Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Batman: The Long Halloween (2021)
355 Plays2 years ago
Writer, comedian, and filmmaker Frankie Campisano has already appeared on the Patreon show to discuss Batman: The Long Halloween comic book and now they're appearing on the main show to talk about the animated adaptation! And though we both love the comic, we've got some more mixed opinions on the film.
Visit Frankie's website and connect with them on Twitter and Instagram.
Help support the show by buying or renting this movie on Amazon
Want to tell us what you think? Have any questions or comments for Perry about superheroes in media or comics? Contact us through the website. You can also apply to be a guest on the show.
Patrons get to listen to episodes before everyone else and they also get access to my exclusive companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. If you want to join in, please consider supporting us through Patreon!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Investigation with Harvey Dent
00:00:14
Speaker
Don't worry, I won't tell Barbara. Gentlemen. Ah, good. This is District Attorney Harvey D- Bats. Dent? Okay. What's happened? Johnny Viti was murdered tonight. Damn it!
00:00:39
Speaker
The Roman's nephew. He has a name. It's Carmine Falcone, not the Roman. Harvey, calm down. Where were your men, Jim? I've been working on Viti for months. Nobody on your team thought he'd be vulnerable the night before he's going to turn state's evidence. 22 caliber. Taped handle. Serial number filed off. Baby bottle nipple for a silencer. Odd, but effective.
00:01:04
Speaker
And untraceable. Hard to tell if we're dealing with a professional. Of course it was a professional. This was Falcone. He found out Viti was gonna betray the family, so he took him off the board. Maybe. We were so close. We were so close, Jim. He was ready to sing. And not just about Carmine, the whole family was going away. We had a real opportunity to change things. We still do. It's just a setback.
00:01:34
Speaker
We'll find another way to take down Falcone, together. Where's the Jack O'Lantern? Excuse me? You think it's important? I don't know yet. Look, Harvey's right. This city's finally got a chance, and it's the three men standing here right now. The Falcone crime family has to be taken down, so I'm putting you two together.
00:02:03
Speaker
District Attorney Dent, we'll work in the light and you... We'll work the other side. Bend the rules, but never break them. And I'll do everything I can to protect you both. Understood. He needs to hear you say it, Bats. Two heads are better than one.
00:02:36
Speaker
Leads come my way pretty fast. Keep your ears open. Then I guess we're up and... running. Pete does that a lot. I just... And I'm talking to myself.
00:02:54
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles Podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and today I'm welcoming a new guest to this show, although if you're a Patreon subscriber, you would have already heard him on that, and that is Frankie Campesano. Frankie, how you doing today?
00:03:09
Speaker
doing pretty well, Perry, and thanks already for listening. Check out the Patreon episode if you want to hear us really dig into the long Halloween comic. It's a great chat. Absolutely. Yeah, it was a lot of fun talking about that with you. But since we've got a lot of listeners who haven't gotten that message yet, intent, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to them?
Podcast Introduction with Frankie Campesano
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah, I am a screenwriter, comedian, filmmaker, by night and by day I work in corporate recruiting in the entertainment industry here in Los Angeles. Lifelong Batman fan. That was kind of my entry point into the broader genre material, whether that's comics, movies, games, books, TV series. I like a little bit of everything. I like to make a little bit of everything.
00:03:54
Speaker
So what was it that actually got you first interested in Batman as kind of like your gateway into it? So Batman for me is just the iconography of the character in the world.
00:04:09
Speaker
I've had a love and affinity for as far back as I can remember. As a kid, I remember growing up on that. I didn't watch the 66 series as it aired. I'm a bit too young for that. But that was probably the first way I was introduced to Batman through the Adam West series. And before I could really speak as a kid and say, Batman, I called him Na-na-na-na, just like the start of the theme song.
00:04:36
Speaker
And from there, I found the Michael Keaton films, Batman the Animated Series, of course. We're recording this the day after the passing of Kevin Conroy. So
Impact of Kevin Conroy on Batman's Character
00:04:47
Speaker
just got to give a shout out to my Batman. He was one of the greatest to ever do it. His work, not just for comic books or superhero fare, just as an actor, as a performer,
00:05:00
Speaker
He casts a long shadow. That is the Batman that I hear when I read these books. That is the Batman I'm comparing the performers to when it's a different casting. So that was my Batman. And a lot of folks, professionals, fans, the outpouring of love shows that he was a lot he was Batman for a really a full generation.
00:05:22
Speaker
And of course the Arkham games, even folks who've never seen the animated series, there's a good chance that that's their entry point into the franchise beyond movies. And so yeah, I grew up with the character from the animated series and Kevin Conroy, I found then Teen Titans, Justice League, that really pushed me into mainstream comics. And then shortly after that was the Dark Knight, another huge kind of Batman cultural moment.
00:05:53
Speaker
And then of course now again with the Robert Pattinson one, it's like every few years there's another huge thing that really kind of, you know, I could, I can track what I was doing in my life and who I was at the time with what was going on in the Batman world. Yeah.
00:06:08
Speaker
I think I would say Conroy more than one generation because my late co-host right he was you know he was from a completely different generation he was of the pretty sure he was of the boomer generation if not early Gen X but he was someone who also like when he read Batman comics he heard Kevin Conroy's voice and like you said because of the Arkham games
00:06:31
Speaker
You know, probably for a lot of younger millennials or Gen Z, like Kevin Conroy is still their Batman because that's their impression of him. For me, I think I'd have a similar Batman story to you. I can't remember which came first, if it was the 89 series or if it was the Adam West series.
00:06:51
Speaker
I was born in 83, so I don't remember the first time I had been exposed to Batman. Just like Superman, it happened before my memory began, so those two characters have always existed in my memory.
00:07:06
Speaker
But yeah, it was funny. And I had mentioned this on the show one episode, probably a few years ago, where it always made me laugh how executives were worried about how, oh, how can we have a Batman over here played by this actor and a Batman over here played by this actor? And won't audiences be confused?
Batman Portrayals Across Media
00:07:25
Speaker
And I remember me being as like, you know,
00:07:27
Speaker
five years old I'm like oh cool there's this really campy over-the-top uh batman on tv dressed in a in a bright colorful satiny costume and then there's this really dark you know gothic batman in the movies in a rubber suit and I had no problem reconciling those two things in my mind as a five-year-old but you know executives in their infinite wisdom thought it would be too confusing for for for adults
00:07:55
Speaker
And now, of course, that's all anyone wants. The number of versions of Batman that we've seen on the screen in the past few years is so unprecedented. Smaller roles in the live action series, even Kevin Conroy got to play a live action Bruce Wayne in the Arrowverse. I never would have thought would have happened.
00:08:15
Speaker
And then we had, you know, on Titans, we had, I'm blanking on his name, but he had a really interesting interpretation of Bruce Wade, where it was kind of like this bizarre kind of cross, speaking of, you know, the Adam West and Michael Keaton Batman, his Batman was almost kind of like a mix of those two in some ways.
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah, definitely a return to the darker Batman whose kind of his years are weighing on him in a way that is by just the nature of Titans being a different show than like the Zack Snyder stuff is darker, is that kind of almost a grim dark Batman without the brutality because he's not that type of physical build.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But he's also got like a bit of the Adam West charm, which I thought was a really interesting thing. And I remember the one of my favorite moments from Titans was in season two when Dick is hallucinating that he's seen Bruce and the actor. I can't remember his name. It's gonna drive me nuts. But he was doing the Batucy on stage with the dancers. I love the fact that we can have a show like Titans and
00:09:20
Speaker
it's so different, like it's a great example of a show that has tried a lot of different things. Your mileage may vary on it kind of veering into more of a bad verse show, but for me, that's fine. If that is kind of the way to back into something like that and see a superhero version of Gotham on the television series, especially from the hero's perspective, because I can appreciate the Gotham proper
Critique of Gotham and Praise for Titans
00:09:49
Speaker
TV show, but severe lack of the characters that you're there to see, you know, it really is. It is the rogue show and the GCPD was sure, but they exist to prop up these the costumed heroes that we're all here for Gotham. I was a little bit less invested in, but Titans has been interesting because it I think it does something that I think the Snyder films fail to do, whereas it it gives us, you know, this dark interpretation of these characters.
00:10:17
Speaker
But it still feels pretty true to those characters where I felt like the Snyder stuff was just dark visions of these characters, but it didn't really care about where those characters came from. Very much so. And I think that there's something nice in the Titans series in terms of
00:10:34
Speaker
they're not just catering to the diehards. They're willing to take swings to bring in a broader audience. And sometimes that might ruffle the feathers of comic fans. There's changes that they've made that even I'm like, okay, I'll roll my eyes at. But I get that those changes aren't there for me. They know I'm in the door already. And I get to see characters that have never had a live action version before. And if this is the way that they can make the jump and maybe one day be in the movies, I'm all for it.
Discussion on Nightwing's Representation in Titans
00:11:01
Speaker
Yeah, and, you know, I just gotta give a shout out to that actor who plays Robin or Dick Grayson now, Nightwing, Brendan Thwaites. He is just like, he is like the perfect depiction of what I think of as Dick Grayson in live action. A depiction I never thought we'd get because, you know, we got Burt Ward, who's very much like the young, over-enthusiastic, you know, Robin. And then we got Chris O'Donnell, who was oddly like a petulant child, even though he was like 35.
00:11:31
Speaker
And then we had, you know, Joseph Gordon Levitt, who was playing kind of a Dick Grayson character, but, you know, more of a composite of all the different Robins. And so it's really nice to see this depiction of Dick on screen, because he's outside of Batman and Superman. He's my favorite of the DC characters. Oh, for sure. And I was asked recently, actually in a
00:11:56
Speaker
I'll just say it in a job interview, where I was asked, what superhero would you be? And without hesitation, it was Robin.
Exploration of Near-Future Sci-Fi and 'Duel'
00:12:04
Speaker
Of course, everybody wants to be Dick Grayson. You want to be right there at the center of the action, but not
00:12:10
Speaker
weighed down by the reality and the horrors of what this world might be like. It never stops being fun for him, even in his darkest hours. Yeah. So anyway, all of that is to... Well, let's transition to something else first. And lately I've been asking guests, what kind of thing is grabbing your attention lately? What are you really interested in? It can be geek wise or it doesn't have to be.
00:12:36
Speaker
Lately, I've been really drawn to stories that are kind of 15 minutes in the future, we'll say, like stories where there's kind of one sci-fi conceit that then the rest of the story kind of derives from. If this, then here's the story. Examples would be Duel, the Riley Stearns film starring Karen Gillan that came out earlier this year. It is on, I think, AMC+. I've never heard of that.
00:13:05
Speaker
I have it because all the IFC shows went there and I'm a huge comedy bang, bang fan. And I just wanted to be able to have access to it and just run through those episodes all the time, which led me to AMC plus. But they also had dual, which is a fantastic film. I didn't have the chance to catch in theaters, but I saw it streaming. The premise is that Karen Gillan is a woman who is depressed before she finds out she has a terminal illness. And then she,
00:13:33
Speaker
in this world can raise a clone and kind of spend a few months with this clone of her and imprint on the clone to then basically fill in for her once she's passed so that her friends and family don't have to grieve or face the reality of her loss. It's a really dark, bleak kind of sci-fi comedy, really. And so she trains this clone, her replacement,
00:13:56
Speaker
And then finds out she's not dying and in this world when a clone exists and it's not going to replace you, you have one year until you fight to the death and whoever wins then gets to resume the life. So the film itself is about her preparing for this fight and having to, this woman who was previously, you know,
00:14:17
Speaker
had little will to live prior to her diagnosis now has this visceral like ready to fight mentality and has to train and she's facing, you know, a mirror image of her a doppelganger. It's so dark and fun and really take some turns that you might not expect.
