Batman (film): Difference between revisions

{{work}}

 

{{quote|'''Batman:''' I'm not going to kill you. I want you to do me a favor: I want you to tell all your friends about me.

'''Batman:''' [[My Name Is Inigo Montoya|...I'm Batman.]] }}

 

 

Sequels included ''[[Batman Returns]]'', ''[[Batman Forever]]'' and ''[[Batman and Robin (film)|Batman and Robin]]''.

 

----

* [[Anti-Hero]]: Batman is not a stranger to this trope, but unlike most other incarnations, Burton's Batman has no problem with ''killing'' people (supervillains and Mooks alike), pushing him towards [[Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes|Type IV-territory]].

* [[Art Attacker]]: The Joker describes himself as this: "I'm the world's first fully functioning homicidal artist. I make art until someone dies."

* [[Ass Shove]] / [[Toilet Humor]]: "This town needs an enema!"

* [[Ax Crazy]]: The Joker, as usual. Though the film implies that Jack Napier was crazy to begin with. (He seems positively genteel compared to [[The Dark Knight|Heath Ledger's interpretation of the character..]])

* [[Badass Grandpa]]: Commissioner Gordon, although in subsequent films he suffers [[Badass Decay]].

* [["BANG!" Flag Gun]]: Naturally, the Joker has one.

* [[Berserk Button]]: '''''"HE STOLE MY BALLOONS!!!!!"'''''

* [[Bizarrchitecture]]: Anton Furst's Gotham practically exemplifies this.

* [[Bloodstained-Glass Windows]]: Batman's final confrontation against The Joker takes place on top of Gotham Cathedral. .

* [[Buffy-Speak]]: After Batsy foils his scheme to poison the entire city with the Batplane, the usually eloquent Joker splutters: "Why didn't somebody tell me he had one of those....things?!"

* [[But for Me It Was Tuesday]]: Played with.

'''Joker:''' I was a kid when I killed your parents. When I said "I made you", you gotta say "you made me"! How childish can you get? }}

* [[Camera Sniper]]: When Vicki spots Bruce visiting the spot where his parents died, the camera goes into this style.

* [[Captive Date]]: The Joker and Vicki Vale.

* [[Charity Ball]]: The Casino Night variant.

* [[Dull Surprise]]: Kim Basinger as Vicky Vale, especially when {{spoiler|she meets Bruce in the Batcave, and later when the Batplane gets shot down.}} [[Roger Ebert]] chided the former sequence, asking why Vicki's reaction was so mundane.

** Can be justified if you subscribe to the theory that Vicki had already figured out Bruce Wayne's secret while reading about his parents' murders with Allie at the office, and had obviously given herself time to come to terms with the truth before heading for Wayne Manor. (Indeed, sharp-eyed viewers will notice that Vicki is wearing a different outfit in the Batcave than at the office, proving that she at least took time out to change her clothes.)

* [[Electric Joy Buzzer]]: "Antoine got a little hot under the collar!"

* [[Elite Mook]]: The mook at the top of the bell tower smacks Batman around pretty well for a little while.

* [[Enemy Mime]]: The Joker's goons masquerade as mimes at the courthouse.

* [[Eureka Moment]]: Vicki may have had one after seeing the news clipping of the murder of Bruce's parents.

{{quote|'''Knox:''' ''(to Vicki)'' What do you suppose something like this does to a kid?}}

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: The mob was legitimately horrified about Jack Napier/Joker's actions during the mob meeting.

** Jack's partner didn't anticipate him shooting at Bruce's parents.

* [[Everything's Better with Bob]]: It's ''Bob'', man. He's our number one guy!

* [[Evil Is Petty]]: To the Joker, anything can be countenanced by society - or, at least, ''should'' be countenanced - as long as it is [[Rule of Funny|funny]]; and if it is what one would presumably call a "misdeed," the question of whether it results in great suffering or mere irritation is simply irrelevant. So the Joker goes about doing every "naughty" thing he can think of, just to see what will happen as a result. For example: He electrocutes a fellow gangster just so he can make a [[Incredibly Lame Pun|bad pun]] and "comically" talk to the corpse. He hijacks a television broadcast with an irreverent "commercial" taunting Gothamites for having unwittingly bought poisoned household items. [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|He sends the girl he lusts after a jack-in-the-box that pops up with a handful of dead flowers, which causes her to faint because she was expecting something far more deadly.]]

** The film is notable as being one of the earliest examples of a work that tries to subvert the idea that the Joker is [[Insanity Defence|criminally insane]] and isn't responsible for his actions , an idea that only really emerged in the 70's itself. Like ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'', it does so by making him a violent criminal even before he had his toxic bath, though in this one he is killed before we find out if he would have been thrown in an insane asylum rather than prison (the animated one gets the asylum, but [[Word of God]] is that its only because he's managed to ''convince'' people that he's crazy, rather than actually being as crazy as he pretends).

{{quote|'''Bruce Wayne''':(reading profile) ''"Jack Napier, assault with a deadly weapon, age fifteen. Results of psychological profile: Violent mood swings, highly intelligent, emotionally unstable. Aptitudes include science, chemistry, and art."''}}

** The earliest example is the muggers at the beginning. One isn't pleased his buddy turned a gun on the kid. Guess which one gets put through wall.

