Batman: Descent Into Mystery

As a fan of the comics, the intent of the cut is obvious, but the editor ends up tearing the heart from the original movie and creates a sterile watch.

Firstly, there is no compelling reason to cut the Bruce Wayne / Vickie Vale relationship. Without it, Bruce becomes a one-dimensional character with little development. Without Vickie providing a background to it in her investigation, the death of his parents is utterly without place within the context of the story. The absence of a romantic relationship also creates an oddness in the edit's continuity at times (Vicki goes to the museum and waits for nobody in particular, for example). Alfred is almost pointless if he cannot coax Bruce to pursue Vickie, as is Knox (as the "other" man).

Secondly, the Batman / Joker relationship in this story is shallow without the parent connection, even if that connection is distasteful to a comics purist. Batman passionately beats the hell out of the Joker in the climactic scene in the belfry, with no dialogue in a jarring manner. Without that verbal back and forth, the scene lacks tension. There is little to underpin Bruce's obvious anger aimed towards him.

The editor tries to paint Batman as an invincible monolith, as he sometimes is shown in the comics, but I would argue Batman's best interpretations show him as vulnerable and human. Even when Batman is brought crashing down in the Batwing, we are not allowed to see his injuries as per the original cut, nor his struggle against the Joker's goons in the belfry. There is never any fear that this Batman might fail, which in combination with Bruce's stunted character development, makes him uninteresting.

Besides this, the cut is impeccable in terms of the visual cuts, though the edit is not stellar in terms of visual quality (the blacks were at times pixelated), and the audio transitions on occasion were too sudden, such as when Bruce remembers his parents' death from the preceding scene. The volume of the cut seemed very low.

Great edit!!

The pace of the movie at first seemed a bit hurried... Mostly cuz I've been watching the original for two decades. The film is indeed super dated these days... But DIM makes it feel like a real Batman/Burton movie. Until watching this, I had no idea how much the Vale/Wayne romance crudded the thing up.

My first fanedit experience... And I loved it.

Well, I just watched the best version of Batman '89 tonight. Guess which one it was? Oh, ok, this one! Not only was the romance removal a good decision, but Bruce (who is used quite sparingly!) is no longer a "reclusive, asocial, insecure-acting creep." Sounds good to me. He's supposed to be far removed from the Batman persona, not slightly less Batman-ish! ;)

Overall, the story is nice and tight and loses nothing from the cuts, which were all perfect. The movie looks and sounds great. Give it a whirl! :)

P.S. I was happy to contribute to this project, even if it wasn't with the edit itself, but with the supplements. Heh.

Hey everyone, growing up I would watch Batman '89 all the time. It was to the point where I knew the films ins and outs very well. I know most kids would normally get a disney movie to watch and that'd be their favorite. But mine was Batman '89. Michael Keaton is a great Batman. So when I heard that Dwight was fanmixing Batman '89, I was kinda curious to see how it'd turn out. It was a bit of a wait. However, I have to say that it was very much worth the wait.

It removes one of the clunkiest parts of Batman '89, the love story. It felt like it was shoe horned in. There were other scenes that just seemed to slow the film down. Instead of letting it play out. Now, Dwight has improved the film immensely by his changes. I'm not going to say what all they are to spoil it for those that haven't seen this yet. But, I'd highly recommend giving it a watch.

So I watched the original Batman just to refresh my memory before I watched this. I avoided the cutlist before watching the edit. I have to say I like the majority of Dwight's choices here. Excellent job on the opening credits. No silly love story (why does every movie need to shoehorn in a love story?!). Drastically cut down Prince music! My only gripe was the cutting of "Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight" but i don't miss it, i just didn't mind that in the original.

I'll have to look over the cutlist to see what changes I didn't notice, the editing was seamless so I'm sure I missed some things.

Overall an excellent firstling. Audio and video quality was good and you clearly accomplished your goals with the edit. Nice work Dwight!