Speaker 1: Hello, Kats, kittens, and non binary folks, both with and
Speaker 1: without your mittens. We are here on the Superhero Ethics
Speaker 1: Podcast continue our conversation with mister Paul Hoppy about Batman
Speaker 1: Cape Crusader.
Speaker 2: Those who are.
Speaker 1: Jumping in just with this episode, we already discussed a
Speaker 1: lot of it in Part one, which would be either
Speaker 1: the week before or two weeks before this episode. I
Speaker 1: would definitely recommend checking that one out first, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna kind of just pick it right back up. As
Speaker 1: we said in that one, you don't have to watched
Speaker 1: the show. We're going to try and explain a lot
Speaker 1: of it as we go, though certainly I think you'll
Speaker 1: I's nothing else. It's only a ten episode show. I
Speaker 1: think it's really great to watch, and if you get
Speaker 1: access to it either way, we hope you enjoy the conversation.
Speaker 1: Of course, always send in your feedback. So Paul, let's
Speaker 1: pick back up. We started to talk about the idea
Speaker 1: of when Batman Cape Crusader is set and how this
Speaker 1: feels like a little bit of a anachronistic setting in
Speaker 1: that it is the esthetics and the technology seem very
Speaker 1: much of the like detective noir stories you know, which
Speaker 1: could be like twenties to forties or fifties, probably with
Speaker 1: a tech being more on the twenties thirties forties side.
Speaker 1: The cars are old fashioned, all the phones are rotary dial,
Speaker 1: there's no cell phones, there's no beepers, there's no computers.
Speaker 1: But you know, the social mores are much more of
Speaker 1: like what we think of today.
Speaker 3: And we talked about want we like that, And I
Speaker 3: want to extend that conversation a little further to say,
Speaker 3: for you, does it feel like Batman should be set
Speaker 3: in a certain time period or does thatman work in
Speaker 3: all times?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say should, but I do think Batman works
Speaker 2: particularly well in a particular time period. Like I think
Speaker 2: modern day Batman's fine. I think futuristic neo Gotham Batman
Speaker 2: is awesome. I think Gotham by Gaslight is a great
Speaker 2: kind of steampunk eighteen hundred's Batman. But I do think
Speaker 2: that the film Noir Batman is, if not the best Batman.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the classic Batman, and there's something that
Speaker 2: works really well, partially because of just the look and feel,
Speaker 2: but also in terms of technology. I think a lower
Speaker 2: technology Batman allows like there's this idea of Batman being
Speaker 2: a little more technologically advanced than the people around him, right,
Speaker 2: and like the whole utility belt and you know where
Speaker 2: it is, where is you get all these wonderful toys
Speaker 2: kind of aspect, And I think the further technology advance
Speaker 2: is kind of the harder it is to pull that off,
Speaker 2: or kind of the further you have to go with it, right,
Speaker 2: But also just I think I think it just looks cool.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's film noir, and we don't get
Speaker 2: a ton of that anymore. That's kind of Batman's origin.
Speaker 2: That's certainly the animated series look right. And as far
Speaker 2: as this series goes, you know, they really wanted to
Speaker 2: use some of those stories from the animated series without
Speaker 2: it being a literal continuation. So I think it makes
Speaker 2: sense that they said it in that same vague time
Speaker 2: period that isn't a real place in our world.
Speaker 1: I think you're really right about the technology because when
Speaker 1: I was thinking more about this, one thing you and
Speaker 1: I have said that we liked about both this show
Speaker 1: and the Matt Reeves movie The Batman with Robert Pattinson,
Speaker 1: as well as also the Batman and the animated series
Speaker 1: is the idea of Batman is detective and.
Speaker 4: A lot of it. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: Both are sort of iconography of the detective is very
Speaker 1: much the gum shoe nineteen forties kind of thing, which
Speaker 1: you know, obviously he's not wearing a trench coat and
Speaker 1: the like, but it's still a similar idea. Also as
Speaker 1: it becomes more and more technologically focused, you know, like CSI,
Speaker 1: Batman is not really what I want to watch. One
Speaker 1: thing I think is really interesting about Batman is that
Speaker 1: he does have good tech, and he is often able
Speaker 1: to like, you know, lift a fingerprint that no one
Speaker 1: else could get, or that kind of like technological stuff
Speaker 1: where sometimes he's able to you know, quite literally build
Speaker 1: technology to learn something about a bullet. I think that's
Speaker 1: in the Batman movie that you know, other people can't
Speaker 1: figure out. But I feel like what makes him such
Speaker 1: a good detective is his ability to deduce things, to
Speaker 1: look at fact A and look at fact B and
Speaker 1: then read something in the newspaper and put it all
Speaker 1: together to come up with a connection that no one.
Speaker 4: Else would see.
Speaker 1: And it's not harder to do that in the technological age. Well,
Speaker 1: the say the again, and I think that it's harder
Speaker 1: to do in the technological age, a because watching people
Speaker 1: do the research on a computer just isn't always that interesting,
Speaker 1: but also because I think this is kind of the
Speaker 1: Zack Snyder direction. The more you make him high tech,
Speaker 1: the more you get him into high tech fighting technology.
Speaker 1: And I think there's just such a then that kind
Speaker 1: of leads into the rock'am sock and robots idea of
Speaker 1: big superhero shows where it's all about these incredible CGI
Speaker 1: tech And I think that's a fun and I think
Speaker 1: you can have some of that in the movies, but
Speaker 1: I think when it's modern day, there's just so much
Speaker 1: of that now that it's hard to make Batman stand out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's the sort of thing where I feel
Speaker 2: it's not impossible, right, I mean, I think Matt Reeves
Speaker 2: showed pretty clearly like you can still do it like that.
Speaker 2: Gotham isn't some old age Gotham, right, I mean, Gotham
Speaker 2: from The Batman is modern day. But there's this temptation
Speaker 2: I think to like, the more access you have to
Speaker 2: special effects, the harder it is to chew not to
Speaker 2: use them, or to choose to go, you know, a
Speaker 2: clever route, you know, it's to me, it's like the
Speaker 2: difference between the Jason Bourne movies and the James Bond movies,
Speaker 2: where Bond solves so many problems through technology that Q
Speaker 2: gave him, right, He's got some device that will solve
Speaker 2: the problem, whereas in the Boorn movies, Bourne has to
Speaker 2: come up with some clever way of using like a
Speaker 2: newspaper or like ripping a map off the wall to know,
Speaker 2: you know where to go, and that's harder for the writer, right,
Speaker 2: It's like easier to just say like, oh, yeah, the
Speaker 2: protagonist has a thing that works and now they can
Speaker 2: figure something out the same way it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: oh they do some CSI thing, and of course there's
Speaker 2: some amount of research that goes into it. I don't
Speaker 2: want to denegrate the writing of you know, various various
Speaker 2: series like like Bones or CSI or whatever. I think
Speaker 2: you can still have great writing with that. I just
Speaker 2: think there can be a temptation to just rely on
Speaker 2: your tech, to rely on your special effects, the same
Speaker 2: way you rarely get great fight choreography when you have
Speaker 2: big effects movies, right, when you have a big effects budget.
Speaker 2: Whereas you know with with action movies, especially made in
Speaker 2: Hong Kong and Thailand and places where the effects budget
Speaker 2: isn't so large, Like there's a level of creativity and
Speaker 2: innovation required in order to do something cool, and of
Speaker 2: course you can combine those things, right, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think we saw in like Shuan Chi that you could
Speaker 2: take a big Hollywood movie and still have great creative,
Speaker 2: interesting action in a practical sense. But that it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's hard not to then just be like, oh, we're
Speaker 2: just going to rely on Batman's gadgets on you know,
Speaker 2: some kind of he's just got something as utility belt
Speaker 2: to bail him out, as opposed to like, no, let's
Speaker 2: make him think of something, you know, really really clever,
Speaker 2: like I think in Mad Love, which is a story
Speaker 2: we referenced in the bonus content, just five dollars a
Speaker 2: month to become a member and listen to all of that.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's there's a thing where it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, I if I recall Batman doesn't escape through
Speaker 2: through some gadget, I think he escapes through some psychology
Speaker 2: and and you know, the same goes in in one
Speaker 2: of the episodes in in Justice League where he's dealing
Speaker 2: with Joker and Harley Quinn and and so I I
Speaker 2: appreciate when you know, the writers basically force themselves to
Speaker 2: be a little more clever, force themselves to be a
Speaker 2: little more creative instead of being able to kind of
Speaker 2: rely on on, you know, spi fi type stuff basically,
Speaker 2: like I.
