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Post by dejan on Jun 16, 2023 3:24:23 GMT -5
Dear crown
.....you are definitely kickin' a**(droppin' nukes).....to be a peacemaker!
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Post by dejan on Jun 16, 2023 2:42:55 GMT -5
Would a nuclear strike have stopped the villains? Yes! Nuclear material will pierce their skin, make them mortal they'll become sick! It'll dance on their grave. Lieutenant General Calvin Swanwick: "Shockwaves are getting stronger......everytime we hit them...we make them more powerful....you can't attack them" Crown: "What are you saying,Calvin"? Lieutenant General Calvin Swanwick: "I am saying they are unkillable"
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Post by dejan on Jun 16, 2023 0:37:19 GMT -5
Apparently nuclear weapons were "ruled out because of the danger to the civilian population". What population? East Houston Idaho has like 8 people total. Why didn't the president just order a nuclear strike? President speaking to Crown: "These people have such powers......... .nothing can stop them"!
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Post by dejan on Jun 16, 2023 0:34:39 GMT -5
It had a population which exaggerated reports put at 123 And that number "has increased by 3"!
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Post by dejan on Jun 15, 2023 19:24:29 GMT -5
What about the Clark that faced Supey in the junkyard! Was he at least partiallly depowered?
He seemed to get out of breath throwing a couple of tyres. He struggled to overpower the compressor. He was groggy after the car magnet fell on his head.
He could not even fly!
Still kicked ol' evil Supe's booty in the end though.
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Post by dejan on Jun 15, 2023 16:47:02 GMT -5
Just watched Timeline.
I do recall going to the cinema to see The Two Towers,Matrix Reloaded, Terminator 3(ugh!) and The Return Of The King in 2003. Anything else of commercial note that year, I nabbed on DVD(Pirates Of The Carrabean 1,The Fast & Furious,Hulk,Catch Me If You Can,Finding Nemo,Gangs Of New York) ect ect).
But I can't believe I missed this one back in the day. So it's weird seeing it 20 years too late!
First off, I think the critics were a bit too harsh. It's got some good things going for it....some decent characterisations, good plot twists,nice fight choreography and an interesting premise. Nice to see some of the characters have some remorse/introspection when they kill someone else. Don't get that too often in action movies.
Second.....in some weird way,it's almost as if Donner is slightly out of time himself, as if he is trying to merge 2 different movie making methods from different epochs together(epic /old school style filmmaking with post 2000s CG sensibilities i.e rapid fire editing and hand held close up camera action).
Third: Very interesting to see what was then a new generation of actors find their feet(Gerard Butler, Paul Walker).
In fact seeing as Butler would make a name for himself barely 3 years later with Snyder's 300........it's interesting to see him recite under the old master, Donner, just a few years prior, with a far more eclectic performance.
I would say Donner got more out of Butler in just a few minutes of screen time, than Snyder did in the entire duration of 300. Granted, the role of Leonidas merited a somewhat stoic portrayal from Butler under Snyder......but it's still a bland performance.
Under Donner in Timeline.....it's good to see Butler flex his acting muscles more.....as opposed to his physical ones! That may also help explain the difference in the acting charisma as seen in STM.....compared to MoS.
Anyways, in total....seeing as it still constitutes an action flick of sorts.....then for me, it has to figure in 7th place in Donner's action movies from 1987 to 2003.
LW2,LW1,Assassins,LW4,Conspiracy Theory,LW3,Timeline.
So looks like a concur with CAM in how Timeline fits in(no pun intended) the pecking order of Donner's "action" portfolio.
On edit: Apparently the Blu Ray for this, only came out in 2020/21.....and it's a bit of a botched transfer(lots of digital artefacts ect)...so buyer beware if one is seeking to make a purchase.
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Post by dejan on Jun 15, 2023 13:52:05 GMT -5
@cam Found this interesting interview with the Wackowskis from 1996: web.archive.org/web/20031202184946/http://www.moviepoopshoot.com/interviews/27.htmlWhen you think that the problem with Donner and Spengler in the late 70s was that Donner could not make the film in the manner that he wanted(SII)...........and how it contrasts with that declaration from the late 90s where Wachowski complains that Donner has too much power to make films in any manner that he sees fit!
