comment #1

actionman says ...

Wow, that was bizarre. This can't be a coincidence, can it?

comment #2

storymark says ...

Wasn't the trailer for the Burton Bat-flick the first to really bring people in "just for the trailer"? A bit of a nod to that.

Clearly it's intentional. I'm just surprised it took so long for someone to put them side-by-side like that. That Dark Knight trailer's been out for a few months.

comment #3

Scott Mendelson says ...

First off, I'm under the impression that the Batman trailer is fake, editied together to resemble the Dark Knight trailer. The original 1989 Batman trailer was not that montage and actually seems almost dated in compared to the narrative style of modern trailers.

Second off, it does bring up an interesting point.. For all the hub-bub about how dark and violent The Dark Knight is supposed to be, we all forget how insanely violent the original Burton Batman was in 1989. We have an onscreen or mentioned offscreen body count near the triple digits, mostly all civilians and cops, and at three scenes of mass civilian crowds being slaughtered for sport (the machine massacre at the city hall steps, the gassing of the museum, and the climactic gassing of the partygoers).

Point being, Ledger is not the first Joker to portray him as a heartless mass murderer. Heck, if you count Mark Hamill (still my favorite onscreen Joker, and one who racked up quite a body count from 1992-2003, albeit often in the subtle don't let the parents notice manner of afternoon cartoons), Ledger is the third. He may be terrific, but he'll have to do something more than kill people and laugh about it to be truly groundbreaking.

Scott Mendelson

comment #4

BlueBomm says ...

Well... this isn't the original Batman trailer. At all. It's just footage from the first film edited together to match the Dark Knight trailer.

Still, really interesting to see all the similarly-used iconography here. Maybe even kind of telling. Burton's movie is so good... maybe there really wasn't all that much left for Nolan to reimagine? Or maybe Nolan isn't all people make him out to be?

We'll see. We'll see.

comment #5

Jeffrey Kunze says ...

Does Spiderman fight crime in NYC or just a fictional city similar to it?

comment #6

Rich S. says ...

The theater I worked in during 1989 played the Burton Batman trailer several times an hour. That's not it. In fact, if they had the sound up on the "1989 trailer," you'd probably see that it made absolutely no sense.

There are a lot of apparent similarities between the two films, to be sure. But they don't extend to the trailer.

comment #7

Richardson says ...

Wasn't the big reveal scene in 'Batman Begins', where he beats people up mysteriously in the shadows and then appears suddenly behind the crook, also lifted from the opening of 'Batman'?

"if you count Mark Hamill (still my favorite onscreen Joker, and one who racked up quite a body count from 1992-2003, albeit often in the subtle don't let the parents notice manner of afternoon cartoons"

I think they actually tended to fudge it so that he didn't actually kill people on the show. The censors took a lot of the edge off of Hammil's Joker.

comment #8

donam says ...

just noticed that in the scene where maggie gyllenhaal appears, the voiceover says: "the right choice." a dig at katie holmes?

comment #9

actionman says ...

I was nine years old when my father took me to see Burton's first Batman so I would never have remembered the trailer.

But yeah, it makes sense that it's a fake trailer.

comment #10

Richardson says ...

"Does Spiderman fight crime in NYC or just a fictional city similar to it?"

Pretty much all Marvel comics are set in New York City, with a few specific exceptions.

comment #11

Scott Mendelson says ...

While Batman The Animated Series was on Fox, they had to be very careful about people getting killed, but they still found ways here and there (lines like 'if he wakes up' or 'they haven't found a body yet'). But, once the show went to the WB, the gloves came off. Onscreen deaths galore, The Joker wiping out a couple dozen packed skyscrapers in downtown Metropolis, even In a dream sequence) Batgirl falling off a building and landing on Gordon's car. Truth be told, I'll be shocked if Ledger's Joker does anything as diabolically cruel as what happened to Tim Drake in Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker.

Scott Mendelson

comment #12

Rich S. says ...

Scott, I accidentally caught Return of the Joker during one of those "free preview" weekends for HBO Family(!) I was stunned how brutal and scary it was. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

comment #13

Arran says ...

Actual trailer for the Burton Batman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unkqbgLDgaI

That side-by-side is a skilful piece of work, but it's not even close to the real trailer.

comment #14

Josh Massey says ...

That got me for about 30 seconds. Clever.

comment #15

Jamieson says ...

Yeah that's not the Batman 89 trailer, it's intentionally cut by the mashup artist to suit his mashup. *Yawn*. That's College Humor for ya.

comment #16

Peter T Chattaway says ...

The dead giveaway that the 1989 trailer is a fake is the way it steals a wordy title card from the opening credits to parallel the DC Comics Logo in the 2008 trailer. No trailer would ever have included anything like that.

comment #17

ZacharyTF says ...

Look at the green screen at the beginning of the 89 trailer. You'll noticed that they left in the website addresses. I noticed that right away and knew it was a fake.

I look at it more as a jab at how movie trailers give away a lot nowaday vs. 20 years ago. I'm looking in your direction, Mr. Zemeckis.....

comment #18

Richardson says ...

"While Batman The Animated Series was on Fox, they had to be very careful about people getting killed, but they still found ways here and there (lines like 'if he wakes up' or 'they haven't found a body yet')."

Yeah; I never noticed it as a kid, but it's on cable a lot, and somebody pointed it out to me at some time in the interim, and now I find it really obvious and jarring that The Joker is never allowed to explicitly kill anybody. Even is Joker gas wears off. I feel like even the Cesar Romero Joker was allowed more bloodlust.

"But, once the show went to the WB, the gloves came off. "

Okay, you got me, I didn't last that long, but that really interests me, because it was always the one flaw in the Hammill Joker...

comment #19

Aladdin Sane says ...

Batman: TAS was awesome. I have the 4 DVD sets to boot. I didn't get into Batman Beyond mind you. Anyhow, Hammil's Joker as of right now remains my favourite. I think Mask of the Phantasm remains the best Batman film that's been released theatrically.

As for comparisons between TDK and Burton's Batman, of course they're going to happen. You're mining the same material in the Joker. IIRC, Joker yells at Batman in Burton's film to "hit me you SOB." So yeah, whether it's intentional or not, Nolan's thrown a similar line in the trailer.

People do love the original Batman afterall - even if it hasn't aged particularly well. Don't get me wrong, I quite like it still, but it's not as good as it was when I was eight or so (I always did prefer Batman Returns).

This will be moot come July 18th. Either the film works on its own merits or it won't. Still it can't come soon enough.

comment #20

fielding says ...

Yeah, it's OK, but Jeff, you should have known immediately that the Batman trailer's a fake.

comment #21

Kristopher Tapley says ...

The first Batman trailer in 89 was so shitty because people were going apeshit about the Keaton casting. They had to throw something together and toss it out to the fans so they'd see that it was working out just fine.

As for this splicing, kind of brilliant.

comment #22

A.H. says ...

Yeah, I remember even at the time thinking that the original '89 trailer was pretty sloppily put together, with no music and some jarring cuts. On the other hand, I liked the feeling it gave -- that they were obviously busy working on something big and just gave us a little peek at it. That's how a trailer should be.