Speaker 1: Remember Robert Downey Junior once making a comment about how
Speaker 1: he thought he had it best out of all the
Speaker 1: X Men because, unlike most of the other actors, he
Speaker 1: never had to do any kind of fight training or
Speaker 1: choreography because it was always gonna be the cgi of
Speaker 1: the suit. And don't get me wrong, I love the
Speaker 1: Iron Man movies, but they're doing something very fundamentally different,
Speaker 1: and yes, I think that that really works the technology here.
Speaker 1: I think another thing, and you and I have talked
Speaker 1: about this back and forth. I don't think we completely agree,
Speaker 1: but have some similar not pret judged. Another thing I
Speaker 1: think that's very dependent on the time it is set,
Speaker 1: is that I think it goes for a lot of stories.
Speaker 1: But Batman, especially Batman was created at a time when
Speaker 1: there was there's always been some level of social awareness
Speaker 1: that the rich are screwing the poor, and because of that,
Speaker 1: some level of critique or you know, the rich guys
Speaker 1: are all against us, But I think at that time
Speaker 1: there was still the sense of like, well, but the
Speaker 1: rich people give back, you know, they start the universities
Speaker 1: and the live areas and the arts, and they donate
Speaker 1: lots of things like that. And like you might also
Speaker 1: say that on the flip side, that at this particular
Speaker 1: moment in time, we have a very high level of
Speaker 1: critique of billionaires and a very high level of eat
Speaker 1: the rich kind of sentiments, and the idea of like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're just doing that as the tax write off and
Speaker 1: to cover up. And like, I've definitely heard it in
Speaker 1: the discourse that when I was first reading about Batman,
Speaker 1: the idea that a person who had all this money
Speaker 1: would then decide to use his money to help other
Speaker 1: people by becoming a crime fighter, I was like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. And then in more recent years people have
Speaker 1: started bringing up, well, Okay, if he wants to fight crime,
Speaker 1: why doesn't he fight the social Why doesn't he fund
Speaker 1: the social programs instead that help to prevent crime instead
Speaker 1: of beating up poor people? And like there's all of
Speaker 1: this analysis of him through our current economic understanding, some
Speaker 1: of which I think is warranted, some of which I
Speaker 1: think is very overly simplistic. But like, for example, in
Speaker 1: both the Christopher Nolan and the Matt Reeves movie, I
Speaker 1: felt like they had to be a little bit more
Speaker 1: aware of just because he's a bill like, we have
Speaker 1: to go a little further than just saying he's a
Speaker 1: billionaire who's using his money to fight crime, and that
Speaker 1: even today, you know, like I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people who just had no interest in the Batman movie
Speaker 1: or the Batman character because in their perspective, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to glorify a billionaire.
Speaker 4: Billionaires are all terrible.
Speaker 1: And again that there's a whole economics argument there that
Speaker 1: I have a lot of sympathy for, but I think
Speaker 1: can be oversimplified. But it feels to me like that
Speaker 1: by putting it in a time period that's more like this,
Speaker 1: you avoid a lot of that the kind of Batman.
Speaker 4: Here's maybe the best way to say it, like TLDR.
Speaker 1: But like you know, Batman was written at a time
Speaker 1: when we have a very different understanding of the super
Speaker 1: wealthy than we do today, and that if you're going
Speaker 1: to take him out of those time periods, you have
Speaker 1: to have some level of accounting for that or also
Speaker 1: just doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so, I'm not convinced that that's as
Speaker 2: true as you think it is in terms of what
Speaker 2: the overall kind of public opinion was around when Batman
Speaker 2: was created. I know, sometime in the decade or decades
Speaker 2: before that, there was a heavy amount of resentment towards
Speaker 2: you know, the wealthy, like especially you know, it's like
Speaker 2: coming out of the depression and everything, right, and there's
Speaker 2: you know, the term robber barons is not is not
Speaker 2: a new term, right, But I can't speak to that
Speaker 2: too much, And so I'm not I'm not saying you're wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm saying that doesn't match quite my understanding of how
Speaker 2: people were thinking at different points in time. But also
Speaker 2: I wasn't there.
Speaker 1: So just to add a little context at from the little, yes,
Speaker 1: sure study I've done of it, my understanding is like
Speaker 1: among the working class, among the poor, that would often
Speaker 1: be the thought, right, but there was such an effort
Speaker 1: of oh, that's just communist thinking to write it all.
Speaker 1: But certainly that by the fifties there's none of that,
Speaker 1: you know, that's allowed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, Yeah, So I guess what I would say,
Speaker 2: is I feel like from the fifties through especially like
Speaker 2: the eighties, ye, which were like the height of the
Speaker 2: greed is good idea, right, And then maybe with this
Speaker 2: being a little less true in like the sixties, like
Speaker 2: the late sixties, early seventies right where there was more,
Speaker 2: you know, the stronger counterculture. I think you know that
Speaker 2: that that was more true in that time rather than
Speaker 2: like really early like nineteen thirty nine right or eight
Speaker 2: right when Batman was created. But but I do think
Speaker 2: like there is something about when you're telling a story
Speaker 2: that takes place now. It's even if it's this Gotham
Speaker 2: that doesn't exist in our world right where it's it's
Speaker 2: a different timeline from the one we live in. It's
Speaker 2: a fictional universe. Even if there is a New York
Speaker 2: in Washington, d C. And these you know, places that
Speaker 2: we have. I do think it makes it harder to
Speaker 2: ignore what, you know, what you're talking about. Whereas here
Speaker 2: when you do put something in a you know, in
Speaker 2: sort of a film noir setting, I think it does
Speaker 2: give you more leeway, especially when you kind of say, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a film noir setting, and we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about things that we might want to talk about
Speaker 2: now and that people may have been talking about then
Speaker 2: as well. But also we're not going to act like
Speaker 2: the social mores of the time were what they are
Speaker 2: here in our world that that were in our fictional world, right,
Speaker 2: Like like we discussed with you know, race and gender
Speaker 2: and sexuality and and that you know, there's some there's
Speaker 2: certainly some you know, patronizing misogyny, but like not not
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like the same kind that you'd expect
Speaker 2: like in a in a show that was just like
Speaker 2: straight up set in the forties, right or thirties or whatever.
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, by doing that, by setting
Speaker 2: that all up that way, they kind of gave themselves
Speaker 2: like a you know, we can kind of just tell
Speaker 2: the story we want to tell without necessarily having to
Speaker 2: address this thing that is being addressed one way or
Speaker 2: another in the live action films, and and you know,
Speaker 2: just to address the overall argument. I do have a
Speaker 2: lot of sympathy for it. I think it's super reductive.
Speaker 2: And I also have issues with people critiquing movies that
Speaker 2: they don't want to see, you know, like which you know,
Speaker 2: there's movies that I don't want to see that I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm gonna like that. I feel like
Speaker 2: I don't want to watch that. But also, you know,
Speaker 2: and I mean this is of course you know. I
Speaker 2: have literally gone on here even our last episode that
Speaker 2: we recorded before Batman, and talked about a show that
Speaker 2: I didn't see, but not in terms of oh, I
Speaker 2: think that this show is bad because such a whatever.
Speaker 2: It's just like, you know, I think when you don't
Speaker 2: watch something, you have to understand that you haven't watched
Speaker 2: it and you don't have the full story or earth.
Speaker 1: And I think that was kind of like what we're
Speaker 1: trying to do with a lot of these episodes, is
Speaker 1: that was, Hey, this question, this show raises this question,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious if I just summarize it for you
Speaker 1: what you think of the question, right, because I do
Speaker 1: think sometimes we sort of can get like, I like
Speaker 1: those deeper questions and when people want to imput on
Speaker 1: the exact details of the show in order to kind
Speaker 1: of say, well, that answers the questions.
Speaker 4: Like well, but it's asking us to ask this larger question.
Speaker 4: That's what you're right, go But.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which going back to the origins of this podcast,
Speaker 2: like the idea of like, you know, Civil War avengers
Speaker 2: not X men. By the way, there's just a look
Speaker 2: when when you're talking about Tony.
