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Oh great, another Batman movie concept.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay...

If they want to do a Batman/Robin film they should go through a series with each film depicting a different Robin and how that turns out for each of them.

I care not if Robin is a chick or a dude.

I care for a good story, with action, adventure, and gak blowing the feth up.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And a character's gender should serve the story, not be inserted/changed to fit some stupid agenda, to tick a box on an imaginary quota, not to create some artificial "diversity". Diversity for diversity's sake is tokenism.

The problem with this argument is what it really means is "a character should be a straight white man, unless there's a compelling reason for them to be something else". Why should making a character a woman have to "serve the story" when nobody asks whether or not a character being a man "serves the story"? There's certainly room for stories where a character's race/gender/etc plays a major role, but there's nothing wrong with having a woman just because you flipped the M/F coin.

As long as the actor is compelling and delivers a good performance I don't think I'd be bothered about gender swapped superheroes. I'd like a return to the Bat family, we're due a shift away from dark and brooding and a Batman or woman with an adopted ward serving as a son or daughter to keep him/her/hir grounded, or vice versa would be nice to see.

All Batman need do in that film is be inside the Batcave and walk past a line of cases that have a bat suit, a Batgirl costume, a Nightwing costume and a Robin costume. They let the camera linger for half a second, and move on. No need to go any further.

Sure, if you simply want to acknowledge a wider canon or provide fans with little nods. I'm referring more to an extended Bat family film. However different strokes for different folks

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
All Batman need do in that film is be inside the Batcave and walk past a line of cases that have a bat suit, a Batgirl costume, a Nightwing costume and a Robin costume. They let the camera linger for half a second, and move on. No need to go any further.

I'd also have a dramatic flashback on the odd or unusual suit there.

Of course, that is why animated movies have been a thing now for Marvel/DC...none of the production costs of a big blockbuster movie but still a chance to try something different.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Oh great, another Batman movie concept.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay...

If they want to do a Batman/Robin film they should go through a series with each film depicting a different Robin and how that turns out for each of them.

Actually, this is close to what I was thinking of. Just not necessarily in a linear or starting with point A.

I think the problem with how DC handles the Robin character in their movies is that the producers for some reason feel obligated to pay homage to the campy 1960's Batman & Robin. They go for over the top silliness such as Tommy Lee's Two Face +techno rave weapons, Arnold's Mr Freeze. Uma's Poison Ivy and Nike Pump Bane.

Instead, the various Robins' stories should play into Batman's/Bruce Wayne's steady descent into compulsion, cynicism, isolation and darkness.

These should be the stories that lead to the 50-60 yo Batman who regularly kills because he doesn't have the stamina or healing ability for prolonged combat. This is the Batman with the .40 cal auto pistol and hunter/killer drones.


But to get to that point Bats has to do some messed up stuff. Seriously F'ed up stuff.

Not that he consciously sets out to do such but that his compulsion to fight crime drives him to it.
A road to hell is paved with good intentions story.



My vision would be that this Robin is after Ward becomes Night Wing. She is an individual that was already a borderline sociopath but that she has been further damaged by those that used and abused her.

Batman finds her and due to a connection to her deceased parents he takes her in. In his mind he is trying to help her but deep down he knows that she is very much like him.
(Think if the fictional serial killer "Dexter" was female and trained by Batman to be Kick Ass's Hit Girl.)
Bruce/Batman told himself that he is trying to help her to control & direct the anger and impulses. But on another level he doesn't even think of her as a human much less a young girl. Rather, deep down in a chillingly calculated way he is creating "The" perfect warrior/weapon.

This would be where a very angry Night Wing enters. From here it could play out that, either Batman did the same to him or that he is jealous because she is getting the training he always wanted. That Batman refused to make Ward into a killing weapon because the Bruce persona was stronger at that time. Because Batman had not descended that far down the path.

At its heart this story would be a tragedy. The girl could go on to recover to a normal life but for Batman's compulsion to fight crime that slowly corrupts his attempts to help.

