"Son of Batman" Animated Feature Pre-Release Discussion (Spoilers)

[Hero Supreme]

It may not be as good as the best Batman movies in the current line (Under the Red Hood and The Dark Knight Returns) but its better than some of the more recent movies, JL: War and Superman Unbound.

 

[d3rd3vil]

Well not a bad movie. But I honestly hate it when small children seem unbeatable and too strong.

Spoiler

And Deathstroke was weak as hell. When Batman fought him in the cave he didn't do [anything]. A few strikes and he was done. That's not Deathstroke......

 

[I_Spyral]

Yeah Deathstroke was a real chump here.

Not a terrible movie, but pretty disappointing. WB Animation seems to be on a streak of disappointing movies right now.

 

[Lockjaw]

It was a C+ movie for me, not great but not bad. Also seemed more of a Damian movie than Batman but i guess considering the title that's not surprising.

Voice acting was decent and character designs were good especially Nightwings . I have mixed emotions over Deathstrokes depiction.

Spoiler

There were times were he was cold and cunning and then there were times like he's showdown with Batman.

 

[TheVileOne]

Watchable movie, nothing exceptional. It's interesting to me. Fans are constantly expressing how DC does such great animated movies, well to be honest, a lot of the recent ones have been a mixed bag.

I think Stuart Allen did a really good Damian.

Spoiler

Deathstroke, something just sounded off about him.

Good action and fight scenes. But honestly, I just don't understand Damian's sudden turn at the end. I didn't get the sense that Batman's words were getting through to him and they meant anything to him at all. I don't understand why he decided to spare Deathstroke. And his sparing Deathstroke was essentially meaningless because he left him for dead anyway.

Also Batman really didn't have much to do here really. In Under the Red Hood, the father/son relationship between Batman and Jason Todd felt much better executed.

 

[Yojimbo]

Mod Note: As long as the movie is viewed through the proper channels, discuss away, though please do with spoiler tags until the official publicized release date.

 

[Lighthammer]

Spoiler

I'm kind of surprised everyone is giving this movie such a poor rating so far. It wasn't as good as Under the Redhood, but it was pretty good.

I do admit, making Deathstroke into such a 'chump' in contrast to his current evolution on Arrow or even Teen Titans felt really subpar, but it didn't seriously detract from the movie. If TPTB were planning a bit better, I think they could have plugged in a little better villain for this movie. Considering the recent build up of Sportsmaster, he may have plugged in better then Deathstroke. Heck, they probably could of used this movie to build up Ubu a bit and made him the main villain. Deathstroke's role would have worked well for him.

I have to admit, Talia's voice really threw me off considering I grew up with Olivia Hussey's performance of her, it was hard to have her voice not sound middle eastern-ish.

That being said, does anyone get the feeling that this movie could take place in the same continuity as Under the Redhood? They both come from the same animation studios I believe and they do look similar enough. However, Jason Todd coming before Damian just seems to make sense. The only thing that is a bit off putting about this idea is the fact we haven't Tim Drake highlighted in animation since Batman Beyond; Young Justice didn't exactly 'feature him'. It almost feels like we should have gotten a Tim Drake movie first, though I do recognize the DCU movies / Tuckerverse is focusing on stories that haven't been told yet.

 

[I_Spyral]

I think Tim is kind of hard to find a really interesting story for. Dick was the first Robin and the one who best contrasts Bruce with his jovial attitude, Jason was the most tragic Robin, and Damian had this whole story to introduce him being Batman's biological son. Tim is just kind of there, he works better with Young Justice/Teen Titans than in Gotham IMO.

On another note:

Spoiler

I hated how they used the date rape thing in this version. At least in the comic, Morrison wanted to portray Talia is fully evil and unsympathetic and he said he misremembered the events of the original story Son of the Demon which is why he included that in there. Here, they try to make Talia likable, but they still keep the drugging aspect. It just sends bizarrely mixed signals.

 

[Lord Sidious]

Since this is suppose to be in the same continuity with JL War, were there any nods or mentions of War or mentions of other Supers or time frame between War in this???

Was there any scenes after the credits??

 

[Zentron]

I haven't seen this yet, the Blu-Ray isn't release until the 5th of May, but who did the animation for the movie? I don't see the Mad House logo on the cover, so I'm assuming it's Dong Woo or some place of the like!

 

[ashleesmach1]

I am looking forward to this

 

[Wag]

Well, I bought it off of Vudu and I kind of wish I didn't. I think it's one of DC's weaker DTV outings as of late. I didn't much care for the voice acting, and the movie was just mediocre. Flashpoint is still the best of the last few movies by far.

 

[Lighthammer]

Man, I'm starting to feel like I'm the only one who felt this movie was pretty decent. I won't give it the highest marks, but its certainly not bad =(.

 

[-batmat-]

Man, I'm starting to feel like I'm the only one who felt this movie was pretty decent. I won't give it the highest marks, but its certainly not bad =(.

I agree with you.