Speaker 1: But but I'm sure he does it's meant at some point,
Speaker 1: but yes, Avengers.
Speaker 2: Yes, sure, sure, probably, I mean, except it's not immune.
Speaker 2: But the well maybe Robert Downey Junior is in some
Speaker 2: some of these other roles, but the you know, the
Speaker 2: basic question, like you really wanted to discuss the question
Speaker 2: of like whether there should be this oversight, right, And
Speaker 2: I was like, but in the exact story, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like it doesn't actually make the same sense in
Speaker 2: the story. So I do think a lot of times
Speaker 2: it is like I believe in being concrete and being
Speaker 2: like this is how this issue plays out in this
Speaker 2: context and being very specific about that, because I don't
Speaker 2: think that super broad guidelines or ideas are that useful.
Speaker 2: I think they can be a useful starting place as
Speaker 2: long as we maintain the flexibility to be like, oh wait,
Speaker 2: that ghost just real. You know, Now let me adjust
Speaker 2: my worldview and take this new information into account when
Speaker 2: I'm making decisions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, certainly in that case, like when I say
Speaker 1: I'm pem Tony, I'm that the Captain America idea of
Speaker 1: I know best and so only I should be able
Speaker 1: to decide how I use my power to enforce my
Speaker 1: idea of justice that terrifies me. And so when Tony
Speaker 1: says we need some kind of oversight, I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: you're exactly right. When he then says that Ross has
Speaker 1: come up with this perfect kind of oversight, I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 1: that like.
Speaker 2: Not that guy. That guy needs his own over sight.
Speaker 4: And we're kind of a changement.
Speaker 1: But this is actually I think, really this is kind
Speaker 1: of like we're talking about how we talk about things
Speaker 1: in a way that think is really relevant to stuff.
Speaker 1: I think that there is, like I level the way
Speaker 1: you talk about this, because I often think there'll be
Speaker 1: kind of an intellectual dishonesty of someone proposes a general
Speaker 1: idea and then someone points to one specific very bad
Speaker 1: application of the idea and says, therefore the idea is bad, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, or the reverse and says, hey, look it
Speaker 1: worked into one specific case, you know, And I think
Speaker 1: that that's yeah, yeah, it's why I think I like
Speaker 1: the fact that we talked to this last episode that
Speaker 1: there are so many Batman's because the flip side is
Speaker 1: we really only have one one, Luke Skywalker kind of
Speaker 1: too if you take in the legends or the legends
Speaker 1: might make it up to like four or five or six.
Speaker 1: We have one on screen, right, Yeah, there's only one
Speaker 1: kind of official, whereas like, yeah, there's no battle about
Speaker 1: you know, Christopher Nolans is part of a canon, and
Speaker 1: Matt Reeves is part of a canon, and Batflex by
Speaker 1: Zack Snyder is just as much a part of a canon.
Speaker 1: And that we get to kind of pick and choose,
Speaker 1: as we said to'd be like, yeah, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't think people are wrong or bad for liking Ben
Speaker 1: Affleck's version. It does not speak to what I like
Speaker 1: about the character of Batman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And so having that, you know, I think
Speaker 2: there are Batman stories where you might like at it
Speaker 2: and go like, oh, this seems like a very tar
Speaker 2: Ba dollars, right, And then there's other ones we might
Speaker 2: look at and be like, well, you know, he actually
Speaker 2: is spending most of his money or trying to spend
Speaker 2: a lot of his money on social programs, you know,
Speaker 2: like that's that's not not a thing. And you can
Speaker 2: say like, well, there shouldn't be any billionaires like every
Speaker 2: billionaire's apologies failure are fine, but like he's not necessarily
Speaker 2: going to single handedly change the tax go, like, do
Speaker 2: you want Batman to be a politician? Like should Bruce
Speaker 2: Wayne run for offs? Like maybe, like maybe he could
Speaker 2: get elected and like then actually enacts sweeping social change,
Speaker 2: although you might not like the sweeping social change that
Speaker 2: specifically this one guy would want to do.
Speaker 1: You know, I tend to think that billionaires running for
Speaker 1: office has not been a very good thing in the
Speaker 1: United States, right.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, like i'd pick him over Lex Luthor. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, but like that doesn't you know, even though
Speaker 2: Bloomberg was not as bad as the other guy, Like
Speaker 2: I was still like, how about not him? How about
Speaker 2: not either of them?
Speaker 4: You know? So no, I think it's very true. So
Speaker 4: let's shift to.
Speaker 1: Another thing, the Arthur Dent of it all, the Harvey Dent.
Speaker 1: I keep saying, Arthur Dent, I'm very sorry, which you
Speaker 1: phrased in our notes as the other side of the
Speaker 1: Harvey Dent coin.
Speaker 4: Because as we said, and.
Speaker 1: This is a very different version of the Harvey Dent
Speaker 1: story than we've often gotten and and in fairness, we
Speaker 1: haven't gotten it that much. It just feels like that
Speaker 1: to me, I think because it is probably the part
Speaker 1: of the Dark Knight's story, the triangle between Dent and
Speaker 1: Batman and Gordon, that I'm most fascinated by. But tell
Speaker 1: us a bit about this version of Dent and how
Speaker 1: it feels different to you than other versions we've gotten.
Speaker 2: Right, So, you know, speaking of running for office, we
Speaker 2: meet this Dent in court as a district attorney trying
Speaker 2: a case against Barbara Gordon's defendant. Right, she's representing a defendant.
Speaker 2: She's a public defender, I believe, and he's running for mayor,
Speaker 2: you know. After court is adjourned, he tries to give
Speaker 2: her a campaign button. She's like, Oh, why don't you
Speaker 2: save this for someone who might actually vote for you? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, And so you know, he's this very kind
Speaker 2: of smarmy maneuvering maybe wants to try and do some
Speaker 2: like good with the law and doesn't want to be
Speaker 2: corrupted by is it Thorn? Yeah, trying to remember, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: and then ultimately does become corrupted by Thorn.
Speaker 4: Did you get Thorn?
Speaker 1: Is the the There's almost always a mob element right
Speaker 1: in the story that has its hooks into the police
Speaker 1: and he is that's Thorn, and he what Thorn is
Speaker 1: able to help Harvey Dent get elected if he will
Speaker 1: be willing to look the other way. When some of
Speaker 1: Thorn's men's come up for possible prosecution.
Speaker 2: Right, he basically stands in for because they're like, let's
Speaker 2: not use Falcone every time. Right, So he basically agrees to,
Speaker 2: you know, work with him and essentially sell a part
Speaker 2: of his loyalty or whatever in order to get elected
Speaker 2: or in order to have a better chance of getting
Speaker 2: elected because he's losing in the polls. And right at
Speaker 2: the end of it, when he has to do a
Speaker 2: thing that he thinks is not a good thing, he decides,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm not going to do that. I'm
Speaker 2: going to you know, betray the mobster who I made
Speaker 2: a deal with and and try and do what I
Speaker 2: think is justice. And then he ends up getting acid
Speaker 2: thrown in his face in the bathroom, which, again, like
Speaker 2: lack of technology allows this to be a plot line,
Speaker 2: right like this, how is this going to happen in
Speaker 2: a modern day courthouse with tons of cameras and metal
Speaker 2: detectors and all these things. It's it's just not here,
Speaker 2: but here it you know, it plays it's like, yeah, this,
Speaker 2: this could happen. So this is how he sort of
Speaker 2: becomes two face where, you know, in a literal sense, right,
Speaker 2: because half of his faces is kind of burnt off
Speaker 2: with acid, and he withdraws his campaign, although I feel
Speaker 2: like he probably should have just kept running and maybe
Speaker 2: he'd have a pretty good chance because he'd be like,
Speaker 2: I've been literally attacked by the mob. I'm a hero
Speaker 2: for standing up to them.
Speaker 4: Vote for me, although the Jedi have left me scarred.
Speaker 4: I was. I mean, he's not that, but yeah, that's.
Speaker 2: A meaning what I thought of it, you know, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So like I think he you know, he definitely had
Speaker 2: a shot, but he clearly it. It hurt him right
Speaker 2: like on on an emotional level, on a psychological level,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't believe in himself the same way. He
Speaker 2: doesn't love himself in the same way, Like he's a
Speaker 2: very narcissistic, like good looking guy, and then he has
Speaker 2: half his face burned off, and that I think challenges
Speaker 2: his sense of identity and one of the.
