YouTube Goodness

[droosan]

edit: video removed from YouTube ..

[Daniel]

Very convincing.

[ShyViolet]

Had to post it! Happy holidays to all mods, contributors, members, and lurkers!


https://youtu.be/sZt6eU5REN8

[ShyViolet]

Wow, I didn’t even realize the 2002 ET had changed so many things from the 1982 version! (Especially ET hopping up and down through the forest while being chased in the “improved” version! ).

A really cool split-screen comparison (good quality).

https://youtu.be/y8ptI8Ba1h4

[Ben]

That being said, I still wouldn’t mind a decent HD version of the SE on Blu-ray.

[Daniel]

Always dig these types videos, very fascinating. Although there's maybe one or two shots I think the special edition improved of, everything else was fine as is.

[ShyViolet]

Same, those videos can certainly be fascinating! A while ago, I posted a similar-type vid on the Back to the Future thread which compares all the scenes in part 1 that were reconstructed in part 2. (Camera angles, etc...).


https://youtu.be/qmIJ6MdKqaE

[Randall]

Wow, a lot of ET changes. I guess I noticed them the one time I watched the SE all those years ago, but I'd forgotten they'd re-done ET himself so much. But for all the little improvements, none were really all that necessary.

[ShyViolet]

The insane "what if" ending to It's a Wonderful Life....

[ShyViolet]

(In my opinion) Hands-down the most perfect scene in Burton's one-two punch of Batman and Batman Returns. (Was VERY hard to choose, since Bruce tearing off his mask and revealing himself to Selina is a very close second.)





Technically, the only thing that marrs it its the reveal that she's still alive at the very end. But since that was actually Warner's idea and not Tim's, I don't even really count it.


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For the 1989 film, definetely the opening scene with the family getting assaulted/robbed by those two criminals, since it sets up this gothic/gritty/mythic comic book world so brilliantly.

[Daniel]

I wish SNL would still air that Wonderful Life skit on their annual Christmas special. Freakin' hilarious.

[ShyViolet]

I know right? Dana was just so brilliant.

[Ben]

Technically, the only thing that marrs it...

Well, technically, it’s that he has mascara all around his eyes as he reaches to tear the mask off...but then is totally clean once he pulls it off!

This is the unspoken problem with Batman working in the real world, and it has me in hysterics when you get certain fanboys getting off on how "real" and "actual" Chris Nolan got it all in his Batman films.

Well, yeah, maybe that’s how Bats could operate, but imagine him sliding down the imaginary Batpole and then asking villains to hold on for twenty minutes while he flawlessly applies all that facepaint to cover up around the eyes...and likewise when he needs to zip back into Bruce-mode, does he ask people to forgive the long while it takes him to remove it all (except for that little smudge in the corner that no-one ever picks up on!).

That’s what gets me when people say how real Batman can be. Uh, no. For many reasons, Batman doesn’t really work for real, not least the elaborate eye make-up, never more obvious than in that scene.

[ShyViolet]

Technically, the only thing that marrs it...

Well, technically, it’s that he has mascara all around his eyes as he reaches to tear the mask off...but then is totally clean once he pulls it off!

This is the unspoken problem with Batman working in the real world, and it has me in hysterics when you get certain fanboys getting off on how "real" and "actual" Chris Nolan got it all in his Batman films.

Oh my God...THANK YOU, BEN!!



The only reason Nolan was even able to show Bale's Batman living in the "real world" was because Burton did it first, but Burton brilliantly set his Gotham in a half comic-book, half "realistic" (just enough so that we suspend disbelief) world where you are able to buy street criminals actually being afraid of some guy dressed in a leather outfit/cape and who doesn't even carry a gun. And yet the mythic, appropriately nightmarish world of demonic villains like the Joker are brought to life in a perfect mixture of fantasy and "reality." (Because that's not what it is at all.)

The problem with Nolan's movies is that they go way too far in the other direction and are set in some James Bond (actually more like a TV crime show from the 90s) Gotham where Bruce Wayne is somehow able to hold Wayne Enterprises together even though he falls asleep at conferences and displays little if any interest in his business empire (at least Burton's films and the comics actually showed his "millionaire playboy" side actively participating in Gotham high society. I think the only time we saw Bale's Bruce do this was at the end of Begins when he threw everyone out of the party he invited them to. Oh right, and that dinner party in TDK where he sat next to Harvey Dent trying to decide if Dent should replace him. ).

Oh and by the way, when we do see Bruce in Nolan's films, he is almost always behaving like a jack***. I'm sorry, but Bruce Wayne, son of Thomas Wayne who always set an example for his son to treat others with dignity, would not dive into a fancy restaurant's water fountain so he can cavort with hot women, then condescendingly tell a waiter to leave him alone because he's Bruce Wayne and he'll be buying the place anyway. Can you imagine Keaton's Bruce doing this, or any of the comic book versions--as different as Bill Finger's work was from Dennis O'Neil's or Frank Miller's, none of these artists would have written a Bruce Wayne who behaves in this way.

Anyway, I've got a ton more problems with the Nolan films (chiefly that they really have nothing new or original to say; the fact that Batman is "not a hero" but a vigilante and "a watchful protector" was established fifty years ago) but I'll stop here. And just wanted to say that I'm not in any way trying to put down those who like Nolan's films (I actually enjoyed all three when they were first released). And although this may come as a surprise after everything I've just said, I do believe he's a great director (love Memento, love Insomnia, love The Prestige, love Interstellar). But he was completely and utterly the wrong choice to direct the 21st century version of this character.


EDIT: Oops! I think there was a misunderstanding...when I said “technically”, I didn’t mean as in realism, but “in all honesty.” What I meant to say was that the last scene of BR was perfect thematically and dramatically, but was “marred” by the deux-ex-machina Catwoman reveal, since Burton wanted to keep her fate a mystery. Warners made him include the scene to tease a hoped-for Catwoman sequel.

[Randall]

I normally encourage polite discourse, but if there's one director I don't care for, it's Nolan.

Nolan is a pretentious hack. The more he tries to make something "real," the more he screws things up. There are things to enjoy in his Batfilms, certainly (I was quite blown away by TDK), but realism flew out the window when he had his water-vaporizing machine operating next to people (who are made up of over 90% water!), at the end of Batman Begins. Made. No . Sense.

Plus, of course, the silly eye makeup.

I hated jerky Bruce, too. Then there's the ridiculous recovery from his back injury in Rises. Not to mention how he got over losing "all of his cartilage" simply by exercising for a few minutes. (I'm a physical therapist, so the medical stuff in that film drives me batty.) Worst of all was Bruce giving up his lifelong mission after 2 CASES. And then again after the third case! Argh!!!!!

And BTW, the ending of The Prestige was not a "clever twist." It was amazingly predictable for anyone paying any attention at all.

And don't get us started again on Interstellar.