What Batman Movies Could Learn From Jackie Chan
JUST LET BATMAN BE A DAD. So there’s a new batman trailer out. It looks… interesting. I’m gonna be honest, I’ve never been fully satisfied with any live action Batman Adaptations. A big part of this is that they almost always leave Robin out because (the concept of a child crime fighter is ridiculous. It ruins the intense realism of a man fighting crime while dressed as a bat!) To me, Batman is fundamentally a gruff dad, and taking away the bat family leaves him with no one to develop against. Controversial take, Batman forever is the closest thing we’ve gotten to a good Batman adaptation. Not necessarily the best movie, just, the only adaptation that really felt like batman to me. But the other big aspect of it is that none of the live action batman movies feel like they want to be Batman movies. It feels like the director wanted to make Heat or the Punisher or the Crow but was forced to shoehorn this unwanted property in. Batman’s rule against lethal force, the thing that makes him a superhero and not a vigilante, is almost always treated like an inconvenience, something to find ways to get around or handwave away. In this trailer we don’t see Batman killing anyone but it sure seems like he wants to, and he certainly doesn’t shy away from permantantly maiming. This fight from Batman vs. Superman is often hailed as the first good live action Batman fight. And yes, it was the first time we got to batman jump around without being bogged down by clunky rubber body armor. But this doesn’t feel like batman to me, it feels like the punisher wearing a Batman costume. Its not just the level of brutality, theres something unrefined and inelegant about it about the way the scene is conceived. He’s just going into a room full of goons and beating them up. Theres nothing particularly Batman about that. You know what fight scene did feel like Batman to me? This one, from the Dark Knight. This sequence is actually the only time in the Dark Knight Trilogy that I really felt like I was watching a Batman movie. And sure, the actually choreography is kind of muddy, but the structure of the fight felt like it was perfectly tailored to this character. And the reason for that is that instead avoid the limitations that come with Batman, this scene embraced them. Batman’s goal isn’t just going into a room full of baddies and beating them up. He has to think his way through a delicate situation. There’s a bunch of hostages dressed up like Jokers henchmen, a bunch of henchmen dressed up like hostages, and a clueless swatteam on its way to accidently kill the hostages and then get mowed down by the henchmen. He has to rescue the hostages, fight the badguys, incapacitate the swat team to stop them from accidently killing the hostages or getting killed themselves, all while preventing everyone involved from coming to any serious injury. And we end up with a much more compelling scene than just a buff guy in a bat costume beating people to a pulp. The limitations and challenges provide Batman with opportunities to showcase his cleverness and ingenuity and athleticism, opportunities that would have been missed had these limitations just been handwaved away. I know everyone loves the Dark Knight but I really wish it had done more of this kind of thing. And if you’re looking for inspiration for doing more of this kind of thing, the best person to look to is Jackie Chan. While obviously Jackie Chan is a very skilled martial artist, technical proficiency is not what makes his fights stand out. There’s a lot of hong kong action stars that outdo him when it comes to raw martial arts talent. It’s the narrative construction of his fights that make them memorable. All of Jackie’s most iconic fights are built around some kind of limitation. Fighting on the back of a truck, fighting on sticky tar, fighting naked. Instead of finding a way for the protagonist to ignore these limitations, or handwave them away, they’re embraced, and as a result the choreography of these fights requires inventiveness and creativity. I’d love to see a Batman movie do this. I want to see a batman who doesn’t just have a strict no kill policy, he actively prevents anyone from coming to bodily harm, while also subduing them. No maiming, no breaking necks, no causing deadly explosions, no leaving people to die on crashing trains. I think if filmmakers leaned into these limitations, they’d be forced to come up with really creative and unique sequences that feel quintessentially Batman. Right now, we’re just getting the same fights we’d get in any other action movie, but with a bat costume. Working with the limitations instead of against them would be a lot harder to do, and it would require a lot more time and effort. But I think the right filmmakers would be up to the challenge. Provided, of course, that they’re given enough prep time.
