ganon51

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Most people you ask about this season will say it was a step down from the first 3 seasons of Batman: TAS. Do you feel that its cons outweigh the pros?
Two-FaceComparison.jpg
 

Yojimbo

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Some designs looked better or got an upgrade in the TNBA era like Scarecrow, imo, but others... I absolutely hated the Joker redesign. Thank goodness, the redesign in ROTJ was amazing. Tone seemed a bit more bleak at times. Batman seemed a bit more quick to just hit people compared to B:TAS. Maybe less empathetic. But no, I don't think the cons outweighed the pros. In away, the show sort of set the tone for the rest of the DCAU like Batman Beyond and Justice League/JLU. Which I thought were all steps up above TNBA. Kinda like when you look at the evolutionary chart, TNBA is the midway point to the 'homo sapiens' of the canon. lol.
 

Dusty

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Agree with Yojimbo here, but I maybe loved it a bit more than most folks. Don’t get me wrong, I loved and cherish BTAS, but I really liked the re-designs and more streamlined look of TNBA.
I thought Mr. Freeze, Bane, Scarecrow, Two-Face, Quinn, and especially Killer Croc looked great. Bane’s spike choker was dumb as was Poison Ivy’s giant head and bland design along with Joker were not very good. The stories weren’t any less brilliant or entertaining IMO. Another good thing about TNBA’s re-designs were they were cool, tight, and streamlined angular designs that ushered in BB, Static Shock, and JL. I don’t know how the last season would have done harm to anything. Again, my only issues I had with it were Poison Ivy’s, Joker’s, and Catwoman’s designs, (and Catwoman’s backstory still sucked.) I disliked Batgirl and Batman being a couple too. That May seem like a ton of complaints or “cons” but BTAS and STAS has just as many flaws to me.

Howcool would it be for WB/DC to try and getthe gang back and make a Batman cartoon based on the 2003 comic Batman Adventures. All characters got better designs and looked cool except Catwoman. You had JL style Batman, Joker, Clayface, Mr. Freeze, etc, etc... it would get such good ratings if they did a show that takes place during or right after Justice League Season One. But just show Batman’s stuff.
 

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VintageToonFan

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Personally, I felt everything after BTAS was a step-down, except Static Shock, that show was enjoyable. And Batman Beyond did have some goodness sprinkled about.

I just felt the designs became way too simplistic for my taste and I just wish they had kept the BTAS style. As for the cartoons themselves, I just felt they were a bit too bland and generic for my taste. I just couldn't enjoy them at all. I felt they lacked the excitement that BTAS, Batman Beyond and even Static Shock had. I just wasn't as engaged.

Again, no show is perfect, but I do at least expect some good entertainment value, and with the latter DCAU cartoons, I just didn't feel that. Some JL/JLU episodes did have some enjoyment but not much.
 
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Raider969

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No, I don't think The New Batman Adventures did more bad than good. To me it was still a great series even with the redesigns.
 

Rick Jones

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I don't hate TNBA. Episodes like Over The Edge, Growing Pains, Legends of The Dark Knight, etc, etc are masterpieces to me. It's hard for me to really personally accept it as a sequel series to the Fox Kids run of Batman. I just like to view TAS as its own thing and TNBA and the rest of the DCAU as separate. It just feels so much different and always did. It's just my own personal head canon.


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Revelator

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I really don't get the antagonism toward TNBA. The redesigns took Bruce Timm's design aesthetic to the edge of abstraction, which I guess bothers less adventurous folks, but the only design failures resulted from the design failing to match the character. Two Face's redesign for example makes both of his faces look evil, which is obviously wrong. But Batman, Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, Scarecrow, Bane, and the Penguin were all triumphs. Even the much-hated Joker redesign, meant to resemble a grinning skull, was a daring experiment, though it didn't animate as well as it looked on paper.

As for consistency in writing and animation, TNBA is arguably superior to any random sampling of episodes from BTAS. As for the stories, I don't see how "bland and generic" would in any way apply to a season with episodes like "Never Fear," "Over The Edge," "Old Wounds," "Growing Pains," "Legends of The Dark Knight," and "Mad Love." TNBA is arguably a darker show than BTAS.

The one area where I do think BTAS had an advantage was the presence of co-producer Eric Radomski and background painter John Calmette. Their absence is much felt in TNBA, not only in the lack of title cards, but in the overall tone. The black-on-black darkness, stark cityscapes, and gritty airbushed look of Batman's world were defining factors of BTAS's noir world, and they're much missed in TNBA.
 

