Batman & Robin (1997) Love is Not a Weakness | Failure Isn't Final - The Fandom Portals Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Do we mistake emotional distance for

(00:02):
discipline and control forstrength?
In this episode, you'll learnhow Batman and Robin from 1997
show us that love wasn'tsomething to fear, it's
something to fight for.

(00:25):
Welcome to the Fandom PortalsPodcast, a podcast that explores
how fandoms and film can help uslearn and grow.
I'm Aaron, a teacher and filmfan, and each week on the
podcast we explore the storieswe love to learn more about
ourselves and the worlds thatshape us.
Today I'm joined by Brash, andbehind the scenes, this was Take
Four.

SPEAKER_02 (00:43):
It was a good start.
Good start.

SPEAKER_00 (00:45):
Very good start.
But you know what?
I still don't think it was muchof a train wreck as the disaster
of the movie that we have beenlooking at for this week, which
is Batman and Robin from 1997.

SPEAKER_02 (00:55):
I would also like to point out that you guys forced
us to watch.

SPEAKER_00 (00:58):
Yes, indeed.
This was a community pick.
We did a fight bracket, and itcame victorious in the end in
the beat titles such as SuckerPunch and Scott Pilgrim vs.
the World.
You had to pick a movie thatfailed and flopped at the box
office.
So our theme arc for this one,and this is the last movie in
the theme arc too, which isFailure Isn't Final.

(01:19):
And it's the movies that aimedhigh, stumbled, but still have
something to teach us.
So there's misguided epics, andthis series is going to ask us
what do stories that failed tofind their audience teach us
about finding ourselves.
So yeah, you guys picked thisone for us.
It will it actually won by apretty pretty big landslide,
Brash.
It was very, very popular.

SPEAKER_02 (01:37):
I want to go on the record that I just sucked a
bunch.

SPEAKER_00 (01:40):
Yeah.
Yes.
That being said, though, wealways strive, as is our niche
in the podcast, to look for alesson that this film can teach
us.
And we're going to go throughtoday some of the reasons why
this movie failed, where otherBatmans had seen a lot of
success.
We're going to look at some ofthe characters in this movie and
how they show connection andaffection towards one another.

(02:02):
And we were discussing beforethat uh three of the characters
in this movie show connectionand love toward one another in a
very unhealthy way.
And one of them is in a in avery more accepting and healthy
way.
Yeah, less than not healthy.
So actually not so bad, butwe're gonna get into Brash's
famous synopsis of this film.
So strap yourselves in.
If you're a fan of Batman andRobin, we do apologize.

(02:23):
I know it has some nostalgicfans.
I am a massive Batman fan.
Like he is tattooed on my so wesay this with love and just know
that we love the characters.
This movie, however, fun times.
Take it away, Brash.

SPEAKER_02 (02:36):
So I've gloriously titled my synopsis.
Batman and Robin, a very seriousfilm about Ice Pun.
Is once again peril.
But don't worry, because Batmanand Robin is here to s to chill
absolutely any sense of tensionto death.
Batman, George Clooney, wearingnipples with the confidence of a
man who was not warned, andRobin, Chris O'Donnell,

(02:58):
apparently stuck in a teenageangst mode, must face their
chilliest foe yet, Mr.
Freeze, a villain whose entirepersonality is based on
delivering his ice hismotivation motivation to save
his frozen life, his method,crying tourism, and stand-up
comedy.
Every line out of Mr.
Freeze's mouth is an isolatedcomedy of gold.

(03:18):
I see what you did there.
Let's kick some ice.
What killed the dinosaurs?
The ice age.
Stay cool, bird boy.
You'd think after the tenth punsomeone would freeze him
mid-sentence, but no, this moveskates on thin ice and somehow
never falls through.
Meanwhile, poison ivy shows up,emerging from a plant like
seductive environmental Tetalk.
Uma Thurman delivers every linewhile she's floating with the

(03:41):
camera for the audience andpossibly the concept of
photosensitive itself.
Her goal said planet a strategy,crimes, pheromones, and flooding
so intense that it could causeBat credit cards to exist.
Yes, Batman has a credit card.
Yes, it says Batman on it, butyes, it never expires.
Robin, feeling overshadowed andemotionally frosted, soks his

(04:02):
way through this movie,questioning his role, his place,
and why Batman won't justcommunicate like him and
billionaire bat.
Their relationship arc isbasically couple therapy, but
with Kate.
Then there's Batgirl who showsup and instantly masters martial
arts and becomes a crimefighting icon in about five
minutes because why not?
Logic left Gotham hours ago andtook the last train to any other

(04:24):
movie.
The action scenes are neon lipfever dreams, gangs wear glowing
hockey armor, everyone glows,everything glows, Gotham looks
like a city and more like arejected grave fly from 1997.
In the end, Batman learns thetrue lessons that family
matters.
Teamwork is cool, and love canthore even the covers heart,

(04:46):
especially if you have enoughblazers, bat gadgets, and
medical science to cure literal5J.
Batman and Ro Robin is not amovie you watch, it's a movie
you endure, embrace, andeventually isolate in your
memory as one of those mostglorious unseen superhero films
ever made.
It doesn't just jump the shark,it freezes it, shatters it, and

(05:08):
makes a pun about it.

SPEAKER_00 (05:10):
Very good.
And you know what?
I agree with some of the pointsthat you made for sure.
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 (05:14):
If you don't get that last joke, it doesn't just
jump the shark, because the onlyother movie I can like Batman
movie that's more ridiculousthan probably this one is Adam
West Batman, where he pulls outthe shark repellent from his bat
well, spray the shark.

SPEAKER_00 (05:31):
No, this one definitely leaned into the camp
hardcore.
And I like that we mentionedAdam West because I do think
that that was a big influence onthis one.
We always do a most valuabletakeaway.
And for this one, we have lookedat the fact that love is not a
weakness that compromisesstrength.
It is a motivator that givesstrength meaning.
So we said before that of someof the characters in this movie
don't demonstrate the healthiestforms of connection, they don't

(05:54):
show love very well or theydon't show appreciation for
their teammates, but they aremodeled and shown how to do that
by one father figure within themovie, known as Alfred
Pennyworth.
And I think this came to my mindbecause for one, there is a
character in this movie that issupposed to epitomize like love
and attraction.
That's obviously Poison Ivy.
And she puts a spanner in theworks when it comes to our two

(06:15):
title characters of Batman andRobin.
But the problems existed betweenthose characters way before she
came along.
I think primarily we know, andany Batman fan knows, that Bruce
Wayne, aka Batman, has a bigproblem with connecting with
people.
It is no secret that he likes towork alone.
And when he eventually did startto open up to a Robin character,
it was a very long and arduousjourney.

(06:37):
And I think that they doexemplify that in this movie,
more so in the one before this,Batman Forever.
But I think Bruce Wayne, playedby George Clooney in this one,
he's a very emotionally stunted,and that may be because the
acting is like not the best.
And also, as a note, he's theonly Bruce Wayne to play Bruce
Wayne and Batman the exact same.

(06:58):
Every other Batman that I'veseen has done them differently
for good reason.
But he says quotes like, forexample, the first line of the
movie, the very first thingGeorge Clooney says, but this is
why Superman works alone.
Like dismissive towards Robin.
And you know, there's also ascene where they have this
massive falling out where hesays, you know, basically, this
is my house, this is my rules,classic dad energy.

(07:19):
And he's just like, if you don'tlike it, you can leave.
And under my roof.
Yeah, yeah.
And that happens in the sceneafter he basically disables his
Robin bike, uh, after they'rechasing after Mr.
Freeze, going down and drivingdown one of the large Greek-like
statues in Gotham City, and hebasically just disables his
bike.
But I think that Robin took thatas him not trusting him.

(07:39):
But I think Bruce actually didit because he shows care and
concern, but he's doing thatthrough control.
And, you know, he has a scenelater on with Alfred where
Alfred actually calls him out onthat.
He says, I think from the momentyour parents were taken away
through chaos and and like poorfortune, you've spent your whole
life trying to then controlchaos and beat death.

(08:02):
And Bruce admits he's just like,I and I can't do it, can I?
And he goes, No, you absolutelycan't.
So I think he's pushed thatavoidant attachment onto Robin
and onto Dick Grayson becausetheir emotional relationship is
getting stronger, they'regetting closer, they need to
trust each other more.
So naturally, Bruce begins topull away.
This is classic for people whoare like avoidant attachment

(08:26):
people, and avoidant attachmentpeople usually they exhibit
traits of withdrawal, and it'susually based on the fact that
they've had trauma before.

