Dobbiamo dire che ce lo aspettavamo, ma ora la Warner Bros lo ha reso ufficiale. Il titolo del quinto Batman sarà Batman Begins, non più Intimidation Game che sembra essere stato solo un titolo di facciata per depistare i fans.
D’altra parte i veri conoscitori dell’Uomo Pipistrello si attendevano una mossa del genere da un momento all’altro visto che, sin dall’inizio, l’intero progetto del film era nato come una rilettura, in chiave cinematografica di Batman:Year One di Frank Miller.
Per chi non conoscesse il fumetto basti dire che con "Year One" si indica una storia che narra il primo anno di attività di un eroe e che quindi si incentra sui suoi inizi e sulle sue difficoltà. Nella storia di Miller vediamo il giovane Bruce Wayne tornato a Gotham dopo il suo lungo addestramento in giro per il mondo scendere per le strade senza alcun costume e scoprire che le cose non sono così semplici come pensava. Riesce a vincere il primo scontro, ma con grosse difficoltà, ecco allora l’idea del costume per ottenere un vantaggio psicologico. Leggiamo poi dell’inizio del suo rapporto col commissariato di polizia di Gotham, con Selina Kyle, Catwoman, e con altri personaggi chiave della saga. Ci sarà tutto questo nel film?
Non tutto e non nello stesso modo, sicuramente, anche perché l’inserimento di Ra’s Al Ghul indica una sterzata in una direzione ben precisa (nel fumetto è un ecoterrorista che nutre un estremo rispetto per il Detective, come ama chiamare Batman), ma il fatto che Alfred sia interpretato da Michael Caine lascia facilmente supporre che quest’ultimo avrà una parte non indifferente esattamente come accade in Year One. In ogni caso staremo a vedere e se qualcuno di voi fosse interessato al fumetto, Batman: Year One è stato pubblicato dalle Edizioni Play Press al prezzo di 12.000 lire diversi anni fa, ma ne è stata annunciata a breve una ristampa che non mancheremo di segnalarvi quando sarà in dirittura d’arrivo.
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Aggiungi un commentoMaccomeeee Schwarzy con ai piedi quelle pantofole di peluche era cossiccarinoooo
Scherzo eh!
Super review (senza spoiler) della sceneggiatura di Batman Begins, da FilmForce.net...
ENTUSIASTA!
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http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/496/496077p1.html?fromint=1
The Stax Report: Script Review of Batman Begins
March 04, 2004 - Stax here with a review of the screenplay for Batman Begins! David Goyer (the Blade trilogy) penned the script with contributions from director Chris Nolan. Batman Begins stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Katie Holmes, and Cillian Murphy. Filming is underway in the U.K., Iceland, New York, and Chicago for a summer 2005 release. (Our full Bat coverage can be found here.)
Just to be clear: I will not give away any major (or even many minor) SPOILERS, at least nothing that hasn't already been disclosed on the Internet. The plot has slowly been revealed online for the last several weeks and this draft confirmed many, if not all, of the rumors buzzing around.
In short, Batman Begins is ... a Western! The story features a gruff loner with a thirst for revenge who comes to town to rid it of the outlaws and corrupt officials bedeviling it. This man of violence can only trust a few townsfolk for help (I guess that makes Jim Gordon the quintessential one good deputy) and he must rely on his incomparable physical skills to get the job done. If that isn't a traditional Western plot then I don't know what is. As a huge fan of that genre, I appreciated those parallels.
Batman Begins, as you most likely already know, is an origin tale. The first 45 pages employ a non-linear structure that recounts what drove Bruce Wayne (Bale) to assume the mantle of Batman, how he developed his fighting skills (and who taught him some new tricks), and how he focused his rage into something beneficial rather than purely selfish and destructive.
During his bleak sojourn in the Far East, twenty-something Bruce Wayne's already impressive fighting skills are honed under the tutelage of Ducard (Neeson), the top henchman of enigmatic international criminal Ra's al Ghul (Watanabe). After breaking with Ra's and his League of Shadows, Bruce returns to Gotham City, which has hit rock bottom during his absence. Crime and corruption is fast eating away at the city and no one seems able to stem it.
