Supercut: The Bat-Turn
In 2007, when Christopher Nolan was filming his future blockbuster The Dark Knight, they didn’t yet know how successful it was going to be, and so people actually bothered to do all sorts of publicity press about it. On June 14, 2007, a number of nerd blogs were granted press access to a promotional photo of the Batman suit, which had been revamped since Begins. Now, the suit is revamped for every movie, usually for simple reasons like: it’s hot, it’s heavy, it’s difficult to get in and out of. And when there’s continuity of creative personnel, the returning actors and directors like to try and streamline the process of not having to wait on the mechanics of the giant bat-suit in the room. Later that same week, Entertainment Weekly published this same promotional image (with a bizarre claim of exclusivity) and the all-important caption:
[T]he cowls of past suits were firmly attached to the neck and shoulders of the costume — necessary to maintain that iconic silhouette and to prevent the actor from moving around inside the mask. The new headpiece — modeled after a motorcycle helmet — is separate from the neck, so star Christian Bale can now swivel his noggin side to side, or nod up and down.
“The first time an actor playing Batman can turn his head!” trumpeted the blogs, forgetting that Bat-actors prior to 1989 wore costumes made of cloth, which wasn’t quite so restrictive.
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This blog doesn’t get many comments. In part because, well, who reads it? I get my fair share of hits from people searching for images of the lady who was fired for being too hot and for Patrick Bateman’s business card, but few people actually stop here and smell the proverbial roses. I am not controversial, trendy, clever, or charismatic enough in person or in print to have “followers”. My twitter feed and my defunct Beehive forum testify to this. I have achieved relative peace with this fact.
So it was a mild shock to receive an email from WordPress saying that some rando had been incensed enough with my eight-year old post about Star Wars vs. Annie Hall that he needed to set me straight! All comments are moderated, so it sits sadly in limbo until I’m done with this post, and then I will send it to its stygian destiny. Because, well, it’s idiotic. He wiffles on for 200 words about how Star Wars, because it’s imaginary, took more creativity in its writing and production, because making up names like “Dirk Starkiller” is haaarrrrrd. Despite his lack of capitalization and despite a superfluity of appalling clauses, someone had successfully taught this young padawan that one should concede a point to the opposing view to show that one is not a complete rhetorical monster. He does this with the following:
Annie Hall made me such a good time but did not reach me emotionally like star wars.
But his ultimate conclusion is that, “Annie Hall will be quickly forgotten.”
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