SPEAKER_02 (08:34):
So like you see him when he's when he's at like at
the observatory, when hedonated, when he thinking like
he's his billionaire Bruce Wellhimself, he's not sort of like
he doesn't seem like like saylike Nolan Bruce Wayne, where
he's like all playing the partyboy, he's actually playing like
a person trying to do good forGotham at the forefront, but

(08:56):
he's he's got his missus there,yeah and they're like, Oh, you
guys gonna hit the knot, and hesort of gets started, like, uh
uh and then she sort of askedhim and says, Oh, we're madly in
love, but who knows about thefuture?
I'm like, Oh yeah.
And I don't think we ever seethat woman again in the movie.

SPEAKER_00 (09:13):
No, they they she does come back, they have a
dinner scene later and shedoubles down on it basically
because she says, She's like,We've been get this, she's like,
We've been together and seeingeach other for almost a year
now, and I just have to knowwhether it's time for us to get
married or not.
And Bruce is like, I'm not themarrying kind, which further
doubles down on the like I'm notconnecting with you.
And she even says, you know, ifI try to push you too hard, you

(09:34):
will pull away.
So I'll give you this to thinkabout, and he gives her a big
massive kiss, and she says, Tellme when you're ready to talk
about it.
So I think that also like showsthat he thinks that closeness
compromises his autonomy andalso his effectiveness to be
Batman, because you know, it'scommon through those Spider-Man
movies.
He never got with Mary Janebecause he was like, My enemies
will use that closeness againstme.

(09:56):
And I feel like Batman feels thesame way.
Batman does the same.

SPEAKER_02 (09:58):
He does the same.
Yeah, that's why that's why heused like that's why you
generally the Bruce WaynePersonas, him being a party boy
watches, doesn't settle down,does I kinda messiness,
especially in the youngerversions of Batman.
He's like more just full-onphilanthropist, and then later
on in life it's either SelenaKyle or nothing.
Um but in this, he's GeorgeCleaning plays emotionally

(10:21):
stunted well because that thatis.

SPEAKER_00 (10:40):
So yes, I think what you're saying is very true.
I think he was able to play thiswell.
Because because he was.

SPEAKER_02 (10:46):
But no, but I like he uh it's like you know, you
see, like, oh you act likehappy.
He was just like the the the youknow the comedy market, no
emotion.
That was just him this wholeentire movie as Bruce White
until like the end when helearns all this.

SPEAKER_00 (11:03):
Yeah, in quotes, learns a lesson.
I th I think you're right, and Ithink he George Clooney in this
one was becoming very popularafter coming off the back of ER,
and Joel Schumacher, thedirector, was saying that he
wanted to get Val Kilmer backfor this movie, but
unfortunately Val Kilma decidedto do a different movie, which I
think is called Saint.
And Joel Schumacher was a littlebit annoyed because obviously

(11:24):
the studio was pushing for thesefilms to be brought out back to
back due to the financialsuccess of Batman Forever and
the popularity that surroundedthe franchise at the time.
It was just the biggest thingthat was going on.
So he was forced to actuallyrecast Batman, which, you know,
was also another reason why somecritics leaned towards it or
against it.
But he did definitely bring hisown Batman version to the

(11:47):
character.
And I saw an interview withGeorge Clooney as he was talking
about this role, and he said,just for the record as well, he
agrees that this movie is not sogood.
But when he was doing aninterview for this movie, he
kind of said, you know, MichaelKeaton played Batman in his
particular way, and then ValKilmer brought something
different to that role as well,and he said he kind of had to do
something different, also, andthere's not much more in his

(12:10):
eyes that he said that he coulddo to bring about his own
version of Batman.
But I think what he did was hemade it more poppy, more
cartoony, more what's the wordwe're looking for here?
Campy, uh, and and also sort ofbrought back that Adam West sort
of style of it.

SPEAKER_02 (12:25):
Yeah, become a bit more for kids.

SPEAKER_00 (12:27):
Yes, yeah.
And that was also noted by JoelSchumacher as well.
He said that this movie wasdefinitely made more for kids,
and we'll probably talk about ita bit later as to why that was.
But if we're talking about Bruceand the way that he connects in
this movie, he's almost he heobviously is a trauma survivor,
and he is he's equating thisvulnerability to the danger that
he's felt before.
So when he gets close to people,he obviously begins to pull

(12:48):
away, and he's got this controlas a safety mechanism now.
So everything around his Batmanlife is heavily controlled.
He's got all these gadgets toprepare.
We know that he's an impeccabledetective, character-wise, and
in this movie they show thatbecause you know he's able to
guess where Batgirl's college isbased on the emblem on her
blazer that nobody else saw.
But yeah, he's got these safetymechanisms, so I don't think

(13:10):
he's cold.
I think he's just afraid thatlove will destabilize him.
Because at the start of thismovie as well, Mr.
Freeze basically freezes Robin,and we know that once he's
frozen, he's got 11 minutes, andfor some reason it's 11 minutes
for the whole movie.
Anyone that's frozen, they'vegot 11 minutes to warm them, but
11 minutes to become Thored, andFreeze actually says, Are you

(13:31):
going to chase the villain orare you gonna save the bird boy?
He goes, This is why I alwayswork alone, because your
compassion makes you weak.
And obviously, Bruce decides toput Robin into the warm bath,
use his laser to heat him up.
The first thing Robin says whenhe gets out is like, Did we get
him?
He's like, No, we we didn't.
And then from that point on,he's like cold towards him the
whole time.
Yeah.
So I think This is not a joke.

SPEAKER_02 (13:52):
This is my life.

SPEAKER_00 (13:53):
Yeah, and in Batman Forever as well, they double
down on that in the in the onethat comes before this because
there was the moment where Robinwas was being held aloft, and so
was Nicole Kidman's characterwho's called Chase Meridian, and
Too Faced says, now it's timefor you to choose, and he drops
them, and then Batman happens.
Yes, he does because he'sBatman.
But yeah, I think he's he's verymuch headstrong in the fact that

(14:14):
he needs these rules, he needthese controls, he needs these
procedures and they can't bebroken.
He doesn't really believe inemotional expression as Batman.
He seems very dismissive andavoidant in his attachment
styles, and he's like veryreluctant to say things that
denote he cares.
And I know that in the cartoonand through the comic books,
that develops slowly.
So when he gives like a tidbitof empathy towards a character

(14:37):
that you know he cares about,like Dick Grayson, you're just
like, oh yes, he does love you.
So I think like that's what usas Batman fans hold on to.
We want to see this hardexterior crack so we can see the
gooey center that is BruceWayne, because we know he's a
man that deeply cares and deeplyloves.
Because I don't think Brucefears love because it's weak.
I think he fears it because itreminds him of the things that

(14:59):
he can't control, and he can'tcontrol others, and he can't
control the way that he feelsabout others.
So I think that in this one, hedefinitely can interpret that
emotional attunement as a way tolike be vulnerable to villains
or or whoever, but I think hedefinitely imposes that onto
Robin, and as Robin is growinginto a teenage character,

(15:20):
quotes, played by ChrisO'Donnell, you can see Robin
begin to rebel against that.
And one of my favorite arcs inthe comic is when Robin then
becomes and grows into theNightwing character and he
breaks free from Batman becauseof that element of control.
And that's a really big lessonfor Bruce because when he goes
on and gets subsequent robins,he knows that Dick goes and

(15:41):
flourishes on his own, and hemade a lot of mistakes when he
was actually raising that boy,pretty much.
So I think I know he's he'soveracted, and I know that he's
pretty much too old for therole, but I really like Chris
O'Donnell as a Robin character,and I like the way he looks, and
I like the way he was introducedin in Batman Forever, that
classic sort of Dick Grayson,Flying Grayson.
And I really think that he he'sa guy that has a lot of sort of

(16:04):
family value because he used towork in a big unit in terms of
the Flying Graysons in thatcircus performing stunt.
So that's a good connection forBruce, who has always just been
him and Alfred.
So I think Bruce Wayne, Batman,shows a very avoidant dismissive
attachment style of love, whichis not really healthy, but the
whole journey of this movie isthat he learns to trust in the

(16:26):
end, or you know, in somecapacity he does.
I'll talk about that a bit latertoo, because that's a little bit
weird how he does that.
But do you have any thoughts onRobin Brash and how he shows
rebellion against this?
Hate it.

SPEAKER_02 (16:38):
The character of Rob.

SPEAKER_00 (16:40):
I liked him, man.

