A Colony of Bats

 I have lots of horribly delayed posts, but there’s been so much Bat-news, and we all know I’m batty for Bats, so I couldn’t resist.

In choosing the format of the post, I have gone for the path of least incoherence. Least does not mean that there isn’t a lot of squeaky prose and exclamation marks below.

(Tumblr peeps will already have seen bits of this in a subtly different order)

Batfleck

Another thing which is not a secret is how much I loved Batfleck in Dawn of Justice. Afterwards, I wanted a solo Batfleck film so much. Reports of Joe Manganiello playing Deathstroke only encouraged me, even if Deathstroke wasn’t any of the villains I wanted, because I figured I’d already seen my villains on the big screen and it was time to let someone else see theirs.

And then … nothing.

Until there was the news that there *would* be a new Batman film but it would not feature Ben Affleck. I made my peace with that also (about which, more later).

But now, there will be more Batfleck, but not in his own film, but in the Flash’s. I am starting to feel that they are tormenting me deliberately.

JUST GIVE ME A DAMN BATFLECK SOLO FILM.

New Batman (are we okay with RBattz for this?)

Firstly, I rate Robert Pattinson as an actor, I’ve seen The Haunting of Toby Jugg which more than convinced me. So, I was cool with him as Batman. Admittedly, when I first heard he was going to be in a Batman film, I presumed he was going to be the Riddler, but you know, young, solid actor as Batman, that had potential.

Potential for Batman Beyond. That was what I hoped for when I heard the casting, Pattinson as Terry McGinnis with Michael Keaton as an aging Bruce Wayne, in the old Burton sets surround by vivid neon futurism. (Leave me my dreams, they are fun and have excellent cinematography.)

But you know, I got used to the idea of Pattinson playing Bruce Wayne and accepted it.

Then they announced the villains.

No-one can convince me that they didn’t take the names of three actors they wanted to work with and three characters they wanted in the film and then pulled character names out of a hat to decide who got what role. Because you can’t tell me that Paul Dano wouldn’t make an excellent Penguin, I had previously assumed Robert Pattison was the Riddler and Colin Farrell as Bruce Wayne is a swoon-worthy idea.

But again, I achieved calm on the matter. Messrs Dano, Farrell and Pattinson would do an excellent job, no matter how peculiar I found the casting.

Then I saw photos of RBattz and OMG!! He looks so much like Terry McGinnis and I want Batman Beyond so much more than the film they are selling.

On that point, in general, DC seem to have decided their identity is “Not Marvel” which strikes me as a particularly negative proposition. While Marvel have got stick for the colour palettes of their films, they still look a lot better than DC’s films. I know the person who liked the first Suicide Squad film has no right to an opinion since their taste is intrinsically wonky, but I really don’t have an interest in any of DC’s new films.