Speaker 1: Interests I would deeper on that, I think he and
Speaker 1: I think another part of this is that like a
Speaker 1: lot of folks who are you know, sort of very
Speaker 1: focused on outside affirmation for others. Part of the idea
Speaker 1: is that when this happens to him, in part maybe
Speaker 1: because he's been physically scarred, in part because people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: even if the mob can even get to him, like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be too close to him. Like
Speaker 1: he's kind of abandoned by a lot of people. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the other part is what feeds into
Speaker 1: his sense of like, who am I if all these
Speaker 1: people aren't like loving me and supporting me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, So he's abandoned by most people, but he
Speaker 2: also recedes from the world right like those things are
Speaker 2: both true and and Bruce Wayne reaches out to him
Speaker 2: in I think a well intentioned but poorly thought through fashion,
Speaker 2: And this is one of the things I think is
Speaker 2: more one of the more interesting parts of the story
Speaker 2: is that Bruce is like, Oh, come on, Harvey, let's
Speaker 2: just go out, you know, let's go out on the town.
Speaker 2: This will make everything better, will act like nothing's wrong,
Speaker 2: and you'll just be your old self kind of. And
Speaker 2: I think Bruce doesn't really accept or understand what Harvey's
Speaker 2: going through, and just like being there for him and
Speaker 2: being like, hey, we could sit at home and watch
Speaker 2: TV even though maybe it hasn't been invented yet, although
Speaker 2: think it has is are there televisions? I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 1: I mean to consider and listen to the radio whatever
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, we considerund listen to the radio. We can
Speaker 2: just talk and whatever, you know, play cards, you know,
Speaker 2: which seems like that would probably be a better approach,
Speaker 2: or be like, hey, I'm here for you. If you
Speaker 2: want to hang out, cool, If you don't, I'll give
Speaker 2: you some space, but I'll be here. You know, I'll
Speaker 2: be around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like everyone is probably either known or myke is
Speaker 1: being I've been both. But like you know that friend
Speaker 1: who sees that you're upset, they have their idea of
Speaker 1: what they think you need and then becomes utterly unwilling
Speaker 1: to listen to what you actually say you need, no
Speaker 1: right exactly like yeah, you just need.
Speaker 4: To go out, you need to go out and and good.
Speaker 2: Oh. I do think it's very easy to be critical
Speaker 2: of the person who thinks they know what you need,
Speaker 2: and I think they're wrong in that regard. And I
Speaker 2: think it is important to give space but also let
Speaker 2: someone know you're there for them and make suggestions without
Speaker 2: being overly pushy. But at the same time, I think
Speaker 2: it's very hard. Yeah, And I think one of the
Speaker 2: hardest things is to be trying to help someone or
Speaker 2: wanting to help someone, whether you're trying or not, but
Speaker 2: just being like, that's your desire is to help someone,
Speaker 2: and just like having no idea what's actually gonna help,
Speaker 2: or even having nothing that will help.
Speaker 1: And I kind of like got I really have a
Speaker 1: lot of sympathy for both the people in this situation.
Speaker 1: And here's where also I think like impact not intentionally matters,
Speaker 1: but like I think that you the idea of.
Speaker 4: You always need.
Speaker 1: To let a person tell you what they need is
Speaker 1: very very valid. I also think that sometimes when people
Speaker 1: are in a really bad place mentally or with other things,
Speaker 1: they're not the best judge of what they may need,
Speaker 1: or they're like they're you know, they're telling them, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a bother to you or
Speaker 1: stuff like that, you know, and to me, the reason
Speaker 1: why all this matters, I think, And it's funny. I
Speaker 1: hadn't thought about this until I rewatched the show again
Speaker 1: over the weekend, and then also in talking with you,
Speaker 1: just now, and I want to talk about what it
Speaker 1: means for Harvey Dent, to be sure, But I also
Speaker 1: think this is very illustrative of who Bruce Wayne is
Speaker 1: and how much this is still a year one kind
Speaker 1: of a story in terms of this is Batman still
Speaker 1: figuring out who he's going to be, because I think
Speaker 1: in a lot of portrayals, especially the Christopher Nolan and
Speaker 1: even to some extent and also the Tim Burton and
Speaker 1: a lot of the others, like that everything that Bruce
Speaker 1: Wayne does, Bruce Wayne is a very well thought out,
Speaker 1: meticulously planned character that Batman is playing. And then every
Speaker 1: time he has a social faux pas, it's very strategic
Speaker 1: as a way of sort of like this, this is
Speaker 1: why people shouldn't be so interested in me, or this
Speaker 1: is why people be alone, or this is why everyone
Speaker 1: should leave my building so I can have a fight
Speaker 1: with rosal Ghoul who might burn it down, you know
Speaker 1: whatever it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I get none of that from this Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 1: I get that he's still trying to figure out I
Speaker 1: can help people when I wear the mask, but also
Speaker 1: can I just be a good friend and help people
Speaker 1: as Bruce Wayne, and I could see him his sort
Speaker 1: of confusion about why didn't this work, as well as
Speaker 1: like a guy who was raised by his butler and
Speaker 1: fairly isolated setting, I think a fairly bad idea of
Speaker 1: how other people work and what's going to help them.
Speaker 1: Like it all just speaks to me of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what Bruce Wayne would do. And I
Speaker 1: can imagine a Bruce Wayne thinking about this conversation going
Speaker 1: to hell with it. I'm just gonna make Bruce Wayne
Speaker 1: be a stoic, pulled back person, and I'll help people
Speaker 1: by beating up to that guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's a really good point. I hadn't thought
Speaker 2: of it in exactly that way, but you know, the
Speaker 2: idea that like maybe Bruce Wayne can help and then
Speaker 2: trying to do that and having it go so badly,
Speaker 2: like just totally backfiring. I can certainly see being like,
Speaker 2: all right, I'm just gonna be batman. You know, enough
Speaker 2: of Bruce Wayne. I'll just put on the Bruce Wayne
Speaker 2: mask and I have to go to a fundraiser and like,
Speaker 2: you know, acted a way that like people don't want
Speaker 2: to be around me that much, or they do, but
Speaker 2: like kind of from a you know, a distance, right,
Speaker 2: And yeah, I think that's a really good point. It
Speaker 2: makes sense.
Speaker 1: So let's now get back to the Harvey Dent of
Speaker 1: it all. So we wind up with a Harvey Dent
Speaker 1: who I think is like he is literally two faced
Speaker 1: in terms of the two different sides of his face,
Speaker 1: and he's now aware of what he perceives as the
Speaker 1: hypocrisy of all the people around him.
Speaker 4: Mhm, but a lot of the other.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like if this is his creation, I
Speaker 1: feel like at the end of the season, the creation
Speaker 1: myth of two face is not finished, and he might
Speaker 1: have died at the end comic book rules, we haven't
Speaker 1: really seen a body, so who knows.
Speaker 2: We have seen a ghost, so we know that death
Speaker 2: isn't you know, death just to me.
Speaker 1: He never becomes the like he never flips a coin.
Speaker 1: We see him as he is, as just Hardy Dent
Speaker 1: flipping the two sided coin that's heads on both sides,
Speaker 1: but never the I'm going to decide who lives or dies,
Speaker 1: or I'm going to leave everything according to chance, or
Speaker 1: everything has to be like these two different He's not
Speaker 1: as focused on dualities as the character often becomes.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, he's not a He never becomes a fully
Speaker 2: realized two face in this, and he does become homicidal, right,
Speaker 2: he does decide he's just gonna you know, he's focused
Speaker 2: on vengeance. And and it's interesting because like I feel
Speaker 2: like this season really the main story. You know, you
Speaker 2: can say it was Harvey Dent, but I think it
Speaker 2: was Harvey Dent and Barbara Gordon, and I think the
Speaker 2: two of them having this like very significant but non
Speaker 2: romantic relationship. I think it's very interesting. I enjoyed it
Speaker 2: throughout the season. And you know, he's basically this he's
Speaker 2: her antagonist in the beginning, right, he's a public she's
Speaker 2: a public defense exactly, and then she's and then he's
Speaker 2: just like, oh, you know, I'm just doomed or whatever.
