Batman Beyond: the Movie

Now that "Inception" has racked up something like half a billion dollars and thirty-five cents, its pretty clear that director Christopher Nolan can do just about anything on Earth that he wants to in film, and Warner Bros will pay for it.  If he wants to make a movie about a purple elephant running for President, he's going to get not simply the greenlight, but hundreds of millions of dollars the pick of Hollywood's best actors to bring his strange vision to reality.  Right now, Nolan is working on "Batman 3" and apparently has been put in charge of the Superman movies*.  So that's at least a decade's worth of steady work right there.  And in a recession, that's not bad.

For better or worse, "Batman 3" will be the last Batman movie - at least created by Nolan.  We all know there will be Batman movies until the day the art of cinema is lost forever when the aliens from Dimension X land and destroy our civilization in order to turn Earth into an intergalactic theme park (laugh now, but when your corpse is being used as fun house dummy, you'll know I was right).  Anyway, the fact of that matter is that Nolan wants to end his series.  But how does one go about it?  There's tons of material here that needs to be sorted out in one grand finale... that is absolutely certain to satisfy no one.  "The Dark Knight" is a movie that is much to big to follow up without incurring the wrath of film and comic book nerds worldwide.  Its hopeless.  Which is why I won't even try.

Anyway, in my usual presumptuous way, I will now tell Christopher Nolan how to do his job.  In today's episode of Fanwank Corner, I throw around my idea for a very different kind of Batman movie.  And that idea is none other than:  "Batman Beyond", the live-action movie.

Once "Batman 3" is finished and the flame wars have died down, Warner Bros will be looking for a new idea for a brand new Batman movie.  Perhaps it will be "Batman 4", or perhaps it will be a new "Batman 1"**, which would be the third or maybe even the fourth "Batman 1" as a matter of fact.  So there is a very good chance that a "Batman Beyond" film could be thrown in there someplace.  My idea would be to have it take place roughly fifty years after the end of "Batman 3".

But before we get into any details, I think I should explain my personal experience with Batman.  When you say the words "Batman", my mind immediately goes back to opening credits of the old 90s cartoon.  Batman stands shaded in shadow upon an art-deco skyscraper, watching over his city silently; the Dark Knight.  That show was awesome, even today its by far the best Batman TV shows, and arguably the finest Batman thing ever (I don't read superhero comics, so who knows about that stuff).  The classic original Batman series was followed up a futuristic sequel known as "Batman Beyond".  I'll let the Optimus Prime do most of the summarizing.  This incredibly awesome show starred Terry McGinnis, a teenager who has now been drafted into becoming the new Batman for a new Gotham to fill for the aging Bruce Wayne.  Since its the future, Batman has all kinds of new weapons like jet boots and "Predator"-stealth, but that also means that his villains are often superpowered bastard children of science.  For example there's Inque, a beautiful purple woman who can turn into a living blob of shape-shifting death.  The show only lasted a few all-too-short seasons, but it will live on forever in my heart.

Also if you were lucky enough to remember the era, at one point Toonami was playing both the original "Batman" cartoon and "Batman Beyond".  It all goes to show that Toonami was the greatest block of programming in the history of man.  Even if this movie never gets made, both series are totally worth your time.  Great times to be had there, I guarantee it.

So my idea for the movie would be virtually the same plot as the cartoon.  Since Gotham has been virtually recreated (I think it might even be called "Neo-Gotham" now), that means that you can easily fit Batman Beyond into any franchise.  If Christopher Nolan decides to burn Gotham to the ground in "Batman 3", that's fine for my project.  Another great thing about "Batman Beyond" is that each and every one of its episodes were amazing Sci-Fi plots.  Right off the top of my head I can name five episodes that easily could be adapted into feature-length films.  So we might not just have a movie here, we might have a franchise.

But if I had to pick any particular episode as a basis for the movie, it would be, without any question, "Meltdown".  Here's a quick summary:

In Season 1 of the show, Batman's main villain was Derek Powers, the corrupt new head of Wayne Enterprises who murdered Terry's dad.  Thanks to getting splashed with nuclear waste, Powers also is the supervillain Blight, a toxic-powered skeleton with immense radioactive strength, but the radiation is also burning his body away, and he needs constant cosmetic touches to appear "human" (there's one cool special effect).  In order to reverse the process, Powers digs up the immortal still-living head of the defeated Mr. Freeze (run with it), who he hopes to use a guinea pig in order to test a cure.  