00:14:37
Speaker
It's great. I'm gonna have to see if I can find that because I don't have the AMC channel, but some of the stuff that gets on some of the smaller streaming services in the US, they'll usually end up on like one of the bigger streamers in Japan, like on Netflix or on Amazon Prime. So I just looked it up. It's not in the rental stores around here, but I'm going to have to see if I can find it on one of those streamers.
00:15:01
Speaker
It's really quirky. If you're a fan of Jorgos Lanthimos films like The Lobster or Killing of a Sacred Deer, Riley Stearns is clearly a fan of Jorgos Lanthimos as well and is channeling the kind of stilted dialogue and off-kilter, unnerving tone that Jorgos Lanthimos really nails in his films. And it's really clearly present in this, and it's a conscious effort on Riley Stearns' part, because his previous film
00:15:31
Speaker
the art of self-defense starring Jesse Eisenberg, another great film, far more grounded in reality. There's no sci-fi concepts going on there. And it's a little bit more casual in tone, colloquial kind of in a way that this film is not. Duel is very precise in its structure and tone in a way that really, it toes the line perfectly between horror and comedy.
00:15:59
Speaker
not in the way that most horror comedies do. It's not really a satire. It's not goofy. You don't know whether to laugh or not because the things that are being said are often so absurd and the characters are deadly serious situations. In a way that kind of reminds me of, do you ever see Ichi the Killer?
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah. What you're describing there, it reminds me of the same feeling I felt watching each of the killer, where it has this idea. It goes so over the top in some scenes that it makes you laugh, and it immediately switches to something that's so hardcore and painful to watch that it almost punishes you for laughing.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yes, one of the things that Dua really nails is that the emotional landscape of the film, and in a way, in all films, it's kind of tied to that protagonist. How they're feeling is your indicator of how you should be feeling. And Karen Gillan is so good in her dual roles in the film that there are moments where her reaction is almost leaving you kind of stranded, because you're like, I feel a very clear type of way about what's happening in this character. Why isn't she showing this?
00:17:14
Speaker
her character kind of directly interrogates that over the course of the film. Like, when she gets her diagnosis, she's like, why don't I feel sad? And that's heavy. That's a tough place for her to be in at the start of this movie.
Karen Gillan's Versatile Acting Skills
00:17:25
Speaker
And it's a challenging watch, I think. In some ways, it's not exactly what you might think it is based on fulfilling the promise of the premise. But it's such a good journey. She's fantastic in it.
00:17:41
Speaker
Aaron Paul plays her trainer and he's great in it. He's a scene stealer. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. I'm going to have to look that up because I've seen her. I've only seen her in a few different things, but it amazes me how.
00:17:54
Speaker
like you just look comparing like her probably what she's both most well known for like the Jumanji movies and Guardians of the Galaxy just how vastly different her performances are in those two those two movies and it's like if you didn't realize that was Karen Gillan right you know even makeup aside you wouldn't you wouldn't you wouldn't necessarily realize that was the same actress
00:18:15
Speaker
And both of those characters are totally different than Amy Pond and Dr. Who, which is her breakout role, a role that a lot of Dr. Who performers kind of can be typecast as the character that they portray on that show, or even broadly that type of character or thing. And she went so far in the other direction with Nebula and then with her Jumanji character.
00:18:41
Speaker
She's a really fantastic performer, and in dual, she plays two different versions of the same character. One, the lived in version, and one, kind of like a failed imprint. She's not exactly a perfect doppelganger, and that's part of the problem. That's a complication in the story. And she's just really, really good. I'd say the film does her a slight disservice in having her do an American accent, because everyone around her is,
00:19:08
Speaker
I believe, with a couple exceptions, a lot of the other characters are British. And she's Scottish, so she could just have done her regular accent just fine. And instead, she's putting on an American accent. And there are a couple times where it kind of throws you for a loop. Yeah. I think the thing I'm kind of into lately is I've been rereading the Superman rebirth comics that Dan Juergens and Pat, what was it?
00:19:36
Speaker
Tomasi. Peter Tomasi. I was trying to remember his first time. I kept thinking Patrick. Yeah, and Patrick Gleason did the art on it. So yeah, that Juergens, Tomasi and Gleason worked on. And so I just, I've been rereading those lately. And it's been fun
Superman Rebirth Comics Discussion
00:19:50
Speaker
going back to that era, you know, before we got them into stuff. And just like, man, I wish we could have seen this stuff continue.
00:19:57
Speaker
I love that era. For me, it was kind of the moment that I hopped back on mainstream Superman books. I'm really curious, Perry, how is the action comic side of it, the Dan Jurgen stuff? Because I have the Tomasi and Gleason stuff in the deluxe editions. They're beautiful. And I've always had my eye on those other three, the action comics ones. Worth it? Oh, they're definitely worth it. I think if you're comparing it to Jurgen's,
00:20:23
Speaker
You know earlier stuff on Superman like the the stuff he did like the death of Superman era and all that. Um, I think
00:20:30
Speaker
that stuff might be a little bit stronger. Because I think when I was when, when they announced this, I was so excited for the Jurgen stuff more so than the because I didn't really I'm, I wasn't very familiar with Tomasi at the time. So I was much more interested in the, in the Jurgen side of things, but I read them both. And I found myself liking the Tomasi and Gleason stuff a lot more because I think he focused a lot more on the
00:20:56
Speaker
Tomasi, I think, focused a lot more on the family dynamics between Clark, Lois, and John, whereas Juergens focused more on the
00:21:05
Speaker
the bigger world type stuff. For the most part, I think I prefer the the Tommasi stuff, especially because Jurgens had the unfortunate role of having to do the Oz Effect, which was a very good story. And I hate that they brought back, you know, I'm not sure if you've read it, but you know about the Miss Doc. Okay, so all right. So I'm not spoiling anything then. Yeah, I hated that they brought back Jor-El. I kept waiting for a turn.
00:21:29
Speaker
there and be like like oh no it's not really Jor-El or like he's Jor-El from an alternate universe or something and that turn never came that annoyed the crap out of me.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't love that storyline. It also spilled over into Detective Comics where it's part of Tim Drake's death. And then the fake out is that Oz Jor-El has kidnapped him for essentially no reason. It doesn't ever have anything to do with Doomsday Clock or any of the stuff that they were teaching. And then Tim is just kind of unceremoniously back at one point. And it felt to me a little bit like an editorial mandate because it parallels the
00:22:09
Speaker
I'd say still not very effective, but slightly more effective use of the Flashpoint Thomas Wayne in Batman at the time. Those two parallels, the father's coming back and they're different. I was like, all right. Thematically, it's interesting that these things are happening at the same time.
00:22:27
Speaker
the opportunity to connect them in any way or do anything with those, with both those characters, never really felt like it was a payoff. That was really, yeah, that's the part that really got me. I'm like, if you're gonna parallel the Flashpoint Thomas Wayne thing, I'm fine with that, just like I'm fine with Flashpoint Thomas Wayne coming in, but.
00:22:46
Speaker
You should only, first you should only do it for one story, not have it be a much bigger thing. And like they did, like I thought when Tom King brought him in, that was kind of pushing things too far. As much as I did love Tom King's run, that was one thing I didn't like about his Batman. But also, you know, don't mess with the established Jor-El and Thomas Wayne. Bring in the Jor-El from Flashpoint or something like that. I think that would have made a whole lot more sense. Especially given what Flashpoint
00:23:14
Speaker
did to Superman, right? I think that version of Thomas Wayne would make so much more sense being like this Mr. Oz character. Yeah. Yeah. It's just such a missed opportunity. And I do think there are some things about some of these characters that not necessarily should be sacred, but like leave it alone. There's not enough. There's no reason to have this be the canon actual Jor-El. And maybe if anyone wants a free retcon, make that the Ultraman Jor-El. You already have Ultraman messing with Jon.
00:23:43
Speaker
There's no reason to sell the characters legacy by taking them from being unequivocally good and heroic and sacrificial and just making them a jerk. I always kind of clench up now whenever they announce that we're exploring an aspect of the origin that's never been explored before because it almost invariably turns out very bad.
00:24:05
Speaker
Yeah, to bring it back to Batman, I was loving Chip Zdarsky's run on Batman the Night, filling in
Batman and Harvey Dent's Friendship Portrayal
00:24:11
Speaker
that gap prior to year one where it is not just a montage of Bruce going around the world and training with all these different masters of different disciplines, but a story. You see him changing from
00:24:22
Speaker
you know, young adult orphan and two young adult hero. And I was fine with directly tying in Ghost Maker and filling that in because that elevates that character beyond, you know, kind of similar to Tommy Elliott coming in as just like a friend who we've never heard before. OK, sure. So doing that story where we get to see that friendship totally worked for me, that was fine. But then bringing in Ra's al Ghul and Talia and and really
00:24:49
Speaker
retconning a ton of Denny O'Neill's work was, to me, just such a missed opportunity to have this be a firmly canon, you know, story that stands the test of time. And instead now, it's one of those where you kind of have to pick and choose. When does Bruce meet Roz and learn about the League of Assassins and all that? And I'm sure there was ways to kind of reconcile those two things, but it was interesting to have a villain that
00:25:17
Speaker
very directly is like, I could have stayed out of your life and I came in because I'm interested in what you're doing as Batman, not this version where he meets him and he's like a chosen one, essentially. Yeah, yeah. I'll have to check that out because I haven't read that series yet, but I love Chip Zardzky's work on Daredevil.
00:25:39
Speaker
So I'll have to check out that stuff too, despite the changes, despite that. But anyway, that's a nice little transition to what we're talking about today, because we are talking about a story from Batman's early years. And when you were on the Patreon show, we talked about the comic book, The Long Halloween, which both of us love, both of us thought was like, if not the greatest Batman story, then at least one of the greatest Batman stories.
00:26:06
Speaker
And both of us kind of ended on this idea that if you're going to introduce someone to Batman, you should do it with this story. Today we're talking about the movie, parts one and two of the animated movie, which I'm going to, this one I would not say give to someone if this is their first impression of Batman. But we're going to dive into it. So let's kind of start with, I want to start with the cast because I think the casting is one of the things that this movie nails really well.
00:26:36
Speaker
Jensen Ackles I'm I'm a huge supernatural fan I loved it all fifteen seasons and I thought even at the moments when. They were getting into the absurd territory I thought that they had a nice way of. Acknowledging that they were getting into absurd territory so I like like the self self referential referential humor I liked how.
00:26:56
Speaker
Both the actors Ackles and Jared Padalecki Seem like they
Critique of 'The Long Halloween' Adaptation
00:27:01
Speaker
were still having fun doing it all 15 years It never seemed like they were getting tired of doing it Even though they mocked that idea when they did like the some of the meta episodes So it felt like you know, these two guys really enjoyed what they were doing, you know behind behind the scenes and Sorry, go ahead
00:27:19
Speaker
Oh, I was going to say, and I think Jensen Ackles has also played Jason Todd. Yeah. Really a huge fan of these characters, and he's great in the role. Yeah. And that was another thing I was going to mention too, because it's really interesting to see how he's played Batman and how several years back he played Jason Todd. And he knocked it out of the park both times.