Speaker 2: And then she's like trying to save him at the end, right,
Speaker 2: But then as Flass is trying to shoot her, he
Speaker 2: saves her and you know, like by getting in the
Speaker 2: white of the bullet and getting all dead. But like
Speaker 2: it just feels like an interesting kind of like turn
Speaker 2: around from this, you know, compared to The Dark Knight.
Speaker 2: And this is why I described as like the other
Speaker 2: side of the coin of the Dark Night, where he
Speaker 2: is a you know, where a woman is killed and
Speaker 2: in a way deliberately to try to turn him, make
Speaker 2: him lose it essentially right like as it.
Speaker 1: It's done by Joker and very much the kind of
Speaker 1: like everyone this is Harvey Dance one bad.
Speaker 2: Day exactly exactly, and the Joker is trying to create
Speaker 2: that and so having you know, so it's this that's
Speaker 2: this like Joker kind of you know, and that's basically
Speaker 2: what the he's doing the killing joke thing, right of
Speaker 2: trying to be like, I'm going to give this person
Speaker 2: this one bad day just to prove that anyone can
Speaker 2: can snap like I did, essentially right, and in the
Speaker 2: Killing Joke, famously, Joker shoots Barbara in order to try
Speaker 2: to so like he basically tries to fridge Barbara in
Speaker 2: order to have this effect on Gordon, on Jim Gordon,
Speaker 2: and you know, in a much I think maligned decision
Speaker 2: because then the actual quotes from the people involved are
Speaker 2: are awful and you know from from like how that
Speaker 2: came about, but so here having their two stories intertwined
Speaker 2: in a way that's like this is his one bad day,
Speaker 2: except it kind of really is his one good day,
Speaker 2: where like he he made a decision to like do
Speaker 2: the right thing, and then that backfired on him horribly,
Speaker 2: and then again when it came down to it, he
Speaker 2: decided he was going to do what he thought was
Speaker 2: like the right thing in a way that was you know,
Speaker 2: fatal for him. But it's and for a yeah, no, no,
Speaker 2: but I mean at the very end, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but yes, before that, before that, the I don't think
Speaker 2: his vengeance was trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 4: That's Sarah, Okay, now I thought you're saying it was.
Speaker 2: No, I'm talking about just jumping in the way of
Speaker 2: the bullet, right. But so I feel like this is
Speaker 2: a Harvey who basically had something bad happened to him
Speaker 2: and then saw it vengeance, but then at the end
Speaker 2: sacrificed himself in a way that I feels like the
Speaker 2: opposite of the Dark Knight Harvey who dies a hero
Speaker 2: despite having become a villain. Here he still kind of
Speaker 2: dies a villain, right, Like, I don't know whether his
Speaker 2: name gets cleared or anything of all this stuff while
Speaker 2: dying a hero. So it's like it kind of it
Speaker 2: like flips the story in a way that you know,
Speaker 2: while watching it, I feel like I'm aware of that,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't feel like they're like winking at you
Speaker 2: and like trying to make that point really hard. I
Speaker 2: just feel like it's kind of a nice story. That's
Speaker 2: a compliment because like the idea of you know, two Face,
Speaker 2: I think is and Harvey Dent and too is that
Speaker 2: like he is. That's like, it's not necessarily just that.
Speaker 2: I mean, sometimes it's one and sometimes it's the other.
Speaker 2: But like this, definitely he doesn't become the kind of
Speaker 2: like crime boss two face or whatever. And you know,
Speaker 2: you could say that in the Dark Night he becomes
Speaker 2: a version of two Face, but he's not fully a
Speaker 2: fully realized two face. He doesn't really make it that
Speaker 2: far right.
Speaker 1: I mean, general Boyd the sort of comic book levels
Speaker 1: of like, you know, he doesn't have like the two
Speaker 1: Hench women dressed all in black and all in white and.
Speaker 2: Right exactly exactly. You know.
Speaker 1: I think those are all really good points, and I
Speaker 1: think it's in one regardless, say, I think part of
Speaker 1: it comes down to, again the time in which these
Speaker 1: stories are set, because I think in the Christopher Nolan movies,
Speaker 1: one of the things that all three of them and
Speaker 1: then Batman and Gordon, once they realized DENTI is dead.
Speaker 1: Are very concerned about is the public image of all
Speaker 1: of this and how it's going to play. And I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, obviously the press is still a
Speaker 1: feature in like, you know, nineteen twenty isn't even you know, far.
Speaker 4: Before that, but it is also it's much easier to cover.
Speaker 1: Things up, you know, than it is by the time
Speaker 1: of the Nolan movies, and so to some extent that's
Speaker 1: taken off the plate. I also think it's an interest
Speaker 1: like I feel Matt Reeves in general is one of
Speaker 1: the most hopeful images of Batman, but this also feels
Speaker 1: like one of the most hopeless and I think it's
Speaker 1: a very interesting way to set up the coming seasons
Speaker 1: that I hope we're gonna get because you know, and
Speaker 1: this is especially in the Nolan movies, but also on
Speaker 1: a lot of the comics and some of the other portrayals.
Speaker 1: Part of what Batman's goal is always is, you know,
Speaker 1: not just to strike fear into the heart of the criminals,
Speaker 1: but it's that like, you know, we shouldn't be afraid,
Speaker 1: they should be afraid, and so every time, like you
Speaker 1: want the criminal to be afraid, but you also want
Speaker 1: the people to be able to like, no, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna let Falcone boss me around. I am going to
Speaker 1: do the right thing as a judge or just a
Speaker 1: clerk at the office, or a beat cop or a
Speaker 1: public or a prosecuting attorney.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and here it doesn't work. Harvey Dnch does that
Speaker 4: exact thing.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, I'm not gonna let myself be bossed around,
Speaker 1: either out of fear or out of my own personal ambition.
Speaker 1: I'm going to stand up, and then has the acid
Speaker 1: thrown in his face. And you're right, he's not treated
Speaker 1: like a hero. He's not like welcomed back, you know,
Speaker 1: he's kind of put aside. And as a person with
Speaker 1: a disability who remembers all the folks saying like it's
Speaker 1: not gonna change anything and how you're perceived, I definitely
Speaker 1: think that like my own understanding of how much of
Speaker 1: a freak and a weirdo I would be seen as
Speaker 1: because I was an amputee was way overblown. But also
Speaker 1: all the people who blew sunshine up my ass telling
Speaker 1: me that everything is just fine exactly it was was
Speaker 1: also kind of overblown. And that's something that's shown where
Speaker 1: part of Bruce Wayne is saying like, who's gonna stare
Speaker 1: at you? Everyone loves you and they go to a restaurant,
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear people are staring at him and are
Speaker 1: uncomfortable around him. And also some of it it's a
Speaker 1: lot in his head as well. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: this complicated mix, but yeah.
Speaker 2: It's to tell.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the point of all.
Speaker 1: Of this is it feels like it's a very interesting
Speaker 1: version of that story of saying like, Harvey did try
Speaker 1: to stand up but couldn't protect himself in a way
Speaker 1: that Batman could, and it cost him everything, and his
Speaker 1: mental reaction to it is part of what cost him everything.
Speaker 1: But like it definitely, you know, the acid throwing in
Speaker 1: his face, I think leads to a fairly direct path leads.
Speaker 4: To his maybe death, maybe who knows.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was just one more way in which
Speaker 1: I think at first I didn't like it, And at
Speaker 1: first I was just like, I don't want in part
Speaker 1: because I found like the Harlequin Quinzel Harley and Quinzel
Speaker 1: story and some of the others so interesting. I just
Speaker 1: didn't want three full episodes about about Dent.
Speaker 4: But the more I think about.
Speaker 1: It, the more I think, like, Okay, they were it
Speaker 1: wasn't like I didn't have They were not my three
Speaker 1: most enjoyable episodes of the show by any means, but
Speaker 1: I do think that they made some interesting points that
Speaker 1: I'm enjoying thinking about now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I and I would say, I hear
Speaker 2: you for sure. I also think there's been a little
Speaker 2: more Dent than like, not in the live action so much.
Speaker 2: I mean there was a little in like in the
Speaker 2: original Batman, right, I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1: But you're right, we get him becoming two Face a
Speaker 1: lot in like some of the stories.