SPEAKER_02 (16:42):
So much.
I hated him so much.
To me, he seems more like aJason Todd than Dick Grayson.
If they had said, oh that'sJason Todd, not to Grayson, I've
been like, that's it.

unknown (16:55):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (16:56):
Because Jason Todd's more he's more rebellious, he's
more headstrong, he's more makeslight of situations.
Whereas Dick Grayson was alwaysuntil you get to the point where
he does not, he was the perfectRobin in Batman's visit.

SPEAKER_00 (17:12):
Yeah, I feel like in in the beginning, especially in
the comic book stories, he wasenamored by Bruce and Batman.

SPEAKER_02 (17:18):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (17:18):
And wanted to be that.

SPEAKER_02 (17:20):
And I like and in a way, so Dick knew what kind of
man Bruce was and accepted thatup until a point when when he
himself was then like, if I'mmeant to be him, I can't do it.
And then that's when he moves onto be nightwall.
Whereas Jason Todd, he was allabout kicking ass, taking names,

(17:42):
getting girls.
He was reckless and all thatkind of list.
And that's why, like, that's howI feel they portrayed this
Robin.
They portrayed him more as aTodd a Jason Todd Robin rather
than a Dick Grayson Robin,because Dick Grayson, original
Robin Nightwing, is probably myfavorite DC character out of all
C C characters besides maybethree arrow.

(18:05):
Yeah um but they they did Arkand they didn't do it.
And it wasn't a call's fault.
He arc he did the best of whathe got with the lines they gave
him and the direction they gavehim.
I I I feel like if they had ofmade it Jason Todd Robin rather

(18:27):
than Dick Grayson Robin, I couldhave believed it a bit more than
their relationship.

SPEAKER_03 (18:33):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (18:33):
Because I yeah, like because Dick Grayson and me,
he's at the very start at leastwhen he first gets brought in
with that, he's more of asaviour to Dick Grayson.
He's he lost his whole entirefamily.
Bruce Wayne took him from havingnothing and brought him in to
his family, and then was able tohelp him get justice for his

(18:54):
family by turning him into Robinand by letting him come along
and help him helping him go getjustice for his family.

SPEAKER_00 (19:01):
I also think that Dick Grayson found justice in
his own way.
Like, for example, Batman mightsee justice as as as ending the
life of somebody or ending thecareer of somebody, whereas Dick
Grayson I feel like is a littlebit more morally attuned, and I
think that was the conceptbetween Rule One is no killing.

SPEAKER_02 (19:18):
That's background to rule one.

SPEAKER_00 (19:20):
Yeah, but then like Jason Todd came along, and I
feel like he was a lot moreviolent and a lot more
aggressive, and he showed Brucewhat the um what the potential
was for a child that sort oflooked towards him and saw what
he did and perceived it in thatway, like he saw how that could
end with Jason Todd.
And I think that that's that'sthe like the the nuance of of
Robin.

(19:40):
So if we're talking about DickGrayson in this movie, for
example, he's very much like therebellious teen, and you can
look at him as a boy who is sortof seeking connection because
he's always trying to conversewith Bruce and bring him down to
his level, like he says at thestart, you know, why don't I get
a car?
All the girls dig the car, andthen he always says as well, you
know, how are we supposed towork together if we don't trust?
One another.

(20:01):
He says that as part of theFlying Graysons, we're a unit,
we're a team.
And he says sometimes in orderto to win or in order to
succeed, you need to trustsomebody and rely on them, and
that's okay to do.
Which you know, I think is apretty mature way to sort of
look at connection.
But he's also like interpreting.

SPEAKER_02 (20:18):
He says that though.
He says that though.
Yet the his portrayal of theactual character contradicts
that heavily.

SPEAKER_00 (20:28):
I absolutely agree.

SPEAKER_02 (20:29):
Like he like that's what I mean.
Like the way he played thecharacter is more like a Jason
Todd character, but they gavehim lines to be a Grayson
character.
So it doesn't really line up.
So say if uh so like when he waswhen uh when Brandon's like, oh
no, drop out there, you getfrozen and get frozen.
If there had been some sort ofcharacter play like beforehand,
uh he sees like a reflectivemirror or some shit on the

(20:50):
ground, it was actually gonnadive out there, roll, grab the
reflective mirror to block theice beam and go.
But because maybe Batman triesto grab him back and just stunts
him from getting there and hegets frozen, then that that
could be the whole thing oflike, oh you could should have
trusted me.
I had a plan.
Like we've been trained to youthough, I have a plan because of

(21:12):
your your not willingness totrust me in our unit, it failed
and I got frozen.

SPEAKER_00 (21:18):
And I think that that's portrayed through like
Dick Grayson as well.
He's very reckless and he'll goout and he'll he'll like he'll
find trouble and in in a way totry and prove his.
That's what annoys me.
That's a Chris O'Donnell Robinthing.

SPEAKER_02 (21:33):
Yeah, that is a Chris O exactly.
That's like more of a that'smore of a Jason Todd thing, not
like you go out and dorebellious shit just because I
go street racing and chill out.
That's a Jason Todd thing.

SPEAKER_00 (21:45):
Well well, yeah, he says things like, you know,
don't get all protective on me,and he goes, I'm tired of living
in your shadow, and he's like,I'm going solo after he gets
thrown into a bucket of icecream.

SPEAKER_02 (21:53):
And this is completely that that that's
dick, that's Dick Grayson,though, years and years and
years from being like a youngkid to being like almost almost
adult.
Yeah.
Going off on his own.
It's like they it's like theyjust did this like time jump.

SPEAKER_00 (22:08):
Yeah.
I um like he he plays off to meas this boy that's kind of in
insecure about his emotionalattachment to a like a father
figure, and he's always he'seither being rebellious to try
and seek approval and to seelike taking these risks because
if they are pulled off, he'll beseen as competent by by Bruce
Wayne and Batman, and he'll beseen as a valued member of his

(22:29):
team, and therefore he'llreceive the care and love.
So he's almost combating Bruce'savoidant attachment by being
overly trying to be overlyskilled at things, but obviously
not having the background or theexperience to pull them off.
So he he's craving this autonomyand this belonging.
And I feel like boys often dointerpret that because his he's

(22:49):
not show Bruce isn't showingcare towards Robin.
He seems like he's showingcontrol.
So when he is not emotionallyattuned and he is perceiving it
as being controlled, it almostleads to him also then being
pushed away.
And in order for him to supportand preserve his identity as
Robin and somebody who isindependent and strong and
somebody who's a valued memberof his bat team, he almost then

(23:11):
needs to pull himself away fromit.
But I agree with you where hesays things like, We need to be
part of a team, you need totrust me more.
But then he then doesn't dothings that are trustworthy.
Like he'll be reckless, he willtake risks, he'll put Bruce
Batman in very unorthodoxpositions, he will be swayed by
the enemy.
But I I do think he'ssusceptible to Ivy's charms

(23:32):
because it it's she reframes hiseasy Hornong who likes to hit on
every single thing that moves.
Yeah, but I think she also, whenshe says, you know, you don't
need him, there should be like aRobin signal in the sky.
That's like it seems like she'sreframing that control into like
freedom for him, so that'swhat's attractive to him as
well.
And he's finally seeing somebodywho idolizes him and likes him,

(23:55):
even though it's completelyfalse.
I feel like Dick learns thatlike trust doesn't come easy for
one.
But the the scene where they'vethey're said to like rebuild
that trust is absolutelyrubbish, in my opinion, because
at the end of the movie, whenthey're all working together on
the observatory to try and, youknow, thaw the mirrors and move
the the teleport, the telescopeand things like that, Bruce lets

(24:17):
Robin and Batgirl fall, and thenBruce doesn't go to catch them
because he's like, You've gotthis covered.
And that's like that'scompletely based on his
competence and showing trust onhis competence, not like trust
for any kind of emotionalreason.
Like I don't emotionally trustyou to to be part of this team
and I can have your back andyou'll know that I'll be there
to have yours as well.

(24:38):
It wasn't like that.
It was like he's fallen, he'scapable, he's good, he's an
acrobat, all all fine there.
But like he pretty much just lethim fall without a safety net.
And at the end they had thatconversation where Robin was
like, Hey, when I fell, youdidn't you didn't try to catch
me, and he goes, Yeah, I know,because you you really had it
covered, and I sometimes have totrust you.
And it's like, yeah, okay.
But you know, Dick.

(24:59):
That's respect.

SPEAKER_02 (25:01):
Not with like convenient convenient.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (25:04):
It just wraps it up in a neat little package.

SPEAKER_02 (25:06):
Like that little like like a little bow, just no.

SPEAKER_00 (25:09):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
But I feel like like Dickdoesn't want to be alone and he
wants to be recognized for hishis competence, but he also
doesn't go about finding thatthe right way.
He's also trying to findattachment from somebody who is
very avoidant.

