Post by Shiryu on Jul 9, 2008 18:37:09 GMT -5
I'm just watching this special animated movie, by the productors of Begins and Dark Knight, and here are my comments in real time.
As you probably know, the movie is made of 6 episodes, some interlocked and some independent, and each episode has been made by one of the greatest japanese animation studios.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The 1st episode is by Production 4°C, and it centers on how other people, in this case 4 kids, perceive Batman. Most of the story is told by these kids, who have met Batman a few hours before, in separate occasions, as he was chasing a high-tech robber across town.
The interesting thing is that each kid describes Batman in a totally personal way, and since we basically see their memories, that's how we see him too. The first saw him as a living shadow, capable of disappearing and reapparing like smoke, and to stretch himself like Mr Fantastic. The second saw him as a monstrous winged Man-Bat, with claws in place of his hands, and the third as a cyborg, capable of detaching parts of his body and to make bullets richochet away.
The 4th kid complains that he is the only one who hasn't seen Batman, and in that moment Bruce and the robber enter the scene. We now see Batman as he really is, tired and injured after a long fight and chase. With a trick, the robber almost kills him, but the kid saves Batman, who thanks him before tiredly going away.
It's a very experimental and unusual episode, Batman has hardly 10 lines and reality is mostly distored by the first 3 kids perceptions. It partially reminded me of an old TAS episode, which did something similar if I remember well.
Episode number 2 is by Production IG
It focuses mainly on 2 cops from Gordon's squad. Both are honest, good cops, but one is fiercely against Batman, despising his vigilante actions, while the other appreciates his attempts to help. After dropping a prisoner to Arkham (which now is a full island turned into prison, with inmates walking in the streets in chains) they end up in a crossfire between rival gangs and risk being killed. When things look the worse, Batman shows up saving them both.
The story is very simple, but the technical side is amazing. This is Batman at his darkest, in a way much scarier than in the monstrous forms seen in the preivous episode, and the whole thing is definitely not for children. The art is good (very anime like) and the animations are fluid, but what is way on top of that is the direction, which gives a definite dark edge to the entire episode. Batman comes across as totally invincible, completely different from the previous episode: he kayokes over a dozen of armed criminals in seconds, is completely musclebound, stands still in the middle of a fire and moves at lightning speed. Top mark to the OST too, very gothic and completely appropriate.
Episode 3 is definitely the most anime-like so far. Especially from the art side, it took me a minute to recognize Bruce Wayne, and the Batman costume is unusual too. It's not bat at all, just very different from what he usually looks like. I'd say it's very bishounen, a bit Gundam looking.
Lucius Fox is in here too, and so is the Batmobile (Begins style). Fox gives a new device to Bruce, which creates a magnetic field around him to deflect bullets.
Initially, the prospects of being really bullet proof almost intoxicates Bruce, who sees this as the ultimate tool to accomplish his mission. However, on the first night, a bullet richochets on him, injuring a criminal who had already surrended. Batman rushes him to hospital, but then decides to give the field generator back to Fox, explaining that he is only ready to put his own life on the line.
It's a nice episode, not as impressive as the previous one but much more classic than the 1st. Art is overall nice.
Episode 4 is an action packed adventure in the sewers, with Batman fighting against Killer Croc and then the Scarecrow. The most interesting thing here is that Killer Croc's origins, powers and appareance are totally re-written. Among other things, he was a previous patient of Crane/Scarecrow, so his bites inject the fear toxin. I don't like his new look however, it's closer to Clayman from TAS than to the old Killer Croc.
This is again a very dark episode, only slightly less so than the 2°, and there are some interesting directing ideas, like Batman talking to Gordon while hanging upside down from the sewer's ceiling, like a real bat. The musics are nice too, and appropriare for the movie, but there's no much more to say. Batman is contaminated by the fear toxin, but doesn't seem to suffer much from it and we only get to see a distorted Killer Kroc and a few maggots on Scarecrow's face. Slight attention is given to the homeless living under Gotham, but only as a side element.
