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Batman: Caped Crusader (Bruce Timm/Bob Kane/Matt Reeves animated series) All episodes available on Amazon Prime 8/1/2024

LordCBH

Member
How accurate is this post I found on reddit?
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I can deal with some "modern sensibilities" in shows, but if the poster tells the truth then this feels more like an aggressive agenda from the creators.

Based on this it girlboss’d too close to the sun for me. I want a show of Batman being cool with cool villains. Not whatever this is.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
So we finished it and I jumped back to B:TAS so my kid could see it. Man, that first episode is NUTS with the animated flair, they really spent all the monies on that pilot :p

Then it jumps straight into a Batman and Robin ep with the Joker, I had forgotten how much they bounced around back then. But to see the focus difference on Batman doing stuff versus the current show where he has a lot less screen time is pretty jarring, Caped Crusader feels more like a "Batgirl: Year minus one" type show.
 
Watched the first couple of episodes, and... it's okay, I guess? It has very little that's new or interesting to say about the actual character of Batman, and seems much more interested in how many alterations it can make to the other characters in the Batman universe.

The best Batman material is always the stuff that concentrates on him... not everyone else. This feels more like using Batman as a scaffold for telling stories about other people, rather than a fresh attempt to mine Batman's character for new insight.

I may watch more. But I equally may not bother.
You didn’t like that clayface episode? That was A grade Batman material in my opinion
 
After three episodes:

- Shirley Walker's absence is a gaping hole in this show. If you're going to attempt to recreate TAS magic, you have to at least try with the music. And they didn't.
- Oswalda is dumb and not a great way to introduce an audience to a new world. This should have been filler somewhere in the middle of the season.
- Clayface episode is the best of the first three by far.
- There's no emotion or warmth to anything like the best Batman depictions have. The Bruce/ Alfred relationship is off, and Bruce/Harvey is hard to get invested in since Harvey is a complete jerk without any redeeming qualities. Just some weird creative decisions.

I'm 100x more of a Batman fan than I am of the X-Men, but so far X-Men 97 is the better show and I'm not sure it's even going to be close. Sad.
 
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The Bruce/ Alfred relationship is off, and Bruce/Harvey is hard to get invested in since Harvey is a complete jerk without any redeeming qualities.
Reach the final episode. I half-agree about Harvey.

Didn't mean to derail the thread in any way, I was just surprised by how far it ventured from "canon". I was looking forward to it as it looks very good and has that 90's TAS feel about it.
I tried to tell people multiple times that this is an elseworlds story/retelling of events (much like the Telltale game) and not canon 90s TAS. Instead, that part was ignored.

However, that’s not the problem. The post in question throws the thread in a different direction to where a multitude of people are going to use a lazy catch-all reason for every single little thing they don’t like about a show. It makes for bad critique and boring discussion.

Regardless it’s okay in the end. Like I said, I’m used to this happening in most threads so I’m just glad that for the most part my thread managed to see some good thoughts and critiques early on before the conversation changed.
 
Finished up the season, that was really good. Probably the best piece of DC animation since the DCAU ended. Not as good as BTAS of course, I wish we had 20 episode seasons again, a lot of these episodes would've benefited from being two-parters, imo why the last two episodes were the best.

I really liked this interpretation of Babs, I do hope she becomes Batgirl and Bruce Timm gets his way with Bruce and Babs becoming a thing. I think that would work well in this context more than the now-traditional Bruce/Selina pairing.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Finished up the season, that was really good. Probably the best piece of DC animation since the DCAU ended. Not as good as BTAS of course, I wish we had 20 episode seasons again, a lot of these episodes would've benefited from being two-parters, imo why the last two episodes were the best.

I really liked this interpretation of Babs, I do hope she becomes Batgirl and Bruce Timm gets his way with Bruce and Babs becoming a thing. I think that would work well in this context more than the now-traditional Bruce/Selina pairing.
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Quite frankly the barb character seems insufferable, espcially compared to Selina. But I guess they are kind of the good/bad angels for Bruce, so I can see why they would appeal to him.

But then again, he's dating that movie star and SHE is a classic Timm beauty!

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Finished the last episode the other day. Overall, things get better after the Harley episode (which was terrible), but as a whole it was pretty disappointing compared to the initial expectations.