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Post by dejan on Jun 15, 2023 13:43:30 GMT -5
Thanks for your thoughts there CAM.
Had a little fun/experiment where I watched just the first 20 mins or so of Assassins,Conspiracy Theory and LW4(in that order)......just to get a "feel" for where Donner was at, as a cinematic artist, at that point in his career(mid to late 1990s).
Overall,IMHO....the problem may ultimately stem from the fact that the period in question, was heavily laden with that kind of action material: Speed,Demolition Man,Die Hard 3, True Lies,Chain Reaction,True Romance ect ect
There is nothing in Donner's work in that time range(1994/1995 -1998)that is distinguishing his stuff from the rest of that action mele' in any real substantive way. He ultimately became just one of many fishes in a very large bowl......which is a bit sad......because James Cameron,Tony Scott,Quentin Tarantino,Jan De Bont and the rest would not have had the talent to make a little gem like Inside Moves. They are one trick ponies.......admitedly they are excellent at it......but those are the only aces they have up their sleeve.
Donner had more strings to his bow.....but unfortunately got sucked into that "action" quagmire where it became difficult to distinguish his work from a very competitive pack. But hey...that's where the money is/was!
Now it's superhero stuff.
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Post by dejan on Jun 15, 2023 13:19:32 GMT -5
@cam Agree with your points made in the last post(apart from the Lester one ofcourse!) But have you heard this interview from 1987 with Furie? voicesfromkrypton.net/superman-iv-sidney-furie-interview/What's interesting for me personally, is that he confirms that he was involved with the editing of the picture. Also, he declares that his favourite parts of the Supes series up until that point.....were the romantic flight from STM and the SII memory kiss. Too bad he failed in his re-rendition of both those sequences. He does accentuate how the background templates(NYC, San Franscisco ect) are of vastly superior quality to anything that came prior. The only problem was the actual compositing of the live action chraracters(Supes/Nuclear Man/Lois/Lacy) onto said templates.....something that Furie refrains from mentioning.
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Post by dejan on Jun 14, 2023 17:16:25 GMT -5
CAM wrote; Agreed with all the above. I would add that the Godzilla films never pretended to be anything other than what they were. The Superman films, at least by the time of IV,from a qualatitive standpoint, were expected to be at a certain level , in terms of acting proficiency,editing and technical effects. And SIV betrayed all those aspects. Despite this, the promotion for SIV still attempted to parade the film as if it was of the quality of the original and better than the sequels! "His most important adventure": "His greatest adventure": Letterman: "So how is it?.....is it a good movie?" Kidder: "Yeah!" @28:19 I can only think of one response:
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Post by dejan on Jun 12, 2023 18:46:15 GMT -5
atphehe Correct you are , about the metal fibres! I have probably seen SII more times than I can remember. Better get out the UHD and give it another whirl.....as there is obviously some more dialogue that I gotta get down!
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Post by dejan on Jun 12, 2023 10:00:32 GMT -5
If we are being ultra critical for SII, of course, cosmanaut Boris and co would not have been able to speak to Zod,Ursa and co on the moon,either.
Also, Ursa makes a reference to how Non crushed the lunar module "like paper". Unless she was refering to Kryptonian paper???!!
Anyways, Mank and Donner shoulder the blame for those. Lester also takes the blame for not noticing!
But if Donner(if he had been allowed to finish) or Lester noticed the error and tried to fix the "no talking on the moon" conundrum.....how would they have approached it in post production?
Maybe through the use of subtitles?
Ursa: "You.....what kind of creature are you?"
Cosmanaut: "what the f**k are ya sayin' , baby?"!
Maybe the kryptonians could have used some form of telepathic communication....like Lady Galadriel in Fellowship Of The Ring.
It may have violated comic book canon....but it would have maintained the reality of physics.
Anyways. 40 years too late! lol!
