All sane people loath Batman & Robin, love the Nolan Batman movies, casually appreciate Batman Forever, and admire Burton’s Batman. But, no movie from the Batman canon polarizes opinions as much as Batman Returns (1992). No two people in a random room-full of people have ever seen eye-to-eye on this one. Radicals call it Burton’s wet dream, some call it the bastard child of Bob Kane and Tim Burton, and people like me call it the definitive version of the Batman mythos. Yep, right up there with The Dark Knight, if not greater. Why exactly do I like it?

1. Bruce Wayne/Batman: No other depiction of the character has painted Batman as the struggling loner he is in Returns. TDK hinted at that angle, but it got lost amongst all the other plot threads. Surely a person who’s witnesses his parents’ death and dresses up like a bat, roaming streets at night, will be emotionally scarred. Those scars have never really been explored on film. Instead, we get a glib playboy in all incarnations of the Bruce Wayne character. Burton had earlier set up a good platform for this theme in 1989′s Batman, but had failed to leverage it the way he does in Returns. Sure, it makes Batman come across as just another stock character from the Burton oeuvre, but the whole emotionally scarred angle is an important part of the character. Divorce the maker’s oeuvre from the character to gain an unbiased perspective.
2. The Villains: Burton introduces and invests the viewer in the arc of not just one villain, but two. Catwoman and Penguin make other one-two villain combos like Two-Face and Riddler (Batman Forever); Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy (Batman & Robin) look like popsicle dust. Nolan did a decent job of managing the two-villain conundrum (Scarecrow and Ra’s Al Ghul in Batman Begins), but his short coming was that he failed to establish the villains as humans. Burton establishes both of them as humans with really rotten luck. Humans, nonetheless. Yes, even the goo-spewing Penguin. Which is what makes their arcs even more tragic. Sure, Burton got blamed for devoting more screen time to the villains than the hero of the piece, but his decision pays of in the end. During the finale, when Batman is thundering down the sewers rushing to thwart the Penguin, I felt a tinge of sadness for Penguin, but at the same time cheered Batman on more than I did in the finale of the much more conventional Batman Begins.
3. Christopher Walken/Max Shreck: Trust him to take as thankless a part as the secretary-murdering, corrupt Max Shreck, and still be all shades of awesome. What was the need for the whole Shreck plotline? Ha! He’s what I call the surrogate villain of the piece–he sets up the arcs of the two main villains. In a field full of grey characters, he is the absolute black against which all others get their color. When Catwoman kills him at the end, it rounds off her redemptive arc. His pushing and prodding is what turns Penguin so diabolical.
4. Character moments: Bruce Wayne’s intro half an hour into the movie. The Bruce Wayne-Selina Kyle dance under the mistletoe. The rooftop encounter, and subsequent sexual undercurrent between Catwoman and Batman. Penguin at the cemetery. Selina Kyle with the tazer. Selina Kyle coming back home. Burton made sure to give each character nice little moments and scenes. While Nolan creaked under the pressure of keeping the plot machinations moving along in TDK to give any character room to develop, Burton developed each character while also keeping the plot highly kinetic.
5. The Soundtrack: In Batman, Danny Elfman introduced many stubs of themes. But it was here, in Returns, that he properly utilizes them. The writing is more assured, the orchestra more bombastic. The Batman theme, which sounded a little too pleading in Batman, sounds heroic in Returns. Catwoman’s theme instantly brings to mind an image of a cat meowing. Penguin’s theme can be regal, it can be tragic, it can be desperate. And when two or more of these three main themes collide, (Rooftops, The Final Confrontation), it’s sheer bliss.
6. Mature Tone: This is a much darker, more mature film than Batman ever aspired to be. While TDK approached similar levels of thematic maturity, the emotional maturity on display in Returns is unmatched. Like I said earlier, Returns is a great example of a character piece masquerading as a superhero movie. While Spider Man and X-Men are cited as starting the era where superhero flicks moved beyond their genre trappings, both of those also do owe a huge debt to Returns.
7. Gotham City: The city, as on display in Returns, is the decadent city where scum lives. It’s the city closest to the city depicted in the comics. Burton’s earlier depiction of Gotham in Batman was too Soviet. Schumacher’s Gotham in Forever and Batman & Robin was too circus-y, and Nolan’s Gotham is too familiar (in that it looks like just about every other metropolis). In Returns, Burton and Production Designer Bo Welch create a city like no other. It’s a murky, murky place to dwell in. True, it looks too cramped, but that just adds to the claustrophobia of the town, adding another layer to it.
8. The Actors: If you thought Jake Nicholson owned his role in Batman, then wait till you see Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman! Whoever Nolan casts (if he decides to go with Catwoman in Batman 3), is going to have a tough time filling those shoes. She not just nails Catwoman, but her bumbling alter ego Selina Kyle. Not to be outdone is DeVito as Penguin. And Keaton finally comes into his own. Probably because of a much better written role.

Now, I’m not dissing other Batman movies, I admire all of them (except, of course, Batman & Robin), but I’m just trying to make a case for Returns as a very misunderstood movie. Much like Bruce Wayne himself. Ha! I love the movie even more now

Recently, I got hold of the Jonny Quest theme, and while listening to it, I was sent on a nostalgic trip down memory lane–thinking about all those (great) cartoons I used to watch when I was young. Comparing those to the trash they dish out now, I feel so sorry for the present generation of kids, who’re missing out on greats like The Adventures of Tintin, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, The Centurions, and my personal favourite, Batman: The Animated Series.