An honest cop like Sgt. – later Lieutenant – Jim Gordon (Oldman) are outgunned, overwhelmed, and simply too vulnerable to cross the powers-that-be alone. His crooked partner Flass doesn't like it that Gordon won't take bribes (shades of Batman: Year One and even Serpico).
Gotham is essentially ruled by mob boss Carmine Falcone. The D.A.'s office, run by Fisk (Larry Holden), hasn't been able to bring down Falcone or any of the corrupt officials on his payroll. One young assistant district attorney is Rachel Dodson (Holmes) who has known Bruce since they were kids. She is pained to see what's become of her childhood friend (and implied sweetheart) but she has a job to do. Like Batman, Rachel also fights for justice but, in some ways, she's wiser about what it takes to serve it than Bruce is at this stage of his life.
Even once venerable Wayne Industries has been tainted by corruption. Earle, the executive placed in charge of the company until orphaned Bruce comes of age, has taken it down a path neither Bruce nor his dad would have approved. Needless to say, Earle is just one of the many obstacles Bruce must confront in his quest to clean up Gotham.
Remember The Joker's line from the first Batman, "where does he get those wonderful toys?" This story answers that question. The specifics about Bruce's gizmos are available elsewhere online but this sequence was one of the most entertaining ones in the script. It's like one prolonged meeting between Bruce as Bond and Wayne Industries exec Lucius Fox (Freeman) unwittingly playing the role of Q.
Once Batman makes his presence known in Gotham, he makes the takedown of Carmine Falcone his primary objective. During the course of this campaign, Batman forges an alliance with Jim Gordon and uncovers a vast conspiracy against Gotham involving Arkham Asylum's head shrink Dr. Jonathan Crane (Murphy) and others. This climactic struggle will test all of Bruce's newfound skills and pit him against enemies he did not expect to encounter.
Batman Begins is a complete restart of the franchise. In this draft, there's no Jack Napier; Joe Chill is the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne. While there are a few relatively minor alterations to the established origin story (they don't go in town to see The Mark of Zorro, for example), Batman Begins was faithful to the spirit of the Batman comics of the last thirty years.
Astute fans will recognize elements from the works of Denny O'Neil, Archie Goodwin, Len Wein, Jeph Loeb, Steve Englehart, Mike Barr, Paul Dini, and, of course, Frank Miller. David Goyer may claim that "our movie is not Year One" but this story was obviously heavily influenced by it, right down to the inclusion of crooked cops Flass and Loeb. There's even a climactic sequence similar to one seen in The Dark Knight Returns that was a nice touch.
An unsung but apparent contribution to Batman Begins may be Tim McCanlies' unproduced pilot for Bruce Wayne (the WB went with Smallville instead). Both Bruce Wayne and Batman Begins feature a young Bruce who returns to Gotham after studying and training abroad where he discovers that the Wayne business has been corrupted by the executive charged with maintaining it. A superficial but noteworthy similarity to be sure.
Four years ago I reviewed Tom Mankiewicz's unproduced 1983 draft of The Batman. In that review, I said "that Mankiewicz did the two things that Sam Hamm [screenwriter of 1989's Batman] wisely avoided. I remember an old Comics Scene Magazine interview with Hamm where he said he wanted to skip writing the scene where Bruce decided to put on tights and fight crime. Hamm used Batman's first appearance in Detective Comics #27 as his guide. Like that issue's story, Hamm's script begins with Batman already fighting crime before he says that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same man. Mankiewicz, on the other hand, included an absurdly protracted origin sequence (all of Act One!). ... Can you imagine if there'd been a forty-minute long origin sequence for James Bond in Dr. No? As cool as it is to see the making of a hero, Sam Hamm was right when he told Comics Scene that the audience just wants to get to the part where the guy in the suit starts kicking ass."
What made Goyer's origin story work as opposed to Mankiewicz's is that the latter failed to explore any of the thematic possibilities or moral quandaries about what Bruce Wayne was doing and why he was doing it. Goyer, on the other hand, wisely makes this the crux of his script and that's a large part of what makes Batman Begins work so well.