SPEAKER_02 (25:23):
And this I think that's the trouble with the fact
that why uh like that Robin isso old.
That that I think that's whatmakes it so hard to try and
convey that because the way hewants to see it, he wants to be
trusted, wants to be part of theunit and that.
But the way he's conveying italso like seems like he wants to
be the like wants him to be thepart of figure, but it it
doesn't really come off that waybecause they're both pretty much

(25:46):
the same fate.

SPEAKER_00 (25:47):
Yeah.
So yeah.
It's not like a father-son or amentor.
And you know, at the end when hesays, you know, I want you to be
my partner, or he goes, I wantyou to trust me now when that
when they're about to go, andhe's going to see Robin's going
to see Ivy for that last time.
He says, What does he say?
He goes, You know, you once toldme that sometimes counting on
someone else is the only way towin, and you need to trust your

(26:09):
partner and you need to trust menow.
And he's he calls him brotherfor the first time.
And I was like, Brother'sprobably all right.
Like you're in more of the agerange of range of brother right
now.
But you know, he he wants thatlove and he wants to feel that
love, but I feel like he doesn'twant it to be a leash.
But he does then again, like aswe said, he doesn't do anything
to prevent Bruce from droppinghis guard or that protection

(26:30):
from him because obviously hewould feel a whole weight of
responsibility if anything wasto happen to Dick Grace and
Robin.
He would he would absolutely gothrough another layer.
He's an adult, he can make hisown decision.
Well, that's that's where hegets to in the end when he's
just like he's falling.
If he doesn't catch himself,that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 (26:47):
That's fine.
Like when they first broughtRobin, like what are you doing
with life right now?

SPEAKER_00 (26:54):
I honestly think because this is the only time
we've seen Batman and Robin onscreen together.
I mean, we we got that JosephGordon Levitt sort of version of
Robin that wasn't revealed untillater.
Yeah, we've got the Titans,yeah, but I mean like in a
cinematic sort of way.
So if James Gunn is gonna do itfor the DCU, I think that they
have to really nail that sort offather-son dynamic, which means

(27:15):
they might have to do an agedBatman and a very teenage or new
sort of actor in terms of Well,so they don't really need Robin,
but they just need to make surethat it's a that's a teen
Robert, like or someone who atleast can't pull off teen
Robert.
I'd want to see Damien, man.
I'd want to see Damien Wayne.

SPEAKER_02 (27:32):
Oh, 100%.
So, but if they if they do dothat, if depending on what James
Gunn decides to do, because ifyou zullen Batman Brave Bold, I
I kind of hope I hope they don'tplay it like Brave in the Bold.

SPEAKER_00 (27:44):
I hope they go with Damien and they already they
give us a adult Nightwing andthat history is explored later
through character development.
That's what I hope.
I hope that Nightwing can bealready developed.

SPEAKER_02 (27:57):
It depends more on the timeline of when they're
gonna put Batman in.
So if it's if it's gonna be ifthey're gonna put like I
wouldn't mind a movie forBatman, not like a Batman begins
or a that way where it shows himfalling down a well again and
like that's my atmosphere untilhe becomes Batman.

SPEAKER_00 (28:17):
Yeah, we've we've done the origin.
We've done that so many times.
And I don't think anybody canbeat the origin more than the
Nolan movies did.
Like that that's an that's theepitome, really.

SPEAKER_02 (28:27):
And and like we've done the year one with Robert
Pattinson.
That was Batman Year One.
Fuck the not uh that's one of myfavorite Batman movies.

SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
That is my favourite Batman movie.
And Pattinson's my favouriteBatman, I'll go on record and
say he's my favourite Batman.

SPEAKER_02 (28:40):
I I have to say same.
Um because I I love Year One.
I love like because you s yousee him, you s you see him
because they sort of did it inother gnomes Batmans with
Christian.

SPEAKER_00 (28:53):
Christian Bale.

SPEAKER_02 (28:54):
Christian Bale.
They sort of do that with himwhen they were but like he went
basically straight from havingno sort of Batman gear to just
being full Batman.

SPEAKER_03 (29:03):
Started out.

SPEAKER_02 (29:04):
Yeah, we'll start out, whereas here you see him
like he's still wearing likeknee pads and shit and just
normal combat boots and shila.
And you see him, yeah, you seehim like wearing like Batman
does it for like one fight inthe Noller movies.

SPEAKER_00 (29:20):
And also his Batmobile, the Patterson
Batmobile is also like a musclecar that's been rigged out with
armor, which I think isabsolutely perfect.

SPEAKER_02 (29:28):
Like a um, chasing yeah, so good.

SPEAKER_00 (29:32):
Yeah, like when he's chasing down the paint.
Yeah, we'll we'll do an episodeon the Batman later, but we'll
we're digressing.

SPEAKER_02 (29:37):
Anyway, I'll digress it.
Yeah, anyway.
I'll go back and go back to mywhat I was initially saying.
We've had the origin storyexplained to death.
We've had the year one now withRob as I wouldn't mind now one
where because realistically,Batman should have already been
doing his thing before Supermangets on the into the page.
So I reckon if we pick up whereSuperman is with Batman, Batman

(30:01):
should already have Robin.
Robin should already be likealmost ready to move on, and
then either and then either wecan get sort of a Damien in in
like the second movie or maybethe third movie or or we do you
think because the thing isbefore Damien we have to have
Jason and Tim.

(30:21):
And it might explore like somefacets of like him now because
of what happened to Jason, itmight have a new like maybe if
like what happened to Jason, andJason might still be dead.
Um and you might have Tim Meow,and then all of a sudden, like
maybe in the second movie Damiencomes into it, and then there's
that dynamic of he's got Tim,but now hey, here's Damien, and

(30:44):
then it sort of like brings up aan assay to explore some sort of
like competitive sun art.
So there's contention betweenthe two robins, and then because
then Tim might end up going,nah, screw this, you can have
your fun, I'll go be a Robin forlike Teen Titans.

SPEAKER_00 (30:59):
Yeah, or form the Teen Titans, which would then
progress into something elsethat James gun.

SPEAKER_02 (31:05):
Yeah, like a Teen Titans movie with Cyborg, Beast
Boy, Raven, and Starfire.

SPEAKER_00 (31:10):
Starfire, yeah.
Yeah, I think that would be thego.
But I like in this Robin, I candefinitely agree.
Chris O'Donnell, I do like himas an actor.
I like this this Robin, and uh,but I do agree he's too old for
the role.
But I I think that he and thatsort of pushes the point as
well, where he's trying to formthat connection with Bruce, but
you're already like you'reacting like a teenage brat and
you should be a fully grown,like you look like a fully grown

(31:31):
man.
So yeah, it's hard, it's hard tolook at the biggest.

SPEAKER_02 (31:34):
You're looking at the giant man child.

SPEAKER_00 (31:36):
Yeah.
And also the way that he'sacting seems seems immature.
Like the the way that they thesefights were choreographed and
the way that the arguments sortof ensued between Bruce and and
and Dick in these in this moviefelt to me like I was on yard
duty at school and there waslike two kids that were saying,
and then we lie on our backs andknock our feet together, and ice

(31:57):
skates come out, and then you goget the diamond, and I'll go get
like it just felt like two kidswere just thinking, What's the
cool thing that we could do herefor Batman and Robert?
But let's talk about VictorFreeze because he he weaponizes
love in this movie.
Like he's obviously using it asa motivation to fix his
emotional damage.
You could say, like, he's turnedhis love into this obsession,
and she he's literally got heron a pedestal.

(32:18):
Like you could say it's on apedestal in a glass tank
pedestal.

SPEAKER_01 (32:21):
And also the scariest part of the scariest
part of that is it's probablythe most comic accurate part of
this entire movie is just VictorFreeze minus the thousands and
thousands of puns.

SPEAKER_02 (32:32):
Yeah, and I think seems more of like a cat and
cool than a thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 (32:36):
They they actually did that because Arnold
Schwarzenegger is known forobviously having those famous
one-liners.
So I was like, well, let's put27 of them in this movie.
Hopefully, one will stick.
And also, marketing gold.
You can just put the one-linerson all of the commercials and
it'll sell.
But I do agree, like Mr.

SPEAKER_02 (32:53):
Freezer is a dole where you press a button and he
says one-liners.

