Oscar-nominated film composer, Danny Elfman, says that he’s very unhappy with the final cut of his score for 1989’s Batman. The famed Tim Burton adaptation took the world by storm upon its release, introducing Michael Keaton as the iconic crime-fighter and Jack Nicholson as the Joker in a film franchise that continues to thrive today.

Though not necessarily the most popular film within the series, Batman grossed over $400 million globally, providing a glimpse of things to come for the future of superhero movies. In addition to this, the film remains a fairly comics-accurate representation of the Batman character, with some relatively minor changes made to the Joker’s origin story. Thanks to Burton’s unique style and aesthetic, the film is a dark and engaging journey into Gotham, which arguably hasn’t been as perfectly realized on screen ever since. In fact, even today, everything about Batman looks and sounds as though it was painstakingly created. Burton’s gothic style was a welcome addition to the big screen story of one of the greatest fictional crime fighters of all time.

Related: Tim Burton's Batman Beyond Could Properly End Michael Keaton's Story

Yet despite Burton’s attention to detail, Elfman’s opinion of Batman is slightly marred by the manner in which the acclaimed composer’s final score was handled. As Bleeding Cool reports, Elfman recently spoke about the way his score was incorporated into the film [h/t Wong Notes], and from the sound of things, the score was drastically transformed, losing much of its orchestral complexity in favor of simple percussion. Read what Elfman said below:

I was terribly unhappy with the dub in Batman. They did it in the old-school way where you do the score and turn it into the 'professionals' who turn the nobs and dub it in. And dubbing had gotten really wonky in those years. We recorded [multi-channel recording on] three channels…right, center, left…and basically, they took the center channel out of the music completely. It didn't have any care put into it. I've had many scores play in big action scenes that really propelled the scene. And in the end of the [Batman] dub, I realized I could have had the orchestra play anything. I could have scored the film with some percussion, a harmonica, and a banjo because all you hear are some percussion hits in big moments, but you can't really hear what the orchestra is doing. That was my first lesson in how so-called professionals can take a score and the soundtrack to a movie and just do their thing in a very noncommittal way that is easiest for them; plunk it off to the side and just get the dialogue.

tim burton danny elfman

Batman may have been released all the way back in 1989 and Elfman’s career only grew in stature from that point onward, but it’s understandable that he would be upset over how his contribution to the film was handled. Watching the film now, the score does come across as somewhat muffled at several points. This is something that many fans have likely noticed over the years but have never really looked into.

Thankfully, Elfman’s career has been a continuous stream of wonderful scores and soundtracks, and the lessons he learned from working on Batman undoubtedly helped to better inform that career. When all is said and done, however, Elfman did return to score Burton’s Batman Returns three years later, so clearly he was able to look past previous issues to create yet another brooding score to match the look and feel of Gotham.

Next: Why Batman Returns Is Better Than Tim Burton's Original

Source: Bleeding Cool [h/t Wong Notes]