Batman: Descent Into Mystery

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.

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!

I don't consider Tim Burton's "Batman" a bad movie, or even all that badly flawed. There are a few things that I don't like (Prince's songs, the hasty way the Bruce/Vicki romance starts out, and a few others), and a few things I think could have been done better (The 1930s/1940s and 1980s elements of the movie's style and sensibility seem to clash at times; I would have preferred that the overtly 1980s elements be toned down or even non-existent). But those are just nitpicks. Overall, I like "Batman", and don't really have all that many gripes with it. A lot of the things that many people consider flaws with it (Batman killing, Joker being the killer of Bruce's parents, etc) don't bother me. And I like Kim Basinger. So, to me, a lot of the items on the cutlist seemed like unnecessary changes.

Despite all of this, I watched "Batman: Descent Into Mystery" with an open mind. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. A lot of moments and lines that I like are removed, but the cuts were made so well that I kept forgetting that anything was missing. Had I never seen "Batman" before viewing this edit, I wouldn't have known that anything had been cut. And even though I have seen "Batman" multiple times, and practically know it by heart, I found myself somehow not noticing some of the changes, and taking a few minutes to notice others. I also was impressed by how well the movie works without the romance. Surprisingly, I found myself preferring "Batman: Descent Into Mystery" to the original movie in many ways, although I still like the original movie, including quite a few of the things that you removed. To me, "Batman: Descent Into Mystery" is more "perfect" than the original movie, but misses a few of the original's greatest moments. All things considered, it's different, but about equally good, perhaps even a little better. It doesn't replace 'Batman" for me, but it's a great alternate version.

I consider this edit mostly perfect, but there a few things I didn't like. One is that without the Bruce/Vicki romance having come before it, the scene with Vicki walking down the street as the Bat-signal shines into the sky suddenly seemed like it was missing something, but having thought about it, that might be just me. The other is something that I consider a jarring and sloppy flaw. At the end, the music rises to a crescendo, the camera pans up over the buildings of Gotham, we see Batman, standing up, looking at his symbol projected into the sky.....then, in big, yellow letters, the words "To Bill, we know better" pop up. I know what the phrase means, and the sentiment is a nice one. But sticking it up on the screen, in big yellow letters, during one of the most iconic shots in cinematic history, comes across as a joke. It takes me right out of the moment, and takes away from the great visuals of the shot. Still, you did such great editing and color-correction work that I decided not to take any points off.

"Batman: Descent Into Mystery" is a great fanedit. I highly recommend it.

There's a phrase which DwightFry said once in a thread on the forum... something which has stuck with me ever since. It was something along the lines of ... "You never complete an edit; you abandon it". How true that is. Indeed, DwightFry worked on his first edit for more than 2 years and looking at the thread in the "In the Works COMPLETED archive" it appears that he started before I even began work on my first edit (and I've now released 5 edits)! So, the anticipation for this edit was pretty high.

Now, I hadn't seen the original 1989 version of Batman for a long time. Probably not for a good 10 years at least. So, when I settled down to watch the blu ray a week or so before DwightFry's fanedit, I was taken aback a little at how dated the movie looked. I suppose in my mind Burton's movie had all the edge and darkness of Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, but truth be told, the director's visions are a world apart. However, at the same time I still greatly enjoyed Burton's movie. It's fun, has tremendous production design and an iconic music score from Danny Elfman - but most of all, it has Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Undoubtedly his character and performance completely dominate the movie and It's not surprising that the impact of Keaton's Batman is so overlooked. Overall then, I would still rank the movie very highly; and yet the main aspect which is addressed by DwightFry's Descent Into Mystery fanedit, is certainly the one area which cries out for fixing - that rather paper thin and ineffective romance between Vicki Vale and Bruce Wayne.

It doesn't take long to be impressed by DF's first foray into fanediting. Even though I had watched the theatrical version only a week or so before, the cuts which are made here are totally invisible. Not only that, but I can whole heartedly say that I didn't miss one of the scenes which had DF's editing scissors applied to them.

Not surprisingly, the edit's biggest plus point is in scrubbing the aforementioned romance between Vicki and Bruce. It genuinely improves the movie's central character, in that suddenly there is more mystery and intrigue surrounding Bruce Wayne and the Batman. True, it still doesn't redress the balance properly, as Burton's Batman remains very much geared towards Nicholson's Joker, even in this edit. However, it certainly enhances the pace and feel of the movie and somehow brings more substance to the story.

The concept of not having the Joker be responsible for Bruce's parent's death is a wise move for me. I prefer keeping that as a mystery, even if it admittedly carried some dramatic effect in the original theatrical version. Personal preference I'm sure, as I can see from other reviews that it's split people's opinions quite a bit.
As for not having Prince's music playing when the Joker arrives to meet Vicki Vale and thereby denying us the twisted pleasure of seeing many valuable paintings being defaced? Well, DF certainly edits it very well, but it was a scene which I quite enjoyed in the original version as it fits Nicholson's interpretation of the character nicely, so I can go either way with that one. It's not really missed, but it was a fun scene.

Technically, DF has done a fine job, with a subtle colour correction applied which particularly improves the blacks, giving a deeper, less flat feel to the film. Sonically speaking, everything sounded spot-on to me. No harsh cuts or audio drop outs to speak of at all.

On top of this, there's a very cool short edit entitled The Killing Joke, expertly edited as always by blueyoda (even if seeing Bale's fantastic portrayal of Batman made Keaton's look very weak in comparison), plus a nice little colour correction comparison scene, not to mention an interesting About The Edit piece.

Overall then, this is quite excellent work from DwightFry. Whereas in the past I never really believed Burton's film needed fanediting, having seen Descent Into Mystery, I stand corrected. Burton 8/10... DF 9/10.

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.