Soon enough, Mr. Freeze is back on the streets in a new body hoping to repent for his crimes.  He is also completely free of his weakness to heat... for a little while.  Of course, New Batman and Old Batman have a long discussion over whether Freeze truly is good now or if this is simply a plot.  Unfortunately Freeze's body begins to revert, and so Powers and his beautiful scientist minion try to kill Freeze in order to autopsy his body.  Naturally Freeze doesn't like this, not one bit, and he goes on a rampage, killing beautiful science minion, and attacking Powers.  Before he knows it though, Freeze is fighting Blight.  Freezing Cold vs. Radioactive Heat.  Heat wins, but Terry is there to run and save the day.  Blight is momentarily defeated, but Mr. Freeze is totally finished.  Freeze dies in Batman's arms.  Curtains.

Now from that nucleus there would also be at least an hour of material needed to be thrown in.  You'd need a scene showing the aging Batman retiring, you'd need to set up Terry McGinnis's life before becoming Batman, and the situation that arises which causes him to don the cape (new Batman doesn't have a cape, but you get the idea).  Ultimately you'd have a movie where the Mr. Freeze portion would only represent the second act, meaning quite a long feature.  Not to mention that if Mr. Freeze is not around for "Batman 3", at some point his past would have to be set up in flashbacks - perhaps tying directly into why Bruce Wayne gave up being a superhero.  The Freeze situation would not only be a growing experience for Terry, but for Bruce as well, putting away a very old demon.

Perhaps I should elaborate on the Bruce Wayne-Mr. Freeze issue.  Assuming that the main villain of "Batman 3" will not be Mr. Freeze since I think Nolan does not want to remind people of "Let's kick some ice!", that means we can build their relationship from the ground up.  Mr. Freeze's main motivation was to save his wife, Nora, turning his vigilante.  Let's so Freeze kills someone close to Batman - romantically close maybe.  Batman erupts in a fit of anger, defeats Freeze and seemingly kills (but he's alive enough to just be an immortal head).  Seemingly having broken his one rule, Batman is defeated symbolically, and this is doubly bad since Freeze's motives were pure.  Nora dies without her husband, and Bruce Wayne has no choice but to retire.

Of course, the entire movie would also need to deal with Terry slowly leaning to use his advanced technology and moving into the Batman role.  Season 1 of the show dealt with this extensively.  So for every fight Terry would have to become more and more secure in his role.  Fight 1 against human Derek Powers would show how he isn't completely secure in his role yet (he accidentally maims his enemy, a very un-Batman thing to do).  By the final battle, he should be fully in tune with his abilities and kicking serious ass.  i don't think there's much room for Dana though...

Then we have Act 3.  In the cartoon, Derek Powers/Blight is ultimately betrayed by his son, Paxton and killed.  I really do not see much reason to change that dynamic.  Blight's death means the end of Terry's quest to avenge his father, so its a perfect bookend.  Paxton would represent an adversary for the sequel, I guess.

Speaking of sequels, Batman Beyond has a rather large rouge's gallery of its own.  Inque always was my favorite villain.  She should definitely be the main villain for the sequel that will never happen for the movie that nobody will ever make.  That's Fanwank for you.

So Warner Bros, you know how to reach me.  I can have the script finished by the end of the month.  Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life writing this silly blog?

ツ

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* Frankly I'm of the opinion that Superman is absolutely unfilmable as a character.  Every single one of his movies have been downright terrible.  Yes, I do despise Superman with a vengeance that even Lex Luthor would find excessive, but I still try to watch those movies with an open mind ready for entertainment.  But the movies are not fun.  This character is too strong, too powerful too over-the-top for any budget to contain, at least not in live-action.  No matter how impressive his feats, you know that he can do better, somehow.  Not even Christopher Nolan, master of the giant expensive movie, could make a Superman movie that actually works.

Then again, if he or anybody else succeeds somehow, I'll gladly eat my words - and my shoes.

** Don't laugh, things like this are happening right now.  Right now real ground is being made in remaking "Spiderman" with David Lynch at the helm, Marc Webb (who?) as the director, and Andrew Garfield (double who?) as the half-arachnid superhero.  Considering that David Cronenberg directed "The Fly", one of the most disturbing horror movies ever made, one could only imagine what delicious things he'd do with the concept of Spiderman... but sadly this is just a plain old reboot.  Might I ask why?  Why do we need another Spiderman movie?  Didn't we just do that?  2002 was not a long time ago!  I mean, I didn't love that movie, but it was as good as that concept is going to get.  What is there to add?  And now they want to reboot "Fantastic Four".  Are you friggin' kidding me?

Seriously Hollywood, are you going to make the same nine superhero movies over and over again?