Fone Bone

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I really don't get the antagonism toward TNBA. The redesigns took Bruce Timm's design aesthetic to the edge of abstraction, which I guess bothers less adventurous folks, but the only design failures resulted from the design failing to match the character. Two Face's redesign for example makes both of his faces look evil, which is obviously wrong. But Batman, Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, Scarecrow, Bane, and the Penguin were all triumphs. Even the much-hated Joker redesign, meant to resemble a grinning skull, was a daring experiment, though it didn't animate as well as it looked on paper.

As for consistency in writing and animation, TNBA is arguably superior to any random sampling of episodes from BTAS. As for the stories, I don't see how "bland and generic" would in any way apply to a season with episodes like "Never Fear," "Over The Edge," "Old Wounds," "Growing Pains," "Legends of The Dark Knight," and "Mad Love." TNBA is arguably a darker show than BTAS.

The one area where I do think BTAS had an advantage was the presence of co-producer Eric Radomski and background painter John Calmette. Their absence is much felt in TNBA, not only in the lack of title cards, but in the overall tone. The black-on-black darkness, stark cityscapes, and gritty airbushed look of Batman's world were defining factors of BTAS's noir world, and they're much missed in TNBA.
Qualitywise TNBA was more consistent than BTAS. It wasn't necessarily better all of the time, but it was hardly ever worse than the worst of BTAS.
 

Otaku-sempai

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Did TNBA do more harm than good? No, not by a long shot. Yes, some of the redesigns didn't work well, but others were vast improvements (both Penguin and Scarecrow come to mind). I do wish that the relationship between Dick and Babs had continued over from Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero; the Barbara/Bruce thing never worked for me--at all.
 

BigFatHairyDeal

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The one area where I do think BTAS had an advantage was the presence of co-producer Eric Radomski and background painter John Calmette. Their absence is much felt in TNBA, not only in the lack of title cards, but in the overall tone. The black-on-black darkness, stark cityscapes, and gritty airbushed look of Batman's world were defining factors of BTAS's noir world, and they're much missed in TNBA.

Thanks for putting a name to what I liked better about BTAS. These things created a bit of an atmosphere that TNBA lacked.

As far as character designs, I generally preferred the BTAS designs, but not all of the TNBA redesigns were bad. I will say this much, though. Along the lines of atmosphere, TNBA seemed to take things from the quasi-mid-20th-century to present day, and I missed that.

Optimistically, I'd say TNBA streamlined the look. Pessimistically, I'd say the redesigns look more processed, with efficiency in mind. In my head, when I look back at the two shows, the older one seems to be more curves and round edges, whereas the latter makes me think of sharper angles. If you took the middle of the pack designs for both shows, and then drew them in the BTAS style and then in the TNBA style, I'm guessing I'd like the BTAS ones more.

Edit: So I'm looking at the side-by-side in the OP, and I like the BTAS one more for a lot of reasons, not just the character design. Again, I like the curves vs. the sharper angles, but I also prefer the shading, particularly around the Good Harvey side eye and the Bad Harvey hair. I'm not going to say these screen shots are perfectly emblematic of their respective series, but they are pretty much in line with the impression each series left on me. It feels like different processes had different end results, and what we got with BTAS was more visually appealing to me. Really, the designs for Two-Face aren't all that different, but my impression to them are pretty starkly different.
 
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doomrider7

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Did TNBA do more harm than good? No, not by a long shot. Yes, some of the redesigns didn't work well, but others were vast improvements (both Penguin and Scarecrow come to mind). I do wish that the relationship between Dick and Babs had continued over from Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero; the Barbara/Bruce thing never worked for me--at all.

To add to this they also hardened Bruce in a way that never quite felt natural especially towards his friends and family which I really didn't like. Same for the Jason Todd as Tim Drake change which never quite sat well with me since Tim Drake is the best Robin besides Dick himself, same applies to changing large aspects of Dick's personality making him too much of a Batman-lite as opposed to his own persona like in the comics.
 

