cuban prisoner injected with the stuff as part of "Project Gilgamesh"?

[Trent Lane]

Originally posted by Nightflower
Why was Bane demoted to such a bumbling idiot? I guess they figured "big guy...must have little brain." Plus, they didn't really have room for another intelligent villain (THAT would be pushing it), so they made him more of a one-dimensional henchman for Ivy.

EXACTLY!!! I never knew of Bane to be like this in any carnation- he was pretty inteligent in all the stories I read that he was in. One of many screw-ups made by Joel. Man, I hate him....

[The Mad Hatter]

That's just one of B&R's many problems... too many villains. Bane, Ivy and Freeze are each interesting enough to carry a movie on their own... having three of them was just unneccessary.

[Karkull]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
...having three [villains] was just unneccessary.

Actually, it was four: Jason Woodrue (the Floronic Man) was there too!

[Nightflower]

"Grr. Step."

[James Harvey]

Bane had to be the worst in this film. They just totally ruined him. Grahted, he's not exactly the ebst character - but they could have at least done him some justice.

[The Mad Hatter]

I kept expecting this guy to say "fire bad!" a la some of the worse Frankenstein performances. Mr. Schumaker thought that Bane stole every scene he was in, though.... what a git.

[Batgirl]

Did any one here know that they actually made it into a comic? I saw it at the store the other day and almost screamed... actually i thought it was kinda funny considering how bad the movie was... It could have worked if it had been animated but first they'd have to completely redo the plot and take out all of the dumb/cheesy/corny parts (which is almost the entire movie.) But I think Subzero was the comback (and a good comeback at that).

[James Harvey]

The movie adaptation is just as worse as the movie. The first film shows Batman and Robin running onto a film set and it all goes downhill from there. I skimmed through it and just groaned. The comic adaption was worse than the SUB-ZERO comic adapation...which was equally...not good.