I disliked that Batman because of the camp crap. It's one of the reason I never got into superhero comic books as a kid, that and the wretched Super Friends which was was dumbed down Justice league. I never really took superhero. comic book seriously until years later and Miller's The Dark Knight.
Cinema's Unlikable Movie Characters?
- Thread starter BAYLOR
- Start date
I disliked that Batman because of the camp crap. It's one of the reason I never got into superhero comic books as a kid, that and the wretched Super Friends which was was dumbed down Justice league. I never really took superhero. comic book seriously until years later and Miller's The Dark Knight.
Would Batman have been much less popular if they didn't make it so jokey?
Disney had done a couple of superhero type series (Zorro--with Guy Williams) which lasted two years and didnt have the guest stars to prop it up either and Scarecrow of Romney Marsh which I think was the blueprint for Batman--it even had a catchy theme song (Scarecroow, Scarecrooow, the soldiers of the king feared his name..").
The sister show to Batman was the Green Hornet which was serious but lacked the guest stars . I have heard the decision to make it jokey was due to the producer (who also did the narration).
Disney had done a couple of superhero type series (Zorro--with Guy Williams) which lasted two years and didnt have the guest stars to prop it up either and Scarecrow of Romney Marsh which I think was the blueprint for Batman--it even had a catchy theme song (Scarecroow, Scarecrooow, the soldiers of the king feared his name..").
The sister show to Batman was the Green Hornet which was serious but lacked the guest stars . I have heard the decision to make it jokey was due to the producer (who also did the narration).
Adam West was a very good actor and probably could have played a serious Batman with no problems . A little tongue in check humor would have been okay . I think if the writing had been really good , Batman as a serious show could have worked.
Last edited:
I assume West was ultimately chosen because he had to wear the mask most of the time and had THE perfect voice for it. Ward was a very good Robin it has to be said. Jokes aside he was exactly as the comics of the time depicted him to be. It was trendy in 1989 to attack the series and diss West and Romero's Joker but in fact his Joker was the comic book depiction.
Also, Romero and Adam West were in the correct height range.
Michael Keaton is 5'9. An inch taller than Burt Ward!
I watched the 1977 Spider-man pilot recently which I had not seen in decades and the undeniable fact is, Nicholas Hammond was the closest to the standard comic book depiction of Peter Parker out of any of the actors since. He totally looked the part (except for his hairstyle).
Also, Romero and Adam West were in the correct height range.
Michael Keaton is 5'9. An inch taller than Burt Ward!
I watched the 1977 Spider-man pilot recently which I had not seen in decades and the undeniable fact is, Nicholas Hammond was the closest to the standard comic book depiction of Peter Parker out of any of the actors since. He totally looked the part (except for his hairstyle).
Star-child
Science fiction fantasy
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2019
- Messages
- 479
Which doesn't really make up for the absurdity of a superhero show that doesn't have the resources to make a superhero look super, which is the same problem with SF or fantasy shows that aren't able to realistically show those elements. The Green Hornet had an actual superhero - Bruce Lee - working on the production, and he was arguably the reason the show lasted as long as it did.
Comic book superheroes are great for comic books. To bridge to other mediums they have to offer more than simply showing a version of the comic books, because that is only good enough for comic book readers. To transcend the source material for comics, SF or fantasy you can't rely on the fans' knowledge and allegiance because most TV viewers don't read those genres. The reason Alien, Star Wars and 2001 did so well was their amazingly realistic look and feel. They didn't require viewers to suspend their disbelief - they looked real.
In the case of Batman, your over looking one rather important fact. Batman doesn't have any actual superpowers. He has his fighting skills and his brilliantly deductive mind. Not much of budget buster there.
"The reason Alien, Star Wars and 2001 did so well was their amazingly realistic look and feel. They didn't require viewers to suspend their disbelief - they looked real. "
**
It is also the downside of trying to make "four quadrant" or "one-size-fits-all" art. An audience member who cares more about a realistic set may care less about character--their attention spans are shorter. An audience member who just likes fantasy and sf wont care if a set looks fake-they can suspend disbelief easily...so you end up with a milder appeasement of a larger number of people but lose the greater enthusiasm of smaller numbers of people.
**
It is also the downside of trying to make "four quadrant" or "one-size-fits-all" art. An audience member who cares more about a realistic set may care less about character--their attention spans are shorter. An audience member who just likes fantasy and sf wont care if a set looks fake-they can suspend disbelief easily...so you end up with a milder appeasement of a larger number of people but lose the greater enthusiasm of smaller numbers of people.
soulsinging
the dude abides
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2008
- Messages
- 2,499
Try working in sales for a big corporation. They worship Alec Baldwin in this and seem oblivious to the satire.Every single character in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. This is another film which there is not one likable or even remotely redeemable character in the entire film.