There are two main reasons why Batman Begins is such a vast improvement over the Batman films that have come before. First, Bruce Wayne is actually the protagonist this time! He drives the narrative forward; it's all about him. The supporting characters, villains included, are there to serve his story not vice-versa. Bruce's transformation into Batman not only covers the nuts-and-bolts aspect of his origin (the physical training, etc.) but it also forces Bruce (and the audience) to ponder the ethical implications of what he's after.
Yes, we know Bruce is doing the right thing by fighting crime but what he initially set out to do was to attain revenge for the murder of his parents. This story answers the question that former Bat-director Tim Burton used to ask about why Bruce decided to dress up as a bat rather than just go get a gun and become another Bernie Goetz.
As in Batman: Year Two, Bruce realizes that killing is not the solution and it is that moral choice that makes him heroic (not just the catching of criminals). This was one of many things that bugged me about past Bat films where the Batmobile had .50 caliber machine guns and Batman offed henchmen.
I was somewhat disappointed that Batman the detective wasn't fully realized. I'm still waiting for the films to properly balance his Sherlock Holmes side with his Dirty Harry side. But at least Goyer and Nolan have put the "Dark" and the "Knight" back into Dark Knight Detective. I also enjoyed how the story made note of the Wayne family's history and of their contributions to Gotham City.
The other reason why Batman Begins is superior to the preceding films was its portrayal of the villains. They are not goofy, scenery-chewing hams in gaudy costumes. When I first read that the filmmakers wanted to ground this new Batman in reality, however, I must admit to being just a little nervous. Memories of Nicholas Hammond's web-slinger beating up boring old farts in leisure suits sprang to mind. This is a superhero adventure, after all.
While both Ra's al Ghul and Jonathan Crane (his later moniker of "Scarecrow" is adequately explained) are less theatrical than in the comics, they certainly resemble their print counterparts and the possibility of a more "comic booky" sequel is established. Ra's reminded me of Blofeld in the early Bond flicks, an enigmatic foe whose presence is felt throughout the film. There's no Talia here, no Lazarus Pit but legend has it that Ra's is immortal. Ra's is like the Keyser Soze of Batman's universe, the international villain no one wants to cross.
Batman Begins definitely reflects a post-9/11 world. The story's main themes of anger, fear, revenge, justice and moral responsibility are undeniably timely. It's also not much of a stretch to see parallels between Ra's al Ghul and Osama bin Laden. Both live in remote mountain hideaways and control a shadowy network of devoted followers, sleeper agents, and financial assets capable of waging terror. I could ramble on about it but you get my point.
Henri Ducard is no mere goon. While essentially Ra's "spokesman" and recruiter, he also mentors a vengeful Bruce who is searching for meaning and direction in his life. (With Neeson in the role, Ducard should seem like the doppleganger of Qui-Gon Jinn with Bruce as his padawan.) Obviously, Bruce rebels against Ducard and Ra's once he realizes what these nice shady fellas are plotting. That was one of my biggest nitpicks with this draft. Bruce knows of Ra's al Ghul and his reputation so how could he possibly be shocked to discover that his outfit has nefarious intentions?!
Dr. Crane is an important albeit secondary character who plays a key role in the ultimate plot against Gotham. While the Scarecrow's fear toxin is utilized in the story, Crane himself is not exactly running around in a burlap sack with straw sticking out of him. I was surprised that Crane worked at all as he's exactly the kind of character that Schumacher and Goldsman would've gone campy with. Cillian Murphy initially seemed like an offbeat choice for the role but, after reading this draft, he's quite an inspired pick.
The rest of the characters are faithful to their comic book renditions. Lucius Fox is what you'd expect. Jim Gordon will be more like his Year One depiction than Neil Hamilton or Pat Hingle. Gary Oldman's casting certainly came out of left field – the British invasion of Gotham City continues – but he should imbue Gordon with an edge. It'll be nice to see Oldman play a good guy for once!