Visually you get moments of spring time and gentle tenderness as she still has some of the little girl that was. These are counter pointed by the harsh training and dark hyper-violent night patrols.

Later,
ff

 focusedfire wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
Oh great, another Batman movie concept.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay...

If they want to do a Batman/Robin film they should go through a series with each film depicting a different Robin and how that turns out for each of them.

Actually, this is close to what I was thinking of. Just not necessarily in a linear or starting with point A.

I think the problem with how DC handles the Robin character in their movies is that the producers for some reason feel obligated to pay homage to the campy 1960's Batman & Robin. They go for over the top silliness such as Tommy Lee's Two Face +techno rave weapons, Arnold's Mr Freeze. Uma's Poison Ivy and Nike Pump Bane.

Instead, the various Robins' stories should play into Batman's/Bruce Wayne's steady descent into compulsion, cynicism, isolation and darkness.

These should be the stories that lead to the 50-60 yo Batman who regularly kills because he doesn't have the stamina or healing ability for prolonged combat. This is the Batman with the .40 cal auto pistol and hunter/killer drones.


But to get to that point Bats has to do some messed up stuff. Seriously F'ed up stuff.

Not that he consciously sets out to do such but that his compulsion to fight crime drives him to it.
A road to hell is paved with good intentions story.



My vision would be that this Robin is after Ward becomes Night Wing. She is an individual that was already a borderline sociopath but that she has been further damaged by those that used and abused her.

Batman finds her and due to a connection to her deceased parents he takes her in. In his mind he is trying to help her but deep down he knows that she is very much like him.
(Think if the fictional serial killer "Dexter" was female and trained by Batman to be Kick Ass's Hit Girl.)
Bruce/Batman told himself that he is trying to help her to control & direct the anger and impulses. But on another level he doesn't even think of her as a human much less a young girl. Rather, deep down in a chillingly calculated way he is creating "The" perfect warrior/weapon.

This would be where a very angry Night Wing enters. From here it could play out that, either Batman did the same to him or that he is jealous because she is getting the training he always wanted. That Batman refused to make Ward into a killing weapon because the Bruce persona was stronger at that time. Because Batman had not descended that far down the path.

At its heart this story would be a tragedy. The girl could go on to recover to a normal life but for Batman's compulsion to fight crime that slowly corrupts his attempts to help.

Visually you get moments of spring time and gentle tenderness as she still has some of the little girl that was. These are counter pointed by the harsh training and dark hyper-violent night patrols.

Later,
ff

I'd watch/read that! Sounds like you've given it a lot of thought. With characters that deep, I'd almost prefer a novel to really get to the heart of it, but maybe that's just me.

We have the dark and evil Robin: Jason Todd, the guy who came out second best to a crowbar. He's back, he kills, and he kicks ass.

And I swear, a bunch of people are coming into the thread and ignoring the important part: female Robins have existed. Twice. No reason we couldn't have a female Robin in [more] movies.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
We have the dark and evil Robin: Jason Todd, the guy who came out second best to a crowbar. He's back, he kills, and he kicks ass.

And I swear, a bunch of people are coming into the thread and ignoring the important part: female Robins have existed. Twice. No reason we couldn't have a female Robin in [more] movies.

I think that the focus should be less on how dark and evil the Robin character is and more about how Batman is growing darker because of how his compulsion drives him to "use" Robin for his purposes.


Also, apologies.
I should have noted live action in the thread title. I guess this might be a generational thing. Where I come from the word movie is used to describe pretty much any-thing live action.
Animated movies were then given the descriptor of animated or cartoon.

I forget that now days if the original story was graphically depicted as in comic books then the proper description would be "live action" movie.

Again thanks for the replies guys,
ff

 focusedfire wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
We have the dark and evil Robin: Jason Todd, the guy who came out second best to a crowbar. He's back, he kills, and he kicks ass.

And I swear, a bunch of people are coming into the thread and ignoring the important part: female Robins have existed. Twice. No reason we couldn't have a female Robin in [more] movies.

