Tim Burton Has Some Choice Words For His Batman Films' Haters

Tim Burton's Batman ( 1989) and Batman Returns (1992) remain among the most iconic superhero movies of all time, popular to this day.

For example, when during the press run for The Batman Robert Pattinson was asked about his favorite moments in Batman movies, he pointed out Batman Returns, calling it a masterpiece in his interview.

But these films have their share of critics, and you can guess one of the main venues of criticism from the fact, that Pattinson specifically mentioned Danny Devito's performance as Penguin as the most memorable part of the movie.

Quite a few people feel that the villains of these movies, The Joker in the original, Penguin and Catwoman in the sequel, heavily overshadow the titular hero, have more on-screen presence and character development (The Joker and Catwoman have larger character arcs than Batman), and there is simply not enough Batman in those Batman movies.

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But Tim Burton has an answer ready for those criticisms, which he provided in the making-of featurette:

"I always felt that those people for me were missing the point of the character of Batman, what he is. That's why I didn't like Robin involved. This guy wants to remain as hidden as possible and in the shadows as possible and unrevealing about himself as possible. So all of those things, he's not going to eat up screen time with these big speeches and dancing around the Batcave. I always felt he was in it the right amount and the right sort of, level of him."

Tim Burton, by the way, was not joking about dancing around the Batcave – before his films, by far the best-known live-action portrayal of Batman was the Barman TV series from Burton's own childhood, starring Adam West, and that series was campy, upbeat, colorful and humorous, and not only had Robin helping Batman, but did, in fact, involve Batman dancing around the Batcave at one point.

If you think that Burton's Batman movies include too much of both Burton's signature aesthetics and superhero clichés, resembling gothic fairy tales, when compared to "gritty and realistic" versions of Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy and the newest The Batman movie, just consider against what background Burton had to work at the time.