Speaker 2: And right, but also yeah, I mean two Face as
Speaker 2: you know, one of the main villains right in the
Speaker 2: in the animated series, but also in the long Halloween. Yep,
Speaker 2: I think there's we get we get him there, so
Speaker 2: or whether it's two Face or not, we get we
Speaker 2: get a fair amount of Harvey Dent. But yeah, here,
Speaker 2: I'd say it wasn't so much that I was like,
Speaker 2: oh good, another Harvey Dent story. It was more that
Speaker 2: it was like, I enjoyed, you know, Barber's role in
Speaker 2: this one. I enjoyed, how you know, seeing Bruce try
Speaker 2: to handle it and then not doing well with that,
Speaker 2: and you know, so I think a lot of other
Speaker 2: characters also, and the way that they interacted with that
Speaker 2: story I think made it made it more interesting than
Speaker 2: if it was like just exactly the same story. You know,
Speaker 2: I think it's very true.
Speaker 1: I think you're very right about that, and it is
Speaker 1: such a there's an extent to which they never actually
Speaker 1: put this together before. But like I think you could
Speaker 1: look at Bruce Wayne Batman as a two face character,
Speaker 1: like I think a lot of others would see that
Speaker 1: as very yeah, and I think that, like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not that I think Harvey Dent is essential to like
Speaker 1: the formation of Batman, but I think it's a very
Speaker 1: good point, pivotal point. And as we've said four in
Speaker 1: last episode, last last episode on this it meant that,
Speaker 1: like we're able to keep Joker completely off stage for
Speaker 1: the entire season, and I do really appreciate that. And
Speaker 1: you'll see where to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Joker and Riddler and then Penguin was
Speaker 2: really just episode one, you know, so a lot of
Speaker 2: the villains that have gotten a lot of screen time
Speaker 2: had a lot less screen time. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 2: I appreciate that, especially for like a first season.
Speaker 1: And we do get you know, gentlemen, ghost and yeah,
Speaker 1: Firebug and things like that, which there's a lot else
Speaker 1: we want to cover, and we're already going pretty long,
Speaker 1: but just five minutes maximum. What did you think of
Speaker 1: what is normally Batman. I think it was one of
Speaker 1: the most grounded characters. He's fighting other human beings who
Speaker 1: have powers and abilities that would make sense in our
Speaker 1: world with some exceptions, and even then they're scientifically explained.
Speaker 1: Having just a straight up supernatural appear in the middle
Speaker 1: of the season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's really interesting because and I forget
Speaker 2: the other characters name, but the like the little the
Speaker 2: Vampire girl, which, by the way, Matt Reeves directed the
Speaker 2: American version of Let the Right One In. I think
Speaker 2: it's called let Me In, which is about a little
Speaker 2: vampire girl. And then here, you know, he's one of
Speaker 2: the executive producers and there's this girl who's a vampire.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought of it as kind of a
Speaker 1: reference to Ace from the Royal Flush Gang and Batman
Speaker 1: the original series.
Speaker 2: Yeah, both of those, Yeah, for sure, I thought that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: especially I mean with Batman carrying her out, you know,
Speaker 2: under his cape after when the sun comes up, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, that was like almost like a direct parallel
Speaker 2: to the end and the thing with eight And actually
Speaker 2: I thought that that storyline was really beautiful part of it,
Speaker 2: you know, and it had like a bunch of Robins
Speaker 2: in it, you know, and and I just thought was
Speaker 2: interesting and different, and even if it was like these
Speaker 2: other things as well. But having I think it is
Speaker 2: a kind of modern misconception that like Batman exists in
Speaker 2: this world of just like normal people without superpowers, and
Speaker 2: you know, they're all just punching each other and they
Speaker 2: have some technology and that's about it, like from the
Speaker 2: comics from I don't know how early on, but like
Speaker 2: there have been supernatural elements for a long long time.
Speaker 2: You know, there's like Gotham overrun by zombies or vampires
Speaker 2: or you know, there there are supernatural things going on
Speaker 2: in Gotham all the time. Not in the more recent movies,
Speaker 2: and I guess the the Tim Burton and then Joel
Speaker 2: Schumacher movies don't have a lot of like really they
Speaker 2: have like science fiction, right, like in the way that
Speaker 2: like Spider Man has science fiction, where there's science is
Speaker 2: doing stuff that science don't do.
Speaker 1: Right, like you know, aliens, there's no other dimensions or
Speaker 1: you know, supernatural or magic or things like that.
Speaker 2: Right, but in you know, and then in the in
Speaker 2: the Courstopher Nolan one is like super grounded, and then
Speaker 2: the Matt Reeves is like, I'll show you branded, right,
Speaker 2: like like they've just been like one up in each
Speaker 2: other in that regard and being like this is just
Speaker 2: a normal world Batman. But I mean, you know, the
Speaker 2: the ben Affleck Batman, literally it's him versus an alien
Speaker 2: in the versus first appearance, right, and in the first
Speaker 2: Justice League animated series, I mean, obviously you know you've
Speaker 2: got three aliens, I think on the crew, you know,
Speaker 2: and like a goddess who is basically made out of clay,
Speaker 2: and then like someone with superpowers and someone with a
Speaker 2: magic item, right, and then he's like the normal dude.
Speaker 2: But so I think Batman has had supernatural stuff that
Speaker 2: he's interacted with for a long long time in the comics,
Speaker 2: for a long time in animation, but very rarely on
Speaker 2: screen and live action. And so I think that's where
Speaker 2: you know, this conception of I think the idea of
Speaker 2: like him not having superpowers but contending with those with
Speaker 2: superpowers is actually it kind of ups the ante right
Speaker 2: on the like, no, it's just going to be like
Speaker 2: street level, like nobody has any powers, and it's like, well,
Speaker 2: actually they have powers, but he doesn't. He's got money
Speaker 2: and toys and stuff, but and sometimes symetric.
Speaker 1: One of the few things that I think Zack Snyder
Speaker 1: got exactly right about Batman is when he is in
Speaker 1: a world with Superman and Psyclops and Wonder Woman and
Speaker 1: all the rest, and someone asks what's your power and
Speaker 1: he says, I'm rich because like, yeah, the money of
Speaker 1: you there are things, but there are things that he
Speaker 1: can do that no one of those other characters can do.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, so yeah, I mean I think you
Speaker 2: know intelligence and you know determination and whatever, but but sure, yes,
Speaker 2: I mean it is essentially in our world, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the real superpowers, basically just being obscenely wealthy, right,
Speaker 2: And yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Think had a similar feeling.
Speaker 1: I was really set up for it to be that
Speaker 1: he's going to show that this doesn't actually exist. Right
Speaker 1: At first, I was catching things and being like, come on, writers,
Speaker 1: like if the whole point is that it isn't really
Speaker 1: a ghost, like you're really pressing credulity here, And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh no, you're actually doing that.
Speaker 2: Okay, it is it is a ghost.
Speaker 4: Yeah, didn't call that fair enough, And yeah, I liked it.
Speaker 1: And there's a fun sort of story about, like, you know,
Speaker 1: fighting old ideas of racism and all that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff and classism, which I think is kind of one
Speaker 1: thing that helped me is that I feel like like
Speaker 1: one of the points of his wealth that you could
Speaker 1: see very easily is the way that he calls Alfred Pennyworth,
Speaker 1: because it really comes off as like you are my servants,
Speaker 1: so I don't see you as fully human when it's
Speaker 1: done with the rich and they're the people who work
Speaker 1: for them. I think it's very clear in the story
Speaker 1: that that's not why he does it. It's because of
Speaker 1: the particular like Alfred is kind of becoming a second
Speaker 1: another parental figure to him, and he just lost his
Speaker 1: parental figures and it's no interest in like making himself
Speaker 1: vulnerable to that kind of loss again, so he keeps
Speaker 1: him at a distance of Pcolliam Pennyworth.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, but he but he also realizes over
Speaker 2: time that it kind of looks like the other thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and certainly feels like the other thing right to Alfred perhaps,
Speaker 2: And so that that does actually seem like the largest
Speaker 2: character growth for you know, for Batman and Bruce Wayne,
Speaker 2: and just.