Revelator

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Bruce growing more and more consumed with crime-fighting felt like a perfectly natural progression to me. He was already obsessed and just grew more obsessive. I never felt the comics versions of Tim Drake or Dick Grayson were very interesting to begin with (the first was too much of a paragon, the second was bland), so I was fine with TNBA Tim having more of Jason Todd's street-kid attitude and Dick being resentful toward Bruce.
As for the Bruce and Barbara relationship, that didn't really happen until Batman Beyond, though TNBA did clear the way by ending Dick and Barbara's relationship. Additionally Batgirl became a full-time partner of Batman, whereas Nightwing kept his distance in order to establish a separate identity from the Bat-folks.
 

doomrider7

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Bruce growing more and more consumed with crime-fighting felt like a perfectly natural progression to me. He was already obsessed and just grew more obsessive. I never felt the comics versions of Tim Drake or Dick Grayson were very interesting to begin with (the first was too much of a paragon, the second was bland), so I was fine with TNBA Tim having more of Jason Todd's street-kid attitude and Dick being resentful toward Bruce.
As for the Bruce and Barbara relationship, that didn't really happen until Batman Beyond, though TNBA did clear the way by ending Dick and Barbara's relationship. Additionally Batgirl became a full-time partner of Batman, whereas Nightwing kept his distance in order to establish a separate identity from the Bat-folks.

I have to disagree since for that they could have used actual Jason Todd instead of Tim(maybe bringing in ACTUAL Tim Drake later). The whole resentment between Bruce and Dick just never felt quite right to me at all since it went against major aspects of the characters, ditto for making Dick too much like Batman at times when the reason for his popularity in the comics fandom is SPECIFICALLY due to him not being anything like Batman by being a universally beloved and charismatic hero.
 

Revelator

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I have to disagree since for that they could have used actual Jason Todd instead of Tim(maybe bringing in ACTUAL Tim Drake later). The whole resentment between Bruce and Dick just never felt quite right to me at all since it went against major aspects of the characters, ditto for making Dick too much like Batman at times when the reason for his popularity in the comics fandom is SPECIFICALLY due to him not being anything like Batman by being a universally beloved and charismatic hero.

If they used Jason Todd then everyone would be expect him to die or have something horrible happen to him during the series. It would have put a permanent cloud of doom over the animated character at a time when his fate, as disclosed in Return of the Joker, had yet to be determined. You have to remember that back then Jason Todd was mostly famous for being killed, and he'd been dead for a decade. The producers of TNBA probably thought a streetkid Robin would be more interesting and easier to introduce than the comic version of Tim Drake, who had a very convoluted origin. But naming him Jason Todd would lead to all sorts of viewer expectations and foreboding, so they dodged that by using Tim's name.

As for the resentment/estrangement between Bruce and Dick, that was portrayed in the comics, especially when Dick was leaving to join the Titans and become Nightwing, so it's true to the original characters, just less melodramatic. And the root of the conflict in the show was that Dick did not want to be cold and obsessive like Batman. And in TNBA he generally isn't. As for being "universally beloved and charismatic," the show is about Batman, not the apotheosis of a supporting player like Nightwing.
 

TheVileOne

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The design changes were radical but the stories were darker and more intense than the ones on The Animated Series. Bruce Timm and Paul Dini understand these characters more than Zack Snyder did, and Warner Bros. did a major disservice to the DC cinematic films by never consulting them.

This is the best Bruce Timm design for Batman with the black emblem, cape and the brown belt. Dick Grayson became Nightwing. It was a natural progression for the series.
 

doomrider7

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If they used Jason Todd then everyone would be expect him to die or have something horrible happen to him during the series. It would have put a permanent cloud of doom over the animated character at a time when his fate, as disclosed in Return of the Joker, had yet to be determined. You have to remember that back then Jason Todd was mostly famous for being killed, and he'd been dead for a decade. The producers of TNBA probably thought a streetkid Robin would be more interesting and easier to introduce than the comic version of Tim Drake, who had a very convoluted origin. But naming him Jason Todd would lead to all sorts of viewer expectations and foreboding, so they dodged that by using Tim's name.

As for the resentment/estrangement between Bruce and Dick, that was portrayed in the comics, especially when Dick was leaving to join the Titans and become Nightwing, so it's true to the original characters, just less melodramatic. And the root of the conflict in the show was that Dick did not want to be cold and obsessive like Batman. And in TNBA he generally isn't. As for being "universally beloved and charismatic," the show is about Batman, not the apotheosis of a supporting player like Nightwing.

Fair point on the Jason Todd thing, but if that was the case, they should have made Tim like in the comics instead of a carbon copy of Jason. And yeah it was true to comics albeit the versions of the break-up are numerous now. I just feel that they made him too brooding when he's supposed to be something akin to Spiderman in personality by being very amicable and lighter if that makes sense.
 

ganon51

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This is the best Bruce Timm design for Batman with the black emblem, cape and the brown belt. Dick Grayson became Nightwing. It was a natural progression for the series.
Finally, someone else who loves this Batman design. I wish they had kept it for JL/U. It especially looked great when his shoulder highlight was more pronounced:
50.jpg
 

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