I would quit that job and happily walked out the door.
Star-child
Science fiction fantasy
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2019
- Messages
- 479
Bruce Lee didn't have actual super powers, either. The point is that Batman is supposed to some sort of technology augmented ninja, not just a detective who dresses like Frank Costanza's divorce lawyer. Actually depicting unarmed combat that is good against armed criminals is not easy.
I don't understand. If you make a great superhero (SF, fantasy) show or movie, it will be enjoyed by the base fans and broader audiences. Make a low budget production and you'll only get a portion of the dedicated genre fans - the rest won't be pleased with the adaptation. The reason we even have superhero movies and TV is due to productions like Superman that showed that the genre can have mass appeal when it looks good. And Star Wars is probably the only reason that Star Trek didn't end with the animated series.
But Star Wars is considered poor quality from a story and character POV. Terrible dialogue. This is not the case with many low budget AIP or other genre films from the past. The dedicated sci-fi audience doesn't mind cheap sets and good dramatics.
I would use this as an example--the type of person who may like Alien would probably hate Mario Bava's Hercules or Planet of the Vampires, but serious genre fans have no problem with it. Thus you cannot please all audiences all of the time (and never can).
Stop Laughing At Old Movies, You $@%&ing Hipsters - LA Weekly
Holden Caulfield, the original hipster, was a jerk at the movies. He hated them. He thought actors were phonies, screenwriters were prostitutes, and audiences who sniffled during weepies were “mean bastards at heart.” Holden wasn't a sucker. He was something worse: a laugher—the kind of...
www.laweekly.com
Star-child
Science fiction fantasy
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2019
- Messages
- 479
No, it isn't. People like to point to the simplistic or even occasionally silly sounding dialogue, but it really has no bearing on the quality of the story telling or the film's overall reception. The story itself is reasonable, contains no obvious plot holes or motivation problems, and traces it's pedigree to Kurosawa.
We can pick nits and try to re-write history, but you're talking about a film that was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (Annie Hall won those instead). It did win 6 Emmy's, Golden Globes and Grammys. Critics loved the film and Ebert praised its "pure narrative". So while Star Wars is the contrarian SF fan's favorite punching bag, nearly everyone at the time treated it as GREAT filmmaking, including the story.
I'm a serious genre fan who has never heard of Planet of the Vampires, so I'm not sure it is an example of successful genre filmmaking. But reading about it doesn't sound like it fits with a comparison to low budget superhero or SF shows but is more of almost an art film with limited distribution. The fact is that comic book fans have had many, many opportunities to make serious TV shows like Captain America successful, but they largely were not. The Incredible Hulk did well, but by heavily adapting the character to make the story about Banner and illuminate all other super-powered characters to focus on a much more grounded story more closely resembling The Fugitive than Superman.
There are many shows that are successful because of their genre-based fans, like Buffy. But there is still a kind of celebration of camp implicit in that and other Joss Whedon shows, which is why they are viewed as "cult classic" instead of straight genre. But making a completely straight laced genre show virtually requires a non-genre fan base because the genre people are not all going to like it, and there aren't enough of us. As a genre fan, I am more critical of comic or SF films than most people - and I am not alone in that. SF and comic films and TV really need to get some accolades before I bother to go see how much the director bent my favorite fiction out of shape. Some of it has been great, like the Nolan Batman films, and some of it has been merely watchable due to good effects and actor charisma, like Iron Man - both of which had enormous budgets and were designed for broad appeal.
Media that appeals to genre lovers only appears to rarely be good for anyone, including those fans.
Lucas originally wanted to do a Flash Gordon film. one wonders what would have happed had he gotten to do that film instead of Star Wars.
Mario Bava was not talked about very much in American genre circles but he provided important inspiration for ALIEN, DEATH RACE 2000 and probably the slasher film. The more one focuses on the pre-blockbuster age and international film, the more one encounters Bava. Kurosawa only gets referenced because he satisfies the international non-European arthouse pedigree but Prince Valiant was a bigger inspiration on Star Wars than Kurosawa (Gary Kurtz acknowledged this in his last radio interview where he said the Jedi were based on medieval knights-not samurai as Lucas claimed).