SPEAKER_00 (32:56):
Blows blue.
Yeah, pull the pull string.
But yeah, he's he's definitelyusing that that love and that
obsession as a way to drive hismotivations.
Like he says at one point, ifI'm to suffer, humanity will
suffer with me.
And that's after Ivy obviouslytricks him into thinking that
Nora has been killed.
But yeah, he his devotion toNora is definitely comic

(33:17):
accurate, and it's a way that hejustifies his cruelty and his
hostage taking and the mass harmthat he's doing.
For most of the movie, he's justprocuring diamonds, though, and
he's not really doing anyresearch to save Hearst.
I would have liked for themotivation of him to continue
his research to be moreforegrounded than him wanting to
freeze the world.
Like that that revenge plot sortof happened a little bit too

(33:39):
soon for me.
But like he he's endlesslywatching old wedding footage to
show that like he's notintegrating his grief into his
life.
He's kind of the opposite ofBatman in this stage, where
Batman's going towards the endof his grief journey through his
parents, and he's just at thestart of it still obsessing over
it.
And he becomes violent when he'ssentimentally exposed as well,

(33:59):
when he's watching those videos,and the henchman comes in and
says, Mr.
Freeze, you want to see this?
And he literally picks up a gunand shoots him and freezes him
cold and flat because he seeshim crying.
He has to be interrupted whilewatching his Yeah, well that's
that's the line that he says.
It's like, don't you hate itwhen they're talking the movie?
But yeah, it reflects thiscomplicated grief arc for him
because I I feel like hisattachment is, excuse the pun,

(34:23):
frozen in the point whereobviously he's trying to to fix
something that he can't.
But his like his devotion isundeniable.
His weaponizing that love isvery much an unhealthy sort of
mechanism, and it proves thatlike a lot of people get away
with doing things in the name oflove, but I feel like Mr.
Freeze and Arnold's portrayal ofhim proves that like love

(34:45):
doesn't redeem you automaticallyor it doesn't make your actions
justifiable.
Because without compassion, itjust becomes his own personal
prison.
Like you see him in the beam ofcold light, but you could also
say like him not processing thatgrief properly or working
towards a solution that isactually helpful, whether it be
personal growth orresearch-based, he's actually

(35:07):
just stunted and frozen in thisspace of trying to cope with
something that happened in hispast he's not able to do.
But he does sort of make Batmanthink about the way that he
connects with others becausehe's almost like a
self-fulfilling prophecy forBruce because he's like Freeze
loved this woman, and now she'sgone, and she's like he's turned

(35:27):
cold-hearted as a result ofthat.
So it sort of doubles down Bruceon being that detached.
And I think that for thatreason, Freeze and and Batman in
this movie couple very well.
And it probably had thepotential to be something very
emotionally driven and a littlebit, you know, darker or an
emotional journey that couldexplore those sort of facets of

(35:50):
healthy love and unhealthy love,and healthy connection and
unhealthy connection and movingpast grief as it happens.
But yeah, alas, we were giventhis soapbox childhood poppy.

SPEAKER_02 (36:02):
As a whole, the story arc of this movie I think
was absolutely fantastic.
Well, if if you take away allthe puns and the other bits of
bullshit and pettiness and sothat and just as as a storyline
of Batman versus the villains, Ilove Mr.
Freezer's story.

(36:23):
And even Pamela's coming in offhe was not like because um
because you could you can seeeven when they decide to honor
up, you could see it was nevergonna work.
He wanted an ice age, she wanteda jungle, ice and j ice and
plants, they don't mix.
No, so like you knew there wasgonna be some be some sort of
falling out between those two aswell.
And for me, like just thinkingabout that as a movie, I'll be

(36:45):
like, hell yeah, it's gonna beawesome.
Like Gotham's gonna turn intothis giant like rainforest
versus ice age, and thenBatman's gonna try and stop it
all, and it was gonna be sogood.
But then it just sort of becamea sort of joke on itself.
But I I believe as a whole, thestory itself is solid.

(37:05):
It's just what they did withinthe site, that's all.

SPEAKER_00 (37:08):
Yeah, well I I think alone the the Victor Freeze arc
would be enough to drive anemotional beat through a movie
because he's got this, like he'sgot this moral tunnel vision,
which is very compelling as avillain to to look at and see,
because I think everybody cansay that they love somebody
enough or have loved somebodyenough to move mountains for
that person.
So it's a very sort of relatabletrait that Victor Freeze has.

(37:30):
And this this fixation that hehas is obviously the antithesis
of that.
It's the absolute extrapolationand the far versus like vision
of of that love.
So it's it's like he doesn'twant to accept a world where
that love for him does not existanymore, and he doesn't want to
exist beyond her.
So he he has this narrowing ofethical concern for all others

(37:54):
based on this attachment lossthat he has.
So he goes through thesecomplicated grief patterns, and
then he's like, instead of likebereaving the person or grieving
them properly, he's like almostwarped to this reality where
love becomes the only thing thatmatters and it quietly erases
literally everything else thatshould.

(38:15):
So yeah, it literally shows thatthat unresolved grief and the
patterns of like singleattachment that seems unhealthy
and the fact that he's hejustifies harm to others as a
result of his unhealthyconnection and his obsession.
But I think that Freeze is likeI always took him as a really
sort of shallow villain.

(38:35):
Like, you know, you he's a he'sa man that makes everything
cold.
But I think what what they dowith him in this movie is pretty
good.
Like the Arnold ArnoldSchwarzenegger side of it and
the puns and things like that,not so good.
But I also loved how you knowhow Arnold Schwarzenegger's like
Mr.
Olympic and he's extremely likea big burly man.
They kind of address that inthis movie too when they were

(38:56):
doing the dossier file on himwhen they were like, he's a
two-time deck athlete championand a research scientist.
So they're like, uh the reasonhe's so huge, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (39:04):
The reason why he's big and strong is because yeah,
for a scientist.
Yeah, but it seems to me thatMr.
Freeze character is meant to becold and calculated, and that's
why I think that's why they madehis character ice related,
because he's such a coldcalculated person.
Yeah.
But in this, he like he he heseems cold and calculated
because he gets one up on BatmanRobin like the whole entire

(39:27):
movie, he's one up again, andit's almost like it's almost
like it seems like there's aplan.
But you you don't you don'tactually and that's what I mean
with Batman Robin, how Robin'salways like, oh yeah, let me you
don't trust me, blah blah blah.
And I'm like, well, you becauseyou really haven't shown
anything to say why he shouldtrust you.
It says you're being recklessbecause you are being reckless.

(39:47):
Like if it has some sort of ifthere's some sort of design like
a what's that camera showing yousomething closer.
Well, it's some sort of like amonster.
I I was like being honest withyou.
show you like with the cameralike cinematography.
Maybe cinematologies, yeah, somesort of cinematography that
shows you that he had a planbefore he gets interrupted by

(40:11):
Batman and gets frozen orsomething.
Same with uh Mr.
Freeze it shows that he had somesort of plan.
The only plan is oh look,they're gonna have a diamond
here.
Let's go crash a party andthat's it.

SPEAKER_03 (40:20):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (40:21):
And he's built the whole calculating part.
Where's the whole calculatingpart of Mr.
Freeze?
Where's the scientist from Mr.
Freeze?

SPEAKER_00 (40:27):
The Love Sub plot is is back seated for the jewelry
heist, which I didn't reallylike because it was almost like
he was powering his like he wasit was like he was on a this
vicious cycle because he wastrying to steal diamonds to
power his suit so he could dothe research but in going to
steal diamonds he would depletethe energy of his suit and
therefore need to go out and getmore diamonds.

SPEAKER_02 (40:47):
Well no this thing is like he needs diamonds to
pair his suit to keep himselfcold and then he needs big
diamonds to make a device tohold Gotham hostage to get a
billion dollars.

SPEAKER_03 (40:58):
Yeah to fund his research.

SPEAKER_02 (41:00):
He has 13 diamond or nine or 13 diamonds in that
fucking device that's enough fora grand the funds right there
you don't need to hold themhostage just sell the diamonds
and do your research sell thediamonds get all the money hit
off somewhere with melanor noNora Nora Nora sorry Nora Nora
put Nora somewhere in adifferent country with all your

(41:21):
money do your research and saveyour life and then live your
life in a different country andnever go after Gotham again and
you sweep but no no we're gonnaconcoct some stupid plan to
create a giant ice age in Gothamby stealing a whole bunch of
diamonds worth enough money thatyou could use for research.