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Post by dejan on Jun 12, 2023 9:55:08 GMT -5
But nothing exists in a vacuum. Nuclearman and Lacey did hehe Maybe Konner,Rosenthal and Reeve also lived in a scriptwriting vacuum when they wrote down the darn sequence - lol! Unbelievable.
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Post by dejan on Jun 12, 2023 5:46:24 GMT -5
Finally got round to watching Assassins for the first time. Not bad at all. Loved the interplay between Banderas and Stallone in the taxi(was Mann aping this in Collateral?!) Then the movie sagged a little after that.
I noticed one or 2 mannerisms from Banderas that may have influenced Ledger in The Dark Knight , maybe!? But yeah.....I thought Stallone was a touch too cool throughout this one....I never felt that he was going to lose to Antonio. Also much like Maverick, Donner got sucked into the whole one twist after another shtick, again in the final 20 mins or so.
But I think I prefer this to Conspiracy Theory , funnily enough......and may be Lethal Weapon 3(and possibly even 4!). Might have to give it another look at. Blu Ray has excellent picture quality.
So for Donner's action movie sextology(1987- 1998)....I would put them in this order:
LW2,LW1,Assassins tied with LW4,Conspiracy Theory, LW3.
Although that may change when I get my hands on Timeline and 16 Blocks.......but according to CAM's observations(who I trust implicitly!)....that's unlikely!
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Post by dejan on Jun 12, 2023 5:05:44 GMT -5
Imagine Ursa and Non carrying Luthor and Lois respectively ....in space.....and that's Superman IV BS applied to SII , in a nutsheck! I'm still suprised at myself that to me- Lacey in space in SIV- was the least of SIV's errors! Still glad that they tried- but, it also made it a little easier to say 'goodbye' to the Reeve Superman franchise. And- it is interesting to hear about younger fans who caught SIV in the theatres at the time as their FIRST Reeve Superman film and loved it! (I hear similar stories about ROTJ being the first Star Wars film for younger folks than me and having no issues with Luke and Leia being twins- but it makes sense, if that was the first exposure to the series) At the same time- I do wonder how people who experienced SIV first, felt when they eventually (I assume) saw STM-SIII. That has to be weird, to say the least. Regarding the use of SuperLacy in space.....for me it's the most egregious of SIV's errors! And it's downright unforgivable! And Reeve, as a contributing scriptwriter, has to shoulder the blame as much as anyone else for that glaring mistake. In terms of the impact of SIV on a Reeve first timer, that's a question that only Martin Lakin can answer! Martin and I are both from the UK and the same age. We both saw SIV in 1987 as 12 year olds. I have to speculate on my part but I do believe that even if I had never seen any of the Reeve films by 1987, that I would have still had the same reaction. One of complete and total disgust. Despite being too young to see Predator in the cinema in 1987....I was hearing great things from older friends and through word of mouth. Jeez, even standard kiddie fair stuff from Disney like Flight Of The Navigator(released in the UK in the spring of 87') simply blew SIV out of the water! Quite frankly I wonder if Lakin had seen any other movies at all prior to watching SIV! Maybe it's a discussion for another thread and a philosophical one at that. But nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything is part of a whole from a perceptual perspective. From politics to love to societal infrastructures ect ect. Movie watching is no different. Comparisons between movies are always being made, subconsciously or subliminally. I see on one of the other threads that you and Kamdan were questioning(and rightly so) Lucas's ability as a script writer. But that was the magic of Star Wars, that despite suffering from some of George's clunky dialogue and exposition, that it still stood out like a sore thumb from an audio/visual/kinetic perspective, from the rest of the crowd. I mean what else was there in 77' or the mid 70s in general? Annie Hall(a very fine picture by the way!) Smokey And The Bandit? Saturday Night Fever? Julia? A Bridge Too Far The Sorcerer(a superb film....unjustly obscured by Star Wars). All fine films.....but Star Wars was different. Or from a science fiction angle....... Logan's Run,Silent Running,Soylent Green,The Andromeda Strain(excellent film),WestWorld,Sinbad & The Eye Of The Tiger(lol!) ...jeez, even the original Batman films from the 60s! ect ect. Again...lots of fun