Alfred is Alfred. Isn't that exactly what you want to hear? I love Alfred. He's the soul of both the comics and the films. He's the voice of reason, a surrogate father figure, a partner in crimefighting, and – gasp! – a butler to boot. In other words, he's just like the butler guy on Joe Millionaire. (Kidding!) Alfred's relationship with Bruce was one of my favorite things about this story. I can't wait to see Caine and Bale onscreen together.
The only major character I had any real issue with was Rachel. While I was glad that she wasn't some arbitrary love interest or damsel-in-distress, Rachel was rather wooden and burdened with acting as Bruce's conscience, stodgy dialogue and all. Not all of Bruce's lines worked, either; some were too on-the-nose and comic booky in their heavy-handedness.
Rachel serves a function in the story, which made her better than Chase Meridian or Vicki Vale, but I won't reveal what she does exactly. Once you see the film, you'll understand why they didn't need a young Harvey Dent in it.
Now for the action sequences! There is a hell's bells Batmobile chase through Gotham that will blow you away. There are also plenty of fisticuffs and acrobatics throughout. With the arguable exception of Batman Forever, we'll finally get to see Bruce fight sans mask. It's a good thing Christian Bale did Equilibrium because those skills are going to come in handy here!
Overall, Batman Begins was a huge relief and a great fresh start for Warner Brothers' ill-treated franchise. Goyer and Nolan's story was exciting, smart, and faithful to its source material. It managed to be both emotionally intimate and epic in scale, entertaining as a popcorn flick yet thoughtful enough to be appreciated on a more adult level.
With its great ensemble cast, talented director, and Goyer's solid script, Batman Begins has every opportunity to be the Batman film we've all been waiting for (some feel since 1989). It should do for DC films what the X-Men movies and Spider-Man did for Marvel, which was to legitimize the genre again for both fans and filmmakers. In short: you won't be disappointed!
I still recall the joke that was going around when Burton's Batman opened. "Wow, did you see how much money Batman made?!" "Yeah, now imagine how much it would've made if it was good." Come next summer Warner Brothers will learn the happy answer to that question and it will be because they finally treated Batman (and his fans) with respect.
LA SCENEGGIATURA RIVELATA!!!!
Ora è Ain't it Cool News in persona a rivelare e recensire la sceneggiatura del nuovo Batman di Christopher Nolan. E sia il duro Moriarty che il reporter di AICN sono ENTUSIASTI!!!
Questo è il VERO Batman, ragazzi. Che brividi!!
The wings of the night are startin' to fly!!!!
"Bruce travels to the Himalayas to train with Ducard (Neeson) and Ra's Al Ghul's League of Shadows. Imagine a ninja sword duel with Batman versus Qui-Gon Jinn. "
ARGHHHHHH
Batman BEGINS!! Batman INIZIA!!!!!
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Da AICN...
Nordling scrive:
...Having thought it over and after reading the script, BATMAN BEGINS is the best possible title, and it sets the franchise off to a terrific start, with so much potential that fanboys will need to wear raincoats to the theater, so overcome with orgasmic joy will they be.
I don't know what Christopher Nolan will bring to the film, but his sense in casting is dead on perfect. The actors that have been cast fit their parts perfectly.
As far as the previous Batman films, only the first one feels like it's anything approaching good to me, and even that film feels sloppy. Nothing against Prince, but his musical interludes didn't work, and like Bruce says in the original film, some of BATMAN is very much Tim Burton, and some of it isn't. Well, the first film also doesn't come close to the angst and power that the character has, the darkness and tragedy in Bruce Wayne that compels the fans to follow his story again and again.
This is the part without spoilers. If you don't want to read any, cut loose after this paragraph... but feel comforted that for the first time, they got it right. Not the TV show. Not the films we've seen so far. This feels like Batman, and it brings the franchise to a point where anything is possible. All the characters you know and love are treated well and fairly, and if Superman gets this treatment, maybe the WB won't be the ire of fanboys everywhere. With this script, I feel that Warner Brothers is on the right track with this character, and I can't wait to see the sequel to THIS particular Batman film.
Spoilers below...
First off, there are ninjas. Just to get that out of the way. Ninjas, who kick ass.