SPEAKER_00 (41:38):
Yeah Miller I know let let's let's talk about the
way that Freeze's arc ends solet's talk about the ending of
Mr Freeze in in Batman andRobin.
So we we get this scene whereyou know he's shown mercy by by
Batman at the end and he saysyou know if you could help me

(41:59):
cure Alfred then obviously I'llget Nora moved to your Arkham
facility and you can continueyour research there.
So he ends with a little bit ofmercy and I feel like Arnold
Schwarzenegger plays that reallywell like emotionally you can
see on his face he does seemreally good.
Yeah it's no it's not like theuh CGI tears that you see
imported in earlier scenes but Iand then and then it shows that

(42:22):
almost after credit scene wherehe goes and then tries to get
revenge on poison ivy.
So as an audience member for meI look at that and I can see
like he's still angry he's stillisolated he's still unhinged
he's still like cagingeverything up and even after
being shown that mercy heretaliates rather than releases
his control on this obsessionthat he has.
So his love never transformsinto this compassion it remains

(42:44):
like fixed exclusive andpunishing and you know he has he
still has no moral concern ofothers he's still like revenge
seeking and that like the lovecan no longer adapt for that.
So it it can only save you whenit includes someone like beyond
yourself.
And he's he's really just sortof done that turnaround again.
So as a character it's like washis motivations truly to to save

(43:09):
Nora because he's been shownthis mercy and this compassion
by Batman which closes his arcafter he's finally lets like
Batman finally let someone in inin Alfred and then was able to
feel again and he presents thatmercy then to to Victor Freeze
but he then goes back to his oldpattern like was he always
really a violent man and Norawas the one that was keeping

(43:29):
that violent nature at bay andnow because no Nora he's falling
back into old habits of being aviolent person.

SPEAKER_02 (43:37):
Yeah well I'd say that's probably as as that might
be the case but there's theybecause of all the puns taking
up all the air time theycouldn't really do any sort of
proper backstories on anycharacters or any character
development because there's toomany puns.

SPEAKER_00 (43:53):
Well I think that there's definitely some evidence
towards that because if you seethe wedding videos of Freeze and
Noro he's he looks like a verycompassionate and and loving man
in those those videos there.
So yeah I th I I think hisending showed to me that he was
actually more of a villain thana misunderstood hero and I would
have liked to have seen Freeze'sresearch and foregrounding that

(44:13):
that yearning and loveconnection a little bit more
than the diamond high sting.
So I don't think he ends wellbut let's talk about Alfred now
the the goat of the series andthe absolute saviour of Bruce
Wayne and Batman in in more waysthan one.
This is the the the morehealthier version of connection
and love that I've found in thismovie so far because Alfred is a

(44:34):
very vulnerable man not onlybecause of his age but he's also
the wise mentor that teachesDick and Bruce that they should
trust one another that theyshould be open with how they're
feeling they should communicatemore and he even says you know
obviously there's secrets thathappen within this house but
they do have to be open withwith each other.
So but then there's alsoconflicting things towards that

(44:57):
in his character representationbecause he says didn't I teach
you that it's ungentlemanly toto air your dirty laundry out
when they're talking about hissickness so yes he is a
representation of a really goodsort of accepting version of of
love but he's also got somelittle flaws through this movie
too.
So I think that especially interms of of boys the discussion

(45:17):
point here is like strengthisn't about emotional detachment
or doing it alone and Alfred'sthe person that advocates for
that the most in a mature wayother than Robin who literally
says it as a as a whinge and awine.

SPEAKER_02 (45:29):
Also a bit of a hypocrite though at the same
time yeah yeah exactly so youcan't really read too much into
that space either but like he helike he she he shows all this
caring and sh wants everyone tobe emotionally emotionally
available for each other and tohelp each other on that
emotional level but at the sametime I think because of their

(45:52):
issues he sort of varies his ownto help them instead of like
wanting more cons like wantingthem to be more concerned
because of his health issues.

SPEAKER_03 (46:04):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (46:04):
Because he knows he can see that they're already
having trouble.
He doesn't want to concern themby adding board trouble.
And it's only until like notuntil they're already and when
he collapses and that like ohshit.

SPEAKER_00 (46:15):
Yeah.
Alpha I was kind of waitingbecause I I hadn't watched this
since I was a lot younger so Iwas kind of waiting for the time
when Alfred's illness or demiserejoined those characters in a
way that was meaningful almostlike the you know the Greg
Colson of the Avengers to toname more modern reference but
it kind of it didn't reallyhappen in that way because of

(46:38):
obviously George Pluny BruceWayne's detachment he he does go
through that scene prior wherehe does say I love you old man
and Alfred says I love you tooand that's probably the first
time I've seen Bruce Wayne in amovie express like love verbally
to anyone other than like asupermodel.
And I think that was reallyreally good for me to see with

(46:59):
that the fact that he was almostclosing the arc or being
thankful of or seeing the thememories of Alfred bringing him
up and not focusing on the factthat he'd he'd gone through all
this grief stricken andtraumatic events but he was
almost silver lining it likelooking at oh Alfred picks me up
when I'm down Alfred's been hereall the time Alfred helped me
greet through this process andthen he was like I love you and

(47:22):
then from that he was able tothen I'll put in quotes trust
Robin and let him fall off theobservatory tower on his own.

SPEAKER_02 (47:29):
I was gonna say there is actually one other
Batman who sort of conveys loveto Alfred movies and that's
Robson has does he?
I thought that they had a reallytumultuous relationship with
Andy Circus's after becauseafter the after the explosion
and that's right yes he's in thehospital and then he they
basically because they they dohave a bit of tumultuous

(47:51):
relationship up to that sceneand then that's when sort of
Robert and him sort of have thathealing moment together of like
of Robert actually beingconcerned and actually finally
saying like basically he's likea father he's like a part of the
and you know that he wouldn'tknow what he does if he was
salute him too yeah yeah it'sit's almost like it's almost

(48:16):
like the Alfred character issomebody who reframes love for
Bruce in a lot of contexts.

SPEAKER_00 (48:22):
Like he he frames it as a responsibility rather than
a a weakness but then he alsoreframes love as something that
calls you toward action asopposed to like away from from
action or it stops you from fromavoiding and distracts from the
mission but it defines themission so to speak.
And there's that fine line whenyou're talking about defining
the mission for for love basedon whether you're doing it for

(48:45):
love.
As we said with Freeze it canmove to that obsession state but
it can also move to that thatself-determination as well and
showing that relatedness andstrength and motivation and
resilience as well and that lovedoesn't soften Batman but it
grounds him and it makes himdifferent from the villains that
he fights.
So I think that's the that's thepurpose of Alfred.

SPEAKER_02 (49:04):
Well no again talk about the purpose of Alfred so I
don't think there's ever reallybeen a bad Alfred because Alfred
it's it's almost like like inthe Noah movies with Batman
where he says oh the bat I'm notthe bat the hero the city
deserves one that needs orsomething like that I'm not sure
it needs right now yeah.
Yeah well see Alfred is alwaysthe person that Batman needs not

(49:27):
so much deserves so when heneeds emotional support Alfred's
that emotional support he needsa course correction Alfred said
to do that too he does that heAlfred changes himself depending
on what Bruce needs.

SPEAKER_00 (49:42):
Yeah he'll be his harshest critic but it'll also
be his soft place to land and Ithink that's the the beauty of
Alfred too he he's Michaelthroughout these movies does
that.

SPEAKER_02 (49:51):
Yeah and he's the one who initially like initially
trains Bruce to fight like whenhe when he first loses his
parents when he can he's angryis that so he teaches him how to
fight and then it eventuallygoes off and starts with that
minute training and comes backAlfred was like Alfred was one
initially teaching because heAlfred knows like if he is just

(50:12):
like the anger first die itwon't be good.
So he needs to try and expelthat anger in a more productive
way so he fight to get rid ofthat sort of anger behind him.
Um but then yeah when he needshelp with Robin like say it's
being too hard on Robin oranything like that or not being
too harsh.

(50:32):
Like he sort of steps in andsort of just gives him a little
bit of words of wisdom andusually or usually it's like
like usually used as an exampleof back when he was a boy he's
like oh I used to be a littlebit young men you used to be
like that and then that he'slike ah yeah it was you wasn't
it Alfred yeah it's what you'retalking about you're talking

(50:52):
about how when I was a littleshit.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (50:54):
Okay yeah I understand yeah but he's always
he's always been that he'salways been that character that
like Batman needs yeah thereality check yeah he's always
the yeah he's always the onethat he needs at the at that
time and changes changes d umdepending on how what Batman's
going through what Ruth's gotyeah so I think through this
movie he's probably thehealthiest representation of

(51:16):
connection and and love but I donot think that it's a perfect
representation at all.
But let's move on to talk aboutwhy this film failed and why
it's been included in ourfailure isn't final theme arc.
So we'll go into a few reasonsabout that and then we'll rate
it and we'll do our sign offsfrom there.
So this movie technically wasn'ta flop it was a budgeted at$125

(51:39):
million and it earned$238million worldwide.
And I think the reason that itdid that was because that it did
have a big backing three moviesbefore it and they were very
much the event of the 90s Iwatched this documentary that
said and Joel Schumacher wastalking on it and he said there
was a lot of secrecy around thismovie.
That being said there werealways people visiting the set

(52:01):
because it was just somethingthat lots of people wanted to
see whether it be politicians orfamous people that just wanted
to come and have a look andbecause it was kid centric and
kid focused they'd bring theirkids to come and see the Batman
set as well.
So it was a very much a veryhyped movie and there was a lot
of audience backing behind itand obviously Batman is a very
popular character.
With that being said uponrelease audience reception was

(52:23):
poor critic reception wasextremely negative and a lot of
the reason for that was wasbecause of the camp and the
tonal shift that we saw in thismovie from the previous Batmans
that came before it like wetalked earlier Brash about the
Tim Burton directed Batmanmovies Batman and then Batman
Returns um and you do feel itlike like they do gradually go.