I think that the focus should be less on how dark and evil the Robin character is and more about how Batman is growing darker because of how his compulsion drives him to "use" Robin for his purposes.


Also, apologies.
I should have noted live action in the thread title. I guess this might be a generational thing. Where I come from the word movie is used to describe pretty much any-thing live action.
Animated movies were then given the descriptor of animated or cartoon.

I forget that now days if the original story was graphically depicted as in comic books then the proper description would be "live action" movie.

Again thanks for the replies guys,
ff

However, if you haven't read Death of the Family, that's the whole point: Joker believes Robin makes Batman weaker, not darker. Robin is a sign of Batman's humanity and compassion, not a sign of him growing darker. Most of the Robins have had some form of issue (Grayson's family murdered, Todd...do I need to go there? Lol, Damien's grandfather is Rais Al Ghul, Drake is the only normal one). I know of the girls, but I don't know Stephanie's backstory and Cary is fairly normal too. But Robin has always been a sign of Batman's humanity, not a darkening side of him abusing children.

 kronk wrote:
I care not if Robin is a chick or a dude.

I care for a good story, with action, adventure, and gak blowing the feth up.

This.

Also, the brad has been tainted by the hand of Schumacher!

 Peregrine wrote:
Because, for some unknown reason, changing a character's gender is infinitely worse than all of the other changes they make every time they re-launch a brand.

I guessed you missed all the outrage that erupted after rumors dropped that a black guy had been cast as the human torch?

Regarding Robin: I'm not a fan of the character, and I don't think he has aged particularly well. Maybe Robin redbreasts, bright medieval fancy dress, and clean-cut teenage boys in hot-pants were all badass in the 1940s, but now they're just very camp. And that's about it, Robin doesn't bring anything to Batman movies beyond perhaps awkwardly homosexual undertones.

I would also agree with Sebster's original assertion that sidekicks in general can be problematic. I think this is because a sidekick is really just a storytelling device. In an adventure or questing-type narrative, it is almost inevitable that the hero will pick up a sidekick or other companion, because it makes it easier for the author to share the hero's ideas through dialogue. When the time for heroics arrives, sidekicks are often non-combatants who will take a backseat and stay out of the hero's (and the authors) way.

Batman movies typically feature Batman at home in Gotham. He already has characters like Alfred and Lucius Fox, to voice his plans too there, so there is really no need for Robin. Robin is also problematic because his skill-set is pretty much the same as Batman's, the writers are constantly forced to find something heroic for him to do (but not as heroic as Batman), which ultimately just takes screen time away from Batman (or else have Robin conveniently frozen for entire scenes). The bottom line here is that Robin is unneeded, takes up too much screen time, gets in the way, and is camp.

Given all that, if Robin were to feature in another movie, I would completely welcome him being changed to a girl. It could only improve him.

 Smacks wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Because, for some unknown reason, changing a character's gender is infinitely worse than all of the other changes they make every time they re-launch a brand.

I guessed you missed all the outrage that erupted after rumors dropped that a black guy had been cast as the human torch?

I suppose Heimdall would be a better example as it is purely a racial change, but it also is problematic as a comparison as it is referring to live action and not the comic book character. The problem with the Human Torch thing wasn't as much about them changing his race as not also changing his sisters; it was more complex than simply bending race.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smacks wrote:
Maybe Robin redbreasts, bright medieval fancy dress, and clean-cut teenage boys in hot-pants were all badass in the 1940s, but now they're just very camp.

He hasn't fit that description decades.

 Ahtman wrote:
The problem with the Human Torch thing wasn't as much about them changing his race as not also changing his sisters; it was more complex than simply bending race.

Yeah I poured over a lot of the "I'm not racist but..." comments at the time. There were plenty of people ranting about the change who made no mention of the brother/sister thing. In any case it's hardly a compelling argument. So a man who can fly and burst into flames at will is okay? But a black guy having a white sister? Well that just defies all the laws of nature... (/sarcasm). I felt that most of the outrage was ultimately steeped in racism. I personally welcome a black human torch. Given how much the previous F4 films sucked, I think it's the least of their concerns.

