"Batman: Caped Crusader (Amazon Prime)" Animated Series News & Discussion Part 3 (Spoilers)

[dmxx116]

You can watch the first episode on Amazon Prime Freeve if you don’t have a Prime account:
Check out Batman: Caped Crusader, Season 1 on Freevee. It's free to watch!
https://freevee.app.link/W7LV037CKLb

 

[Frontier]

I'm making my way through the season and my biggest takeaways so far:

Everybody loves to bully Bullock.

Alfred really doing his best to take care of this boy, no matter what, even when his job is more thankless than ever.

We need more Christina Ricci Catwoman.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Some things never change...

 

[-batmat-]

Watched the first episode, and I just can't get over how low-effort everything looks and moves. I don't see what I'd be getting out of this show that I couldn't find satisfied by watching The Batman from 2005. Why are there no cartoons that seem to be trying anymore with their visuals?

My guess is that budget for animation is very limited these days.

 

[Frontier]

My guess is that budget for animation is very limited these days.

I can kind of see Caped Crusader and My Adventures with Superman having about the same budget.

 

[Yojimbo]

An interview with Linklater, Driver, and Chung.

If you follow James Tucker on twitter, he posted some Penguin concepts.

 

[Otaku-sempai]

Watched the first episode, and I just can't get over how low-effort everything looks and moves. I don't see what I'd be getting out of this show that I couldn't find satisfied by watching The Batman from 2005. Why are there no cartoons that seem to be trying anymore with their visuals?

I would say that the animation of The Batman was more...fluid? Let's say, dynamic. However, Caped Crusader is far superior over the earlier show in terms of more sophisticated plots and scripting. It's a great example of substance over style. At the same time, the show just oozes mood.

 

[wonderfly]

From the front page of AnimeSuperhero.com:

"Batman: Caped Crusader Started As Something Different"​

"Now that it’s out there, I think you and I both agree that Batman: Caped Crusader lives up to the hype. It successfully revives the formula established in Batman: The Animated Series by changing just enough to keep it fresh yet still retaining what was timeless. It’s the BTAS revival we always wanted….but it turns out its creator had no intention of making such a thing.

For years the #1 demand fans had for Bruce Timm was that he go back and make new episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. but he’s never specifically returned to that style of storytelling until now. Ironically, a literal revival of BTAS is what Warner Bros asked for at first. And Timm turned it down.

A new interview with Timm on the website The Wrap reveals the project that would become Batman: Caped Crusader started when WB was just getting HBO Max set up and looking for attractive projects to draw in viewers. Timm was asked if he would revive BTAS with new episodes. “I’m like, ‘Nah, we’d been there, we’d done that.’ I wasn’t interested in just revisiting that world,” Timm says he told them."

Read the full article here.

 

[-batmat-]

Great video by Serum Lake with BTAS references in Caped Crusader


I didn't pause the newspaper ones when watching the episode the first time, so seeing them all there, dang, they really went for them! Charlie Collins one really made me laugh

 

[CyberCubed]

If they had done the original plan of reviving B:TAS (similar to X-men 97), I wonder what they would have done due to Conroy's unfortunate passing. The show would have been in production/scripted back in 2020 or so about 2 years before Conroy left us. While they probably would have recorded all his lines, if the show was to go on more than one season they'd be left with the decision to end it or recast.

I think out of respect Bruce Timm would have ended any revival right then and there. Without Kevin Conroy there is no B:TAS revival.

 

[b.t.]

Great video by Serum Lake with BTAS references in Caped Crusader


I didn't pause the newspaper ones when watching the episode the first time, so seeing them all there, dang, they really went for them! Charlie Collins one really made me laugh

I’m impressed! He not only ‘got’ all of those Easter eggs but he got them RIGHT. Extra points for catching the origin of that ‘Batman on the roof of Two-Face‘s car’ bit. I feel kinda bad pointing out that there was also a ‘Batman fighting a Big Cat in a Museum while Catwoman escapes’ pic in that same set of promo images, but maybe he just never saw that one.

Oh, and the author of the Gray Ghost novel that Alfred is seen reading, ‘Max Grantwell‘ is a sideways anagram of ‘Maxwell Grant’, the house-name under which Walter Gibson, Ted Tinsley and others wrote the original Shadow novels.

I’m honestly kinda surprised no one has caught the significance of the intersection of ‘Wilson and Lowery’ yet. It’s not THAT deep a cut…

 

[Millicay]

I’m honestly kinda surprised no one has caught the significance of the intersection of ‘Wilson and Lowery’ yet. It’s not THAT deep a cut…

Lewis Wilson and Robert Lowery, the first live action Batmen (now where's my DC No-Prize?)

 

[b.t.]

That was fast — good job!

You would get a gif of Charles Foster Kane sternly applauding if I knew how to embed one.