Speaker 1: Kind of one part of that that connections The next
Speaker 1: topic going to bring up is that I think part
Speaker 1: of what through me is that, as you said, some
Speaker 1: Batman's have a lot of supernatural, some don't. Batman in
Speaker 1: the Justice League obviously has a ton of it, and
Speaker 1: that Batman is an outgrowth of Batman the animated series.
Speaker 1: It even has the same voice actor, Kevin Conroy. Batman
Speaker 1: the animated series, though to me, felt much more grounded,
Speaker 1: Like I think the supernatural does exist in a couple
Speaker 1: of episodes, but not until later seasons for the most part,
Speaker 1: and it's still very very rare. Yeah, you know every
Speaker 1: now that Superman wants him to go off and fight
Speaker 1: dark Side together, like that's.
Speaker 2: Right, right, yeah, and there's the Lazarus Pit right.
Speaker 4: Right exactly, and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just I think because the anesthetic is
Speaker 1: so much Batman the amand series, it threw me a lot.
Speaker 1: But I think that's kind of the point. Is also
Speaker 1: kind of like, no, this isn't We're obviously paying homage
Speaker 1: to a number of different Batman's and we're paying homage
Speaker 1: to the original animated show, and a lot of are aesthetic,
Speaker 1: but that's not what the show is.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah. And I think the the idea of there
Speaker 2: being something supernatural as a bit of a plot twist
Speaker 2: only works if the audience doesn't know that that's the
Speaker 2: plot twist, right, Like there are there are? You know,
Speaker 2: if if you made a preview for Signs that showed
Speaker 2: you know, the aliens, like you know, it would be like,
Speaker 2: you know, it'd be like, oh that doesn't okay, I
Speaker 2: guess that's there's no surprise there, right, or you know,
Speaker 2: you explained the sixth sense or or various things, you know,
Speaker 2: And and so I think, you know, Batman having supernatural
Speaker 2: antagonists and and perhaps allies is not something that should
Speaker 2: be completely surprising, but because there have been so many
Speaker 2: stories told without that, it sets you up for that
Speaker 2: actually being a surprise. And I as well, I mean,
Speaker 2: I know the character, you know, I've seen gentlemen ghosts before,
Speaker 2: but I kind of half expected, oh, well, they're not
Speaker 2: actually going to do this as a supernatural thing, and
Speaker 2: then it was like, oh they are, you know, Like
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure until he came through and the thing
Speaker 2: that it like, you know, it it was that they
Speaker 2: were going that direction even knowing the character in the
Speaker 2: first place, you know, because they could go another way
Speaker 2: with it. They could have it be a hoax, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, they changed a lot of characters, so there's
Speaker 2: no reason they couldn't take a ghost and be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's not actually a real ghost, that's a hoax, you know.
Speaker 2: And the thing that I'm not sure whether we mentioned
Speaker 2: it in the first episode or in the the bonus content,
Speaker 2: but I do think I just want to double down
Speaker 2: on the whole. Like, you know, I don't believe in
Speaker 2: the supernatural, Like I think, once the supernatural is real, real,
Speaker 2: it's not even supernatural, it's just natural.
Speaker 4: Then.
Speaker 2: But like, but like there's a lot of things that
Speaker 2: a lot of people believe in that I don't believe
Speaker 2: in because of a lack of evidence. But like I
Speaker 2: do think it's very important to acknowledge, like once there's evidence,
Speaker 2: once there's compelling evidence, then whatever your beliefs are, you
Speaker 2: should change them. Yeah, you know, Like that's the thing.
Speaker 2: It's like, what evidence is there? Okay, I don't find
Speaker 2: that convincing. Fine, but then at a certain point it's
Speaker 2: like oh no, that yeah, that's that ghost is real.
Speaker 2: You know, like especially in that world where there's like
Speaker 2: no technology that's going to be able to like you know,
Speaker 2: create a hologram the way maybe you could now you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah probably, but yeah, No, I think it's very true.
Speaker 1: And I think we talked about this a bit last episode,
Speaker 1: but it's worth kind of underlining, Like, to me, that
Speaker 1: is the greatest sign of Batman's intelligence because I think
Speaker 1: and we see this in the world all around us,
Speaker 1: and this is on everything from like refusing to believe
Speaker 1: that like one strategy to play a video game might
Speaker 1: actually be better, or you know, refusing to believe that
Speaker 1: like something that changes your political beliefs in a fundamental way,
Speaker 1: or that you know, you think that these kind of
Speaker 1: people are bad or evil and you see direct evidence
Speaker 1: of it. It's very easy for us to build a
Speaker 1: worldview so rigid that when new evidence comes up to us,
Speaker 1: we just find ways to explain it away or to
Speaker 1: We talked about this in the Planet of the Apes
Speaker 1: movie episode I just did with Rieky that that's a
Speaker 1: lot about how on both sides, humans and apes will
Speaker 1: both be like no, no, no, that evidence doesn't fit my worldview,
Speaker 1: so the evidence must be destroyed. That means willing to
Speaker 1: be like, no, okay, this is new information. I can
Speaker 1: objectively say no matter what, because I I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is a comic someone told me about or
Speaker 1: an episode I saw, but I remember there being one
Speaker 1: episode where a fairly young Bruce Wayne. Maybe it came
Speaker 1: up Gotham. I'm not sure, but like someone is trying
Speaker 1: to tell him that ghosts surreal, and part of why
Speaker 1: he is like no, I don't believe that is because
Speaker 1: then he might want to like find the ghost of
Speaker 1: his parents or something like that. Part of his sort
Speaker 1: of healing is like they are dead, they are gone.
Speaker 1: I can remember them, but you know so right? Anyway, Listeners,
Speaker 1: do you remember where I got that from? Please write
Speaker 1: in and let me know so I can not feel
Speaker 1: like I'm losing my mind over this. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the last kind of thing we wanted to touch on.
Speaker 1: The voice actors. Yes, because I think they're really high quality.
Speaker 2: I agree. The Batman is played by Hamish link latter
Speaker 2: not certain pronunciation. I believe it's of Scottish origin, but
Speaker 2: who does I think a fantastic Kevin Conroy without sounding
Speaker 2: like he's trying to do an impersonation. Like I really
Speaker 2: felt like this is my Batman, you know, like this
Speaker 2: is the Bruce Wayne sounded like Bruce Wayne. Batman sounded
Speaker 2: like someone different but the same, you know, and and
Speaker 2: had that not overdone gravelly, but you know, kind of
Speaker 2: deep and commanding and confident, and and I just I
Speaker 2: just think he did a great job, you know, I
Speaker 2: think really across the board, I really really enjoyed the
Speaker 2: voice acting. You were talking about Harlene Quinzel, who's played
Speaker 2: by Jamie Chung, who's been in a number of She's
Speaker 2: in like Batman's Soul of the Dragon and a number
Speaker 2: of other animated things. And it's funny because like I
Speaker 2: didn't even like really notice that, like Harlene Quinzel was
Speaker 2: was Asian. But like I think some of that's a
Speaker 2: some of that's animation right where I mean we've talked
Speaker 2: about this with with Batman beyond where it's like Terry
Speaker 2: McGinnis looks Asian. He looks like half Asian least right,
Speaker 2: and and there is a certain you know, race in
Speaker 2: in animation can be more ambiguous than it is in
Speaker 2: in live action or in person or whatever. Even though
Speaker 2: the whole thing is there. There is a level of
Speaker 2: ambiguity and in some cases when you know the whole
Speaker 2: long thing there.
Speaker 4: But I think, I said in the last episode, like
Speaker 4: she looked.
Speaker 1: My first thought was that she was Asian, But then
Speaker 1: overall what I thought was, like, she is a person
Speaker 1: of color.
Speaker 4: I think she's Asian.
Speaker 1: But if you told me she's Puerto Rican or like
Speaker 1: Latina in some way, I would not be sure, you know.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, which generally then Ilanda like Filipina, you know.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, I I appreciate that in terms of,
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of the animation. But I also
Speaker 2: I loved her Harlene and Harley, you know, I think
Speaker 2: I think it's a great character, and it was, and
Speaker 2: she was really well voiced and really just across the board.
Speaker 2: You know that Christina ricci as as Catwoman. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to remember who I thought she was. I heard Catwoman
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, who is this and I
Speaker 2: thought it was someone specific. Oh, I thought it was
Speaker 2: the voice actress for Azula at first. Interesting because this Catwoman,
Speaker 2: Selena Kyle, really channels her like inner Azula. I feel
Speaker 2: like she's got a very similar vibe, which was which
Speaker 2: just really worked for me. Yeah, but it wasn't it was.