00:27:43
Speaker
And yeah, and then, you know, I'm thinking of comparing him to some of the other voice actors that have done Batman because nobody's going to touch Conroy, just like nobody's going to touch Christopher Reeve, Superman, right? It's just that they are on a completely different level. But when you're looking at like the other voice actors that have taken on this role,
00:28:04
Speaker
Ackles is pretty far up there. Like he's got that deep gravelly voice and he can also do like the lighter stuff is Bruce Wayne. You know, I mean, he did this for 15 years on Supernatural. He played Dean, you know, both like the very hard edge of Dean Winchester, but then he also had a lot of, you know, funny, charming moments as him too. So he can easily transition between those two. And, and yeah, I thought he did an amazing job. In fact, I mean,
00:28:31
Speaker
You know, I'll do respect to Robert Pattinson. I think he's great, but I kind of think we missed out on something by not seeing Jensen Ackles play a live-action Batman. Wow, that's actually really good casting.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah, I'd be very interested, even if it was in a television series. I think it would be a great fit for him. Yeah, the casting is really fantastic in this film. We'd be remiss not to mention Naya Rivera's last role as cameraman. She's really great in it. She's got great chemistry with Ackles. I don't know about you, Perry. My hit or miss casting in this is Josh Dumal as Two-Face, Harvey Dent. OK.
00:29:14
Speaker
He just feels like he's in a little bit of a different movie than some of the other characters. I feel like he was cast because he could do the two-faced part. And his Harvey Dent was incidental. You have to play Harvey because you're going to play two-faced.
00:29:31
Speaker
I don't know, I could take it or leave it. I thought he mostly did a pretty good job. I think at moments before the transformation, like especially in part one, I think there were moments when he got a little too over the top. I will give you that. But overall, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can definitely see that. Overall, I liked him though.
00:29:52
Speaker
It's clear that he's doing a Richard Mull impression from Batman the Animated Series. In fact, I had to double check and see who it was. Also, you know, along that line, you know, Troy Baker, who I believe he also did, didn't he also do Joker in Arkham Origins?
00:30:07
Speaker
I think so. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So he's, he does the same thing where, you know, he does this kind of Mark Hamill impersonation as the Joker, which mostly works. I think there are a few moments when I'm just like, wait, you kind of sound like Mark Hamill if he has a cold. So there's something a little bit off about it. But for the most part, I think he does a pretty decent job. And
00:30:30
Speaker
You know, if I'm comparing it to Under the Red Hood is a good example. If I'm comparing it to the guy who did the Joker in Under the Red Hood, whose name I don't remember at the moment, compared to Troy Baker doing it here, I'm in a much preferred Troy Baker doing his Mark Hamill impersonation because I thought that the voice Joker had in Under the Red Hood was completely wrong for the character.
00:30:52
Speaker
I agree, it's a distraction. There's something so good about when the characters aren't, or the actors aren't doing it, it's not exactly a pitch perfect impression. They've still got a little bit of their own spin, but you can tell whose version of the character they're trying to bring to the table. Right. And that, to me, is perfect, and I'm grateful that these projects give opportunities to performers who are gonna follow in the footsteps like that, so that, you know,
00:31:19
Speaker
that style of Joker doesn't live or die with Mark Hamill. That take on the character, similar to Conroy's take on Batman, is a definitive take. And I don't want to see people try to do their own thing to top it. If we can still have that version of the character in a faithful tribute, I'll take that every time.
00:31:43
Speaker
Also, we have another Titans connection because Titus Welliver, who played Lex Luthor in the new season of Titans, he does Carmine Falcone here. Yes, in my notes, I wrote down Mob Bosch.
00:32:00
Speaker
That's all I have for Titus Williver as Carmen Falcone. I liked his casting. It was fun. It was my thoughts on any of these castings. It's like, does it take me out? Do I immediately accept, oh, yeah, that's Bruce Wayne's voice. That's Commissioner Gordon's voice. That's Carmine's voice. Or am I like, wait, who's talking? Why is it what's happening? Which sometimes happens when you get a miscast on, say, The Joker, where it's like, oh, that's not The Joker's voice. Right, yeah.
00:32:29
Speaker
Although funny enough, he wasn't a TV show called Falcone, which I'm just looking at now. Oh, I didn't realize this. He was also on Supernatural. He played War. Wow, okay. So yeah, he was good in that. And it's funny, because I've just seen his name pop up. Because I thought he was really great in... Have you seen him in Titans yet?
00:32:53
Speaker
No, I have to catch up. Okay, so yeah, he plays Lex Luthor in the new season and he's really, he does a really cool Lex Luthor. I think he's much more of the, I think, I'm blanking on the guy's name, but the guy who does them on Supergirl. John Cryer. John Cryer, thank you, yeah. John Cryer is almost, he's got an interesting interpretation where it's kind of,
00:33:21
Speaker
a spin on the Gene Hackman Lex Luthor. But Welliver's Luthor seems very much more in the Clancy Brown vein. So I've really enjoyed seeing him in that part. And speaking of on-par, on-the-nose casting, like Alistair Duncan as Alfred, that was just perfect. As soon as I heard his voice, my mind immediately went to
00:33:49
Speaker
the animated series and thinking about, wait a minute, that's not, I can't remember who played him there, I'm blanking on it, but he passed away several years ago. So I'm like, I know it can't be him because he's not around anymore, but seeing him in, I'm
Bruce Wayne's Detective Evolution
00:34:05
Speaker
just looking it up here. Oh, Ephraim Zimbalist Jr., he was amazing as Alfred. He's like, again, you're talking about definitive voices. That's the voice I always hear when I think of Alfred. And Alistair Duncan, you know,
00:34:18
Speaker
almost like exactly the same voice. Yeah. He's so good. And they, I think really knew they, I don't know which came first in this case. It might've just been that they wanted more Alfred in the story, but we get scenes of Alfred sooner and more often than you have in the original story. And I think that's a great choice for any adaptation. Always give me more Alfred. Alfred as a character
00:34:42
Speaker
Even when he's not the kind of sardonic, you know, teasing Alfred, which everybody loves. That's to me, it's essential character. But even when that is kind of dialed back, the presence of Alfred.
00:34:55
Speaker
Pennyworth Batman's butler is is a little, you know, it's a little of Sir, the Batman has a butler. Bruce Wayne should have a butler, but Batman having a butler is fun. It's it's it's lighthearted in a way that, you know, totally to me nails the dichotomy of this character and grounds him. And I understand why the comic
00:35:15
Speaker
for like the first five, four or five issues, steers away from Alfred. We don't see him. These were focused on a different side of the character. And here, you know, it just contextualizes Batman in a way that you want to see. And the other one I really wanted to mention was
00:35:36
Speaker
um david dasmal chain as calendar man i think that was the other one that really kind of stood out to me i thought he did a he really kind of captured that energy that calendar man had in the series even though i think he's underused in these movies but uh but i think he did a really good job with that yeah we talk a lot about like the what the choices that they're making in these animated adaptations beyond just the long halloween and the attempts to make these the
00:36:03
Speaker
that either the timeless or potentially definitive versions of these stories, often by cutting away some of the narrative clutter that ties some of the incontinuity stories to whatever was happening in the canon at the time, like the changes in Under the Red Hood, the changes in Hush. And Long Halloween has the benefit of not having that. It was kind of out of time, out of continuity when it was released.
00:36:28
Speaker
and it's over time become more often the definitive version because it's just so good. That's the one everyone has in their own minds anyway. But the Calendar Man arc is one of those moments where this adaptation could have chosen to use this piece and this narrative thread in a way that either pays off more or feels more integral to the story and they just don't take the opportunity really.
00:36:54
Speaker
He's still kind of just there. Yeah, I think one of the big strengths of the long Halloween comic book was this idea of Gotham City changing, right? Gotham was very much a character in that comic. And this idea of, you know, the old ways dying out and Batman's kind of ushered in this new era where we're not gonna have the old school mob bosses anymore. Instead, we're transitioning to the era of freaks.
00:37:21
Speaker
And Holidays and Harvey both represent that in different ways, right? You have holiday, you know, spoilers for everyone who doesn't read the comic, but they went a completely different direction than the movie did, where Harvey Dent, you know, may have started out as the holiday killer, or Gilda may have started out as the holiday killer, but then Alberto Falcone picks up the mantle and he's
00:37:49
Speaker
A big part of that story is that whole transition thing, the fact that the neglected son comes up and he's literally helping killing off the mob era so that it can transition to the era of freaks. It's a nice twist on the Michael Corleone story.
00:38:13
Speaker
there's this you know he starts off as you know he's the favored son the one that the mob boss wants to give everything to but doesn't but wants him to be better than this mob stuff wants him to do something more with his life and he ends up getting roped into it though
00:38:31
Speaker
in a similar way to how Michael gets roped into it in the Godfather. But whereas Michael is very much trying to become his father and try and take the Corleone Empire into the light, at least that's how he starts off and trying to legitimize everything.
00:38:49
Speaker
Spoilers for anyone who has not seen the Godfather movies doesn't quite work out that way but but Alberto goes the other direction he's he feels that scorn right he and he wants to destroy everything his father's built and he really feels a connection with these freaks and It really kind of disappointed me the movie didn't go that route
00:39:12
Speaker
Yeah, the changes to Alberto and then tying him to Gilda is such a departure. And I was more ambivalent about it the first time that I watched these adaptations and revisiting them to talk about them. And I watched them back to back. It's just such a different. And we talked about the comic in depth previously. So I had that kind of fresh in my mind.
00:39:40
Speaker
it just doesn't work for me. I really preferred the version where Gilda kind of wrongfully assumes that Harvey has picked up the torch and Harvey doesn't until the very end when as Too Faced
Adaptation Challenges and Character Consistency
00:39:55
Speaker
he's taking action. Making Alberto this kind of like, I mean, the changes even just make it feel too close to Hush, even where there's like, oh, the reveal of who's really truly behind it. And there was this connection that, you know, is seeded kind of through the story, but not really, not in a way that you can solve. There's a couple of heavy handed hints where if you know, then it's clear, oh, it gets cut off before you can say it.
00:40:25
Speaker
And then there's moments like sending the flowers to Dent and to Kilda in the hospital that just really strain any kind of like, curtula, which I know is silly to say in a Batman series, but it takes a compelling character and really makes him kind of one note and
00:40:50
Speaker
then takes Gilda, who is already defined by her relationship to her husband, and now makes her defined by her relationship to two men. You know, it's so interesting when I watch this, because both of these, this movie and also the Killing Joke, they approach these stories which had
00:41:10
Speaker
pretty bad treatment of its female characters and not the main character, but at least one of their female characters in it. And they're like, and they go in with this idea of like, okay, we're gonna make this better. We're gonna fix this. And in both cases, they made it worse. I thought that was so weird. I'm like, and like, did you guys even think about what you're doing here? Because, you know, in, you know, Killing Joke, the whole idea was, okay, so Barbara just pops in the story to get shot and abused by the Joker.
00:41:39
Speaker
So that's bad. We should give her something more to do. So we're going to do this opening segment where we see her as back row. We see her in action. I'm like, okay, good. That sounds awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing that. And then we see her have sex on, you know, you know, sex on the roof with Batman. I'm just like, why? And then we look at this one and, you know, the whole idea of, okay, she went to Oxford. She knew Alberto. She was going to be a lawyer herself, but she put her dreams on the back burner for Harvey.