* [[Go Out with a Smile]]: The Joker's Smilex poison is [[Die Laughing|all about this]], and as the trope entry reminds us, he goes out this way himself. (Though considering his smile is a scar, he didn't have any real choice in the matter.)

* [[Kick the Dog]]: Losing your balloons is a sad thing. We'll give you that, Joker, but shooting Bob afterwards was still a dick move.

** Also an [[Ironic Echo]]. Joker gave Bob a warning/death sentence earlier in the film when he imitated his own treacherous boss, calling Bob his "Number one guy". Now that's the Joker's kind of punchline.

* [[Kung Fu-Proof Mook]]: One of the Joker's mooks actually gives as good as he gets from Batman. Then Batman kills him.

* [[Lack of Empathy]]: {{spoiler|When Batman revealed to The Joker that he murdered his parents, thus meaning that The Joker made him first, The Joker mocks Batman for the way he explained it, cumulating in "How childish can you get!?"}}

** Then Bruce Wayne himself turns up and picks up a poker. "''Let's get nuts!''"

* [[Little No]]: Batman said it after Vicki Vale asked that all products are poisoned.

* [[Mad Scientist]]: The Joker has shades of this as it is implied that he created the binary compound (CIA files on a nerve agent classified DDID) for the Smilex poison.

* [[Malevolent Mugshot]]: Done a lot with the Joker's face.

* [[Police Are Useless]]: Despite Joker being a known murderer and psychopath, and publicly broadcasting the time and place of his whereabouts for the evening, the police force take absolutely no measures to respond to this until ''after'' he has already killed ''dozens'' of Gothamites and proceeded with his escape plan. Sure certain Gotham police are corrupt, but surely that can't mean the entire force is so incompetent?

** This was explained in the shooting script and the novelization, both of which make clear that Joker had laced the police department's coffee with a paralytic (but non-lethal) toxin that physically incapacitated most of Gotham's finest.

* [[Pragmatic Adaptation]]: A number of changes between the film and the comic appear to have been made for the sake of drama and the tone they were trying to set. Notably, making The Joker and Joe Chill a [[Composite Character]], and making Batman use much more violent, possibly lethal methods, rather than having him hew to his [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]] stance.

* [[Psychotic Smirk]]: [[The Joker]], and surprisingly, Batman too. Two notable examples: when he says, "I'm Batman" to the initial mook, then when Jack Napier comments "Nice outfit".

* [[Rage Against the Reflection]]: As part of the buildup to the reveal of the Joker's face, he asks for a (hand) mirror to see the results of the surgery he got from a [[Back-Alley Doctor]]. The audience doesn't see the reflection, but when he does, he [[Evil Laugh|evilly laughs]] [[Laughing Mad|for the first time]] as he smashes the mirror. (This was later parodied in ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode that was the trope namer for [[Lisa Needs Braces]], when she got the ridiculously old-fashioned ones.)

* [[Ret Canon]]: The [[Grappling Hook Pistol|Grapple Gun]] from the film has since been adopted into the comic book canon and other Batman media, including ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]''.

* [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job]]: While touring Bruce Wayne's mansion with Vicki during a charity party, Alexander Knox voices his opinion that Wayne is nothing but a vain, pompous fool. He does not know that at that very moment, Bruce is preparing to transform into Batman in order to go stop the mob from sanitizing its front company paper trail.

* [[Rooftop Confrontation]]

* [[Shock and Awe]]: Joker's lethal joy buzzer.

* [[Shoot the Television]]: Done twice by the Joker. The first is when he takes a boxing glove gun to the TV for mention of Batman in connection to an assassination that Joker pulled off on one of Grissom's underbosses, demanding to know, "What kind of a world we live in where a man dressed up as a bat gets all of my press?!" The second time, Joker shoots the television screen with a real gun after learning on the news that his poisoning scheme involving beauty products has been foiled by the Batman.

* [[Silly Song]]: "Partyman"

* [[Small Name, Big Ego]]: Alexander Knox is set up as one, but he's mostly an aversion (if not an outright ''in''version). He fancies himself a great investigative reporter, even though he famously has a "useless reputation" and though [[All of the Other Reindeer|his coworkers at the Gotham Globe offices relentlessly mock him for being one of the few people in Gotham City who actually believes in Batman]]. In addition, when he meets Vicki Vale and is instantly smitten with her, he arrogantly asks if she has come to photograph him nude, and boasts that in that case she will need a long lens. But Vicki actually ends up ''liking'' Allie despite his more annoying qualities, and in the end he is vindicated when the people of Gotham come to realize that he was right about Batman after all. The nearest Knox gets to a [[Break the Haughty]] is when Vicki accidentally hits him with a car during a panicked stampede in the streets and he falls off the hood and into a pile of garbage in an alley.

