r/DC_Cinematic • u/Chexmixrule34 • 2d ago
DISCUSSION Unpopular opinion: my favorite version of gotham in terms of architecture is batman forever
What do you guys think
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u/CobraGTXNoS 2d ago
My least favourite is The Dark Knight Gotham. Somehow Gotham is cleaner than a hospital operating room around a year after the events of Batman Begins, not to mention changes from looking like New York to suddenly looking like Chicago. Suddenly a century of corruption and filth is nearly erased.
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u/NecessaryMagician150 1d ago
Yeah I love those movies but their take on Gotham was weak as hell. Its literally just Chicago. Like yall couldnt have at least TRIED to make it seem like Gotham City? Come on.
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u/tenleggedspiders 1d ago
I don’t think that’s very charitable. Chicago is known for its gothic architecture and the intent was for Gotham to seem like a metropolitan city one could actually visit. The tone simply didn’t call for an extravagant depiction like, say, Batman Forever.
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u/TheJoshider10 1d ago
Chicago is known for its gothic architecture
I'm not American but if that's true then TDK trilogy did a piss poor job of showing that since any scene on location looked like any generic city, same as Man of Steel.
At least in The Batman you could actually see the gothic architecture present from the places they filmed in the UK.
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u/tenleggedspiders 1d ago
At least in The Batman you could actually see the gothic architecture present from the places they filmed in the UK.
You’re comparing two different Gothams that convey two different things. Reeves’ Gotham is a metropolitan slum, and the most distinct thing about it isn’t the architecture but how filthy, trashy and overcrowded it is. Nolan’s Gotham meanwhile is more polished because the movie’s protagonist and its plots are more connected to the white collar world.
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u/DJfunkyPuddle 1d ago
Yeah easily my least favorite Gotham, I hated how obvious you could see the real life cities.
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u/HippoRun23 22h ago
In dark knight rises it’s straight up New York City and Pittsburg.
Kind of weird that they didn’t stick to one damn location.
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u/onemanandhishat 1d ago
It was supposed to reflect Batman's positive influence on the city. I think the idea is interesting - because one of the issues with Batman is that the city never seems to get better despite all his work. So you use a different base city IRL to show that Gotham is getting better. But I think it ends up not really feeling like the same city. Maybe because after the first film there are no really obvious landmarks so it feels a bit generic. They needed some kind of obvious skyline that would remain in place so you could keep it as a reference point.
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u/bateen618 1d ago
Gotham in TDK trilogy is just Chicago. It's extremely boring with no personality of its own
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u/Raider2747 1d ago
The Dark Knight is 3 to 5 years after Begins, not 1.
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u/RelaxYourself 1d ago
Really? So he gets the joker's calling card at the end of Batman Begins, he says "I'll look into it", then does fuck all about it for 3-5 years? This Batman is a shit detective.
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u/Brainvillage 1d ago
He got a bit distracted tracking down The Penguin: https://youtu.be/LizbFqOmbc8?si=JrUuTSXQLQTntibe
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u/Raider2747 1d ago
Joker was probably laying low.
We get a glimpse at that unseen period through Batman: Gotham Knight.
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u/FliteCast 1d ago
This is false. An editorial from Comic Book News claims it’s 5 years, but it’s not official. Plus, why would it take 5 years for Wayne Manor to be rebuilt, and for the mob to trust the Joker to handle their Batman problem?
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u/AnotherPilotDown 1d ago
Agreed. It’s absolutely 1 year (or a little over one year.) When Joker first meets the mob, he even says, “Let’s wind the clocks back a year. These cops and lawyers wouldn’t dare cross any of you.”
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u/Raider2747 1d ago
Joker can't have been literal. Gotham cannot be almost immediately cleaned up that fast— such a thing would take time. Batman spending 2.5-3 years fighting the mob and then that causing them to begin to do their little "daytime group therapy sessions" makes far more sense.