SPEAKER_02 (52:46):
So the original one with Mock Eden and with the
penguin there was a much darkertone more graze everything it
seemed more Gotham and moredarker Batman and then slowly as
it went as it got more popular Ithink there's got to a point
where like oh these onesprobably aren't that appropriate
for kids let's start dialing itback so we can probably make

(53:08):
more money.
So yeah I think that's how itcame down to like we need to
make more money off this we needto be able to target it to more
people let's make it more kidfriendly but by doing that it
just completely ruined the sortof direction that they had like
the good direction they alreadyhad.
Yeah.
That's exactly right but it'slike the out of the out of the

(53:31):
old four movies my favor my myfavorite is one then two then
three then four like it justapparently like even when I was
a kid like it was one then twoand three then four.

SPEAKER_00 (53:42):
My favorite as a kid was three then four then one
then two just a different guy.
And I think through the 90s thatwas that was like it was
definitely a big thing foreverybody.
Like my first Batman was BatmanForever in 1995 and I fell in
love with Tommy Lee Jones's TooFace and he's still my favorite
Batman villain to date not TommyLee Ver Jones's version of Too

(54:03):
Faced but Too Face as a wholelike he's still my favorite
Batman villain because he wasthe very first one that I saw.
But yeah I think you're rightwhen in terms when you talked
about that tonal shift whetherit being more directed towards
kids because Joel Schumacheractually said that he was urged
by the studio to have amarketing first and merchandised

(54:24):
view of this movie.
So anything he could do and putin this movie to make it kid
friendly more colourful andmaximize toy lines is exactly
what they should do.
So he's been pretty open aboutit too Joel Schumacher said like
he wasn't forced to do anything.
This was the movie he wanted todo but there was definitely some
monetary motivation behind it.

(54:44):
So they talked about havingmultiple villains in the movie
between Mr Freeze Poison Ivy andBane and also introducing
Batgirl because more charactersequal more action figures.
And then each time that they hada different suit as well like
that would be a different typeof action figure that they could
sell.
Whenever you saw Mr Freeze inhis suit or out of his suit

(55:06):
that's two different actionfigures or whether the weapons
that he's using that wasdifferent sort of action figures
too or different themed playsets that they could make.
Like Bane was pretty muchsimplified to a mute henchman
because you know nuance for himdoesn't sell toys but the
biggest sort of thing was thevehicles obviously Robin with
his motorbike there was the batskates there's the Batmobiles
and then the ice themed vehiclesat the end like there was just

(55:28):
so much marketable toy featuresfrom this movie because
previously on Batman Foreverthey'd made a lot of their bulk
money from those toy sales.
So Warner Brothers doubled downbasically so another thing was
like marketing overload if youremember like the McDonald's
promotions the toy and obviouslyexclusive ads the animation
style commercials that came outcross promotion across video

(55:51):
games and things like that hadan impact but I feel like all of
these things obviously impactedcreatively because the plot came
became thin the charactersturned into caricatures there
was no emotional stakes and itwas undercut by lots of puns and
jokes it became very campy andobviously it was it was directed
towards children so older fansfelt alienated and then critics

(56:13):
pretty much bombed it.
But yeah ironically apparentlythe toy driven approach actually
hurt the brand so when we'retalking about failure isn't
final we can talk about the factthat having that approach
actually did hurt the film morethan it helped the film and you
can you can even retort it backto that famous Batman line that
we know you know why do we fallso we can learn to pick

(56:35):
ourselves back up.
And obviously they did thatbecause this franchise was iced
a lot of the planned sequelswere cancelled there was
supposed to be a movie comingout after this called Batman
Unchained which was supposed tofeature the scarecrow and then
Chris O'Donnell's also gone onthe record to say that they were
going to do a Nightwing spin-offall cancelled as a result but
later through the years I thinkit was 15 years later obviously

(56:58):
Nolan attached to it and createdone of the most critically
acclaimed Batman trilogies ofall time so why do we fall so we
can learn to pick ourselves backup.
But the most controversialaspect of this entire film brash
can you guess what it was hassomething to do with the suits.
Oh the rubber suits nibbles yeahbaby it's the nibbles so yes so
the more anatomically correctsuits apparently it was all the

(57:21):
buzz but I've I've watchedinterviews with like George
Clooney, Chris O'Donnell andalso Joel Schumacher and when
they were making those I waslike I didn't really think it
was a big idea big deal becauseJoel Schumacher's very famous
for using human figures andbodies in his works like we
looked at a lot of his scenesand set design from the Phantom
of the Opera and also throughoutGotham City you can see these

(57:41):
Greek statuesque figures justsort of all like extremely
athletic looking like figures ofof men and women just adorning
the city of Gotham and thenobviously there's these
anatomical nipples on thebatsuit because that's exactly
what they wanted to do.

SPEAKER_02 (57:59):
But like the original it's just it's just a
weird feature to have it's likeit's like seeing someone in like
medieval armour and then havingnipples on their breast exactly
I think it's yeah I guess so Imean like there are theme ones
like that you like they do dothat on some theme ones to make

(58:21):
them sell like to make it looklike it is ages.

SPEAKER_00 (58:24):
And I suppose that's probably what they were going
for but I'm like no it's goingto be the bat suit not the bat
human flesh look alike yeah no Ithink it like Schumacher openly
has said that he he likes theglam of it.
I don't mind Robin's suit inthis I think it does move more
towards that night wing asopposed to Batman forever where

(58:44):
he was in the circus attire Ididn't like Nightwing with the
Robin with the cape though.
I think that could have gone butit's very classical Greek and
Roman sort of statues and thatidealized male anatomy but also
for like going back to the toypoint each toy had to be
different and then sculpteddifferently and Schumacher
actually said it it became anissue the only time he ever

(59:07):
thought about the nipples wasobviously when they introduced
that girl because he's like howare we going to do this?
Because if I if I do it the sameway as the guys it'll seem a
little bit perverse and if Idon't include them it might not
be inclusive.
So obviously AliciaSilverstone's suit was was a
little bit different but theystill kept that sort of same
aesthetic throughout but I thinktonally it damaged the film that

(59:28):
undercut all the dramatic scenesit made Batman feel like a bit
of a parody and you know it gavecritics a little bit of a
shorthand you know becauseeverybody was complaining about
the the nipples on the Batsuitover everything else.
So but this movie yes Batman andRobin definitely killed any kind
of sequel it definitely isworthy of our failure isn't
final theme arc.

(59:49):
Let's go to our communitythoughts because on our threads
we put up a post that said tellme one good thing about Batman
and Robin and tell me one badthing about Batman and Robin.
So we had a few people Commenton this.
First, we had Reese DanielThompson who said honestly
Schwarzenegger was pretty greatas freeze, but Batgirl had no
business being in the movie.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:08):
I mean, and that that's like that's sort of like
um because it it is odd becauseshe comes in like right like
well you do see she comes in asa character, but she doesn't
actually.
No, not really.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:19):
And where I think it's again back to that
marketing for a toy.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:22):
Yeah.
And I I would much prefer hercoming in at the very start of
the movie.
Yeah.
And having some sort of role inthe movie, rather than just
adding another character, thecharacters to just probably just
for inclusion's sake.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:37):
Yeah, well I I have seen that Joel Schumacher has
said that the reason she wasincluded was obviously to appeal
to the young girls in the in theaudience to to widen that that
fan base, because basically inthe Batman universe, the only
people they have to look at wasPoison Ivy and Catwoman, and
they're not really role models,you could say.
So whereas in this movie, AliciaSilverstone does play Batgirl to

(01:00:59):
be a little bit more progressivefor the 90s, you could say.
So maybe that was the reason.
But again, I think they've doneit tokenistically and not to
very much effect because she'sonly in it for 13 minutes screen
time or whatever it is, and andnot effective at all.
So we had another person, RustyButton 42, that said, I loved
that Robin is basically in theNightwing costume in it.