The bad:

- The Penguin and Harley episodes were complete duds. No show is going to bat 1000 so you're allowed to miss, but it stands out more when you take multiple years to produce just 10 episodes.
- Hamish Linklater's Batman voice sounds forced, like how everyone's dad does their own goofy Bale Batman impression.
- The music is uninspired and forgettable.
- Harvey's transformation would have meant more and been more worthy of a season long arc if he wasn't already a jerk and a villain the whole time. I get that the fall from grace thing has been done before for Harvey, but maybe that's because it works? Why is Bruce even friends with this guy?
- I don't think it's totally fair to just go on and on and list the ways that it pales in comparison to a classic show like BTAS, which would be a tough standard for any new show. However, I did expect that with the talent involved that it would be at least as good as something like X-Men 97, and it really wasn't.

The good:

- Some of the action and the shots of Batman crashing through glass looks and sounds great.
- The Clayface and finale episodes stood above the rest as some quality TV.
- The kids liked it.
- I'm just glad it exists. I wasn't even sure it was going to get made after it got Zaslav'd off of HBO.
 
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Overall, things get better after the Harley episode (which was terrible), but as a whole it was pretty disappointing compared to the initial expectations.

I actually like what they did with Harley here....nearly every depiction of her is some flavor of "Mistah J's perky minion" or "sassy Suicide Squad girl", so I appreciate the effort to take a different path that still fits her background. I'll post some more thoughts on CC after I finish it, but so far I have more likes than dislikes.
 
I actually like what they did with Harley here....nearly every depiction of her is some flavor of "Mistah J's perky minion" or "sassy Suicide Squad girl", so I appreciate the effort to take a different path that still fits her background. I'll post some more thoughts on CC after I finish it, but so far I have more likes than dislikes.
I can't ding them too much for trying something different with Harley since I don't think the character has ever worked that well outside of TAS and the Arkham games. Even ignoring the (failed, in my opinion) reimagining of the character, I thought it was overall a really weak episode.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
For me the issue with Harley is A on this reimagined diverse Gotham she somehow focuses her attention on EXCLUSIVELY white men, B they try to play us to be sympathetic to her with the call to Montoya, and C she's a dumpy build as a lesbian when the voice actress looks like this...

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Finished the last episode.

What I liked:
  • The overall narrative and tone: for all the ways that Caped Crusader tries to be like TAS, this is the part they got the most right. Having the first season's story be steeped in gangster shenanigans, dirty cops, and Gotham City political maneuvering is as classic as it gets for Batman.
  • Most of the villains. CC does a lot of retooling of the familiar rogues, and it works more often than it doesn't (the only one I really didn't care for is Penguin). I also liked some of the obscure pulls....who on earth thought that we'd be seeing a Hawkman villain show up here?
  • Batman's character arc. We don't typically see Bats treating Alfred as anything less than family, but I like the idea here to make their relationship more distant initially and then gradually building on it.
What I didn't like:
  • The animation quality. This is a low budget production and it really shows sometimes. The art style sort of resembles TAS, but it falls well short when it comes to the usage of light and shadow, which is the single most iconic thing that TAS is remembered for.
  • The music. Again, no budget to throw at the soundscape.
All in all I think there's a lot of good stuff here to build on....with a proper budget and effort spent on improving the production quality, a second season could turn into something really nice. The general reception has been pretty positive, so there's a chance, at least....
 

RavageX

Member
I pretty much agree with a lot that has been said. Music is weak compared to the original series. Harvey should have been built up a bit more over some time. Same with other villain reveals....what's the rush? Wish they would take their time a bit more.

I do like that they are venturing with the old style and old villains. I think they have made Gordon kind of an idiot. Seems that way to me anyhow. Hated Penguin.

Its not grabbing me right away. I don't hate it but it isn't exciting or gripping me either.
 
For me the issue with Harley is A on this reimagined diverse Gotham she somehow focuses her attention on EXCLUSIVELY white men, B they try to play us to be sympathetic to her with the call to Montoya, and C she's a dumpy build as a lesbian when the voice actress looks like this...

HezAPG7.jpeg

Oh yeah that's what really bothers me. I'm fine with Black/Brown Women taking on roles of white women but at least make them attractive. Like I don't like Fox Fantastic Four films but at least they used Jessica Alba (She was in her prime back when those movies came out) when they decided to cast Sue Storm as a Latino Women. Women who aren't white should be insulted by this too. Like that recent Twitter post by a lefttard explaining how the Blue Hairs ruin Women of Color is a perfect example. And calling them all aunties made me crack up since that's what I think of Chloe now whenever I think of that Uncharted 4 DLC I played. She was extremely attractive in Uncharted 2 but they had to tone down the sexuality she had in that DLC for 4
 
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