Star Wars was essentially a remake of Prince Valiant-a Fox film from 1954. That film did have better dialogue (and James Mason). Compared to other sci fi films--like a film written by Nigel Kneale or Richard Matheson, Star Wars is horrendous. It has great visual style and innovative action fx scenes, but story wise there was little ambition to character or dialogue.
Annie Hall is an experimental art house film given a lot of artificial boosting. Interestingly it supposedly cost $4 million to make and grossed $34 million--while Smokey and the Bandit cost $4 million and made $300 million.
Interesting contrast between genres and the return. Yet the director of Smokey and the Bandit did not get to direct films so easily as Allen always did. I never met anyone rabid about Allen films but he always had funding without any problem.
If we were going to look at Star Wars from a historical cinematic perspective, the most important artist in the film is Ralph McQuarrie --just as there would be no ALIEN without HR Giger, there could be no Star Wars without McQuarrie. He provided the art design which was the main selling point for the film (Vader and the stormtroopers-and whoever designed the spaceships). Everything else was either taken from Prince Valiant or provided by the FX team.
R2D2 was strongly inspired by the robots in SILENT RUNNING for example.
But back to point--the fact that Star Wars was said to make SF mainstream meant a writer like Kneale was no longer needed because spectacle replaced writing.
Planet of the Vampire was made in 1965 and was quite low budgeted but Brava managed to turn out a pretty decent film and decent look film , that you don't find films film . This film is considered one the inspirations for the 1979 film Alien . I think this one is Youtube.
It The Terror From Beyond Space 1958 written by Science fiction writer Jerome Bixby. it's story line very closely parallels the film Alien. The creature was played by stunt man / actor Ray Crash Corrigan and the monster suite was too small for Corrigan and certain movie scenes you see this . This was also his last acting gig, Before that, he was known for being a B movie cowboy and he starred in the 1936 science fiction serial Undersea Kingdom playing a character not surprisingly named Corrigan. He was not a terribly good actor and Undersea Kingdom which shows ample evidence of this . Years later The serial got the Mystery Science 3000 Treatment.
Last edited:
I enjoyed Star Wars because it was pure escapism. Its not great science ifction , its' more in the realm of fantasy. In terms of movies special effects and Technology Lucs as a great innovator , that is beyond dispute and, he and Steven Spielberg were both instrumen al in reviving the movie industry which was not doing terribly welling the 1970's . Lucas didn't invent fighter ships flying through space Shows like UFO ,1970 Space 1999 in 1975 and the Japanese anime series Space Battleship Yamato ( Star Blazers) preceded Star Wars in the regard by about 3 years.
Last edited:
Anthoney
Bearded Member
I think "low budget" should be replaced with "crappy".
A skilled director / producer can make a low budget film look and sound pretty good. Roger Corman also comes to mind, he did some truly great and imaginative B Pictures.
Mystery Science 3000 is part of that trend to knock the cinematic past which has picked up steam in recent times. I heard that Kurt Vonnegut met the hosts and they invited him to dinner but when they told him what they did on their show he said even bad filmmakers deserve respect for the hard work they put into their films and he declined the invitation.
I linked to the article about the Bava film because the fact is that in the old days sci-fi and fantasy was not usually aimed at all audiences-but aimed at those who were really into it and didn't care as much if it was cheap (partly because the language of special effects had not advanced so they could tolerate the cheapness more--it depends on the individual whether they can tolerate it in the modern age but that's why I say there are other things in them that attract interest like the script or acting or some other factor).
Yeah this is what I mean-the cheapness is made up by Corman, Richard Matheson, etc.A skilled director / producer can make a low budget film look and sound pretty good. Roger Corman also comes to mind, he did some truly great and imaginative B Pictures.
With a film like Transformers you have a higher budget for FX but that positive is is negated by the input of Bay, Orci and Kurtzman among other things. It's not a win win.
| Thread starter | Similar threads | Forum | Replies | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B | Who are Cinema's Most Boring and Uninteresting Characters? | General Film Discussion | 44 | |
| B | Dr Who Characters whom you found to be Unlikable and of Little Use. | Doctor Who | 71 | |
| B | Whom Do You Think Are Literatures Most Unlikable Fictional Characters | Book Discussion | 89 |
Similar threads
-
Who are Cinema's Most Boring and Uninteresting Characters?
- Started by BAYLOR
- Replies: 44
-
Dr Who Characters whom you found to be Unlikable and of Little Use.
- Started by BAYLOR
- Replies: 71
-
Whom Do You Think Are Literatures Most Unlikable Fictional Characters
- Started by BAYLOR
- Replies: 89