to be had with all the above(indeed I have them all in me collection).......but they don't hold a candle to Star Wars(IMHO!). I know it's a cliche' but timing is everything in art. Lucas , despite his deficiencies, struck at absolutely the right time. Furie not only struck at the wrong time with SIV - by that point, Top Gun was still doing the rounds - Predator and Aliens were upping the ante' for dramatic science fiction, Star Trek IV showed how sequels and lovable characters could be maintained within the popular zeitgeist - Dangerous Liasons( a film that Reeve turned down?) kept audiences on the edge of their seats. Even The Living Daylights was executed well from a technical perspective, despite having a new Bond who was finding his feat. Flight Of The Navigator broke new ground with embrionic CG effects. And in comes this turd called Superman IV! Enough said! Lakin needs a wake up call. Ollie Harper, who like me, hails from Cambridge....came to his senses very quickly after seing STM and the rest after his initial radioactive exposure to SIV! On edit: I realized I mised off Close Encounters from the 1977 list of rivals to Star Wars. A great film in my view, but some reviewers found it a touch boring. From a visual perspective, it takes off in the final 30 mins or so.....and the rousing Williams music gives it an emotional send off. But even Spielberg said that it played second fiddle to Star Wars from a visual perspective.
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Post by dejan on Jun 11, 2023 16:27:12 GMT -5
Points taken dear CAM!
A couple of tough scenarios or what I would call Infinity War like choices!:
1) Donner is allowed to finish SII in 1979 but is without Brando and even Hackman! Uses Yorke to refilm the Brando scenes, including a repowering scene where Lara touches Clark's shoulder just like Jorel did in Mank's original script.
2)Donner is fired, Lester comes in, Brando(but not Hackman) is allowed to come back and reshoot some extra footage where required,aswell as use some of the already shot footage(Brando stuff,White House,Lunar attack,Lex escape,Don's Diner,Fortress stuff ect ect) as completed by the now departed Donner.
3)Donner is fired,Lester comes in, but Brando and Hackman are allowed to come back but this time Lester cannot use anything that Donner shot when filming back to back with STM. In other words, Lester has to do the Lunar attack,Lex's escape,the White House stuff, Don's Diner....now called Les's Diner!, everything in the fortress aswell as shoot entirely new scenes with Brando and Hackman..... from scratch.
Of the 3 options I would be most intrigued with number 3, but would probably err to number 2, although IMHO,Lester got a better performance from York than Donner originally did with Brando, for the reshoots. But if Donner could get Yorke to also do a better job than Brando......may be I would go with option 1!
I am assuming you would not want to see a "total" Lester SII! But that would leave you with an interesting conundrum:
......would you rather see a partial Donner/Lester SII with Brando(and Hackman stuff from the original shoot)?.......or a complete Donner SII......without Brando(and Hackman stuff from the original shoot)?!
I would say having gone through pretty much most of Lester's stuff(that now includes the rare but much sought after Royal Flash)......that I have no doubts that he could have replicated the lunar and White House stuff , beat for beat, shot for shot, that Donner had already layed down, if neccessary.
Lester could do violence and tension in equal measure.
So Lester would have no problems crushing some poor soul in a Lunar module......or some poor astronaut getting his balls kicked into outer space.
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Post by dejan on Jun 11, 2023 13:45:56 GMT -5
@cam
As a side note regarding Hackman's inability(desired or not) for the completion of SII:
In Petrou's book, Lester says that he turned Hackman down for Petulia in 1968, favouring the formidable George C Scott to play against Julie Christie, instead.
So was wondering if there were some bad feelings between the 2 on the production set during STM because of that artistic rejection from 10 years prior?
To be fair , Hackman did do the press junket at Niagra Falls and the premiere in New York City for SII in 1981, so maybe they buried the hatchet(if there was a hatchet) by the time of the theatrical release.
As for recasting Brando.....hmmm.....IMHO(of course!),I actually prefer it the way it was given the conditions.....but of course I would have loved it if they could have used the already shot Donner stuff for the theatrical.