We begin, as the screeching of bats and the darkness of wings gives way to sunlight, in a garden. A girl, RACHEL, is running from a boy, BRUCE WAYNE. As they hide from the Wayne Manor staff, they are two children at play, until Bruce falls through an abandoned well in the back kitchen garden. Bruce falls into blackness.
His eyes open in a Bhutanese prison, as Bruce (Christian Bale), now 28, serves his time. He spends his days fighting the other prisoners. He is drifting through his life. Six prisoners start a fight, and Bruce methodically takes them down, until the guards put Bruce in solitary confinement for the other prisoners's protection. In his cell, a voice speaks out. It is DUCARD (Liam Neeson), a servant of RA'S AL GHUL (Ken Watanabe), offering to teach Bruce the skills of the League of Shadows, if he passes their tests. He offers him something he has been looking for for a long time: purpose.
We all know the story of Batman - Bruce Wayne fights crime to avenge his parents' death - but David Goyer puts us right in the middle of it this time. No mere flashback for us - we are taken through the ordeal that Bruce suffers and feels guilty over. If Bruce hadn't been frightened at the play they went to see that night, if he hadn't begged his parents to leave, their deaths by Joe Chill (yes, NOT the Joker, but the original killer of the comics, and I'm thankful that got remedied) might have been avoided. He feels responsible to a fault, and he travels the world, in self-destructive behavior.
Bruce travels to the Himalayas to train with Ducard and Ra's Al Ghul's League of Shadows. Imagine a ninja sword duel with Batman versus Qui-Gon Jinn. Yes, I sense the fanboy stiffies sprouting now. It's a kickass fight as written, and I'm confident that Nolan will make it pop on screen. Through out the training ordeals that Bruce goes through, he learns to live with his fears - his fears of bats due to his fall in his youth, his fear of loss, his fear of the knowledge that he may have been responsible for his parents' death. He learns the value of masks. And at the end, he is offered membership... for a price. The League of Shadows isn't some altruistic group out to save the world, but to destroy it. Ra's Al Ghul tells Bruce that he wants to destroy Gotham, and through what they have taught him, he will be the one to do it. Bruce refuses, and there is a fight with many ninjas (!!!). Ra's Al Ghul is killed in an explosion, but Bruce saves Ducard's life. With that act, he is ready to begin. He calls ALFRED (Michael Caine) to have him picked up, and Bruce starts to pick up the pieces of his life.
When Bruce returns to Gotham, Wayne Enterprises is in shambles. Its not his father's company anymore. It's all about the profits, about defense contracts, and the board of the company is trying to have Bruce Wayne declared dead so they can complete the takeover of the company. Unfortunately for them Bruce shows up and defeats their plans, and meets LUCIUS FOX (Morgan Freeman), who heads the Applied Science Division after he refused to go with the board and was booted off. It's here that we see the development of many of the iconic Batman symbols - the suit, the Batmobile, the grappling hook. When Bruce reaches his 30th birthday, he inherits all of it.
Bruce learns that Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents, is being offered parole in exchange for testimony against local crime lord Carmine Falcone, and Bruce decides to take revenge. However, Rachel (Katie Holmes), now an assistant district attorney, prevents him from acting. Later, Chill is killed by one of Falcone's cronies, and Bruce realizes that the corruption of Gotham City goes much deeper than his own petty revenge fantasies. The corruption, in fact, goes much further than Bruce knows, all the way back to China, where the REAL villain bides his time...
Gotham City needs a symbol. A symbol of fear, yes, the fear of his childhood, but turned into a force for good. In a mask, Bruce contacts JIM GORDON (Gary Oldman), one of the few honest cops in the city, and tells him to look for a sign.
The first time we see Batman in the script isn't until page 58 of the script, almost an hour in, if the axiom of one minute a page is true. As in SPIDER-MAN, we are so invested in the character that by the time Batman actually shows up it all has a sense of context. The first Batman fight has the feel of someone who really is new at this sort of thing, but it feels exciting and I'm looking forward to seeing it on screen.
