An Evening at Gotham By Gaslight!
By Gregory Bradley
I was fortunate enough to be invited to the premiere of Batman: Gotham By Gaslight by my good friend, Michael Hatch. The film is based off the first D.C. Elseworld comic by the same name from 1989 by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola with inks by P.Craig Russell. "Elseworld" is a term used in comics for the regular superheroes storylines as "What if Batman met Jack the Ripper" as an alternative storyline. It allows writers to come up with a different, sometimes outrageous stories that's not considered canon for their main heroes.
Two of my favorite characters in comic books & literature are Batman
and Sherlock Holmes, I've always been fascinated with Victorian
England, especially with the case of Jack the Ripper. This animated
film has Batman hunting down Jack the Ripper in Victorian Gotham in the
19 century. Great concept!
The comic book was very successful and now they just made an animated movie based on it. I will talk about the movie itself later, but first, the premiere night.
It was a nice small gathering of Batman fans at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills. And on the screen, you can see the title of the film. It look very cool. After watching the film, they brought out the cast to talk about the making of the animated film.
The movie stars Bruce Greenwood as Batman and Jennifer Carpenter as Selina Kyle. The movie was directed by Warner Bros Animation's very own Sam Lu.
One of the breakouts of the film for me was Jennifer Carpenter as Selina Kyle. I was familiar with her work on "Dexter" as Debra, Dexter's sister, but I never would've known she was the voice of Selina. Awesome job! I liked hearing her talk about what it felt like to get the role.
As for Batman, it was good to hear Bruce Greenwood voice the main
character again. I thought he was excellent in "Under The Red Hood!" He was very funny when he told us that as a kid he
couldn't watch the 1960s Batman show because his parents thought it was
too violent. Can you imagine that.
I also enjoyed learning what it's like for a voice actor to
do a performance to still images that haven't been animated yet.
And finally, we got a chance to hear from director Sam Lu talking about
the difference between doing a live action film and an animation one.
All in all, it was a really good night. And I was glad to have been able to see my first Batman animated movie on the big screen.
I thought the film was OK. It was entertaining, but I felt like there were too many missed opportunities and I was disappointed in some of the choices that the filmmakers made.
As I mentioned before, I'm a big Batman fan. As a matter fact, Watchcat is a big inspiration from Batman. And I've always been fascinated with the Victorian era, particularly, the Jack the Ripper murders. So when I heard that they were going to combine both mythologies into one film, I couldn't wait to see it.
I was really hoping to get an all out rated R horror- thriller-detective story, I only got half of that. In my opinion, I felt that the movie focused more on the action set pieces and hand to hand combat, but less on the detective side of it. One of my biggest problems with a lot of Batman movies, live action and some of the animated ones, is the fact that he supposedly the world's greatest detective, but hardly ever detects outside of the comics.
I really felt that the "Batman animated series" did it the best. Particularly "Mask of the Phantasm " and strangely enough, the 60's "Batman"TV show did a lot of that as well. Batman is supposedly inspired by Sherlock Holmes. He's supposed to be as smart as Holmes, so putting Batman in the Victoria era where Holmes was created, it felt like a slam-dunk. But outside of "one meet cute scene" with Selina Kyle, he really doesn't detect that much until near the third act which was so obvious, that anyone could have figured it out and it felt a bit of a cheat when you found out the Ripper's identity.
I thought the movie should've been longer, with a little bit more red herrings and clues, so that the audience could piece together the mystery of who the Ripper is, just like Batman. They also could have added more Batman characters into the mix and used more of the Jack the Ripper lore.
I found the animation wasn't that impressive and needed to be more stylized. Both Batman and the Ripper should've been in the shadows for most of the movie. Both characters work best in the shadows that would have given the film a more gothic atmosphere. However, both characters fight each other thru out the film in light works against the tension and suspence it started with. Overall, this should have been as much a Jack the Ripper story as a Batman one.
