How do you like your Gotham?

[Nonentity]

Well done, over easy or scrambled?

Joking aside......I was watching the '89 the other day, and I couldn't help but notice how much I preferred Burton's deco nightmare to the modern landscape we got in Batman Begins. It just seems to me that Gotham is best presented as a kind of relic, something that forgot to leave the 1940s. One of the things I have always loved about the animated series is the deco backdrop, which just seems to accentuate the world Batman lives in.

So, how do you like your Gotham? A retro, deco-esque place or something that has a more modern feel to it? Maybe a blend of the two?

[soapmaker]

Ok, the new Batman was great and all that. But when it come to Gothem City, it was Tim Burton who rised the bar so high that you feel Batman Begins and any sequels will venture down a different path. How can you out-gothic tim's gothem? You can't! Now i have to get back to my home made soap duties.

[DarthAstuart]

i think a mix of retro, deco, and modern is best. i thought they kinda nailed it in Batman Begins, but then, Gotham wasn't nearly as much of a character in that film as it was in the '89 film.

I like it to be scary, but not some crazy caricature of a ghoulish gothic nightmare place. burton's version leaned heavy in that direction, but it worked somehow.

as a slight aside, I like what they're doing to Metropolis a lot in the Busiek/Johns run on Superman/Action. i hope morrison takes some time to develop his own take on Gotham in his Batman run.

[spideyrules99]

I like the old School throw back Gotham. the look of the 40s and 50s the best.

[Mia]

I loved the Gotham City of Batman Begins. Because it was couched in reality. I found that I certainly could relate to it. A large sprawling metropolis with gleaming office buildings and towers. Where everything looks happy and shinny. But yet there is an uderbelly of corruption. I think the 'goth' look of Gotham is much more suited towards the cartoons.

[curefreak]

i love the gothic architechture (sp) in the first two batman films and i also like the 50s noir touches that have been applied especially to b:tas

[Meta 05]

When it comes to Gothem the best interpretations of it from out side of comics would be IMO

1. The Animated Series

2.Batman Returns

GOthem should be a bleak dark shadowy relic with a historical 40s , and 50s fell.I am a really big fan of the the bleak scary gothem, i think that that version compliments Batman the most an really puts him in his element.

[Faust451]

Batman and Batman Returns, all the way!!!!

[Agentum]

I like the old School throw back Gotham. the look of the 40s and 50s the best.
Yes like in the Batman TAS cartoons, a diffuse 40s-50s world.

[the goddamn batman]

Batman: TAS had THE best Gotham. Ever.

[dancj]

I think Gotham should be drab. It needs some of that art deco stuff and gargoyles, but Tim Burton took it way too far.

The Batman Begins version was fine by me - though it needed to rain more

Dan

[Puffy Fugu]

TAS was good, so was Batman Begins. IMO, Gotham should be represented as something believable.

I didn't like Burton's Gotham at all. I don't think he really "got" Batman- he just kinda did his own thing. I have to admit, Penguin eating fish was pretty funny though.

[Nonentity]

i think a mix of retro, deco, and modern is best. i thought they kinda nailed it in Batman Begins, but then, Gotham wasn't nearly as much of a character in that film as it was in the '89 film.

I like it to be scary, but not some crazy caricature of a ghoulish gothic nightmare place. burton's version leaned heavy in that direction, but it worked somehow.



See, I've always felt that Gotham is just much a character in and of itself in the books as Gordon or Bullock or Alfred and should be treated as such. When the city has that feeling of a 'crazy caricature of a ghoulish gothic nightmare' it provides a mood unlike anything else in comics and in the bat-books, mood counts for a lot.

My personal rule of thumb is "If Metropolis is the City of Tomorrow, Gotham is the City of Yesterday". Where one is futuristic, the other is antiquated. Where one has criminals using crazy sci-fi robot technology, the other has gangsters in three-piece suits using tommy guns.

[Babylon23]

Anton Furst's designs for Gotham are amazing, and Burton captured them beautifully in Batman. Both Batman and Batman: TAS have the Gotham I prefer, the art deco noir look with a touch of gothic.

I loved the Batman Returns look as well, but it went even more gothic, and lost some of the deco look.

[Slortex]

I like the gothic look... but only for animated and comic mediums. Something about film doesn't translate as well for me, and so I prefer the realistic portrayal from Begins in film.

[filthysize]

I like the one in '89, but the one in Returns is just too much. It paved the way for the flashy giant statues of Forever and B&R. I've always liked that bit from Karl Kessel's World's Finest when Superman visits Gotham for the first time and said "My god. Forget the criminals -- Gotham's city planners are the ones who should be behind bars! This whole city is like a giant sprawling haunted house."

I thought the East slums part in Begins was nicely done, though. They modeled it after Kowloon City, which is what I think of when I'm imagining a realistic Gotham.

[Kid Quick Foots]

Well done, over easy or scrambled?

Joking aside......I was watching the '89 the other day, and I couldn't help but notice how much I preferred Burton's deco nightmare to the modern landscape we got in Batman Begins. It just seems to me that Gotham is best presented as a kind of relic, something that forgot to leave the 1940s. One of the things I have always loved about the animated series is the deco backdrop, which just seems to accentuate the world Batman lives in.

So, how do you like your Gotham? A retro, deco-esque place or something that has a more modern feel to it? Maybe a blend of the two?


LOL "watching THE '89", anywho, i agree with ya dude.

[Kara Zor El]

I prefer Anton Furst's Gotham best. I'm not a big fan of the Burton films but the city looked great. It was very comic book. Why have Batman in Gotham City at all if you aren't going to have it be something very different from real American cities like say New York or Chicago?

[LordEd1976]

I like Gotham to be mostly gothic in its architecture with a few more modern buildings sprinkled in. Areas like slums I imagine to be more like what we saw in Begins.

For me the big thing is the attitude of the city. I've always pictured to be a place where for the most part its safe to walk the streets during the day but as the sun goes down, there are places that go from full of people to deserted real fast. Its a place where one goes from safe neighborhood to nasty in less space than it takes to park a car. Thats what I see Gotham as.

[Voncaster]

I like the Tim Burton's Gotham the best.

After that I like the 60's TV show Gotham for its complete wackiness and police force cooperating with Batman.

"We're In trouble again Chief O' Brian, some one has just robbed the National Museum of Umbrellas, and we have no leads. We better get the caped crusader on the bat phone." (Why isn't this series on DVD!?!)

[Alan2099]

50s gothic throw back. Batman Begins was far too realistic for me and not nearly stylized enough.

I'd say either the Animated series or the 89 movie holds the top spot.