Episode 5, by Production 4°C again, is about pain.
This is a very interesting episode, totally intimistic, and we get to see something that happened during Bruce's training around the world, when he was in India to learn the secrets of the fachires. Thanks to a local "witch" he learns to deal with physical pain, but in the end is sent away because the real pain that he feels is much much deeper, and brings him in the path that he wants to follow.
The end of the episode is emblematic. Alfred says to a badly injured Batman "give me your hand", but his hands are full of guns that he just found and wants to bring away, so he refuses, despite being loosing a lot of blood. It shows just how much he believes in his cruciate, but also how such cruciate will eventually bring him to a point beyond help.
Despite being from the same production's studio, the art is much better here than in the 1st episode.
And finally episode 6, by the always impressive Madhouse.
Here it's Batman vs Deadshot, a sort-of-Bullseye, capable of shooting a target dead from miles or while moving on top of a 60 mph train. His target is Gordon, and Batman intervenes to stop him and save his friend. Overall, it's not as experimental as some of the others. In fact it's possibly the most classic episode of the 6.
There are many references to the previous ones too: we see the guns taken from episode 5, the cops from episode 2 and there is a reference to episode 3. There are also two references to Begins, the body armor and the blades on Batman's gloves. The art is very good, possibly the best of the series, and the fight is very adrenalinic. Once again direction, animations, special effects and musics are very well done. There is a nice touche in the end: Batman remembers the night his parents died, and, despite being tempted, refuses to kill Deadshot, discussing his beliefs with Alfred in the cave afterwards.
So, what in the end?
I think this DVD is definitely worth a look, if you like the very dark Batman seen in Begins and, I would expect, Dark Knight. There are some visual experiments, and some are more successfull then others, but every episode is impressive in its own way. Animation, direction and musics are the greatest upsides, whereas the fact that each episode only runs for about 12 minutes is the biggest downside. Voice actors are good too.
I think my order of preferences is
6, 2, 5, 4, 3, 1
As you probably know, the movie is made of 6 episodes, some interlocked and some independent, and each episode has been made by one of the greatest japanese animation studios.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The 1st episode is by Production 4°C, and it centers on how other people, in this case 4 kids, perceive Batman. Most of the story is told by these kids, who have met Batman a few hours before, in separate occasions, as he was chasing a high-tech robber across town.
The interesting thing is that each kid describes Batman in a totally personal way, and since we basically see their memories, that's how we see him too. The first saw him as a living shadow, capable of disappearing and reapparing like smoke, and to stretch himself like Mr Fantastic. The second saw him as a monstrous winged Man-Bat, with claws in place of his hands, and the third as a cyborg, capable of detaching parts of his body and to make bullets richochet away.
The 4th kid complains that he is the only one who hasn't seen Batman, and in that moment Bruce and the robber enter the scene. We now see Batman as he really is, tired and injured after a long fight and chase. With a trick, the robber almost kills him, but the kid saves Batman, who thanks him before tiredly going away.
It's a very experimental and unusual episode, Batman has hardly 10 lines and reality is mostly distored by the first 3 kids perceptions. It partially reminded me of an old TAS episode, which did something similar if I remember well.
Episode number 2 is by Production IG
It focuses mainly on 2 cops from Gordon's squad. Both are honest, good cops, but one is fiercely against Batman, despising his vigilante actions, while the other appreciates his attempts to help. After dropping a prisoner to Arkham (which now is a full island turned into prison, with inmates walking in the streets in chains) they end up in a crossfire between rival gangs and risk being killed. When things look the worse, Batman shows up saving them both.