(01:01:19):
I hate that his Nightwingcostume had a cape, and I'll
always love the stupid BatmanForever reference with the
credit card, is both good andbad at the same time.
So yeah, you know how it saidBatman credit card valid until
forever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But yeah, I think that added tothe camp of it.
But we had Sean Solo 3000 thatsaid Clooney's Bruce Wayne was
spot on.

(01:01:40):
His scenes with Alfred were thebest of the movie.
Clooney's Batman is simply thesame thing, which is not good
for Batman.
It's like the Adam West 97parody version.
Keaton, Kilmer, Bale, Affleck,and Pattinson all played Bruce
and Batman differently, butClooney didn't, and he thought
that was yuck.
And lastly, we had ScholacticusMaximus, who said one good thing
about the movie was Bane, andone bad thing about the movie

(01:02:03):
was that Bane was in it in thisway.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:06):
Yeah, because we said that like we were talking
about that earlier.
Like we have different degreevariations of what we thought
about Bane, but I liked how Banelooked and just hated everything
else about Bane.
And even I went as far as to sayI hated Bane in the Noller
movies.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:24):
Yeah, which I disagree with.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:26):
But I liked how he acted and how he sounded.
I just hated how he was.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:31):
I liked everything about Hardy's.
And the fact he didn't haveVenom.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:33):
Bam, he didn't have the Ben.
He's not Bane, he's just a bigdude in a fucking gas mart.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:38):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:40):
Bane without Venom is not Bane.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:42):
Well, I think again, he he was a character that was
added purely for merchandisingand toy sales.
You could say that he was themuscle to poison Ivy, and she
even admits that as a characterlike I'm the beauty and he's the
brawn.
Like that was the line.
I think that yeah, he's he's acharacter that he could have
been just henchman number three.
It didn't have to be Bane.
Yeah, so I think he was a hitand a miss for this one as well.

(01:03:04):
So all right, let's let's rateit ourselves, Brash.
You can go first.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:08):
Yeah, watching this again.
I mean for nostalgia's sake,one.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:17):
Very fair.
I think for me, if I'm gonna domy rating, I'll probably give it
a one as well.
For nostalgia's sake, because itwas a movie that I watched a lot
as a child and all likeeverything that we've talked
about before.
I think George Clooney isprobably, no offense, George, if
you're listening, my leastfavorite Batman.
And the only thing I really dolike about it is I do like the

(01:03:39):
Robin character in this and Ilike how he's portrayed, but I
do think Chris O'Donnell is abit old, so I'm giving it a one
as well.
I think it's funny that eventhough we're we're completely
opposite on the things that welike and hate about this movie,
we both still rated it a one.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:53):
Well, because my what the things I liked you
didn't like and the things thatyou liked I didn't like.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:58):
Yeah.
Well what was your what was yourfavorite thing about this movie,
Brash?
What was your favorite thing?
And you can't say the ice punts.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:08):
My my favorite thing, I think, from from this
movie, like besides besidesAlfred 2 because Alfred, I like
I like Alfred.
I I have to say I liked Iactually like the action in this
compared because compared to theother Bat like the other
Batmans, because of the suits,and I'm sure that even in these

(01:04:29):
suits are fucking horrible.
The action was always reallystunted.
Stunted because of the lack ofmovement and the whole meme of
the Batman looking around.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:40):
Yeah, his whole head turns.
Well they they actually theyeven addressed that in Batman
Begins, didn't they?
Yeah.
They said, you know, I need tobe able to turn my head and not
get stabbed by bullets.
That was something that wassaid.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:52):
But um, yeah, so I can argue they did pretty well
uh in terms of like choreographyand action.
Some of it did look a bitridiculous still.
I mean i and sliding down thethe dinosaur.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:04):
The dinosaur, yabba dabba do.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:05):
Yabba, that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:08):
They had they had some cool motions.
I can agree like them like onthe doors of the exploded rocket
and they're travel when they'retraveling down like they're
surfing, air surfing.
Like, yeah, was it you're you'reskydiving with the surfboards
and shit.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:21):
Honestly, I can see why it appealed to me as a kid
because yeah, those actionsequences is what you watch a
Batman movie for.
And like the characters arecompletely caricatured, which is
easy for kids to understand.
I you know, I probably will showthis movie to my son just for
like an entry-level Batman.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:37):
And just sit there and just staring and just look
at his facial expressionsthroughout the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:41):
Yeah, see what happens.
Yeah, we'll see see how he runswith it.
But I think my favorite thing inthis movie was apart from the
action, the sound effects thatwas coupled with the action,
like you see people slip overand it's like that classic
whoop, or somebody like getslike popped off, and like the
you know, the sound of thediamonds squelching across the
floor, and you know, when thethe rockets explode and things

(01:06:02):
like that.
Like, yeah, I think you know,there's a lot of fun things
about this movie when you don'tlook at it too seriously, but
yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:07):
Also, the Batman Bill the Bat I mean the
Batmanville's alright.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:10):
No, I still prefer in this one.
The original Batmanmobile.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:13):
The original Batmanville.
Oh, that's that is my BatmanBill.
I love that Batmanville so much.
Big pins.
The thing is, like the one Ididn't like about this one was
the fact that it had no canopy.
You just sort of jumped in it,and he's like, you see his head
poked out the top, he's tryingto look at it.
Yeah, they kind of they wantedto make it more Formula One.
Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.
It looked it looked reallyFormula One.
I still sort of half like thestyle of it and even my Robin's

(01:06:35):
motorcycle, which I like that hehad his own motorbike, that was
pretty cool.
Fat cycle and everything likethat.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:40):
But yeah, the uh see all the stuff that we like are
things that we probably liked asa kid.
Yeah.
And the reason why WarnerBrothers did this was because
obviously you'd want to go andbuy all these things that we're
talking about that are cool.
So without any further ado,Brash, is this better or worse
than Aragon?
I'm probably gonna say it'sworse.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:59):
I'm gonna say I was gonna say it's better.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:01):
Yeah, but you're personally attached to Aragon as
to why.
I think look, I'm happy to putit better because we've got a
bit of nostalgia connection toit.
So it is ranked at number 30,pushing Aragon into Batman and
Robin sits at number 30 on ourfandom portals honor board.
And that will end our episodehere on Batman and Robin.
This one has been a communitypick from you guys.

(01:07:22):
We want to thank everybody forvoting, and we want to thank all
our threads people forcommenting and contributing to
our episode.
If you wanted to be a part ofthat, make sure you join our
socials on Instagram and onthreads.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys andgirls who listen, this is our
second last episode for theyear, which means our next
episode, which will be ourChristmas episode, will be the

(01:07:43):
last for 2025.
So make sure you jump on oursocials to vote for which
Christmas movie we will becovering on the podcast.
And therefore, it will be thelast entry onto our fandom
portals honor board for thisyear.
Because Brash and I have decidedthat we will be restarting in
the new year with our honorboard, which means that final
positions will be final,finalized.

(01:08:06):
Yeah.
So thank you so much, everybody,for joining, and thank you for
voting for this episode.
Thank you, Batman, for being awonderful topic to discuss.
But let's go into ourgratitudes.
My gratitude this week is fortransferable skills, I will say.
Everybody on this podcast knowsI'm a gridiron player, and I
went and tried something newthis morning.
I went and tried to playbaseball, and there was a couple

(01:08:28):
of transferable skills that didnot make me look like an idiot.
So that was good.
That's what I'm grateful for.
And grateful for startingsomething new in the form of
baseball.
So what's your gratitudes,Brash?

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:37):
So I'm grateful for John Cena.
Yeah.
Because as of what our recordingthis today, tomorrow is his
final match at Southern Artsmain event before he retires
against Quintur.
So I want to thank John Cena forthe many, many, many years of
his performances in WWE and justwait pretty much carried that

(01:08:57):
carried the WWE for so long.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:00):
Yeah, especially through the late 2000 tens slash
early twenties.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:05):
And all the work he's done with the many
charities, including the two andthe Make a Wish Foundation,
where he's still the top Make aWish Foundation person.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:15):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you, John Cena.
Thank you, John Cena.
All right.
This is Aaron signing off.
Right saying bye.
Keep learning, keep growing, andkeep loving phantoms, guys.

All Episodes

Batman & Robin (1997) Love is Not a Weakness | Failure Isn't Final

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Batman & Robin (1997) Love is Not a Weakness | Failure Isn't Final