00:42:08
Speaker
I can see where we're going with that. But then you tie in the whole thing where her and Alberto had this whole relationship and she got pregnant with his child and they got married and then Carmine put his foot down and forced her to have an abortion.
00:42:23
Speaker
And so now she's getting revenge on Carmine. It just, first off, it kills that whole overarching story, that underlying theme of the long Halloween of that transition between the mobs to the freaks. That's completely gone now. And then also you're adding in this very cliched, sexist twist to it. And I just thought, I'm like, we don't need this. Nobody is asking for this version of Guild of Death.
00:42:52
Speaker
The choices in these adaptations sometimes are baffling because I think there maybe is pressure to tell a story that is going to be surprising and fresh to people who've read the comics a thousand times, but that's not what people who've read the comics a thousand times want. They want to see the story they know and love.
00:43:11
Speaker
with room for improvement in certain areas, but like it's got to be in service of the story. And like the changes to the killing joke where, where Barbara and Bruce have sex, like that is Bruce Timms specific.
00:43:23
Speaker
odd fight. And I personally, I like vehemently reject that characterization. I think that's such a gross scene to have added, especially like, it just makes her like a sex object to both Batman and the Joker. And it's who is asking for that? That's horrible.
00:43:42
Speaker
such a bizarre thing, but in that case at least it certainly doesn't excuse it, but we can trace the origin of that idea to a specific creator. Here the changes just feel like an attempt to kind of like rewrite the story. And as we talked about on the Patreon episode, one of the biggest challenges that the Long Halloween has is that core mystery. And that was a place to
00:44:05
Speaker
You know, open up the hood and tinker with the story and the adaptation. And I think the choice to really kind of more firmly thread the, the Batman and Cowwoman relationship through the movie is an example of that succeeding when they made changes and it works.
00:44:22
Speaker
Batman going to Chinatown and investigating and following leads is a change to the story that mostly works. It's a new material. It's not present in the original at all. Yeah, I think these other changes are really, really foolish and don't pay off. They hurt characters that needed that boost.
00:44:44
Speaker
That's what baffles me so much about this movie because I loved part one. I thought part one was so strong and they did such a good job of setting everything up. Like when they killed Alberto, I'm just like, okay. And they make it definitive that he's deaded this. Like there's no, you know, he gets his body shredded by the freaking propellers and they're just making it very clear that, okay, he is definitely not coming back. So when that happened, I'm like, okay. Because I saw these separately when they premiered on HBO max. And when I saw that first part, I'm just like, okay,
00:45:14
Speaker
This is interesting. I wonder where they're going to go from here. And I could see them tying in Gilda to it with the conversation she had with Harvey. But there was a strain to their relationship that felt very forced in that first movie and that I wasn't feeling. And
00:45:38
Speaker
then they built on that in the second one. So it almost feels like, I mean, one of the great things about the Long Halloween story is you feel that love that Harvey and Gilda have for each other. So it becomes a real tragedy when Harvey goes through his transformation. That's gone in this and it's replaced with a very sexist type of tragedy where she's, you know,
00:46:00
Speaker
the father of her husband forced her to have an abortion and Harvey almost feels just like a means to an end for her. Like she got with Harvey because he was after the mob and that's it. That's the only reason she ever cared about Harvey. So that whole tragic element is also gone too. Take that out of her character too. But then it makes an extra sin too where it damages Batman as a character too because
00:46:24
Speaker
You know, in Long Halloween, the comic book, we can, like we talked about that, and like you just mentioned, that mystery had some issues with it. So I can understand wanting to tinker with that, wanting to fix some things. I get that. That's totally legitimate. There are ways to
00:46:42
Speaker
fix aspects of this story to tie Gilda in to make it more of a miss more of a classical mystery and to to make that ending make a bit more sense as opposed to kind of the almost twist ending we have here but the movie also does other things where we constantly see holiday and it's clearly a man
00:47:01
Speaker
right? It's very obviously not Gilda. So, you know, the build is all wrong and everything. And it's like, and in the comic, it was always off panel. We never got to actually see holiday except in like silhouettes. So that never really worked either. And then, but the other thing in the Long Halloween comic, we find out at the end that, you know, Gilda is
00:47:24
Speaker
You know, again, it's kind of ham-fisted, right? The fact that she's talking to herself as she's burning evidence in the basement. Okay. But it's, you know, it's a comic book trope. We can forgive him for that. But nobody knows, right? And then after that story, she just disappears. But in this story, she's telling this all to Batman. And Batman knows. Excuse me. And he lets her go. And he lets her go. And I'm just like,
00:47:53
Speaker
that doesn't make, that doesn't fit Batman at all. Like he's not someone who's just gonna, I can understand if it's someone who had,
00:48:02
Speaker
maybe been through some stuff or something, or if it was like a non-violent crime, I can understand him giving them another chance. But she killed a shitload of people. It's essentially the version of Batman where in the Robert Pattinson and Matt Reeves version when the Riddler is like, actually, I think we're working towards a common goal, aren't we? We've been in cahoots. If Batman was like,
00:48:27
Speaker
Well, yeah, you're right. It is good that all these corrupt criminals and corrupt figures are gone and off the table. No, Batman loses his shit in that moment where he's like, I have been a tool for evil, unwillingly.
00:48:42
Speaker
And in this version, he just kind of lets her go. The changes to the end of part one, I totally was on board with. I liked the definitive death for Alberto. I liked that he still had a presence and factored into the ending. I didn't care for the way that he did, but the fact that he doesn't just completely forgotten work for me. And I understood the need to kind of really firmly, definitively
00:49:08
Speaker
end part one as its own piece of content, sure, it feels like an ending. And then it lends itself in the way that if it were ever to be adapted to a feature film and they were to split it up, I'd imagine they'd come to a similar kind of conclusion where the two parts kind of bookend the two holiday killers. Now the torch has been passed. But it just doesn't really work. The Gilda and Harvey relationship, like you said,
00:49:34
Speaker
so bizarrely incidental. It's almost like they're only married because they're married in the original story that's being adapted and they didn't know how to reconfigure her character. The parallels between
00:49:47
Speaker
Batman, Gordon, and Harvey both as kind of how they want to take on the mob, how they want to change the city. And then where they are each at with respect to their personal lives is great in the original story. And its choices here start to reinforce that.
00:50:07
Speaker
Jim's wife, we see Barbara and Jim Jr. There's a cute Halloween scene added. They're kind of more firmly established as characters, as opposed to not really being present in the comic, really. We get to see that Harvey and Gilda wanting to start a family. They're not as far as the Gordons are in their journey. And then you have Bruce taking the very first baby step of, can I even let other people into my circle of trust?
00:50:33
Speaker
eventually planting the seeds in the sequel for the start of The Bat Family with him taking in Dick Grayson. That thread eventually pays off even though it's just kind of tiptoed here. And that kind of parallel falls apart in the adaptation. It doesn't feel like they were really trying to do the story justice as much as just surprise us with a different ending.
00:50:58
Speaker
But the weird thing is they get so close in so many moments where they have these they're matching these parallels like you see Gordon and and Barbara with the kids and you see them, you know, struggling to balance the work and family life.
00:51:11
Speaker
And then you see Gilda and Harvey and talking about having kids, whereas in the comic, Gilda wanted to have a family. And that was one of her motivations was, which again, you know, kind of a sexist cliche, but it made a bit more sense that, you know, and it made a bit more sense when you're comparing their relationship to Jim and Barbara. And then you've got Bruce and Selena who are just kind of starting out here. And they set it up so well in part one.
00:51:39
Speaker
but then they undermine it when they start having these, it's almost like they take all the problems that Jim and Barbara were having in the comic and they put them on, they force them onto Harvey and Gilda. And then they add in this extra twist of Gilda having this past relationship with Alberto and it just, none of it works. And it's just like, you had such a good chance to really drive this parallel home and you just completely shit the bed on it.
00:52:06
Speaker
And I think that some of those threads, those secondary themes and the parallels, they get off on the wrong foot from the beginning of part one, where the Johnny VD wedding set piece is kind of immediately removed. Instead of Bruce and Carmine talking while overlooking the wedding below, they're just looking at Gotham.
00:52:25
Speaker
Instead of Bruce and Selena meeting in their civilian identities and establishing that that's the start of the relationship, that's just thrown in as a thing that's going on and we first see them interacting as Batman and Catwoman. That just changes the tone of the story. It becomes less of a story about Harvey Dent. It becomes more of a story about Two-Face. It becomes less of a story about Bruce Wayne. It becomes a story about Batman, which
00:52:51
Speaker
it works. But the original, the genuine articles version of starting the other way, and then leading into those is just so effective. And it's one of those elements that didn't need to change. Yeah. There are a few things I want to mention in there, too. Like, I think I think they do mostly they do a good job with the Bruce and Selena stuff in here. And again, Naya Rivera, you know, you know, rest in peace, she did such a great job as Catwoman. And I thought,
00:53:20
Speaker
they they did and I like that they incorporated that hush aspect of her finding out that Bruce Wayne is Batman and they work that into the story where when they break up it's because they both know the other has this dual identity and I thought that was a really
Importance of Character Relationships
00:53:37
Speaker
And when she even says, you know, they handled that, they executed that brilliantly when she says, like, you know, don't worry, I'll still see you on the other side. Like, there are so many different ways to interpret that. And as we find out in the movie, she is talking, she is talking about what we think about. She is talking about the fact that they're both, they've got these other identities.
00:53:55
Speaker
I really love what they did with that, but we lose something when we lose that contrast between that in the comic when we have Bruce and Selina meeting at the wedding and they start dancing versus when they meet as Batman and Catwoman and they start chasing each other on the rooftops. There's such nice symmetry to those two scenes in the comic book. That's just kind of lost in here.
00:54:19
Speaker
And I think, sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say, we lose the potential story beat of Selena having some agency and discovering it for herself that Bruce is Batman because Alberto kind of just starts blurting it out and just makes it very, very obvious before his passing that he's just like kind of like sharing this information. It's like, all right. Yeah, yeah. And then one of the things I think they did well here, which the comic book kind of
00:54:46
Speaker
touches on but it doesn't really address directly is the idea that this is a young and inexperienced Batman. So I did like they have that scene when Bruce is in the cape when the
00:54:57
Speaker
I think it was Moroni who says to him, you're not much of a detective, are you? And then the cave, when Bruce is talking to Alfred and he's like, you know, I thought maybe I could just, you know, clean up the streets and, you know, put a few guys in jail, maybe scare some others straight. But now I'm thinking, you know, maybe Batman has to be more. Maybe he does have to be a detective, which does
00:55:17
Speaker
add a wrinkle, because then you're like, well, what happened all the years when you were traveling the globe and learning how to be a detective? I get that there's a continuity problem there. But I did like the fact that they address it, that he is not quite a detective yet, and he's still trying to figure out how to do this. In some ways, I like it. In other ways, and it feels kind of ham-fisted, because it feels like they're just adding that in there to set up the end when he finds out that Gilda is holiday.