* [[Stupid Statement Dance Mix]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxySK01v1os Batdance]

* [[Talking to the Dead]]: The Joker does this to Antoine Rotelli's fried corpse shortly after dismissing the mob summit (He was the one who murdered Rotelli with a joy buzzer.), and he apparently is "told" by Rotellei's corpse to "grease" the mob bosses immediately, to which Joker complies and responds "You are such a vicious bastard, Rotelli, and I'm glad you're dead" before laughing hysterically.

* [[Tempting Fate]]: A crooked police lieutenant to Jack Napier near the film's beginning: "The future? You mean when you run the show? You ain't got no future, Jack!" (This culminates in an [[Ironic Echo]] at the factory, {{spoiler|when Napier kills the lieutenant with a single shot}}.)

* [[That Man Is Dead]]: Used in the reveal of the Joker's face. "Jack is dead, my friend. You can call me...Joker. And as you can see, I'm a whole lot happier."

** The original line was a lot more blunt and angrier, with the Joker stepping out of the shadows and shouting, [[Precision F-Strike|"DO I LOOK LIKE FUCKING JACK?!"]]

* [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]]: Averted, which may come as quite a shock to younger tropers more used to the modern ''Batman'' films where this trope is enforced. In fact, this movie is an attempt to return to the [[Characterization Marches On|earliest version]] of Batman's character, where he did kill.

** Most notable in the ending of the licensed NES game, where Batman ''[[OOC Is Serious Business|directly throws Joker off the cathedral roof to his death]]''. Something got lost in translation, perhaps?

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Half of Gotham seems to be this way. It was already common knowledge that the Joker had murdered many people, but that didn't stop them from diving at the cash he offered in public. He even said into a microphone, "Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives," but they're too engrossed to listen. A minute later, many are dead. And some who aren't dead yet still grab for cash.

* [[Un Confession]]: Bruce Wayne tries to tell Vicki Vale that he's Batman, but he's interrupted by the arrival of the Joker.

* [[Unflinching Faith in the Brakes]]: Batman tells the Batmobile to stop, and it does... JUST in time.

* [[Undying Loyalty]]: Bob is the kind of staunchly loyal henchman that most any villain would be grateful to have, which makes Joker's shooting of him a major [[Kick the Dog]] moment.

* [[Victoria's Secret Compartment]]: [[Stealth Pun|Vicky]] Vale unsuccessfully tries to hide the photo of Batman in her blouse.

* [[Villainy Discretion Shot]]: This is obvious in the first film with the Joker.

* [[Villainous Crush]]: Joker to Vicky Vale.

* [[Weaponized Car]]: The Batmobile.

* [[Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?]]: True of every incarnation of [[Batman]], but Jack Nicholson's Joker is the [[Trope Namer]].

** Sadly, we never got to see the second part of this. The Joker turns to his goons and says, "Well, don't just stand there--go ''ask'' him!!"

* [[White Mask of Doom]]: Alicia wears one after the Joker transforms her into a living "artistic masterpiece" (he [[Facial Horror|corrodes half of her face]]).

* [[Wicked Cultured]]: The Joker enjoys classical (or at least orchestral) music, and he plays it on three "romantic" occasions: Percy Faith's "A Summer Place" while meeting Vicki in a museum café; Stephen Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer" while bringing some flowers (which, in a vile twist, are already wilted) to Vicki's apartment; and a sentimental waltz while he is, uh, ravishing Vicki on the roof of the city's Gothic cathedral. Interestingly, the latter piece - Danny Elfman's "Waltz to the Death" - is actually quite beautiful and grand, and [[Light Is Not Good|would be completely innocent were it not exclusively associated with a disfigured mass murderer]]. He also quotes Edgar Allan Poe to Vicki in one scene - and, fittingly, it is a line from "The Raven," which is about a deceased sweetheart. (Joker had murdered his previous love interest, Alicia, in order to free himself up for Vicki.)

*** For the evulz, or to bring them up to his own twisted sense of aesthetic standard? After all, when he brings Alicia in, she says "Jack, you said I could watch you improve the paintings."

* [[Wild Mass Guessing]]: Jack Napier's partner on the night Bruce's parents were murdered is either Bob the Goon or Joe Chill.

* [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]]: In the fight at the Axis Chemical Plant, Batman ''deflects'' a ''bullet'' off of his ''steel gauntlet.'' I don't know which makes less sense; deflecting a bullet, or going around wearing steel gauntlets. Can bullets be deflected by steel anyway?

* {{spoiler|[[Would Hurt a Child]]: Jack Napier attempted to murder Bruce Wayne shortly after [[You Killed My Father|he murdered his parents]]. Although he ultimately didn't go through with it due to his accomplice, the mere fact that he attempted to do so, and gave a nightmarish grin while doing so indicates that Jack Napier had absolutely no problem hurting or murdering children.}}

* [[You Killed My Father|You Killed My Parents]]: [[The Joker]], while he was still Jack Napier, murdered young Bruce Wayne's parents while he was a child, and came very close to murdering Bruce Wayne himself as well that same time. The experience, just like in the comics (minus the Joker's involvement), turned Bruce Wayne into Batman, and during the final confrontation between himself and the Joker, he flat out tells Joker that Joker murdered his parents, meaning they created each other.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Films of the 1980s]]

[[Category:Hugo Award]]