Though just for luls, I am kind of hoping they play it straight, with them being completely biological siblings with white parents, and no one in the film acknowledging or noticing that one is black. I think that would be amazing.

It is easy to dismiss it when you oversimplify and ignore the arguments presented. I would think racism would be the fear of having two black black people sharing a four person lead so they make only one black, or fearing that an interracial relationship between main characters will be problematic so they are both kept white, or not wanting the smartest man in the world to be a black man so they keep him white, but yeah, what you said is the only possible racism option.

 Smacks wrote:


Though just for luls, I am kind of hoping they play it straight, with them being completely biological siblings with white parents, and no one in the film acknowledging or noticing that one is black. I think that would be amazing.

except they've already written it to where they are step-siblings, which arbtitrarily creates some friction, where there doesn't need to be any... Perhaps it would work better if they were orphaned together, and grew up together from orphanage to orphanage becoming as close, if not closer than biologically related siblings.

In the frame of Batman, that would be like taking Robin from being Bat's sidekick, to making Robin a child of Bruce Wayne. It would create a change in storyline where one wasn't needed, as well as fabricate a tension that wouldn't otherwise be needed either. Basically, it gives writers the free pass for lazy plot points

 Ahtman wrote:
It is easy to dismiss it when you oversimplify and ignore the arguments presented.

Yes yes you're right, it is easy to dismiss. Though not because I have ignored the arguments presented. On the contrary I perused pages and pages of them, keenly awaiting a well metered explanation of why having a black guy play the human torch is so unacceptable. But ultimately if that is really what ruins the movie for you, then what does that say about you?

I would think racism would be the fear of having two black black people sharing a four person lead so they make only one black, or fearing that an interracial relationship between main characters will be problematic so they are both kept white, or not wanting the smartest man in the world to be a black man so they keep him white. but yeah, what you said is the only possible racism option.

Why are you trying to twist my words into some unreasonable sounding "only possible option"? Really it's just the option that was being discussed, and it almost universally took the form of: "Why have they cast a black guy as the human torch? He is supposed to be white [outrage]", I'm 100% certain that if they rectified the family issue by also making his sister black, the outrage would have continued unabated. It's also completely disproportionate to the backlash when white actors are cast as non-white, which is just business as usual.

It "ruins" the movie, because it adds an extra layer of oddness between two non-related siblings that has never existed. Notice that most of us are totally okay with a black actor playing one of the four. They just picked one that happens to feel like a bad call because it adds awkwardness to a relationship that doesn't need it. But, hey, high horses and all that. Enjoy your pedestal, and don't put words in our mouths, or else expect a yellow MOD-Signal to light up the dadkness of OT. None of us have said anything to suggest we are anti-black FF member, we are anti-"complicated add on to story to make a bi-racial adopted sibling family setup as an excuse for black actor to be in movie". Hope that clears up the problem.

And if they made Sue black as well, I'd be totally fine with it.

Or skip Reed and Sue completely, and bring in the FF team of Torch, Thing, Storm and Black Panther.

 Smacks wrote:
Robin doesn't bring anything to Batman movies beyond perhaps awkwardly homosexual undertones.

Well there's the problem, they keep stopping at undertones. The next Batman movie should be a bunch of fight scenes mixed with bat-themed gay porn!

 timetowaste85 wrote:
r. They just picked one that happens to feel like a bad call because it adds awkwardness to a relationship that doesn't need it.

But many people won't feel any awkwardness about the situation at all. I know I don't think it's weird at all. Maybe it is because I am friends with a white couple that has adopted two African children, a white & philipino couple that adopted a Korean child, and my wife came from an adoptive foster home and has sisters that are black (like her), white, and Native-American and they all have the dynamics and feelings of a perfectly normal sibling relationship because they are sisters that have grown up together and who have been siblings for decades. And that doesn't count all the people I know with step-siblings (including my own) and step-parents with step-children.