00:55:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's something to be said for the fact that as much as this is its own standalone adaptation, it is also to some degree trying to be the first Batman story in this new DC animated film continuity. And we see that with the new added post-credits scene where some other heroes arrive at, I think at
00:56:04
Speaker
Wayne Manor. Yeah, yeah. Flashing me down. They just show up at his front door. And so, you know, the idea that this being Bruce kind of going through the, like making mistakes and learning what it means to be Batman works for me. And I think it's like just a nitpick with the way that that line is operating. Because I do think
00:56:28
Speaker
to compare again to the Robert Pattinson version, which, you know, I have to I have is a touchpoint for this film, because it is a different adaptation of roughly the same story. Right.
00:56:38
Speaker
we get a similar beat when Penguin calls Batman and Gordon like World's Greatest Detectives or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like kind of tells them off. And that's a similar kind of beat, but I thought that was more effective because it's making a mistake as a detective, having, you know, gone too far down the wrong rabbit hole, as opposed to the almost petulant kind of like, oh man, I'm going to have to solve mysteries. Yeah, man, you're Batman. That is...
00:57:07
Speaker
That's actually your whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I, I like that they're, I like what they're trying to do there, but they're, they're, they're hammering. It's like they're, they had to tell us like, see, see, see, look, he's trying to be a detective. See, see. I'm like, okay, okay. We get it. We get it.
00:57:25
Speaker
Yeah, I would have appreciated something more akin to the glider crash scene, where it's like he's literally inexperienced. He hasn't fully, he's not operating on autopilot by any means. He is learning on the job.
00:57:41
Speaker
And I think that there's something to be said that this is also trying to be that first Batman story for this continuity. So it might not even be as far into his career as we're accustomed to thinking along Halloween. Yeah. Yeah. I think of the comic books, it's roughly around year two or year three is when it takes place.
00:57:57
Speaker
Um, but other aspect I think of this movie kind of dropped the ball on was one of the best things about Long Halloween is that relationship between Batman and Harvey Dent, which we talked about in the Patreon episode, and how we really feel that friendship between those two characters. And so when we get in this and, you know, and Batman's talking about my friend Harvey and all this kind of stuff, it all, it never fits. It feels like this stuff is there because
00:58:25
Speaker
It's supposed to play. One of the things that annoyed me about a lot of the Snyder films was stuff happens because it's supposed to happen, right? Why does Lex Luthor hate Superman? Well, because he's Lex Luthor and that's Superman and they hate each other.
00:58:38
Speaker
Um, and you know, and I think we had a lot of that kind of same idea here where stuff happens because it's supposed to happen, right? So why are Batman and Harvey Dent friends? Well, they're friends because they were friends in the comic books. And the movie it's, but whenever they do these adaptations, the thing that gets me nuts is like, you can't just rely on people having that knowledge from the comic books. You have to read, you have to do the work of rebuilding that stuff, which is, you know, compared to the
00:59:06
Speaker
the Iron Man and Captain America relationship in the MCU. I mean, I hated the Civil War comic book, but one of the things I loved about what they did in the Civil War movie is they had built up that relationship. So when those two characters come into contact, it makes sense. It totally fits with where they started and where they've been over the course of these past several movies.
00:59:29
Speaker
They did the work of building up that relationship in those movies so that it made sense when they got to the Civil War and they fought each other. Whereas in the Snyder movies, Batman and Superman fight because Batman and Superman have to fight. But that relationship's not there. It doesn't make sense. Same thing here with Batman and Harvey Dent. On some level, I can buy the
00:59:50
Speaker
I wouldn't say he'd let her go, but I can buy Bruce being conflicted about going after bringing in Gilda because of his friendship to Harvey. But that friendship with Harvey is never built up in this movie.
01:00:03
Speaker
Yeah, and there's a change that I think, you know, we talked a little bit on the Patreon episode about like my personal headcanon for the character and things that I think should be true in every adaptation. And, you know, you occasionally see things that come from different versions of the character and then kind of solidify, they become legend, they become, that's the version everyone knows. So that's the version that creators have in mind when they're telling new stories and it just becomes the version. And in this case, the idea that
01:00:33
Speaker
They do fill in a little bit more specifically in the background, the Harvey and Batman friendship, in that Harvey is explicitly the DA who locks up the rogues. I love that change and it's so buried in the background, but I want to see the version of year one where it's not just Batman and Den have spoken, they've met.
01:00:56
Speaker
It is it is Batman realizes his way doesn't fully work on its own, that he needs the law to lock up the criminals that he's that he's leaving or capturing or whatever that you know that that that's where the Gordon side comes in with with due process and that's where they need an ally.
01:01:17
Speaker
in the DA's office and Harvey being that ally and that being the beginning of this friendship and then this being the first time where the three come together to actually start coordinating larger goals. That really works for me and because we don't have that story, we just hear about it.
01:01:36
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't have that weight. Well, you make a good point. And that's a story that I feel like is kind of under told a little bit in not only in the in the movie, but in the comics as well. Because like you said, we just kind of established that
01:01:49
Speaker
Batman and Harvey know each other in that one scene but and that's the same thing in the comic right we when he pops up on the roof and then you know they had the same exchange bats dent and then Gordon's like oh so you two know each other and remember in the year one comic book we see that one panel where
01:02:07
Speaker
Gordon's in Dent's office, then he leaves, and then Dent turns and there's Batman there. So we know they've met there, but I think year one, as much things as it gets right, I feel like it's kind of a misnomer. We're calling it Batman year one. It's really Gordon year one. And it loses something in telling
01:02:28
Speaker
Bruce's story, and also Harvey's story, like the fact that it doesn't really tell Harvey's story at all. And we've never really gotten that story. I mean, I think The Dark Knight probably did it the best of all of them, where it shows them actually working together and building up that relationship. And I feel like that's a story we haven't really gotten that much in the comics unless I'm mistaken.
01:02:51
Speaker
No, we really haven't. Sometimes that comes down to the timing of when Harvey becomes the DA, but I'm interested in a story where Batman is realizing, if I'm going to send these rogues away, they need to stay locked up. Not that that really works, but in this version, the early goings, he thinks it's possible.
01:03:13
Speaker
And I'm interested, does Bruce help Harvey become the DA through money? Does Batman help Harvey become the DA through his methods? There's a story to be told there, and especially the idea of Harvey being the one who locks up the rogues. They all have individual beef with him, maybe as much or more than they do with Batman. And then the flip of him becoming two-faced and being one of them, and whether he's welcomed or not,
01:03:41
Speaker
is even in the original Long Halloween, it's kind of glossed over because that thread of Harvey being the one to lock them up is not made explicit. You could argue that it is implied by him being the DA who else is gonna be doing it, but it's never been a story beat that has been dug into.
Batman Rogues Gallery Portrayal
01:03:57
Speaker
And I think this adaptation takes the first step by directly drawing that connection of if this is true, then this must also be true.
01:04:06
Speaker
And I'm very interested in a story from Bruce's perspective of his first year that maybe leans farther from the noir of year one and more into the first inklings of the freaks of Gotham. We've had versions of their first appearances retold in the modern era, but some of those
01:04:27
Speaker
even now are 30 years old. So it's time to kind of dig in and refresh those. Well, I think especially, you know, like we talked about in the Patreon episode, one of the biggest missteps in the long Halloween comic is how underused the penguin is in that because he's that perfect transitional character. And I think we're seeing that in Matt Reeves's films, because we get hints of that with with the penguin and that. So I think and now we're getting that penguin TV show. So I think it's going to be
01:04:57
Speaker
I think Matt Reeves is finally doing that. I think he's got the same idea that we've had when we were talking about that, which I can't wait to see. But I'm also thinking about the next episode we're going to be covering Batman Begins. So I haven't rewatched it yet, but this has got my gears turning and thinking about that, where I've always felt one of the biggest missteps of Batman Begins was the Rachel Dawes thing and having Bruce's childhood friend who's now a DA and his love interest.
01:05:25
Speaker
okay, remove the love interest part and you could put Harvey Dent in there and it makes so much more sense and works so much better as a buildup to what will happen in the Dark Knight. Instead of just introducing Harvey, as much as I love what they did with Harvey in the Dark Knight, I feel like we're rushing things a little bit too much.
01:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, and I did think that there was a nice allusion to the Dark Knight, specifically when Harvey and Gilda are on the back porch, they see the bat signal, and she's like, oh, you've got to go. And he rushes off. Because if this happened to be your very first Batman story, you could be forgiven for thinking, wait a minute, is that Batman? And no, of course not. But that threat of he could have been, he is really played with in the Dark Knight.
01:06:14
Speaker
And we get a little bit of a glimpse of it here. And I think that is one of the definitive Harvey Dent stories. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things I liked they did in this movie, though, in as many complaints I have about part two, one of the things I did like and which we talked about in the Patreon episode, the scene when the rogues attack Carmine and how Batman dispatches them way too easily.
01:06:38
Speaker
This version, it felt like he actually had to struggle against them. It felt like a real fight. And I'm glad they had done that. And they showed them to be more threatening as a group than they were in the comic. It also made more sense for Selena to be on Bruce's side. Not only, even in the comic, it would have made more sense for her to be on Batman's side than it did in, than her being on the Rogue side.
01:06:58
Speaker
I think there's a line earlier, again, when they're establishing that Harvey is the DA who locked up the rogues, Batman says, he's the one who locked up your friends. That's enough characterization to see that she's further along her journey. The gears are turning to get her to that place where she's fighting alongside Batman. She's demonstrating that by leading him to the money more directly.
01:07:22
Speaker
in the animated adaptation than just seeing Batman or Harvey there on her tip in the comic.
01:07:31
Speaker
And that big set piece with all the rogues feels like a big moment, feels like a boss fight, feels like a turning point in Batman's career. Because whereas for the mob's perspective, they're being usurped, their role is being replaced, the times have irrevocably changed. From Batman's perspective, he's already locked up the Joker and Poison Ivy and the Mad Hatter and all these early rogues.
01:08:01
Speaker
His turning point is now they've kind of united. They're more formidable as a group than any one of them are individually. And this truly is becoming a different type of war. Yeah. I also think that the Oh, God, I completely lost my train of thought. It'll come back to me in a moment. But let's move on to something else. And I'm sure it'll come back to me in a minute.
01:08:29
Speaker
Um, the art style is something I wanted to mention here. Um, Oh, I do remember what I wanted to say. The scarecrow in this, I thought they did a much better job with the scarecrow in this than they did in the comic book. Cause I always thought it was kind of weird. The scarecrow is only talking in children's lullabies. I'm like, he's never done that before. So it felt a little off for me. It felt like Loeb just thought this was a.
01:08:50
Speaker
a kishy little quirky little thing to throw in. But that felt like something more like the Mad Hatter would be doing.
Artistic Interpretation in Adaptations
01:08:57
Speaker
So I liked that they didn't give that to the Scarecrow in this movie.
01:09:01
Speaker
And the change in the design is one that I felt like really was deserving too. I find, at least in the long Halloween, I'll keep it to just the long Halloween. I think Tim Sails' Scarecrow is a little bit underwhelming. He's not as scary as he could be. And part of that is the writing too. The Scarecrow's not given much to do in the story. He's just there. He could easily have been swapped out for Mr. Freeze or the Riddler or any of the other rogues. Absolutely.