(Three hours later)
OMG! I just read the comic! It's brilliant. What a great story. They should've just stuck to the comic. It gave me everything I was asking for that the film didn't. I got a chance to see Batman or should I say, Bruce Wayne as a detective. The comic really does focus on the Jack the Ripper lore that I was asking for.
I thought that the comic gave you better "Easter eggs" then the film. It
was very inventive the way they used the newspapers of that time to
depict both Batman and the Ripper as well as implying that the Batman might be the Ripper.
If I have one criticism about the comic, it's the same criticism that I have about the film. It should've been longer and just like what I said about the film, you needed more red herrings as well as more suspects.
I knew who the Ripper was by page 2 of the comics. But, it was such a tight and interesting read that I didn't mind it and this particular story really tied in nicely into Batman's Origin.
I would advise anyone who's interested in Batman or Elseworld stories to find and read the comic version first.
I have to admit, after reading the comic, it made me more disappointed with the film. I truly feel they sacrificed a really good solid Gothic horror story for an lame action adventure film. Most people are not interested in period storylines, but a good story is a good story. You have to give it a chance.
So that's my two cents. I enjoyed my time at the Batman premiere, but I prefer the comic than the film.
I thought it was also interesting hearing him talk about playing Batman for the first time in "Batman: Under The Red Hood."
I thought the film was OK. It was entertaining, but I felt like there were too many missed opportunities and I was disappointed in some of the choices that the filmmakers made.
As I mentioned before, I'm a big Batman fan. As a matter fact, Watchcat is a big inspiration from Batman. And I've always been fascinated with the Victorian era, particularly, the Jack the Ripper murders. So when I heard that they were going to combine both mythologies into one film, I couldn't wait to see it.
I was really hoping to get an all out rated R horror- thriller-detective story, I only got half of that. In my opinion, I felt that the movie focused more on the action set pieces and hand to hand combat, but less on the detective side of it. One of my biggest problems with a lot of Batman movies, live action and some of the animated ones, is the fact that he supposedly the world's greatest detective, but hardly ever detects outside of the comics.
I really felt that the "Batman animated series" did it the best. Particularly "Mask of the Phantasm " and strangely enough, the 60's "Batman"TV show did a lot of that as well. Batman is supposedly inspired by Sherlock Holmes. He's supposed to be as smart as Holmes, so putting Batman in the Victoria era where Holmes was created, it felt like a slam-dunk. But outside of "one meet cute scene" with Selina Kyle, he really doesn't detect that much until near the third act which was so obvious, that anyone could have figured it out and it felt a bit of a cheat when you found out the Ripper's identity.
I thought the movie should've been longer, with a little bit more red herrings and clues, so that the audience could piece together the mystery of who the Ripper is, just like Batman. They also could have added more Batman characters into the mix and used more of the Jack the Ripper lore.
I found the animation wasn't that impressive and needed to be more stylized. Both Batman and the Ripper should've been in the shadows for most of the movie. Both characters work best in the shadows that would have given the film a more gothic atmosphere. However, both characters fight each other thru out the film in light works against the tension and suspence it started with. Overall, this should have been as much a Jack the Ripper story as a Batman one.
(Three hours later)
OMG! I just read the comic! It's brilliant. What a great story. They should've just stuck to the comic. It gave me everything I was asking for that the film didn't. I got a chance to see Batman or should I say, Bruce Wayne as a detective. The comic really does focus on the Jack the Ripper lore that I was asking for.
If I have one criticism about the comic, it's the same criticism that I have about the film. It should've been longer and just like what I said about the film, you needed more red herrings as well as more suspects.
I knew who the Ripper was by page 2 of the comics. But, it was such a tight and interesting read that I didn't mind it and this particular story really tied in nicely into Batman's Origin.
I would advise anyone who's interested in Batman or Elseworld stories to find and read the comic version first.
I have to admit, after reading the comic, it made me more disappointed with the film. I truly feel they sacrificed a really good solid Gothic horror story for an lame action adventure film. Most people are not interested in period storylines, but a good story is a good story. You have to give it a chance.
So that's my two cents. I enjoyed my time at the Batman premiere, but I prefer the comic than the film.
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