I enojoyed the movie, but it certanly has its flaws and it's not as good as the previous Batman movies. I disliked the animation, the character designs are getting more and more anime in every movie (my brother looked at the screen in a League of shadows part and he asked if I was watching Dragon Ball Z, that should tell you something). I enjoyed the story overall.

Spoiler

I hated Talia in this movie. First, her design: she looked like a generic hot woman with no recognizable facial features, and her boobs just had to be hanging out there the entire movie despicte how incredibly uncomfortable that would actually be.

Batman was weird in the movie. Talia shows up, tells Batman she drugged and raped him and they have a son and Batman just doesn't react. He's like.."OK, I'll take him" and is not mad at Talia or anything. I didn't like his design either, it looks ugly when you can notice his real ears beneath the cowl

I liked Damian in the Robin costume and Gordon's design, though.

It was weird that Akham Asylum was a copy of the one in The Batman. I liked the Two-Face cameo but the Joker one was totally ruined by that cheap laugh.

The gore level in this movie was unnecessary too, every bullet someone took it spilled a lot of blood, which was an exageration.

Damian was invencible. Deathstroke cut a hole in each of Damian's arm and that seemed like didn't affect him.

I do liked the story, and that saved the movie for me. From Deathstroke's scheme including the Man-Bats and kidnapping Langstrom, it got me interested.

Overall, I don't like the direction these movies are going for. It had it's good moments, it's fun moments but some bizarre and not-so-logical moments, too. Style-wise I think they're moving away from the more simple style Bruce Timm used to do and now designs are so complex and over-detailed that they just look ugly, and more anime-ish with each movie. I rate this movie 3/5 stars, hope Assault on Arkham is better but I don't have my hopes up.

 

[coluanprime]

Spoiler

This movie was a mixed bag for me. It was enjoyable but it still had some very major flaws.

One of my major complaints was Deathstroke, he was just awful. His writing was bad, his voice acting was overdone. Corny and not at all true his character making what could have been an interesting villain cringe-worthy.
Another one that might seem minor is that the didn't adapt Damian's fighting style at all. He fought just like Deathstroke and Ra's al Ghul, making no allowances for his size. I get that his battle with Ubu was supposed to make him seem cool, but it made know sense that he could hold his own during their sword-vs-claw-pushing-against-the-others-weapon-with-all-their-might thing. Ubu is huge, and a ten-year old, even an incredibly strong ten-year old, beat him back?
Also, his not killing Deathstroke at the end made know sense at all, there was nothing that actually made him seem like he'd had character growth.

That said, it had it's good parts too. Alfred, was hilarious especially with Damien. His sarcasm was great.
Damian was great, especially his voice-actor and he managed to feel like he was really ten. oh and I officially love Jason O'Mara's Batman. Dick was great and I'm glad he was able to beat Damian. Despite my love for Damian, it still was nice to see him be reminded that he lost.
Speaking of Dick, this was the first movie where the sexual humor didn't feel shoe-horned in. I laughed out loud at Dick's protection line. All-in-all, an enjoyable film but a film with distracting flaws.

 

[Wag]

One aspect I particularly disliked about the movie was

Spoiler

the part where Batman said he enjoyed getting raped by Talia during the conception of Damian. I find the whole idea that anyone could enjoy being raped particularly loathsome.

 

[I_Spyral]

One aspect I particularly disliked about the movie was

Spoiler

the part where Batman said he enjoyed getting raped by Talia during the conception of Damian. I find the whole idea that anyone could enjoy being raped particularly loathsome.

Spoiler

Yeah they should have either left out the rape or have Batman despise Talia.

 

[BigFatHairyDeal]

One aspect I particularly disliked about the movie was

Spoiler

the part where Batman said he enjoyed getting raped by Talia during the conception of Damian. I find the whole idea that anyone could enjoy being raped particularly loathsome.

Spoiler

He didn't say he "enjoyed" it, he said that "it wasn't all bad," which I think deserves distinction. Remember, Batman's a complicated guy. He knows he gets involved with the wrong women, but he allows himself to do so, anyway. He finds ways to tolerate things that are wrong. Plus, the line was also just a short reminder to the audience, in case they didn't realize it, that Batman does have some sexual desire for Talia.

I dislike, though, that it became non-consensual between the two. For a lot of reasons, it was better originally when it was consensual.

 

[I_Spyral]

Spoiler

They probably thought it would be out of character for Batman to consensually mate with her.

 

[Lighthammer]

Spoiler

You know, frankly I took this whole situation as Talia realizing that Bruce would never consequentially have sex with her even if they both REALLY wanted to due to Bruce's moral code that he tries to live up to. She probably saw drugging him as a way to liberate him from that moral code for a short time.

As far as I know, from the comic source, this wasn't an attempt on Talia's part to get pregnant, it was more of an attempt to give Bruce the opportunity to "cut loose" without remorse. Getting pregnant was more of a blessing in disguise on multiple fronts.

Somewhat related --- did anyone else get the sense Talia was more motherly in this movie? At the end, I HONESTLY felt the vibe that Bruce and Talia POSSIBLY could have lived together as a family. I'm not sure if this was intended context or context bore from bad design of Talia.