JUST LET BATMAN BE A DAD. So there’s a new batman trailer out. It looks… interesting. I’m gonna be honest, I’ve never been fully satisfied with any live action Batman Adaptations. A big part of this is that they almost always leave Robin out because (the concept of a child crime fighter is ridiculous. It ruins the intense realism of a man fighting crime while dressed as a bat!) To me, Batman is fundamentally a gruff dad, and taking away the bat family leaves him with no one to develop against. Controversial take, Batman forever is the closest thing we’ve gotten to a good Batman adaptation. Not necessarily the best movie, just, the only adaptation that really felt like batman to me. But the other big aspect of it is that none of the live action batman movies feel like they want to be Batman movies. It feels like the director wanted to make Heat or the Punisher or the Crow but was forced to shoehorn this unwanted property in. Batman’s rule against lethal force, the thing that makes him a superhero and not a vigilante, is almost always treated like an inconvenience, something to find ways to get around or handwave away. In this trailer we don’t see Batman killing anyone but it sure seems like he wants to, and he certainly doesn’t shy away from permantantly maiming. This fight from Batman vs. Superman is often hailed as the first good live action Batman fight. And yes, it was the first time we got to batman jump around without being bogged down by clunky rubber body armor. But this doesn’t feel like batman to me, it feels like the punisher wearing a Batman costume. Its not just the level of brutality, theres something unrefined and inelegant about it about the way the scene is conceived. He’s just going into a room full of goons and beating them up. Theres nothing particularly Batman about that. You know what fight scene did feel like Batman to me? This one, from the Dark Knight. This sequence is actually the only time in the Dark Knight Trilogy that I really felt like I was watching a Batman movie. And sure, the actually choreography is kind of muddy, but the structure of the fight felt like it was perfectly tailored to this character. And the reason for that is that instead avoid the limitations that come with Batman, this scene embraced them. Batman’s goal isn’t just going into a room full of baddies and beating them up. He has to think his way through a delicate situation. There’s a bunch of hostages dressed up like Jokers henchmen, a bunch of henchmen dressed up like hostages, and a clueless swatteam on its way to accidently kill the hostages and then get mowed down by the henchmen. He has to rescue the hostages, fight the badguys, incapacitate the swat team to stop them from accidently killing the hostages or getting killed themselves, all while preventing everyone involved from coming to any serious injury. And we end up with a much more compelling scene than just a buff guy in a bat costume beating people to a pulp. The limitations and challenges provide Batman with opportunities to showcase his cleverness and ingenuity and athleticism, opportunities that would have been missed had these limitations just been handwaved away. I know everyone loves the Dark Knight but I really wish it had done more of this kind of thing. And if you’re looking for inspiration for doing more of this kind of thing, the best person to look to is Jackie Chan. While obviously Jackie Chan is a very skilled martial artist, technical proficiency is not what makes his fights stand out. There’s a lot of hong kong action stars that outdo him when it comes to raw martial arts talent. It’s the narrative construction of his fights that make them memorable. All of Jackie’s most iconic fights are built around some kind of limitation. Fighting on the back of a truck, fighting on sticky tar, fighting naked. Instead of finding a way for the protagonist to ignore these limitations, or handwave them away, they’re embraced, and as a result the choreography of these fights requires inventiveness and creativity. I’d love to see a Batman movie do this. I want to see a batman who doesn’t just have a strict no kill policy, he actively prevents anyone from coming to bodily harm, while also subduing them. No maiming, no breaking necks, no causing deadly explosions, no leaving people to die on crashing trains. I think if filmmakers leaned into these limitations, they’d be forced to come up with really creative and unique sequences that feel quintessentially Batman. Right now, we’re just getting the same fights we’d get in any other action movie, but with a bat costume. Working with the limitations instead of against them would be a lot harder to do, and it would require a lot more time and effort. But I think the right filmmakers would be up to the challenge. Provided, of course, that they’re given enough prep time.