01:09:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's their changes to Batman and Catwoman's costumes I thought were more utilitarian than anything. I could take it or leave it. I'm not offended by the other choices. But I thought that the art style change for Scarecrow specifically, one I would give a big thumbs up to. I like that too. Yeah. Although you did mention the Catwoman design. I didn't like what they did with the Catwoman design here. I thought the shorter gloves and boots. Yeah, they may be more utilitarian. Yeah, making it
01:09:53
Speaker
more of a gray than a purple, maybe makes more sense for her as a thief. But I thought Tim Sayles design of the early Catwoman was such a good way of, you know, you know, paying homage to those original designs, while also having it make a little bit more sense. I mean, I would have liked if they at least gave her long gloves and long boots, I think.
01:10:17
Speaker
I agree. And I hold out hope in my heart of hearts that if there were ever a feature animated adaptation, not a direct to video or streaming version, that they would, the first thing would be commit to Tim sales art style. Yeah, it's the heart of the book. It is what people remember.
01:10:37
Speaker
far more fondly than the story itself even. It's his interpretation of these characters and the world seen through this kind of prism. And I was so excited when they announced the adaptation, I thought for sure that would be the motivating factor to tell an adaptation of a story that you might feel familiar with coming in from Batman begins or the Dark Knight or the Batman.
01:11:05
Speaker
But we get this kind of new DC house style that is fine and serviceable, but it doesn't feel like the long Halloween. And until we get more stories that connect it and need the continuity visually, fine. But I'd want to see Tim Sales work. Yes. That is one of the things that, um, that's exactly what I was going to mention next was the art style.
01:11:26
Speaker
Now, I think the art style is nice. I like this art style. I think the animation is a little bit choppy at times. It seems like it was a little bit rushed. It's not as smooth as it should be, but the basic design style of it, I think it's a great design style. I think they've got really nice...
01:11:47
Speaker
I'm an amateur artist too, so I pay more attention to this stuff now than I used to. But the line weights work really well. I found myself noticing that a lot. I thought the different uses of line weights was really well done on this. I like the overall design of the characters, but I feel that the
01:12:08
Speaker
If you're doing this, if you're looking at it as an adaptation of Tim Sales' art, it completely misses the mark. It's just, and I do like when they have these, and they've done this with some of the animated movies, they tried to match the art style of the artist who did the original comic.
01:12:23
Speaker
And they've done it in really good ways, like, you know, Batman, Superman, public enemies, I thought did an amazing job of capturing that Ed McGinnis style. Same thing with, to a lesser degree, Apocalypse did a pretty good, pretty serviceable job of capturing Michael Turner's artwork. But then you get into some of the other ones, and, or, you know, I think the one that did it the best was The Dark Knight Returns, right? That is,
01:12:48
Speaker
perfect encapsulation of Frank Miller's art style from that comic. Same thing with year one, perfectly captured Magic Kelly style. But then you get in some of these other ones, like when they did the New 52-inspired stuff, and it's like, I see you're trying to do Jim Lee, but Jim Lee's style is too hyper detailed for animation. It doesn't really work, which is why you have to keep making these sacrifices to make it work in animation.
01:13:12
Speaker
And then you look at, and now they're trying to do it again. And they're like, okay, so this is a new continuity, a new universe in line with, you know, Flash and the Justice Society movie and the Superman Man of Tomorrow and now Long Halloween. And this is supposed to be establishing this new continuity. Okay. I mean, I get that. I get you want to do this new continuity thing, but
01:13:36
Speaker
Do you have to do it with the long Halloween then? I mean, can't you just do long Halloween as a separate thing? Because Tim's sales style is one, it's not hyper detailed. It is something that you could easily find a way to do in an animated form. Just like Darwin Cook, right? Darwin Cook has a much more, not as detailed style that worked really well when they did the new frontier. So it's baffling to me why you would make this choice.
01:14:04
Speaker
It's tough. I honestly think it's a way to save money, probably, is to reuse all these assets. Eventually, if they want to pursue a lot... If, say, we get Dark Victory, Robin, you're one, more and more stories in the same continuity that extend past the Loeb and Sail era, fine.
01:14:25
Speaker
I get it. But if we're not going to get that, then I am fully on board of just the as a piece of content, it would have longer legs, it would feel like it's not confined to this, you know,
01:14:41
Speaker
beginnings of an animated universe that so far has had very like, this story is kind of shoehorned into that world other than the post credit scene that like, I could never leave. I don't care about it. Yeah, it feels so out of place. As much as I like the idea that we're going to be seeing more green arrow in this universe, because I think in
01:15:01
Speaker
I love Green Arrow, and I think that as much as I dug Arrow, the TV show, and as much as I liked Justin Hartley on Smallville, I feel like they've been doing a disservice to Green Arrow by trying to focus more on him as an EarthSats Batman, as opposed to being the, I mean, when I think of Green Arrow, I think of Bernie Sanders with a bow and arrow. That's who he is. And that's what I want to see more of. Like we saw in Justice League Unlimited. That was perfect Green Arrow. So I am hoping we'll get to see more of that Green Arrow in this new universe they're building.
01:15:31
Speaker
especially because they have a Batman in this universe. They don't have to have him. Making him the exact same thing would just make him look like a knockoff. That's my pet peeve. I always go off on though. But yeah, it just felt, okay, so you're gonna have the Justice League here. Obviously they've discovered that Bruce Wayne is Batman then. So that also kind of undermines Batman a little bit too because, I mean,
01:15:58
Speaker
One of the best moments of Mark Wade's JLA run was when Batman makes the decision to reveal his identity to the rest of the League. And when you take that away, I think that's... It undermines Batman a little bit. The fact that his identity was able to be discovered so easily by these heroes that, as far as we know, he didn't even know existed.
01:16:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's such a self-contained Batman and Gotham and the rogues story. It really exists separate from the larger DC universe.
01:16:34
Speaker
far to the credit of the early Batman stories. So that the slow creep in of this larger superhero world through the rogues feels like a gradual escalation. It's not as effective when you're having folks like the Flash or Green Arrow dealing with potentially much bigger or stranger threats on their own.
01:16:59
Speaker
It's just, and they're not, they're just not like planted early enough in the story. Like there's opportunities to have weave that in in a way so that it's like fun payoff. Even if it was like, you see like Barry and Ollie, even on like the boat, they just have two more people here when someone is shouting out that Bruce Wayne is Batman. And then we're like, oh, what's ever going to happen with that? And then post credits. Oh, thank God. It was too good guy.
Narrative Consistency in Adaptations
01:17:22
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Or also you could have done something like if you're going to have them approach
01:17:27
Speaker
Bruce at the end. Okay, fine. But have them approach Batman, like have like, have like Green Lantern use make a bat signal in the sky and then and then he gets there and it's and it's not Gordon, it's not police. It's not a police headquarters. But instead, it's Green Lantern and Flash and Superman maybe, or something like that. I think that would make so much more sense, especially if you see it in earlier, like
01:17:49
Speaker
in the background have, you know, some news report about how there was an earthquake in San Francisco or something like that in, you know, San Andreas Fault, referencing Superman the movie here. But, you know, it'd be nice to have some sort of references there to bake into it. But otherwise, the only real symmetry it has is that connection with the beginning when he says we never get trick-or-treaters here. And that's it.
01:18:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. The other, and it's nice that it does come full circle that you can demonstrate that the full year has passed, but the other elements that I thought were really absent in this adaptation, and I do think it's like serviceable. I agree it shouldn't be someone's first introduction to Batman by any means, but if you love the Dark Knight, you love the Batman, you want to see something
01:18:33
Speaker
closer to the original version of that story. It's a fun, good way to spend like three hours between parts one and part two. But the lack of the internal monologue really, really, I think, makes some of the chase scenes and the action sequences feel a little dry. We're not as in Bruce's head as much as we could be. And we talked about it on the Patreon episode, how that's one of the story's strengths is that for one of the earliest times in his career, you are
01:19:03
Speaker
hearing his decision making and his logic as opposed to Gordon's in year one. So that absence
01:19:11
Speaker
I wouldn't want it to be overbearing, but I thought it was deployed pretty effectively in the Batman to have that internal monologue, even as like a scene setter, and its absence here was felt. And then one of the great things that the comic does is when the holiday killings happen, you don't see holiday as we talked about. The sound drops out, there's no sound effects on the page, and it's in black and white.
01:19:37
Speaker
an easily teed up cinematic moment and motif to happen as like a regular checkpoint of, okay, this is, you know, each sequence is kind of bookended by one of these killings. And we don't get that in the adaptation. That would have been a very easy thing to do. And it's, again, it's absence is felt. Absolutely. Yeah. And that ties into something I noticed here, because there's,
01:20:05
Speaker
I think the narration thing I want to touch on first, I felt like as much as I love The Dark Knight Returns, the more I go back and reread that story, the more I think Frank Miller's narration is really kind of ham-fisted here, where I thought the animated movie is like, I think that's like the perfect version of that story because it strips away that narration, and it gives us a lot of other stuff. Like it makes the scene with the gun, which everybody misinterprets. It makes it very clear what's actually happening in that scene.
01:20:36
Speaker
And plus you've got Peter Weller doing an amazing job as an old Batman. So I thought that was such a good way of doing that. But in this, yeah, you're right. I think, because Loeb I think does such a...
01:20:50
Speaker
I've got some issues with some of Loeb's writing choices, especially that he's made in recent years. But when you go back to when he was at the top of his game, when he was doing things like Long Halloween, or when he was doing things like Superman Batman, his narration was so on point in those. The way he gets into
01:21:07
Speaker
Superman Batman, especially the way he gets into Clark and Bruce's heads and has them talking about the other. And it gives you such a perfect understanding of their relationship, which is so much more complex than people give it credit for. And his narration in The Long Halloween too, it really makes you feel and understand why
01:21:29
Speaker
Bruce cares about Harvey so much, what Bruce feels about Gotham and Selena and all these different characters. And yeah, that's kind of, the movie feels lacking in a lot of areas because we're missing that narration.
01:21:44
Speaker
yeah it's one of those things that especially in comic books when you're trying to avoid having moments like when you have say Gilda just openly declaring her plan to no one that first person narration sets the tone for the story it sets the rhythm it allows you to potentially
01:22:02
Speaker
smooth over like jumping from scene to scene to scene without feeling too much like montage or montage's sake because we're we're staying in the headspace of the lead character where we're seeing sometimes what their the memories that they're thinking about as you know as versus in the cave working on a case he's bringing us up to speed on on what's have been happening or whatever the case may be and and not having that kind of
01:22:26
Speaker
first-person perspective, not having that direct understanding of what he's thinking or what's challenging him or what answers he doesn't have. It's tough because you just have to really try to do a lot of scene work and then when you're also doing an adaptation,
01:22:45
Speaker
There's not a ton of room for new scenes, and certainly in this adaptation specifically, a lot of the real estate for new scenes is going to action sequences, which also, for the most part, land. In part one, you have the Batman Catwoman extended chase scene. You have the car chase that's not present. The Batmobile itself isn't even in the original comic. And to see the, essentially, the Batman animated series Batmobile, it's great. It works. It's fun.
01:23:15
Speaker
they lead to the Chinatown fight sequence where you get to see where Batman's at in terms of brutality and what people think about him from a street level. You have a Joker fight at the end of part one that has gravitas. It feels like, okay, the Joker is a formidable foe. All of that works
01:23:37
Speaker
But, and maybe you could make the case that in an 85 minute part one, and I think maybe slightly longer part two, that they could have gone for two, two hour part one and part two, and put in some of that scene work again. But for the pretty lean film that we get,
Tim Sale's Artwork and Adaptation Challenges
01:23:56
Speaker
Those action sequences are worth it. At the expense of narration, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. And that's an interesting point, too. Because I understand with the earlier DC animated films, those were being made when they had this deal with Cartoon Network.