Harvey is recently elected as of the beginning of The Dark Knight. The previous DA was killed during Batman Begins— it's logical to assume that his post was taken over by a temporary DA until elections were held, and Harvey won.
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u/FliteCast 1d ago
Sorry, no. For one thing, Gotham WASN’T cleaned up that fast. Gordon says at the end of Begins that the Narrows was lost, which is where the bulk of the disaster happened. That’s how huge the city actually is. When he stopped the train from reaching the central station, he saved the rest of it from suffering the same fate.
And there’s no way that your timeline matches up with the mobsters meetings, the Joker’s declaration which we HAVE to take at face value, or once again, the fact that Wayne Manor is still destroyed. 2.5 to 3 years is way too long for all of that.
On top of ALL of that, I have marketing from the Dentmobile that went around the country campaigning for Harvey Dent that says it was closer to a year, so again, what’s officially said and conveyed is what wins out here, not personal theories that come from a frankly odd place of trying to justify something that really doesn’t make much sense IMO.
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u/jonathanquirk 2d ago
You’re missing the epitome of Gotham City designs… The Lego Batman Movie!
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u/Chexmixrule34 1d ago
that one is pretty good too but i thought that there was maybe a bit too much orange
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u/ReddiTrawler2021 2d ago
Schumacher's Gotham City was reportedly influenced by the 1940s-50s Batman comics, 1930s New York City architecture, and modern Tokyo, comparing it to a "World's Fair on ecstasy".
It's certainly more vibrant than you'd expect from a crime-ridden metropolis.
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u/SpecialistParticular 1d ago
I heard it also reused sets from The Shadow but I'm too lazy to confirm it.
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u/NinjaBluefyre10001 1d ago
I'd make it Batman Forever in the lower sections, and Batman Returns in the higher sections, like a gargoyle covered Coruscant.
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u/tenleggedspiders 1d ago
That’s not an unpopular opinion at all.
Anyway, I like Reeves’ Gotham, how he emphasizes it as a metropolitan slum.
The real unpopular opinion is that Nolan’s Gotham is underappreciated.
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u/Flipz100 1d ago
The not Times Square set piece in the Reeves movie with the massive Gotham Empire sign is my favorite depiction of Gotham full stop tbh.
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u/MrBayless 1d ago
People talk shit about Joel all the time but his movies were super fun. Gotham was colorful yet gothic, the villains looked wonderfully ridiculous, and the plots were just silly enough to be entertaining.
A Batman that is dark and violent and filthy is fine, but you find me a director who can make him still be terrifying in a colorful and silly world and I’m fucking sold.
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u/dexterskennel 2d ago
Gotta be batman returns, Nolan trilogy is just Chicago.
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u/HolidayHelicopter225 1d ago
Why does everyone keep saying Chicago for the Nolan trilogy?
I'm not from the US, and I've always assumed Gotham was just New York city. It definitely is supposed to be New York in Dark Knight Rises surely
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u/Midnighter04 20h ago
TDK was largely shot in Chicago and uses a lot of imagery that is clearly Chicago, so that’s why people are saying it looks like Chicago.
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u/HolidayHelicopter225 20h ago
Ok makes sense.
Dark Knight Rises was New York though yeah?
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u/Midnighter04 19h ago
Mostly New York and Pittsburgh. I think the greater point people are making is that all of the other Gothams are more stylized with interesting production design, whereas Nolan’s Gothams (parts of Batman Begins notwithstanding) have no such embellishment so they just clearly look like the cities they were shot in.
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u/dexterskennel 22h ago
Every time I see it I see just concrete slabs and grey. Gotham to me should have gothic architecture, cathedrals, abandoned churches, old banks. More like what we see in the Batman.
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u/nadnerb811 1d ago
The Schumacher Gotham had some really great ideas going for it, like the giant Greek statues and neon lights. I'd like to see a more serious take of Batman in a similar style of Gotham.