Okay — corner of Wheeler and Nicholson.

 

[Millicay]

Okay — corner of Wheeler and Nicholson.

Found it but I have to admit it took some googling. Now THAT is a deep cut. I consider myself a pretty big DC fan and I never heard the name. Will spoiler tag it just in case someone actually knows it from the top of their head.

Spoiler

Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, who launched National Allied Publications, which would become DC Comics.

Man, Batman would have saved a lot of time with Riddler in the 60s if he had access to Google...

 

[-batmat-]

I immediately thought of that promotional image with Two Face in the car with Batman on top of it while watching the episode. I suspected it but good to know it was intentional! Two-Face is my favorite BTAS villain and that promotional image is just so cool!

 

[Yojimbo]

James Tucker posted dev art of Barbara, Thorne, Lucius, and Montoya (have to be following on twitter, he's private). Raymond Burr was a big inspiration for Thorne's design, actor James Edwards and Harlem Renaissance icons like sculptor Richmond Barthe influences Lucius Fox's design, and he mentioned Bruce Timm and Derek Charm did Clayface's design.

Edit: In this interview with Timm, great tidbits and insight, he mentions they're still working on scripts and starting to record. So... this will probably come out around the same time as My Adventures With Superman season 3. Man, hard to guess. Early 2026 maybe?

Edit2: Tucker posted more dev art of Penguin, Catwoman, the Gordons, and Flass.

 

[b.t.]

It’s a long-standing tradition in DC-ville to name streets and districts and such after famous creators and other important figures in DC history. We’ve had so many variations of ‘Sprang This’ and ‘Finger That’ over the years that I’ve been determined to cast a much wider net in recent years.

But getting the Legal Dept. to clear them can be tricky. I wanted to name the location of the skating rink that Montoya wants to take Harleen to ’Donnenfeld Center’ as if it were Gotham’s version of Rockefeller Center, but couldn’t clear it. Hence the deep dives into more obscure corner of DC history.

 

[Yojimbo]

But getting the Legal Dept. to clear them can be tricky. I wanted to name the location of the skating rink that Montoya wants to take Harleen to ’Donnenfeld Center’ as if it were Gotham’s version of Rockefeller Center, but couldn’t clear it. Hence the deep dives into more obscure corner of DC history.

Because it's that much harder to do so when a person is deceased and/or you're dealing with their estate or there's no difference and it is still the same odds to wanting to name something after a living person?

 

[Frontier]

If you follow James Tucker on twitter, he posted some Penguin concepts.

I still think they made this version of Penguin too attractive, but I can't deny how much she owns being a bit of a diva .

Great video by Serum Lake with BTAS references in Caped Crusader


I didn't pause the newspaper ones when watching the episode the first time, so seeing them all there, dang, they really went for them! Charlie Collins one really made me laugh

It's always cool when you notice references and then you get to go back and find out about all the ones you missed .

James Tucker posted dev art of Barbara, Thorne, Lucius, and Montoya (have to be following on twitter, he's private). Raymond Burr was a big inspiration for Thorne's design, actor James Edwards and Harlem Renaissance icons like sculptor Richmond Barthe influences Lucius Fox's design, and he mentioned Bruce Timm and Derek Charm did Clayface's design.

Thorne kind of reminds me of the grizzled older white-hairded dudes of the DCAU yore like Dan Turpin .

Lucius is so handsome .

This is quite possibly the cutest Renee Montoya I have ever seen .

Edit: In this interview with Timm, great tidbits and insight, he mentions they're still working on scripts and starting to record. So... this will probably come out around the same time as My Adventures With Superman season 3. Man, hard to guess. Early 2026 maybe?

It's amusing to me just how much this show and MAWS feel parallel and interlinked despite being so different .

I wonder if they might confirm a third season renewal before we get any more season 2 news ?

The only thing I would disagree with Timm on is that Donal Logue's Bullock in the Gotham show was still very much a slob and proud of it .

Edit2: Tucker posted more dev art of Penguin, Catwoman, the Gordons, and Flass.

I love how much of a femme fatale Selina looks, I love how smug Flass looks, and I love how the Gordon image is daughter facing off against her dad .

It’s a long-standing tradition in DC-ville to name streets and districts and such after famous creators and other important figures in DC history. We’ve had so many variations of ‘Sprang This’ and ‘Finger That’ over the years that I’ve been determined to cast a much wider net in recent years.

But getting the Legal Dept. to clear them can be tricky. I wanted to name the location of the skating rink that Montoya wants to take Harleen to ’Donnenfeld Center’ as if it were Gotham’s version of Rockefeller Center, but couldn’t clear it. Hence the deep dives into more obscure corner of DC history.

We appreciate the effort .

 

[b.t.]

Yojimbo:
It’s….complicated. They don’t always tell us the reasoning behind a given decision, so usually we can only guess what might or not clear.