The story is very simple, but the technical side is amazing. This is Batman at his darkest, in a way much scarier than in the monstrous forms seen in the preivous episode, and the whole thing is definitely not for children. The art is good (very anime like) and the animations are fluid, but what is way on top of that is the direction, which gives a definite dark edge to the entire episode. Batman comes across as totally invincible, completely different from the previous episode: he kayokes over a dozen of armed criminals in seconds, is completely musclebound, stands still in the middle of a fire and moves at lightning speed. Top mark to the OST too, very gothic and completely appropriate.
Episode 3 is definitely the most anime-like so far. Especially from the art side, it took me a minute to recognize Bruce Wayne, and the Batman costume is unusual too. It's not bat at all, just very different from what he usually looks like. I'd say it's very bishounen, a bit Gundam looking.
Lucius Fox is in here too, and so is the Batmobile (Begins style). Fox gives a new device to Bruce, which creates a magnetic field around him to deflect bullets.
Initially, the prospects of being really bullet proof almost intoxicates Bruce, who sees this as the ultimate tool to accomplish his mission. However, on the first night, a bullet richochets on him, injuring a criminal who had already surrended. Batman rushes him to hospital, but then decides to give the field generator back to Fox, explaining that he is only ready to put his own life on the line.
It's a nice episode, not as impressive as the previous one but much more classic than the 1st. Art is overall nice.
Episode 4 is an action packed adventure in the sewers, with Batman fighting against Killer Croc and then the Scarecrow. The most interesting thing here is that Killer Croc's origins, powers and appareance are totally re-written. Among other things, he was a previous patient of Crane/Scarecrow, so his bites inject the fear toxin. I don't like his new look however, it's closer to Clayman from TAS than to the old Killer Croc.
This is again a very dark episode, only slightly less so than the 2°, and there are some interesting directing ideas, like Batman talking to Gordon while hanging upside down from the sewer's ceiling, like a real bat. The musics are nice too, and appropriare for the movie, but there's no much more to say. Batman is contaminated by the fear toxin, but doesn't seem to suffer much from it and we only get to see a distorted Killer Kroc and a few maggots on Scarecrow's face. Slight attention is given to the homeless living under Gotham, but only as a side element.
Episode 5, by Production 4°C again, is about pain.
This is a very interesting episode, totally intimistic, and we get to see something that happened during Bruce's training around the world, when he was in India to learn the secrets of the fachires. Thanks to a local "witch" he learns to deal with physical pain, but in the end is sent away because the real pain that he feels is much much deeper, and brings him in the path that he wants to follow.
The end of the episode is emblematic. Alfred says to a badly injured Batman "give me your hand", but his hands are full of guns that he just found and wants to bring away, so he refuses, despite being loosing a lot of blood. It shows just how much he believes in his cruciate, but also how such cruciate will eventually bring him to a point beyond help.
Despite being from the same production's studio, the art is much better here than in the 1st episode.
And finally episode 6, by the always impressive Madhouse.
Here it's Batman vs Deadshot, a sort-of-Bullseye, capable of shooting a target dead from miles or while moving on top of a 60 mph train. His target is Gordon, and Batman intervenes to stop him and save his friend. Overall, it's not as experimental as some of the others. In fact it's possibly the most classic episode of the 6.
There are many references to the previous ones too: we see the guns taken from episode 5, the cops from episode 2 and there is a reference to episode 3. There are also two references to Begins, the body armor and the blades on Batman's gloves. The art is very good, possibly the best of the series, and the fight is very adrenalinic. Once again direction, animations, special effects and musics are very well done. There is a nice touche in the end: Batman remembers the night his parents died, and, despite being tempted, refuses to kill Deadshot, discussing his beliefs with Alfred in the cave afterwards.
So, what in the end?
I think this DVD is definitely worth a look, if you like the very dark Batman seen in Begins and, I would expect, Dark Knight. There are some visual experiments, and some are more successfull then others, but every episode is impressive in its own way. Animation, direction and musics are the greatest upsides, whereas the fact that each episode only runs for about 12 minutes is the biggest downside. Voice actors are good too.
I think my order of preferences is
6, 2, 5, 4, 3, 1