Speaker 2: It was Christina Ricci and and we mentioned before Minnie
Speaker 2: Driver as as Oswalda Cabbo pot and yeah, and just
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Could go on, but like, yeah, I'm not true. I
Speaker 1: didn't love the Harvey Dents like episodes, but I thought
Speaker 1: the actor playing him was fantastic. And I never had
Speaker 1: a moment where I thought like this doesn't feel real,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, exactly. So yeah, I just I feel like
Speaker 2: d C hends to really get voice acting. I didn't
Speaker 2: see who the directors or or the voice casting was.
Speaker 2: Andrea Romano did so many of those ones before, but
Speaker 2: I don't I didn't. I don't remember seeing her name,
Speaker 2: but but yeah, anyway, it's just I feel like, oh
Speaker 2: it's Agnes Kim and Sarah Noonan did the casting. So
Speaker 2: but yeah, I just think, you know, they really got
Speaker 2: excellent voice acting. I saw I think it was Bruce
Speaker 2: tim talking about how Warner Brothers approached him to like
Speaker 2: do a continuation of Batman, the animated series, and he
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, I don't want to do that, Like
Speaker 2: maybe some of it's because Kevin Conroy died, and it
Speaker 2: just I don't think it would feel right, you know,
Speaker 2: to be like let's get someone to literally impersonate Kevin Conroy,
Speaker 2: which you know has been done of course in various series,
Speaker 2: but not not Kevin Conroy but other their voice actors,
Speaker 2: but also just it's like sometimes I think it's like,
Speaker 2: you know what, like how many episodes did they do?
Speaker 2: Like do you really want to pick up where you
Speaker 2: left off and like add to that exact story or
Speaker 2: do you want to do something fresh? You know?
Speaker 1: And so series like in some ways, you could call
Speaker 1: this a prequel, and then you've all the prequel problems
Speaker 1: that you get into, right, or you have a continuation
Speaker 1: then like how many stories are off the board because
Speaker 1: you've already you know.
Speaker 2: You can't what you did with do what you did
Speaker 2: with with Harley, right, you can't do what you did
Speaker 2: with with Penguin, Like you can't do what you did
Speaker 2: with with Harvey, you know, you like you're you really
Speaker 2: they went through a lot of characters, and they told
Speaker 2: a lot of stories, and apparently there were a bunch
Speaker 2: of ideas that they wanted to do, but we're like,
Speaker 2: well that doesn't really fit this audience, right, because I
Speaker 2: don't know if it was like Saturday Afternoon cartoon or
Speaker 2: morning or whatever. But it's like, you know, it's for
Speaker 2: a particular demographic is aimed at, and I think this
Speaker 2: one is aimed at you know, older and or wider demographic. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know some of the things are like, you know, oh, well,
Speaker 2: characters are clearly dying and this is like more mature
Speaker 2: or whatever, which I generally think is like a load.
Speaker 4: Media very mature, and a lot of people died.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, Yeah, So I mean there's an extent to which,
Speaker 2: like the Batman story is about death, right, that's like
Speaker 2: his primary motivation, the trauma of two people dying right
Speaker 2: in front of his eyes. Like, and I think a
Speaker 2: lot of the stories that are like we're going to
Speaker 2: kill a bunch of characters and that's going to be mature.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, are you actually like really dealing
Speaker 2: with death in a mature way? Are you just kind
Speaker 2: of like, look, we killed some people because they're so edgy,
Speaker 2: right exactly, But like here I do feel like, you know,
Speaker 2: they they did not like we're going to try and
Speaker 2: tell an adult story, but just like, hey, these are
Speaker 2: some ideas for stories we had. We're going to tell
Speaker 2: them the way we want because we now have license to.
Speaker 2: You know, it's on a streaming platform. You know, we
Speaker 2: don't have to. We're not we're not rained in quite
Speaker 2: the same way we were before.
Speaker 1: I mean, the budget of an animated show is so
Speaker 1: much smaller than the budget of a live action movie,
Speaker 1: if nothing else, because you know, think about the actors
Speaker 1: we just talked about, none of whom are like huge
Speaker 1: Hollywood A listers, but are still you know, well known
Speaker 1: people in Hollywood who I'm sure get paid.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can ask them to commit themselves to six
Speaker 1: months of a movie shoot or maybe a total of
Speaker 1: like five two hour recording sessions, you know, over a
Speaker 1: few months. Like it's just a very different level of
Speaker 1: what you can do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I mean sometimes even somebody can just record
Speaker 2: the audio in their home, right. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: know how they did this series, but that's like a
Speaker 2: thing now, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Something like what the hell is that movie? Is? Kaya
Speaker 4: and the Dragon.
Speaker 2: RYA The Last Last Dragon?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that most of the was not exactly
Speaker 1: that way it's done during pandemics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, I think I agree with all that.
Speaker 1: I think like at first, I felt to me like
Speaker 1: it was going to be a continuation of b TAS
Speaker 1: and I'm glad it wasn't that, but it it felt
Speaker 1: like it was saying, yes, there are all of these
Speaker 1: different Batman's out there, we're going to have a new
Speaker 1: take on Batman, but we're starting from BTAS and the
Speaker 1: comics that that comes from. Like yeah, we're not like yeah,
Speaker 1: and that there's like it's not like an FU to
Speaker 1: people who like Schumacher, who like Bafleck, but it's also
Speaker 1: like if you didn't love those, don't worry.
Speaker 4: We got you.
Speaker 2: We got you. Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And unrelated in this, but I want you want to
Speaker 1: add like one cool thing. Uh And this was some
Speaker 1: feedback we actually got personal that's not for their name
Speaker 1: to be mentioned, but just uh we chatted online of it,
Speaker 1: and he said that for him, growing up, uh, he
Speaker 1: grew up with Batman sixty six, the Rockham Sochem you know,
Speaker 1: pow All bright colors kind of thing, and that's his Batman.
Speaker 1: And then he totally understands that. But that's why for him,
Speaker 1: the Schumacher movies are the closest thing that he has
Speaker 1: seen to that because there can't be very much in
Speaker 1: the lay of the show was and that for him, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, as a young person growing up, that's what
Speaker 1: he loved. And so, you know, just another reminder that
Speaker 1: like something can be totally not my Batman, but it's
Speaker 1: someone else's. Because like we talk about how dark and
Speaker 1: gritty Batman is, Batman sixty six was most people's only
Speaker 1: live action Batman for a long time, and it is
Speaker 1: not gritty.
Speaker 4: It is not.
Speaker 2: No, it's not. That was the first one I saw too.
Speaker 2: I mean I watched that as a kid. I enjoyed
Speaker 2: it as a kid. I loved it as a kid.
Speaker 2: And actually, I feel like in this series, you get
Speaker 2: on a monopoia. Yeah, who's the leader of the assassins, right,
Speaker 2: and I feel like kind of ticks that box in
Speaker 2: a in a kind of gentle way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know exactly.
Speaker 1: And like I still think earth a kid maybe the
Speaker 1: best catwoman I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, well she's the only one that ever met
Speaker 2: out at me.
Speaker 4: Yes, very true, very true.
Speaker 1: All right, well, thank you also much, thank you. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have some bonus content just talking a bit more
Speaker 1: about like how we kind of see other superheroes compared
Speaker 1: to Batman in these different settings that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: But for everyone who's not a member yet, please think
Speaker 1: about becoming one. Five dollars a month, fifty five dollars
Speaker 1: a year. You get bonus content at the end of
Speaker 1: every episode, you get full bonus episodes, and of course
Speaker 1: you get to help support what we're doing here. It's
Speaker 1: really great help us keep the lights on. As I mentioned,
Speaker 1: this is probably gonna be the last episode that goes
Speaker 1: live before we go on hiatus for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Just gives us a time to kind of like stop
Speaker 1: readjust get.
Speaker 4: Back on top of our schedule as also think about
Speaker 4: how can we.
Speaker 1: Make even better content for you all. So especially if
Speaker 1: you have thoughts about what you would like to see
Speaker 1: more from these episodes, please let us know. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for Paul Rieky will be back soon.
Speaker 2: We have