01:24:11
Speaker
So they had to have them 80 minutes because those fit nicely into those, those, you know, three hour, three block, those hour and a half blocks, two hour blocks or whatever it is. And that makes sense. I can get that. So like, we had talked about all star Superman, and that was made during that time.
01:24:30
Speaker
they had made some some sacrifices to that story which i'm still not completely on board with but as we talked about at that time it fit into that block so i could understand why but these ones don't seem like they're doing that anymore so i'm not sure why they still feel like they have to be a slave to these 80 minute formulas it just doesn't make
01:24:48
Speaker
much sense. I mean, you've got... it's gonna be direct to video. It's gonna be on streaming. People are gonna watch these all in one sitting anyway, so why not just, you know, commit and make like a full three-hour movie instead of trying to work it into these two 80-minute blocks? I just don't get that.
01:25:06
Speaker
Or better yet, look at what the folks across the aisle are doing with the Spiderverse animated films. Recognize that if there is a ceiling for the amount of Batman content that the folks are looking to consume,
01:25:22
Speaker
For better or worse, we might not have hit that ceiling yet. Yeah, absolutely. Certainly on the comic side, I know there's a strong push for some of the secondary and tertiary characters to get their own books again that they've had historically. But when it comes to animated adaptations, I would love to see the theatrical resources poured into an animated Batman film. Mask of Phantasm is fantastic. It's really, really good. It's the greatest Batman film, absolutely, yeah.
01:25:50
Speaker
I agree and I think there's an opportunity even with this three-hour two-part adaptation of The Long Halloween to tell a story like The Long Halloween on the big screen in an animated format with the distinction of you know adapting Tim Sayles art style so that just from a glance you can tell okay this project has a reason to exist beyond the version that we just got. Right.
01:26:17
Speaker
But I think people would come out in droves for something like that. Because I also think the audience that is going to see the Batman, that's a small sliver of it is going to then tune into a two-part animated film on HBO. It just doesn't have the reach. Even an animated TV series is going to have a larger marketing push than these films got. So I think there's room to tell the story.
01:26:40
Speaker
Again, and I think there's a way to do it in a way that still feels fresh as many times as we heard it 100 100% Yeah, and I feel like one of the biggest sins of this movie too is you know Not only not adapting Tim sales artwork But not even adapting Tim sales look for two-face because that's just such an iconic look for that character and they just go back to the Different colored hair and different color. I'm just like you Such a missed opportunity here. I just don't know why you're doing it
01:27:11
Speaker
But one of the issues I had with All-Star Superman is you can clearly see when the issue breaks are. They almost try to be a little bit too slavish to the structure, which doesn't really work for a movie. I think this kind of did a little bit of a better job of integrating those into the story, so it doesn't feel as sharply divided.
01:27:35
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely and we talked about it before where, you know, you get the, the dent explosion, and then immediately Batman following a lead to get answers. Whereas in the comic, that was an issue break. And so then the next month, you have Batman just declaring Harvey Dent is dead. And you're in like, issue two or three, you know, he's not dead, right?
01:27:55
Speaker
beginning of the long Halloween. So that doesn't have any sort of dramatic effect for the reader. But certainly Batman in dogged pursuit of a suspect, because his friend has been attacked. That really works for me. Yeah.
01:28:11
Speaker
not to harp on all the changes that are made in this adaptation, but another one comes to mind, which is Batman giving Harvey the double-headed coin, introducing that element at the warehouse. And we talked about how even the original version, the Loeb and Sail version, really skims over where the coin comes from and what it means. And there's references to Harvey's backstory from Eye of the Beholder, but they pretty much just
01:28:38
Speaker
are relying on your existing knowledge of the character and here they at least pay lip service to introducing that that prop and and and it's it's fun for for family to be like well flip for it and it's a two-headed coin and it's that feels true to character but strange to link to a major two-faced motif
01:29:00
Speaker
Well, especially because it's the coin that Carmine gives Bruce when he was a kid, too. So I feel like... Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I think that's... Yeah. It's pushing things a little bit. I think it's like you sacrifice this really good, you know, symmetry with Alberto being the transitional character into the freaks. And then you're replacing it basically with Carmine giving the coin to Bruce, then Bruce giving the coin to Harvey. And it feels like that's...
01:29:25
Speaker
That's like how they're trying to pass that theme along, but it was so much stronger the way they did in the comic books, and you didn't have to change that. Yeah, especially because we don't get that detail of where Bruce gets the coin until later, right? Right, it's not until part two, yeah. First gives it to Harvey, so you're just like, why does Batman carry around a coin? And that kind of...
01:29:49
Speaker
I don't hate that there's a reason for him to have the coin, but I do hate that it's such a major part of what you think of with Too Faced. So to have that be just something that is more important. The beat between Carmine and Bruce is such a unique beat to the two of them, and I like how that informs that relationship. I like what it says about Batman as a character and what his goals are.
01:30:14
Speaker
And I don't believe that the Batman who's inspired by his dad, the doctor who will help anybody is the same Batman who would essentially just kind of troll his friend in that moment by giving him the coin. Yeah.
01:30:28
Speaker
I don't know. I do like the coin being the two-sided coin that then gets one side scratched up. That still lands for me. I like that it's versions where two-faces operating with the two-faced coin is a little too goofy for me and takes away from the duality of the character if the outcomes are predetermined. So I like that.
01:30:49
Speaker
I don't know. It still feels very much more like Two-Face's origins than Harvey Dent's origins. Yeah. And the hints that we get are compelling, but I don't think that story's really been told in a modern way. Agreed, agreed. And I think that the
01:31:06
Speaker
I feel like DC has now gone down this route twice with these animated universes. They tried it with the New 52 stuff, and they ended that with Justice League Dark Apocalypse. I think that's what it was called. And that just, that universe never really seemed to catch on. They had some good moments in there. I thought, you know, I like the Death of Superman stuff. I like the, mostly I like the Son of Batman stuff, although I felt like they're not really doing such a good job of capturing Damien's character.
01:31:35
Speaker
But there were definitely stuff I liked in there, but it just never really caught on. And it's the same thing now with this, right? They're trying to start this new universe with, they got the long Halloween. I haven't seen the Justice Society movie, so I can't comment on that, but I saw Man of Tomorrow. And I'm just like, they're okay, but I keep finding myself going back to that idea of, all right, well, you did the shared universe thing on TV. You had the Arrowverse for, you know, what?
01:32:03
Speaker
almost 10 years, maybe more than 10 years. And it mostly worked, kind of fell apart after crisis in a lot of series, but mostly it hung together pretty well. You got a nice little contained universe there.
01:32:16
Speaker
They tried it in the movies and it, you know, it bombed spectacularly, but now they've got James Gunn picking up the ball and he's, you know, probably going to be knocking that out of the park.
Standalone Stories and Anthology Potential
01:32:25
Speaker
So I don't really see why you feel like we need to have this other animated universe when you've got such a unique opportunity here. You've got all these books and I think DC really excels at something that Marvel hasn't quite caught up with, whereas Marvel stuff is so tied to continuity. It's so much harder to do
01:32:44
Speaker
out of continuity stories with Marvel characters, because continuity is so important to Marvel. But it's so much baked into Marvel from the beginning. That's one of the things that Stan Lee was doing back in those early days, was tying everything together. And he was putting such a strong focus on continuity that hadn't been in comics before.
01:33:02
Speaker
So with Marvel, it's harder to do that. It makes sense for Marvel more to have like an MCU type thing, because that's always been Marvel's thing. But for DC, it can go both ways. Like you've got the regular continuity stuff, but DC has so many great stories that are not set in any specific continuity. And stories that are definitive for a lot of these characters, the long Halloween, all-star Superman, you know, all these different stories that are just like kind of timeless versions of these characters.
01:33:30
Speaker
you've got such a great opportunity to tell those stories, right? Instead of, I'm far less interested in seeing, you know, another animated universe with everyone having the same house style and much more interested in seeing like, why don't you guys do Kingdom Come, right? Why don't you guys, you know, try something different instead of taking these classic stories and trying to cut them up and make them fit into a shared universe where they don't really fit.
01:34:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think that if I had to pick stories that I think could be like really good touch points for trying to do one of these shared universes, I guess really what I'd rather see is
01:34:12
Speaker
another attempt at an animated series that doesn't feel necessarily confined to any one corner of the DC universe. I'd love to see a version that maybe starts with JLA year one and shows us the characters outside of the big three and gives us a reason to care about them. And you now live in a world where Black Canary, the Flash, Green Lantern a little bit less so, but Green Lantern,
01:34:38
Speaker
Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, these characters have big enough followings that getting them together again in an animated form
01:34:47
Speaker
You don't have, people aren't gonna immediately ask, well, where's Batman? Where's Superman? Where's Wonder Woman? They'd be content knowing, okay, they are existing in this world and they're just not on this team right now. And you use that as your entry into the larger world. As they get established, you start to explore these other corners. And then in that same format, almost in an anthology sense, tell stories like Superman, Birthright, The Long Halloween. Dig into the characters from that kind of perspective.
01:35:16
Speaker
And you can spend time in this shared world, but it doesn't have to be at the snail's pace of these movies. It doesn't have to be in these, you know, arbitrary 80 minute kind of segments. It can be, you know, if a story takes X number, you know, four episodes, it takes four. If it takes six, it takes six. And certainly you could then repackage them as individual movies or whatever, but
01:35:41
Speaker
I would love to see that living, breathing television universe again. And if they wanted to do something true to the comics, I'm all for it. But I don't think there's a reason to just necessarily try to replicate what you're doing on the big screen in a film sense, only it's animated. That to me is redundant, especially if you're not going to lean into what makes the books unique, which is often the artists' specific renditions of these characters and worlds. Right. Yeah. I think that would be so good.
01:36:10
Speaker
you know, do an animated crisis, because you're very limited with what you could do on TV with the TV budget. And though they did a pretty good job with what they had, I mean, I still thought, caught to myself, like, man, how awesome would it be to see like an animated three hour, four hour Christ on Infinite Earths movie where you're not limited by how many characters you can have on screen. You're not limited by those kind of constraints. Like, it would be so amazing to see what they did with something like that. Or
01:36:38
Speaker
I mean, she's... Adapt the Morrison JLA. That would be... Again, it'd be expensive as hell to do those stories in live action, but you could easily fit those into an animated series and really do those stories justice.
01:36:55
Speaker
Okay, sorry about that. We're getting some background noise here. We're about to wrap up anyway. Sorry, you were about to say something? No problem. I was going to say that I would love an animated version of, you know, Crisis on Infinite Earths or even
01:37:09
Speaker
drawing elements from say infinite crisis and using that as like a big set piece big crossover to get people on board and then doing something like 52 where you're gonna go okay you these big characters exist in this world their influences felt they have
01:37:25
Speaker
stories and careers and history. And now we're going to dive into some of the corners that don't get that spotlight. And we're going to see the world from, you know, from a character like Black Adams perspective or Renee Montoya and Booster Gold and dig into other elements as branching off points. I think that those stories are often
01:37:49
Speaker
as good, if not better, than what's happening in the big books. And just because they don't have those marquee names, they should be adapted. And I hope that James Gunn's kind of penchant for picking up on these kinds of stories lends to those stories getting adapted, because I never thought we'd get a star.
