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oddbodd · Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Posts: 855 Location: Castle Dracula

I saw Batman Begins for the first time recently. A watchable movie, but it didn't spark my interest that much. This is despite Batman being one of my favourite superheroes, not least because of the Adam West portrayals.

Obviously, films and TV shows from that era were as camp as Christmas. This goes for Superman, Spiderman and the Hulk among others. They were cheesey and colourful, perhaps in imitation of the comics that had made them household names. This, I think, made them appealing to kids (who would also have been reading the comics, these having been made for kids in the first place).

But after seeing Batman Begins, it occurred to me that perhaps superhero movies are not being made for kids anymore. Some seem to be made more for adults, in the sense that they'll contain a bit more action and will be understood better by adults. Gone, it would seem, are the simple Good vs Evil storylines, one-dimensional though they may be; gone too is the colour and cliché that we loved so much as kids.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? To me, it's bad. I like to see superheroes as I remember them. It's as much about nostalgia for me as it is about having some good childish escapist fun. Superhero movies made for adults, in my humble opinion, are little more than action films in which the character of a superhero is more or less arbitrary.

Commercially, it might seem wise to go this way - perhaps most of superhero fandom is now at least thirtysomething, and the studios are pandering to their (perceived) audiences. But the debate on whether or not that is the right thing to do is another entirely.

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"It's ok to be different, it's good to be different, and we should question ourselves before we judge others." -- Johnny Depp