Or how about this for a scenario:
Donner is fired as happened......
But Brando buries the hatchet , the Salkinds pay him his royalties and is available for reshoots and extra footage under Lester!
How would that have altered the dynamic of completing SII?
Lester had never directed Brando before. And as such, by the time Lester was hired in his unofficial role as producer.....Brando had already left STM. In other words they would have been unfamiliar with each other.
So that would have been an interesting working dynamic. But given Brando's gravitas....would that have induced Lester to go the extra yard(i.e expand the villains taking over the world ....no ice cream in the face ect ect).
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Post by dejan on Jun 11, 2023 11:39:10 GMT -5
That's an interesting idea in terms of substituting Lex with Tesmacher.
But it may have altered the "threat" dynamic. Lex had viable reasons for helping the villains after Supes stuffed his San Andreas fault plan.
OTOH, Tesmacher had already saved Supes in STM. In the deleted scene(and rightly so).....Supes saved Tesmacher from the lions.
So having her then be the arbiter/negociator/middlewoman with the villians would not make much narrative sense.
Lets not forget that Supes went to all the trouble of saving Tesmacher's mum in New Jersey.
So she probably loves the guy! She really has very little reason to screw with Supes......unlike Lex.
So if Tesmacher was to be retconned in some version of SII......changes would have had to be made to STM to make it viable. But that was not neccessary!
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Post by dejan on Jun 11, 2023 11:11:29 GMT -5
Imagine Ursa and Non carrying Luthor and Lois respectively ....in space.....and that's Superman IV BS applied to SII , in a nutsheck!
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Post by dejan on Jun 10, 2023 16:36:14 GMT -5
We have journeyed across an ocean of internet forums to reach you. For sometime your forums have sheltered some of our posters(the Reeve Only Bullies). I request that you return these individuals to our custody. For reasons unknown they have chosen to keep their existence a secret from you. They will have made efforts to blend in......... They will post messages like some of you....but they are not like you. To those of you who may know their current location...we say this: The fate of your forums rest in your hands. To The Reeve Only Bullies we say this.....surrender in 24 hours...or watch your forums suffer the consequences. It's coming in on the RSS feeds It's on my phone too(said with the most deadpan, unconvincing, acting facial expression in the history of cinema!)
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Post by dejan on Jun 10, 2023 15:07:27 GMT -5
We have journeyed across an ocean of internet forums to reach you. For sometime your forums have sheltered some of our posters(the Reeve Only Bullies). I request that you return these individuals to our custody. For reasons unknown they have chosen to keep their existence a secret from you. They will have made efforts to blend in......... They will post messages like some of you....but they are not like you. To those of you who may know their current location...we say this: The fate of your forums rest in your hands. To The Reeve Only Bullies we say this.....surrender in 24 hours...or watch your forums suffer the consequences.
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Post by dejan on Jun 10, 2023 6:51:23 GMT -5
@cam.
Good and thought provoking points there.
As a hypothesis, maybe it can be divided into 2 camps:
From the point of view of film historians,cineastes and academic students(of film making - be they aspiring actors or technicians), then there is longevity for all the aforementioned actors(the likes of Dean,Brando and perhaps even Reeve himself ect ect )......and great works/performances in general, in the minds and eyes of the newer generation(s).
Here in the UK, we have something called the BFI(British Film Institute) who are doing great work to preserve fundamental European cinematic treasures(Bergman,Herzog,Eisenstein,Truffeaut,Tati,Goddard,Fellini,Rossellini,Pasolini ect ect). They even dip their pockets into world cinema(Satiyagit Rai,Kurosawa ect ect).
But you are right , for the general movie going public(whatever that is!?) as the years and decades roll by......a lot gets lost from the public consciousness, if they were ever in the zeitgeist in the first place. Within the context of films: Inside Moves would be a great example of that! A commercial bomb......but who cares.....it's a great movie. Donner even highlights said fact in that 2019 interview in the Blu Ray special features.........that it's a film that hopefully will be preserved on formats such as Blu, seeing as it was completely off the radar at the time of it's release.