01:38:08
Speaker
big, big, fully, you know, no compromised adaptation of Starro and we got it. I never thought we'd get a peacemaker TV show where, which not only would I have actually been interested in, but which I actually would have come off, you know, absolutely loving and think it's like the best DC thing they've ever seen. I mean, it's just unbelievable. So yeah, I mean, I'm totally I mean, James Gunn's got this unique talent for bringing some of these smaller characters and, you know, interpreting them in a way
01:38:38
Speaker
Mostly in a way that works. I still feel sorry for Vigilante fans that they've been screwed over twice, but that's another story. But mostly it's, you know, he's giving these characters that nobody really cares about, and he's making them into fan favorite characters. Like, whoever thought that people would give two shits about Star-Lord? Like, I've read, you know, I've read the Abnant Landing, Guardians of the Galaxy series, and I didn't give a shit about Star-Lord.
01:39:04
Speaker
Yeah, I hadn't heard of the Guardians before they got adapted to the big screen. I'm not as deep on the comic side of Marvel, but I saw what James Gunn did, and I was like, instantly won me over. Those films are great and fun, and it's great to see those characters cross over with the Avengers and really firmly establish the cosmic quarter of that universe.
01:39:22
Speaker
And so when James Gunn was coming over to do the new Suicide Squad, I was on board instantly. I knew that DC was going to very specifically let him let him loose to play with these toys and
01:39:35
Speaker
You know, I knew it was going to probably be Harley Quinn was going to be there. She sells tickets. I get it. But then when he's pulling obscure characters like Peacemaker, who as as a long time, especially DC comics fan, I hadn't even heard of Peacemaker. Yeah. And then you hear the character and you're like, OK, this is going to be kind of a one note performance on scene, a stunt casting. I get what we're doing here. And then.
01:40:00
Speaker
He's great in the movie, but he's phenomenal in the show. He really, really brings a lot of depth and not to get on too much of a soapbox about John Cena's performance in Peacemaker or James Gunn's creative choices, but I think Peacemaker is a wonderful show for 2022. I think that is a vehicle for people
01:40:22
Speaker
who might not willingly self-identify with that character to see the transformation and growth and active choices he makes to turn away from
01:40:35
Speaker
his past and step into something bigger and better. And I think people can apply that to their own lives and take from that whatever they want. But I think it's a show that I really hope is reaching hearts and minds in 2022 the way it really deserves to. And the fact that it's a big show is crazy on top of that. Well, yeah, we've done, I'm not sure if you listened to it, but we did an episode on Peacemaker and spent a lot of time talking about John Cena, because I was just
01:41:04
Speaker
blown away with how talented that man is and how unexpected I was. And I said this back then too, you get these actors who, and I'm biased because I remember Suburban Commando, right? All the Hulk Hogan stuff. And where it's like, when you get a wrestler becoming an actor, sometimes you get lucky and you get a Dwayne Johnson where it's a fun performance, but there's not really a whole lot of depth there. And sometimes you get Hulk Hogan or Stone Cold Steve Austin where it's just like, why are you doing this?
01:41:34
Speaker
But then you get guys like Dave Pautista and John Cena who are just, you know, have so much, such a wealth of talent that's just untapped. And I was completely blown away by his performance in that. Anyway, if you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to that Peacemaker episode. We did like a good two hours about that series. Anyone else who's listening to, if you haven't heard the Peacemaker ones, it was an amazing conversation to have with Adam Garcia.
01:42:04
Speaker
So yeah, the last thing I wanted to touch on here is kind of like where you would probably rank this in the Batman anime movies. And I'm gonna make it a little bit...
01:42:14
Speaker
maybe a little bit harder on you, because I'm gonna take Batman Mask of the Phantasm out of the equation. Because that is, it's like when you put up, it's like when you ranking the Superman actors, right? It's obvious Christopher Reed is gonna be at the top. And if you're ranking Batman voice actors, you're gonna have Kevin Conroy at the top. So we're taking Mask of the Phantasm out of consideration. You can't pick that one. But out of that, which one, how do you think this ranks in like the Batman-aided movies? And which one would you say is like the number one?
01:42:43
Speaker
I think if we're taking Mask of Phantasm off the table, then year one is the number one for me. I think it's a great adaptation. I think there's not a lot that I would change from that adaptation into a hypothetical live-action adaptation of the same story. I think it does a good job. I think for folks who are primed for a Gordon-centric look into Batman's first year,
01:43:10
Speaker
It totally delivers. There's not a lot. I don't have too many gripes. I love some of the casting there. It's very fun. I think if you were to watch that and then roll into long Halloween, you might be disappointed by some of the stylistic changes, the casting changes, but the two pieces play nicely together.
01:43:30
Speaker
I could take or leave some of the New 52 stuff. I think those adaptations are fine, but it's one of those things where, similar to the New 52 itself in the comics, the choice to do a fresh start and then jump into a very late career Batman story with Damian coming aboard and this
01:43:54
Speaker
very strange attempt to kind of squeeze parts of the Morrison run into this new 52 setting. That just makes me feel like I wish they just had adapted this more directly.
Ranking and Critiquing Animated Batman Movies
01:44:07
Speaker
I wouldn't have minded a Batman R.I.P. story, getting a Dick Grayson Batman movie.
01:44:13
Speaker
then getting a Bruce and Damien movie like that maybe would feel more fun you I think Damien as you mentioned is a little too grating of a character so he's and I love the character I just don't like him in those adaptations agree you kind of really need to
01:44:30
Speaker
It's a make or break. So despite the number of misgivings I have with Long Halloween, I think I'd rank it probably third. Under the Red Hood is up there. That's an example of an adaptation where the changes are all in service to the story. Casting issues aside, I think
01:44:49
Speaker
that for me becomes the definitive version of the story. I personally don't care for the Dark Knight Returns, so I just, even though it's a great adaptation, I just rate it lower. My love for the Long Halloween elevates this less than perfect adaptation above a perfect adaptation of a story that I just care less about.
01:45:10
Speaker
And then I thought that the changes in Hush were ultimately uninteresting to me. And I took more issue with those changes as a subversion to the original story than I did with the changes here. If we're going to count public enemies, I might bump public enemies above Long Halloween because it's a pretty good adaptation.
01:45:34
Speaker
I think if you're a Batman fan and you're like, I don't care about Superman, check out Public Enemies, the comic or the movie. You're going to you're going to see Superman the way Batman sees Superman. And that's a that's a fun way to to get into the character. So I would rank that above Long Halloween as well. But if that's going to count as as not exactly a pure Batman movie. No, I think that that definitely counts because there's so much they did with Batman in that movie. So I would definitely count that count that one in.
01:46:01
Speaker
Um, I think, yeah, I think I would put, I would probably put Dark Knight Returns as the top one. Um, you know, over time I do have, and we talked about this when we talk about Dark Knight Returns animated movie, but as time has progressed, I have got a lot of issues with that story. And as much as I still love it, there's still also a lot of issues I have with it. Um, but even all that being said, I do think it is such a perfect distillation of that story.
01:46:31
Speaker
After that, I would probably put maybe under the Red Hood after that. I would probably knock Long Halloween down a few others, though. I would probably put it below Public Enemies. I would put it below some of the other ones here.
01:46:53
Speaker
Batman versus TMNT or Batman Soul of the Dragon. I thought those are really interesting looks at that and kind of that idea of, you know, you could do anything with this character. So I think I like that those two versions especially really kind of took that to heart and just kind of swung for the fences. And though I haven't seen the Batman 66 movies, I mean, that's another thing where I'm glad that they just like, well, yeah, let's go back to the Adam West Batman and bring him back in animated form. I thought that was a
01:47:19
Speaker
That was a genius move. Yeah, I haven't seen versus TMNT. I haven't seen Soul of the Dragon yet. And I haven't seen the 66 movies. So those could all easily rank past the long Halloween. And I'm excited to dive in. You know what? It's funny, though. I know a lot of people have a lot of problems with Hush. And I know if you're comparing this one and Hush, most people would place the long Halloween above Hush, just talking about the movies.
01:47:44
Speaker
the comics a different story. But I actually, and I think it's because I have a lot more problems with Hush as a storyline, and I'm less tied to that story than I am to Long Halloween. And I, I'm more understanding of the changes they made in Hush than I am of the changes they made in Long Halloween. So I think I would put Hush above that. Why also put, you know, you mentioned year one, I completely forgot to mention that. But yeah, year one would also be very high up there because
01:48:10
Speaker
And you talked about the casting. I mean, Bryan Cranston is Commissioner Gordon, and in a nice piece of ironic casting, Ben McKenzie, you played Gordon on Gotham, you got him playing Batman in that.
01:48:22
Speaker
It's really interesting the way that folks have kind of like played more than one role across different adaptations of Batman. We talked about Jensen Ackles at the beginning having played both Jason Todd and Batman. Yeah. I don't know if we talked about it with Troy Baker, but he's played both Batman and the Joker in different adaptations. I think that kind of versatility is really fun. Yeah. It's a nice thing. And I think it's got to be fun for those actors too, right? Getting a chance, especially someone like Troy Baker who is
01:48:47
Speaker
Like Jensen Ackles, it sounds like Jensen Ackles. He's not that skilled of a voice actor, but someone like Troy Baker, who is very skilled as a voice actor and has very, like his, you compare his Batman to his Joker. Maybe if you're listening very closely, you can tell it's the same guy, but it's really hard. Like he does a really good job of differentiating those guys.
01:49:07
Speaker
Or like, you know, taking it back to Mark Hamill and some of the different roles he's played. You know, the Joker sounds completely different from like gargoyle on the Incredible Hulk animated series. Or yeah, so I mean, it's it's it's got to be fun for those guys to be able to play around with those different interpretations and see like, how can I change my voice to match this character? Totally.
01:49:32
Speaker
All right, Frankie, this is great having you on. So tell people where they can find you. Yeah, so I am at Frankie the 4th, the number 4th on Twitter. I'm at Classic American Cool on Instagram. And you can see my writing and some of my video work and generally see what I'm up to at frankeycampcenter.com.
01:49:56
Speaker
Okay, well, thanks so much for coming on. Anytime you want to come back on, more than welcome, just let me know. And if you guys haven't subscribed to the Patreon page, you know, go to patreon.com slash SuperCinemapod. Dollar a month, you can hear our conversation about the long Halloween comic. It was a lot of fun. Definitely some interesting ideas that we talked about there.
01:50:16
Speaker
And you can also listen to other similar conversations I've had on the Patreon show. You can also get these episodes a week in advance. But that does it for this episode of Superhero Cinephiles. Superherocinephiles.com is the website, and we are SuperCinemapod on Twitter and Instagram. Thanks so much for listening, and we will talk to you next time.
01:50:36
Speaker
If you enjoy the Superhero Cinephiles, then you'll also love my companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. All my Patreon subscribers get access to this exclusive podcast where I review superhero comics and graphic novels. Not sure what comics you want to read next or what you should dive into? I've got you covered on that. I'll be doing reviews, recommendations, and also talking to you about useful entry points if you're interested in reading some comics but don't know where you should start. Plus, you'll get access to all episodes of the main show a week before everyone else.
01:51:04
Speaker
On all of this for as little as just a dollar a month, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash supercinemahot and you can sign up at any subscription amount to get started. Thanks so much for your support and please don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:51:40
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.