There's a lot of ground for the film to cover, but it never feels rushed. It feels well-paced, and introduces characters at leisure. It never feels dull. It's fresh.
What about the other villain, the SCARECROW (Cillian Murphy)? He has a terrific entrance, and isn't just a throwaway baddie for Batman to fight, but figures into the larger story. And Goyer does something really cool that more superhero movies need to pay attention to - the Scarecrow's not disposable. Ra's Al Ghul is also used very well. He feels a little like how Dracula is introduced in the Bram Stoker novel. He's a villain that isn't onscreen a lot of the time, but you continuously feel his presence. This movie really has three villains. Ducard, as written, is just as much an equal for Bruce as the others. With all the crime in Gotham, Batman is never at a loss of bad guys.
Am I leaving anything out? Oh hell yeah. A lot more than you realize. The script's 128 pages long, and I'm only to page 58. And I really can't go any further without really ruining it. There's some twists, including one that I really didn't see coming until it was right on me. But the script has confidence in the characters, and everyone's well written, including Alfred, who I can't wait to see Michael Caine play. He really is Bruce's moral center, the one that keeps him grounded, and Bruce and Alfred have a nice banter and a warm relationship that should translate well on screen. The only character that may get a little short shrift is Rachel, but this is a superhero movie, and sadly, historically, the women in superhero movies aren't exactly given the best lines.
This feels like a film written for Batman fans. The introduction of all the iconic symbols that make Batman the hero we know and love is done particularly well, including the Batmobile, which I can't wait to see (think THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, rather than the skinny car the films are used to). They even make an effort to explain how Bruce can afford all this stuff, and lay a scientific foundation that actually gives "all those wonderful toys" a sense of reality.
In fact... and I might get lynched for this... this is a better introduction to the Batman character than YEAR ONE. Frank Miller's comic works for comics. But this is a movie... and it MOVES. At some points... well. The fight scenes just click and pop off the page, and if they are choreographed as well as they read, we're in for a treat. We even get to see Gordon in some action, which is nice.
Problems? Only one, really... Rachel. She's written like a token female character, needing to be rescued by Batman, the character who gets to put to voice all the romantic aspects to the story... she's not much more than a plot point. She does get some nice moments, towards the end, but we're always wanting to get back to the action.
I think the fans are going to go apeshit over this, frankly. It's done almost completely right, and starts the franchise anew. The last page of the script... well, it'll get fans all a twitter with casting ideas. I hope the WB signs both Christopher Nolan and David Goyer to a three picture deal, because this story's not done. It reinvents the franchise, and I dare say it improves on the Burton vision. This is the Batman origin the fans have been waiting for. I can't wait to see it, and it's now one of my most anticipated films of 2005. With this and Episode III, if all goes well, it's gonna be a good year. Post-LOTR... we're in for some good times, I think.
Nordling, out.
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Da AICN...
Moriarty commenta:
Well said, man. I don’t think I can write a review of this one in good conscience, since I did some business with David Goyer last year and owe him a huge debt of gratitude for taking a chance on me. I’ll say this much, though... I am deeply impressed by his script, and I think it’s one of the three best BATMAN scripts I’ve read. Sam Hamm’s first draft of BATMAN, the one that kicked the whole thing off, was a really persuasive and powerful re-imagination of the character, and so was BRUCE WAYNE, the pilot script by Tim McCanlies that got unmercifully dicked around by the lunatics at the WB network and Tollin/Robbins in a ridiculous power struggle that led to SMALLVILLE. If McCanlies had been able to make his show about Bruce Wayne, I think it would have become the definitive version of the character. I think he would have been able to create a great, rich mythology around the character.
And I agree with Nordling. The best moment in this script is on the last page, and that’s not an insult. That’s just saying they managed to find the perfect ending, an ending that will make fans leap to their feet in the theater and howl, enraged at the idea of having to wait for what’s next. I hope Goyer and Nolan already have their sequel outlined so they can get busy on it as soon as they deliver this one for next summer.
Filippo, cambia pusher! Ti dà roba non tagliata!
ahaha...ho alcune sue foto che ti farebbero tr ridere ahahah!!
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