# Did I hallucinate this scene from BATMAN BEGINS? Also, is trying to make Batman realistic... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 26, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934 "2015-01-26T17:23:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/21 "2015-01-27T02:20:25Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Maggie Gyllenhall was both a better actress and a hotter woman than Katie Holmes lol no. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/22 "2015-01-27T02:26:35Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > lol no. Assessments of hotness are subjective, almost by definition. I find Holmes fairly boring, while Gyllenhall is quite fetching. Your mileage obviously varies. ---
**Author:** ![MsKaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a183cd/32.png) [@MsKaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsKaren)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/23 "2015-01-27T02:38:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **zamboniracer** , you appear to have confused **Skald the Rhymer** for an IRS agent. > > And the thing with Batman is, nothing he does is impossible. Or at least, no individual thing he does. But what is impossible is for the same single person to do all of them. > > I’ve occasionally pondered a “superhero” who was actually an entire team: You’d have a hacking whiz, and a cat burglar, and a parkour expert, and masters of two or three different martial arts, and an actor, and so on. They all take turns wearing the suit (or more likely, one of several different suits, which also have a variety of different capabilities built in), which doesn’t show any skin, so the populace thinks it’s a lone vigilante who can do all of these different things. You might also have a separate team member behind the scenes who (almost) never wears the suit, but who built all of the gadgets in it, and/or one who brought the team together to begin with. Oooh, write this story. I will read it. I will PAY to read it. ---
**Author:** ![Gretchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8edcca/32.png) [@Gretchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gretchion)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/24 "2015-01-27T06:35:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **zamboniracer** , you appear to have confused **Skald the Rhymer** for an IRS agent. > > And the thing with Batman is, nothing he does is impossible. Or at least, no individual thing he does. But what is impossible is for the same single person to do all of them. > > I’ve occasionally pondered a “superhero” who was actually an entire team: You’d have a hacking whiz, and a cat burglar, and a parkour expert, and masters of two or three different martial arts, and an actor, and so on. They all take turns wearing the suit (or more likely, one of several different suits, which also have a variety of different capabilities built in), which doesn’t show any skin, so the populace thinks it’s a lone vigilante who can do all of these different things. You might also have a separate team member behind the scenes who (almost) never wears the suit, but who built all of the gadgets in it, and/or one who brought the team together to begin with. I’ve pondered that “superhero” idea as well. The thing I like about it is it makes it really easy to maintain secret identities. As soon as somebody thinks they’ve figured out who the secret identity is, they see the superhero and that person in the same room, which blows their theory away. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/25 "2015-01-27T11:00:13Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve occasionally pondered a “superhero” who was actually an entire team Funnily enough, already done in the animated movie _ **Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman** _. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/26 "2015-01-27T14:47:21Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Take…that…back. Or I will do something cruel to–well, not _you_, I love you too much–to David Tennant. > > Batman’s frequently an asshole, but even Nolan’s Batman isn’t part of the 1%–not in his heart. His sympathies are with poor people. That’s why he tolerates Catwoman. Even apart from the fact that he wants to bone her, even apart from the fact that she’s been known to stop in the middle of a robbery to rescue some innocent who needed saving, she only robs rich people. If you woke Bruce up in the middle of of [del]night[/del] afternoon, told him that Catwoman had cleaned out Donald Trump’s private jewelry collection and slashed the Donald’s face for no special reason, he’d probaly grunt & say, “Good. I hate that fucker, and he deserves it.” > > Bruce is more of a noblesse oblige guy. He doesn’t think he’s entitled to rule the world. He thinks his combination of wealth, genius, and physical skill obligates him to help people. This helps, so thank you, but that is definitely the feeling I came away with. Bane was a mega asshole, no doubt about it, who didn’t believe his words at all, but the words he used were important and resonated. “We take Gotham from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you… the people!” And even Catwoman: “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.” Does Batman fund social programs? Try to run for Mayor? Get good people elected? Maybe fund better therapy so people like him and the Joker don’t go crazy (and mark my words, Batman is crazy)? Nope he dresses up in a suit and beats people up. Yes, these movies dimmed the shine of Batman for me and Bale was nearly unforgiveable as his portrayal of Wayne. I found my old thread, and here is what I said there: "The previous Batmans I am familiar with, you felt like he was a good guy, beaten down by circumstances and life, driven to the edge to fight back in the only way you know how. Christian Bale’s Batman feels more like the smug playboy who thinks he knows better than the entire world and breaks his own rules whenever he feels like it. " All this being said, someone said in the other thread something like how the realism of the movies made you realize just how ridiculous it was - a grown man dressed up as a Bat and running around. Frankly, I’m sorry I saw the Nolan movies. Keaton all the way here. I love Batman Returns, it’s one of my favorite movies of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/27 "2015-01-27T15:28:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And the thing with Batman is, nothing he does is impossible. Or at least, no individual thing he does. But what is impossible is for the same single person to do all of them. > > I’ve occasionally pondered a “superhero” who was actually an entire team: You’d have a hacking whiz, and a cat burglar, and a parkour expert, and masters of two or three different martial arts, and an actor, and so on. They all take turns wearing the suit (or more likely, one of several different suits, which also have a variety of different capabilities built in), which doesn’t show any skin, so the populace thinks it’s a lone vigilante who can do all of these different things. You might also have a separate team member behind the scenes who (almost) never wears the suit, but who built all of the gadgets in it, and/or one who brought the team together to begin with. Somebody already mentioned _Mystery of the Batwoman_ I’m also reminded of the novel _The Multiple Man_ by Ben Bova, in which the President of the United States is a group of cloned siblings, each trained in one of the necessary fields from childhood (the one trained in the political skills of speechifying and schmoozing is the one generally seen in public). ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/28 "2015-01-27T16:42:23Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > This helps, so thank you, but that is definitely the feeling I came away with. Bane was a mega asshole, no doubt about it, who didn’t believe his words at all, but the words he used were important and resonated. > > “We take Gotham from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you… the people!” > > And even Catwoman: > > “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.” > > Does Batman fund social programs? Try to run for Mayor? Get good people elected? Maybe fund better therapy so people like him and the Joker don’t go crazy (and mark my words, Batman is crazy)? Nope he dresses up in a suit and beats people up. > > Yes, these movies dimmed the shine of Batman for me and Bale was nearly unforgiveable as his portrayal of Wayne. I found my old thread, and here is what I said there: > > "The previous Batmans I am familiar with, you felt like he was a good guy, beaten down by circumstances and life, driven to the edge to fight back in the only way you know how. Christian Bale’s Batman feels more like the smug playboy who thinks he knows better than the entire world and breaks his own rules whenever he feels like it. " > > All this being said, someone said in the other thread something like how the realism of the movies made you realize just how ridiculous it was - a grown man dressed up as a Bat and running around. Frankly, I’m sorry I saw the Nolan movies. > > Keaton all the way here. I love Batman Returns, it’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I agree on Keaton’s Batman being better (because he knew he was not right in the hand, was fighting it, empathized with both Catwoman and Penguin, and by the end of the Burton run was obviously ready to throw the whole shebang away) and on the superiority of _Batman Returns_ (all the stuff I just wrote, plus the fact that it acknowledges that Batman is a fairy tale, plus Michelle Pfeiffer being a gallon of hotness in a two-quart jug, plus the fact that the 2 1/2 villains are have something good about them, making them human and relatable. That said, I will say a good thing about Bale’s Batman, at least as presented in TDK. He knew and openly acknowledged that (at least in this pseudo-realistic environment) that Batman’s way was only a short-term solution. He believed, correctly, that the savior of Gotham was going to have to be people like Harvey Dent and Jim Gordon, not him; his role was to assist them, not the other way around. TDKR subverts that, and not in a good way. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/29 "2015-01-27T17:13:03Z")
Actually, Wayne _did_ do things like fund social programs and support good candidates and the like. Or at least, he tried to… He just didn’t have the same passion for it as he had for his more direct activities, which led him to not even notice when his business, and hence his philanthropy, started falling apart. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/30 "2015-01-27T17:26:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Actually, Wayne _did_ do things like fund social programs and support good candidates and the like. Or at least, he tried to… He just didn’t have the same passion for it as he had for his more direct activities, which led him to not even notice when his business, and hence his philanthropy, started falling apart. I could easily be wrong, but isn’t there an eight-year gap between TDK & TDKR, during which Batman was not active? Gordon or somebody (the Matthew Modine character, maybe) says that it’s been literally years since the last Batman sighting. Since Gotham has calmed down considerably in that time, I think two things are true: 1. Bruce was right that the example of Harvey Dent (along with the activities of good people like Jim Gordon) was what the city needed, not the actions of an accountable-to-no-one vigilante. 2. Mika was right: Bruce is a jerk who spent nearly a decade examining his navel and mourning his dead not-girlfriend rather than honoring her memory by doing anything useful. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/31 "2015-01-27T18:30:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **zamboniracer** , you appear to have confused **Skald the Rhymer** for an IRS agent. > > And the thing with Batman is, nothing he does is impossible. Or at least, no individual thing he does. But what is impossible is for the same single person to do all of them. > > I’ve occasionally pondered a “superhero” who was actually an entire team: You’d have a hacking whiz, and a cat burglar, and a parkour expert, and masters of two or three different martial arts, and an actor, and so on. They all take turns wearing the suit (or more likely, one of several different suits, which also have a variety of different capabilities built in), which doesn’t show any skin, so the populace thinks it’s a lone vigilante who can do all of these different things. You might also have a separate team member behind the scenes who (almost) never wears the suit, but who built all of the gadgets in it, and/or one who brought the team together to begin with. Done in “My Little Pony” where a mysterious superhero “[Mare Do Well](http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mysterious_Mare_Do_Well)” constantly upstages Rainbow Dash with multiple abilities. Turns out “Mare Do Well” was all the other ponies using their individual abilities at different times. Oh, one more thing. In the Tim Burton Batman Returns, when Batman and Catwoman go the the masked ball without their costumes, it’s not because they’re tired of masks. They’re both going in disguise–Batman is disguised as Bruce Wayne, and Catwoman is disguised as Selena Kyle. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/32 "2015-01-27T18:36:26Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Done in “My Little Pony” where a mysterious superhero “[Mare Do Well](http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mysterious_Mare_Do_Well)” constantly upstages Rainbow Dash with multiple abilities. Turns out “Mare Do Well” was all the other ponies using their individual abilities at different times. > > Oh, one more thing. In the Tim Burton Batman Returns, when Batman and Catwoman go the the masked ball without their costumes, it’s not because they’re tired of masks. They’re both going in disguise–Batman is disguised as Bruce Wayne, and Catwoman is disguised as Selena Kyle. Nope. Watch the scene. Look at their expressions, the way they act; listen to Pfeiffer’s voice as she says, after they each realize who the other is, “Does this mean we have to start fighting?” Examine the look on her face when she shows Bruce that she intends to simply kill Max, no more effing around. Consider the look on Keaton’s face as he tries to figure out how to stop her from further ruining her life. They’re both dead tired of wearing masks. Each says it out loud before realizing whom the other is. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/33 "2015-01-28T01:35:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Actually, Wayne _did_ do things like fund social programs and support good candidates and the like. Or at least, he tried to… He just didn’t have the same passion for it as he had for his more direct activities, which led him to not even notice when his business, and hence his philanthropy, started falling apart. Well, I think he was supposed to have noticed quite clearly, but there was only a limited amount he could do about it. Plus he was just plain tired. This does point to another aspect of Batman that’s pretty permanent, however. Much like Superman, he’s not there to save everyone. He’s there to _protect_ them. The people have to save themselves. The problem with _The Dark Knight Rises_ is that it introduces a Class-Warfare angle that doesn’t really follow, well, anything at all. For all that Bruce Wayne often looks like a jerk in public, we know nothing at all about the rich in Gotham. And given the way it’s usually presented the rich in Gotham are probably mad, criminals, or they would have left a long time ago. We know precisely zip about how the rich are supposedly “taking stuff” from everyone else, and that angle basically goes nowhere even in the plot because the villains don’t actually believe it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/34 "2015-01-29T01:16:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve occasionally pondered a “superhero” who was actually an entire team Already done in the greatest superhero movie of all time, where two men with differing skills safeguard their secret identities by taking turns as the cape-and-mask do-gooder. I’m speaking, of course, of _Zorro The Gay Blade_. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/35 "2015-01-29T22:11:43Z")
Having only seen the first two, I don’t see the problem at all with how Batman is portrayed. No, he’s not the same character he is in other versions, but neither is the Joker or anyone else. (Gordon is probably the closest.) I mean, he’s not even a detective. It sounds like the problems are all in the third one. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/36 "2015-01-30T04:26:55Z")
Well, not _all_ in the third one, but it’s definitely the weakest of the three, by a fair margin. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/37 "2015-01-30T20:33:50Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Oh, one more thing. In the Tim Burton Batman Returns, when Batman and Catwoman go the the masked ball without their costumes, it’s not because they’re tired of masks. They’re both going in disguise–Batman is disguised as Bruce Wayne, and Catwoman is disguised as Selena Kyle. (some crazy guy): I want to take off his mask and see his real face. Joker:[?] You idiot, that IS his real face Arkham Asylum Still my favorite line in a Batman comic. I don’t like ANY of the Batman movies except the one from the '60s. I do think it’s possible to do a good Batman (serious) movie but I just haven’t seen one. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934/38 "2015-01-30T21:02:17Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > (some crazy guy): I want to take off his mask and see his real face. > Joker:[?] You idiot, that IS his real face > > Arkham Asylum Still my favorite line in a Batman comic. > > I don’t like ANY of the Batman movies except the one from the '60s. I do think it’s possible to do a good Batman (serious) movie but I just haven’t seen one. The Joker regards Batman’s mask as his real face, true enough. But the Joker isn’t uniquely insightful or wise; HE’S EFFING NUTS. He thinks he should be able to copyright the faces of fish, for Athena’s sake. He thinks that everyone in the world is, deep down, as violent and misanthropic and fucked up as he is. Why should anyone take his judgment seriously? It’s null information–useless for determining the truth, accurate only by coincidence. I’ll grant that Bruce Wayne, at times, will say that Batman is his true self. But he’s wrong too. Bats is a coping mechanism. People who know him and are not themselves so damaged see that. The one thing that DARK KNIGHT RISES got right was Alfred (and to a lesser extent, Fox’s) deep ambivalence about Bruce’s double life. The saw that Batman is good for the city but bad for Bruce. Hell, that is what Keaton’s Bruce was feeling in the dance scene in BATMAN RETURNS. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-hallucinate-this-scene-from-batman-begins-also-is-trying-to-make-batman-realistic/710934.md?page=1)