{"id":941,"date":"2008-08-09T11:10:21","date_gmt":"2008-08-09T15:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/?p=941"},"modified":"2022-11-05T20:02:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T00:02:12","slug":"batman-gotham-knight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/batman-gotham-knight\/","title":{"rendered":"But seriously, why so serious? Batman goes anime in Gotham Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Batman: Gotham Knight<\/em> is a direct-to-DVD production from Warner Premiere, intended as a back-door prequel to the feature film The Dark Knight<\/em><\/a>. Warner Bros. has tried this tactic before, and will again. 2003’s The Animatrix<\/em><\/a> was a planned interlude in Matrix franchise, enjoying extensive involvement from creators The Wachowskis<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming soon is a motion-graphics animated version of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel Watchmen<\/em>, preceding the forthcoming live action feature film adaptation<\/a> (no doubt Moore, who has long since divorced himself from his past work for Warner Bros.’ DC Comics, has a few choice words for this development).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Batman
Do you think that maybe we’ve all forgotten that Batman a childrens’ comic book about a millionaire who dresses up like a bat to catch bank robbers?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Animatrix<\/em> and Gotham Knight<\/em> are portmanteau films, the products of multiple writers and animation teams. But the latter is only tangentially related to its sister live-action film, The Dark Knight<\/em>. A pair of detectives figure as characters in both, and the gang war that percolates in the background of The Dark Knight<\/em> is the driving incident behind many of the Gotham Knight<\/em> tales. But the short films (mostly in an anime style) vary wildly in quality and comprehensibility:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • “Have I Got a Story For You” (Shoujirou Nishimi) – A pack of skate rats tell tall tales of the Batman, until the real deal shows up. One of the best of the lot, with a unique hand-drawn animation style, mixed with a little CG.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • “Crossfire” (Futoshi Higashide) – Two detectives are literally caught in the crossfire of a gang war. Suffers from particularly awful dialogue.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • “Field Test” (Hiroshi Morioka) – Batman receives a new toy from Lucius Fox that works a little too well.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • “In Darkness Dwells” (Yasuhiro Aoki) – Guest-starring two veterans of Batman’s rogues’ gallery: Killer Croc and Scarecrow. Some of the best animation, but the story is incomprehensible.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • “Working Through Pain” (Toshiyuki Kubooka) – Batman, shot in the gut, struggles alone just to get home. He has hallucinatory flashbacks to his spiritual training in the art of overcoming physical pain. He recalls how his teachers rejected him for his impure motivations (to enable his revenge plan, not to attain higher spirituality). This, one of the best stories, leads directly into…<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • “Deadshot” (Jong-Sik Nam) – …one of the worst. A master assassin (a blatant rip-off of the character Bullseye from Marvel Comics’ Daredevil) targets Lieutenant Gordon. A really lame conclusion to the collection.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Batman: Gotham Knight is a direct-to-DVD production from Warner Premiere, intended as a back-door prequel to the feature film The Dark Knight. Warner Bros. has tried this tactic before, and will again. 2003’s The Animatrix was a planned interlude in Matrix franchise, enjoying extensive involvement from creators The Wachowskis. Coming soon is a motion-graphics animated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2],"tags":[32,127,1052,384,2058,2059,2062,2057,2061,2060],"class_list":["post-941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2-stars","category-movies","tag-animation","tag-anime","tag-batman","tag-comic-books","tag-futoshi-higashide","tag-hiroshi-morioka","tag-jong-sik-nam","tag-shoujirou-nishimi","tag-toshiyuki-kubooka","tag-yasuhiro-aoki"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/batman-gotham-knight-feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-fb","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":937,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/batman-dark-knight\/","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":0},"title":"Batman wants to be taken seriously in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"August 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I really wanted to like The Dark Knight. 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