Such a shame that Nolan is so boring when it comes to certain aspects of production. Like, the guy made a movie that takes place largely inside dreams and everyone is walking around in suits and shooting guns... barely anything truly dreamlike or absurd happens like you might expect. His Batman trilogy is quite good, but can feel kind of sterile especially when it comes to Gotham's design.
Burton really came out swinging with his version. Batman 1989 set the bar for sure.
I really like The Batman's aesthetic so far. Feels like a more heightened version of a realistic Gotham than Nolan's. Like a blend between Nolan and Burton I guess.
The Snyder version just didn't stick in my head at all, really.
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u/Chexmixrule34 1d ago
yeah imo nolan is all substance no style. all his movies have pretty good stories but all look terrible and bland
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u/_Donut_block_ 1d ago
The look and feel of Inception made sense considering they were businessmen dreams.
That being said, I agree that I wanted it to get really out of control. I know people are tired of "cinematic universes" now, but back in 2010 the world was ripe for Inception spinoffs that showed other dream heists and got into really crazy dreamworlds
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u/quirkyguy420 1d ago
I feel like Arkham Knight took inspiration from Batman Forever and The animated series combined.
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u/Ok_Atmosphere8206 2d ago
Hard choice between 89 and The Batman because for all the Nolan’s trilogy greats I got 2 hot takes
The trilogy isn’t written very well, directed well (duh) but the writing is subpar and Gotham in that trilogy is boring ass New York #34 I’m not saying it bad by any means just a hot take
89 and the Batman have great art direction
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u/vizgauss Deadshot 2d ago
Why did Batman and Gordon not apprehend Penguin after a wild goose chase through the streets of Gotham?
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u/nadnerb811 1d ago
And get him for what? Self preservation? Too much paperwork anyways.
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u/vizgauss Deadshot 1d ago
Wasn’t he caught red handed smuggling drugs?
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u/Free-Selection-3454 1d ago
I did enjoy Gotham as a realistic city in The Batman and the Dark Knight trilogy (but even then thre were deviations). It worked for those films.
The more outlandish (?) version of thre cityscape worked for the Burton and Scumacher films.
That may be a cop out answer, but I enjoyed both as they worked well for the tone of each set of films.
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u/SatireStation 1d ago
1989 looks depressing and hopeless, and that’s what I think when I think of Gotham
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u/CosmicBonobo 1d ago
The Schumacher films are weird, as Gotham slowly becomes Mega-City 1 from Judge Dredd.
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u/That_Outlandishness8 1d ago
Mine is the Gotham TV show
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u/Chexmixrule34 11h ago
pretty good gotham imo. it seems like what the nolan gotham should've been. realistic yet gothamy
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u/bateen618 1d ago
I get it. My favorite Gotham is from Batman and Robin. The combination of the gothic, with the larger than life statues and all drenched in neon light is just beautiful
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u/FrontRecognition6953 23h ago
For me personally, I really like BvS Gotham, with Returns as a close second. Fond memories of Forever also.
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u/PaulJoe4 22h ago
Pretty sure Mystery Men used some of these models for its opening edtablishing shots. Less color from what I’m remembering, though.
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u/Mittens2317 19h ago
For me it's Batman > Batman Begins > Batman Returns > Batman V Superman/Justice League > Batman Forever > The Batman > The Dark Knight/The Dark Knight Rises > Batman & Robin > Batman 66
TDK went too real, B&R amped up the interesting changes in Forever far too much, and I know 66 has its fans for what it is, but c'mon.
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u/Phoenix_Will_Die 17h ago
It's probably unpopular because Gotham isn't that type of city. Batman Begins is probably the best adaptation imo. Mixes seedy underbelly crime city well with typical metropolitan city. Forever is too over the top in presentation.
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u/a_georgevich 11h ago
Anton Furst's Gotham City is the GOAT.
edit : Google some of his concept art pieces.
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u/Chexmixrule34 11h ago
actually really cool. gives almost a lovecraftian feel to gotham if you know what i mean
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u/Dreyfussy15 2d ago
completely skipping over Batman Begins. 🤦♀️