I agree completely with that. The first two Burton films were good, but lacked that edge.
by making him short, fat, and campy. by having him pull a 4-foot long handgun out of his pants and shooting the bat-jet out of the sky with one shot. by giving guns that say “Pow!” and that have stuffed, gloved fists that shoot out of them. by giving him a giant, colourful super-villian JokerBlimp that floats above Gotham City like a big, dumb, ghey, campy, fat balloon.
that’s how.
that being said, i will now remind everyone that i really did love the Burton films. good, good stuff. i’m just happy that it’s being re-imagined in a more realistic manner. ;D 
;D
^ Nichloson brought more to the Joker than that. It’s all in Jack’s attitude. The handgun I will say is a bit stretched. The guns that say “Pow!” are just typical Joker antics. And the stuff gloved fists were sent into a TV blowing it out. “What kind of a world do we live in, when a BAT gets all of my PRESS?! This town needs an ENEMA!”.
However, Nicholson was all attitude and about being ostentacious.
Sadly, the only Batman movie I’ve seen…
Watch Batman Returns, and Batman Begins.
The rest, don’t.
Got it.
I’ve never been a fan or understood the hype with Batman, Spiderman, Superman, any fucking kind of man.
what about Quailman or Repair-manmanmanmanmanmanmaaaan?
Quailman was always pretty cool I guess.
it’s all just a matter of different taste, like anything else. if i had my way, i’d make a Batman film that was rated R and gave children nightmares. but i’m a weird, sick fuck.
something along these lines…
Wait a second…didn’t we already go through this? We had the original Batman movie which was good, then every subsequent movie got worse and worse until we were left with Batman and Robin which was one of the worst movies ever. Now, we’re “starting over” with Batman Begins which was good (I guess…I haven’t seen it) and from there we can assume it will get…well…you fill in the rest…
Haven’t we seen this before? I mean HEATH LEDGER? I didn’t even buy this guy as a flashy, pretty-boy knight in Knight’s Tale despite the fact that he’s a flashy pretty-boy. Now I’m supposed to buy him as the Joker? Sorry…you can’t even come close to Jack. I’ve officially lost interest.
Stevo
The Original Burton Batman has the best villian by far, I don’t even know how that can be debated. Beyond that, what makes it far and away the best Batman is the soundtrack. Come on…bring Prince back to do another soundtrack and I’ll maybe consider that one to be a contender, but nothing can compare to that scene with Party Man…my god Jack was crazy.
The most recent series of Batman movies (from the 80s on) were born out of the campiness of the original TV series and the first movie with Adam West and Burt Ward (a clip of which is ICC’s avatar. Hey where is ICC anyway?). To a certain extent, Burton wanted to maintain the “comic book” nature of the character and weave that camp throughout his film while still maintaining its dark and brooding tone.
And I don’t know why only Batman received this comic book treatment when the Superman shows and movies never did. They always treated those movies as if Superman actually existed within the time period it was filmed, and that Metropolis was a real city, whereas there was always something very surreal about Gotham.
I enjoyed the Burton treatments and Nicholson’s Joker at that time. I’ve grown somewhat tired of Nicholson these days because he really seems to dominate most films he’s in almost to the point of being a characature of himself, eg, The Departed. I think that sometimes this detracts from the importance of the film’s story.
Don’t know what Ledger is going to bring to the Joker in this upcoming film. I’ve actually only liked his performance in one film, and that was, gulp, Brokeback Mountain. Although I didn’t think the film was as good as everyone made it out to be, and I blame the Hollywood hype machine that was geared to sell the frustrations of homosexuality in a predominantly heterosexual world for that, I thought that Ledgers’s performance as the frustrated cowboy to be nearly perfectly played.
If he can achieve some of that same balance, this time between the real and the surreal, without trying to outplay or copy Nicholson in any way, he might be able to carry the part off. At least I’m going to keep an open mind about him and this movie.
I like Batman, and think the original Burton movie was the best…it seems I don’t like each one that followed it just a little more each time.
Now Superman on the other hand…no contest. I-IV were some great shit, although IV was a bit campy. But I and II were the shiznit.
Hell yeah!!
I forgot all about repairmannmanmanamanamaaaaan.
Holy rusted metal batman!
Superman Returns was also excellent. I think Brandon Routh was a great pick.
Spidey 3 on the other hand…sheesh. way to kill a good run.
SuperNerds unite!!! who’s with me here?
hello?
hello?
fuck yeah.
In terms of “franchises,” IMO of course:
Superman > Batman > Spiderman
I was obsessed with Superman as a kid. I once drew the Superman logo on a piece of paper, colored it with crayons, and taped it to my shirt. Then, I wore a shirt over that and only buttoned a few buttons. Then at school I walked around ripping it open like Clark Kent would do. Of course, I was in second-grade I think.