I'm just really surprised that people think that there will be an awkwardness because of this.

 d-usa wrote:
I'm just really surprised that people think that there will be an awkwardness because of this.

I personally don't think there would be awkwardness there. My issue is more that the Studio is being mealy-mouthed and half-hearted in its attempt at diversity.

Already done.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
It "ruins" the movie, because it adds an extra layer of oddness

No it doesn't. They are brother and sister. He is black. It happens. No further explanation is required. But if that is too 'odd' or difficult for you to get your head around then sorry, but that sounds like a YOU issue.

But, hey, high horses and all that. Enjoy your pedestal.

Just because you're digging yourself into a hole doesn't mean I'm on high horse. All I said was that there was internet backlash, and I saw plenty of comments that were steeped in racism. Why are you getting so defensive?

don't put words in our mouths, or else expect a yellow MOD-Signal to light up the dadkness of OT. None of us have said anything to suggest we are anti-black FF member, we are anti-"complicated add on to story to make a bi-racial adopted sibling family.

Well I didn't think anyone here was against a black FF member. I was just incidentally commenting on a ragestrom that happened on the internet ages ago. But then you turned up being oddly defensive and enraged, and just said bi-racial couples are too odd and complicated so they 'ruin' stories for you.

I hope it wasn't intentional, but you have to agree it doesn't sound good. I would suggest abandoning the position completely, and get on board with the "I don't care, lets just see how the movie turns out" people.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
Robin doesn't bring anything to Batman movies beyond perhaps awkwardly homosexual undertones.

Well there's the problem, they keep stopping at undertones. The next Batman movie should be a bunch of fight scenes mixed with bat-themed gay porn!

Haha, maybe some day a brave pioneer will try t tackle the Batman and Robin sexual tension. There has to be more than just fist-pumps and nipple armour.

 Smacks wrote:
Yes yes you're right, it is easy to dismiss. Though not because I have ignored the arguments presented.

I misread what you said. When I scanned over it I thought you said you were saying you didn't go over it, when you said you had poured over it. That is why I thought you were being overly simplistic in your response; I thought you were saying you ignored what others said because you were assuming they were racist, which is where the confusion came from on my part.

 d-usa wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
r. They just picked one that happens to feel like a bad call because it adds awkwardness to a relationship that doesn't need it.

But many people won't feel any awkwardness about the situation at all. I know I don't think it's weird at all. Maybe it is because I am friends with a white couple that has adopted two African children, a white & philipino couple that adopted a Korean child, and my wife came from an adoptive foster home and has sisters that are black (like her), white, and Native-American and they all have the dynamics and feelings of a perfectly normal sibling relationship because they are sisters that have grown up together and who have been siblings for decades. And that doesn't count all the people I know with step-siblings (including my own) and step-parents with step-children.

I'm just really surprised that people think that there will be an awkwardness because of this.

I've been around many similar situations to you, and agree... But I also feel like I "know" hollywood writers, and feel comfortable saying that there will be an awkwardness or added stress purposefully written into the story, where it isn't needed.


I mean, who knows, maybe in the new FF movie, Johnny Storm can't turn off the flames, but Grimm CAN change from rock dude to normal dude... In relation to this thread though, I think that making some changes to Robin would overly hurt the franchise, as the writers would fell compelled to add in some gak new story arc that has no legitimate place in a Batman story.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
Yes yes you're right, it is easy to dismiss. Though not because I have ignored the arguments presented.

I misread what you said. When I scanned over it I thought you said you were saying you didn't go over it, when you said you had poured over it. That is why I thought you were being overly simplistic in your response; I thought you were saying you ignored what others said because you were assuming they were racist, which is where the confusion came from on my part.

No worries, it was my bad, it should have said pored* sorry for the confusion.

 Medium of Death wrote:

Thanks the smile and laugh.

Sad thing is, I could see Hollywood going that exact route. But, ....that is why it's funny.


Later,
ff