So in this instance/example, folks like David Morse, John Savage or Diana Scarweed who gave fantastic performances in IM, will be recognized certainly from the perspective of cineastes, which is what really counts.......if not from the general movie going public.
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Post by dejan on Jun 10, 2023 5:34:01 GMT -5
MOS came out in June 2013. It is disappointing to see that in all this time, we still have not seen: a) an apology to Enrique and the rest of us for the shameful bullying; b) a clear identification of who the so-called "Reeve Only People" were. It's been 10 years -- try to do it please. Who are these imbeciles? Where are they? We will bring them to their knees!
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Post by dejan on Jun 9, 2023 7:18:35 GMT -5
The quotes from Keaton always made me inquire as to how far along discussions took place with Joel Schumacher over the possibility of doing a Batman: Year One adaptation, which was apparently what he wanted to do all along. There’s quotes from Keaton post-Returns where you could tell he was reading the reviews at the time that criticized about how the villains were more featured than the title character and the storyline devised for Forever drew from Year One that I’m sure was in place to please Keaton. What killed it for Keaton was the lighter approach Warners wanted and Schumacher complied with. Now that Keaton has seemingly returned to the Batman role without Burton’s involvement, part of me wishes that he would have stuck to it and be willing to let the character have some development with the introduction of Robin, which unfortunately gets muddled with different actors playing what is supposed to be the same character. That would have let his interpretation have a better sense of “definitive” as Reeve was, who stuck to the role despite the change of directors. The question at hand with actors in these roles is how much is enough? When they take on roles like this.m, it may cost them a few they’d really be interested in doing. On the other hand, I see some of the stuff Keaton and Reeve did instead of more sequels and I would have gladly traded them in. Yes, good points. As far as Reeve and SIV is concerned, there is a direct correlation between the nose dive in his career from an artistic(and maybe a commercial one too) perpspective, circa 1985, and the decision to reprise his Supe's role for the fourth time. I can only speak for myself in terms of opinions, but Somewhere In Time,DeathTrap and The Bostonians all have artistic merit ,from the viewpoint of Reeve's contributions, and as films as a whole, irrespective of whatever they recouped financially. Add the first 2 Supes movies to the equation and one could deduce that Reeve had a fantastic first 6 years or so to his screen career, leaving just Monsignor and Superman III as the outliers. However, The Aviator and ultimately Streetsmart(even if it was made at the same time as SIV) were less viable artistically and also bombed commercially, thus dictating Reeve's direction into returning to Supes. The irony was that because SIV was so bad(both artistically and commercially) , that it ended up darning Reeve even more, resulting in Switching Channels and relegating him to TV stuff he did in the early 90s.! Not so familiar with Keaton's overall output. But I think he did well to stay away from Forever and B&R. This may sound controversial, but I wish that if Superman IV was made(well it was- lol!), that Reeve did not take part(and have someone else play the role!).....at least he would have been disassociated from that whole mess, kinda like what Keaton did with Bat!
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Post by dejan on Jun 9, 2023 3:25:13 GMT -5
Metallo and Kamdan Sorry to see you guys have a bit of a heated discussion back there! Both of you provide insight,knowledge and intuition that are appreciated for sure. With regards to the definitive presentation of Batman, in this case, I found a 2005 interview with Bale that coincided with the theatrical release of Begins:
Great to see Bale reference Reeve , in it's own right! Not sure if Reeve attended the Oscars in 1987, but I think 13 year old Bale was there ,as Empire Of The Sun scooped up some awards. Wonder if their paths crossed?! Anyways, sounds like Bale was a fan(he was born in the early 70s.....and would have been of the appropriate age when the Reeve films hit the cinemas in the late 70s/early 80s). Also interesting to see that he did not think Keaton was "the number one guy!"
As I said in an earlier post, Kilmer's and Clooney's portrayals kinda obscured Keaton somewhat, throughout the mid to late 90s and early 2000s. Bit of a shame. Interesting that Keaton also gave some insights into Nolan's then novel approach:
So even from the perpspective of the artists involved in making these things.....there can be differences of opinions, let alone us fans!
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