Not only did these cartoons incorporate some good animation with innovative ideas, great characters and an epic scale, but they also had a soundtrack to die for. Thinking about it now, I think that the these shows were just helped by the innovative intros with the awesome soundtracks they had. Like, in the intro for B:TAS, the name of the show isn’t mentioned even once, yet you know that the thing’s about Batman. The series was dark, it was (relatively) mature (sticking to the version of Batman created by Frank Millar and popularized by Tim Burton), yet it could be watched by kids. Shirley Walker’s music really captured the essence of Batman in just one minute.

As for Jonny Quest, maybe the Wachowski brothers got the idea for all things green while watching its opening. The black and green scenes on the Grand Canyon style thingie was as innovative as it gets. And then, the ‘Questworld’, a virtual reality created by Jonny’s father, introduced the cartoon watching public to 3-D animation.

Comparing this innovation and care with which cartoons were drawn up back then, with today’s fare, I can only think, “What the heck happened to the creativity out there?”. I just can’t get the logic behind all that Chinese/Japanese (I don’t know what, I don’t care what) programming on Cartoon Network and other cartoon channels. They all look the same, with the same chinky characters, same pathetic dubbing, crummy storylines and even crummier music. In front of the aforementioned cartoons, they look like cheap candy floss. Heck, they don’t force you to think, they don’t have edge of the seat action, and on the whole, they just aren’t any fun! True, they have taken the world by storm, but at least try exposing the present cartoon watchers to Batman and the like.

Today, it’s either that Chinese/Japanese trash or the evergreen, ever repeated Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo. As concepts, they don’t have much wrong with them, but for how long can you watch the same cat and mouse episodes, or the inconsistent animation (on Scooby Doo. Watch carefully, the backgrounds keep changing in close up scenes and wide shots)? And then, there’s the inexplicable lack of new programming from Hannah Barbara and Warner Bros. Maybe, I’m just sore because they pulled off my favourite shows (and am too prejudiced to watch the new ones), or maybe, others too are feeling this crunch, and this really is a genuine problem. I just hope it’s the latter…

People might argue a case for Japanese animes, and some of the points (mainly the mature tone, good soundtracks and kick-ass animations) are valid. But, where these suffer is in the pacing and the storylines. I’ve found these animes to be rather lethargically paced, often with too little story being conveyed per episode. Contrast that to the taut pacing of B:TAS. While the animes give the impression of placing style over substance, B:TAS placed both on an even pedestal. True, animes have longer runs than any of the above mentioned shows ever did, but again, that might be because of how slowly they are paced.

Full production blog: http://darkmatter.buddhifree.com

Dark Matter-Character Manual

Dark Matter will restart production sometime in September.

I heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life is harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world. Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says, “But doctor… I am Pagliacci.” Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.

-Rorschach

And then, just like that, I found what I was looking for. It did take a talking fox for me to figure it out, but I eventually did figure it out. This joke isn’t really just a joke on Pagliacci, it’s a joke on Supermen–everyone who considers themselves to be pillars of support, or such like.

When normal people fall, they are supported by men stronger than them. In time, these men come to be associated with reliability and support. This is not just a function of their superiority, but also a function of people’s longing and search for messianic beings. Maybe, that was why the concept of God was created in the first place–so that normal people could project their frailties on to Him and beg for support.

But, get it. There is no God. All there are, are people projected to a messianic state. If God were actually there, the world would be much fairer. Everyone’s equal for God, and this is a world created by him. So, why is everyone not equal in this world? Why are there poor people? Why are there social outcasts? Why are there dimwits, who’re ridiculed for being slow? If everything was part of God’s design, then why isn’t the playing field level?

There is just one reason–God might just be a sham. Project Jesus to a mythical status, and you have God. Exaggerate stories about an exiled king fighting a couple of goons to get his wife back, and you have Rama. All Gods were strong humans, but humans nonetheless.
Which actually brings me to the epiphany I had, and therein lies the source of my laughter–strong men actually fall the hardest. When normal people fall, they are supported by strong people who act as pillars of support. But, when these very pillars crumble (because of excessive pressure, say), who breaks their fall? Like the mob said at the very beginning of Watchmen

They watch over us, but who watches over the Watchmen?

Don’t you find it funny, when your very notion of strong, weak and stability just blend into one big pile of nothingness? Just like everything else around you? I find it hilarious. But then, I got the joke (courtesy, of course, the talking fox). And, the joke is on us, my dear friend. Laugh, while you can.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
-Voltaire

Rejoice.

Our t-shirts can be seen in this pic:

The team with the t-shirts. From L to R: Me, Surbhi, Sudhanshu

Download the PDF version here.

(This one contains a typo, which needs to be fixed–the line should read “Digest anything”, instead of the current “Digests Anything”)

I only wrote the copy for the Cisco ads (two of them atleast, with my boss witting the third to make it a campaign. I’ll leave it up to you to decide who wrote which one). How it works is like this–they give you a set of 6 visuals, and you need to come up with an empathetic, sophisticated story around that visual, which you then generalize to get the copy.

For Eno, I conceived the idea and wrote that short line you see at the end.

(Feedback appreciated)