For years, the only Batman fans ever knew was on TV doing the Batusi and wham-bam-powing his enemies into oblivion. While that worked for the sixties and endearing reruns up to this very day, the series didn’t do anything to help bring the Dark Knight’s darkness to the forefront. In the mid-eighties, Frank Miller gave fans one of the bleakest Batman’s ever with The Dark Knight Returns.
Looking to recreate some of the bleak world, Tim Burton was tapped to bring his gothic flair to Gotham for the first live-action Batman movie in 33 years. No Robin, no Batphone, no colors, unless it was the Joker. The initial trailer caused a huge spike in numbers to whatever film it was packed with (remember no internet), and posters were swiped from every bus stop in the country, practically. For a lot of fans, Burton’s Bat is still the best. Here are 5 Ways Tim Burton’s Batman Has Aged Poorly (& 5 Ways It’s Timeless).
Aged Poorly - Joker Killed The Waynes
Every so often, it’s ok to deviate from canon, but having a young pre-Joker Jack Napier be the guy who murdered Thomas and Martha Wayne is some of the laziest writing of any Batflick, ever. It’s too neat, Bruce has been chasing this man with a gun for so long.
He’s a few months into dressing like a giant bat, and he finds the guy. He also just happened to inadvertently drop him in a vat of acid.
Timeless - The Theme
Danny Elfman went from being part of an obscure new wave band, Oingo Boingo to being the chosen composer for many of Burton’s movies over the years. You’re thinking Batman, you’re either singing “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells,” humming the “Na Na Na” song, or the theme from the 1989 movie.
The moment you heard it as the camera careened in an around the Bat-signal, you instantly knew that this was not going to be the sixties Batman anymore.
Aged Poorly - The Fight Scenes
For a guy who has spent the majority of his late teens and twenties training in all kinds of various fighting styles from around the world - there is little to no movement at all during Batman’s fighting scenes.
Yes, there’s the iconic backhanded fist to a foe trying to sneak up on ol’ Batsy, but Keaton, Kilmer, and certainly not Clooney did a whole lot to make fans believe you shouldn’t mess with the Batman. We knew he was a badass because he’s Batman, but it wasn’t until Christian Bale that we got to see it on film.
Timeless - Jack Nicholson
When it was announced that Jack Nicholson would be playing the Clown Prince Of Crime, if there was an Internet - it would have exploded. The veteran actor was known for being a bit of a mad man, so being cast as the Joker was just the icing on the cake.
Similar to Superman before, Warner Bros. had cast a major star in the role of the villain while a smaller name actor as the hero. It paid off in droves, Nicholson has been the premiere Joker for nearly 20 years before Heath Ledger mesmerized in The Dark Knight.
Aged Poorly - Batman Has Guns And Bombs (And Uses Them)
It’s a known fact that Batman doesn’t kill it even use guns, despite using firearms during the earliest comics. While it’s usually not referenced, it happened. It also happened in Batman. While the movie doesn’t make reference to Bats swearing off firearms, he had a whole heap of artillery that he used in his war against the Joker.
Besides firing right at him on all cylinders from the Batwing (which to be fair, he missed), Batman also drove through the Axis Chemical Plant blowing it up, along with any workers that might have been inside.
Timeless - Michael Keaton
Before Batman, Michael Keaton was known more for comedies like Johnny Dangerously and Gung Ho. It was a complete shock to the system for Tim Burton to have cast him to play Bruce Wayne.
In a make or break a career performance, Keaton showed he had just the right amount of bravado and grim demeanor to play both Bruce and Batman. Most Wayne’s don’t get quotable lines, but who among us hasn’t shouted out “you wanna get nuts?!”
Aged Poorly - Alfred Lets Vicki In The Cave
As Bruce and Vicki get to know one another, they have a dinner at Wayne Manor.
The guy’s so rich and his house is so big that there’s rooms that he doesn’t even know existed. Even though Bruce tried to tell her about his nightlife (which was also a little ridiculous), but Alfred jumping the gun and bring her into the cave would’ve been a fireable offense, had it not been for Alfred raising the guy since becoming an orphan.
Timeless - Wonderful Toys
Besides the instantly quotable line, Batman’s tools of the trade were on full display in Batman, and there wasn’t any Bat-Shark Repellent either. Much like the rest of the film, there was nothing humorous about the Batman’s grappling hooks, gizmos, and Batmobile.
Other than the 66 show’s greatest weapon - the iconic Batmobile, nothing else in that series quite measured up to the arsenal that Batman had in ‘89. Nothing afterwards did either. It wasn’t until Nolan’s movie that another Batflick was able to compare to Burton’s original.
Aged Poorly - No Real Gordon Presence
Aside from his relationship with Alfred and other members of the Bat Family, the relationship between Batman and Commissioner Gordon had been a driving force of the entire Batman mythos. But neither Burton or Schumacher seemed to care about that at all.
While Pat Hingle got to play a character named Commissioner Gordon, he was a mere shell of the guy that wages war with Batman, willing to get down and dirty with the Dark Knight and forging another source of dramatic action for the films.
Timeless - No “Wham, Bam, Pows”
There are plenty of Bat-fanatics out there with a special place in their hearts for Adam West and his Batman. While there are plenty of ways to tell a Batman story, by the time 1989 had rolled around, the world was ready for a Batman that reflected his comic book origins.
With eighty years of Bat-history, Burton’s take became the definitive one for an entire generation.