BATMAN: YEAR ONE Animated Movie Is Being Re-Released As A Remastered "Commemorative Edition" This Year

BATMAN: YEAR ONE Animated Movie Is Being Re-Released As A Remastered "Commemorative Edition" This Year

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is set to re-release 2011's Batman: Year One later this year, and as well as being remastered, it will include a new featurette highlighting Bryan Cranston's Jim Gordon...

News
By JoshWilding - Sep 13, 2021 02:09 PM EST
Filed Under: Batman (Animated)

After originally being released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2011, Batman: Year One is being re-released in a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack featuring an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc in 4K with HDR, a Blu-ray disc featuring the film in hi-definition, and a digital version of the movie.

Based on the landmark 1987 DC Comics series from Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, the movie depicts young Bruce Wayne's return to Gotham City in his first attempts to fight injustice as a costumed superhero. The playboy billionaire chooses the guise of a giant bat to combat crime, creates an early bond with a young Lieutenant James Gordon (who is already battling corruption from inside the police department), inadvertently plays a role in the birth of Catwoman, and helps to bring down a crooked political system that infests Gotham City.

The cast includes Bryan Cranston (Lieutenant James Gordon), Ben McKenzie (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Eliza Dushku (Selina Kyle/Catwoman), Katee Sackhoff (Detective Sarah Essen), and the late Alex Rocco (Carmine Falcone). Lauren Montgomery and Sam Liu co-directed Batman: Year One from a script penned by Academy Award nominee Tab Murphy. 

There will also be a new featurette titled "Reinventing Gordon," and that's described as, "An examination of the history of James Gordon through comics, animation, and feature films."

A first look at that is set to be revealed at DC FanDome next month. As for Batman: Year One, the movie is set to be released on November 9, later this year, so keep checking back here for updates.
 

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dracula
dracula - 9/13/2021, 2:02 PM
Already have the original release, but cool cover
dracula
dracula - 9/13/2021, 2:04 PM
Bring back Eliza Dushku when they use Catwoman again in the new animated universe.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 9/13/2021, 4:44 PM
@dracula - Yeah, with Naya Rivera passed on, who I was surprised how much I liked and thought sounded pitch perfect for how I hear the role (maybe due to being raised on Batman Returns and Batman The Animated Series), to me, I think Eliza Dushku could fill the role decently.
dracula
dracula - 9/13/2021, 4:55 PM
@dagenspear - yeah Naya was great. Didnt like it when i saw the trailer but quickly grew on me when i saw the movie.
Desrow
Desrow - 9/13/2021, 2:10 PM
@Rormachine @JoshWilding

‘The Batman’ Spinoff Series About Penguin in Early Development at HBO Max


https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1437521715890896897
dracula
dracula - 9/13/2021, 2:13 PM
@Desrow - damn, this is going to be one well developed Batman universe. GCPD miniseries and a Penguin miniseries.

Hope Penguin is big bad of The Batman 2
Se4M4NSt4ine
Se4M4NSt4ine - 9/13/2021, 2:20 PM
@Desrow - I could totally see a Penguin series being something like the Sopranos.
bigdannymac
bigdannymac - 9/13/2021, 2:18 PM
I wonder if this re-release is to prepare us for The Batman movie, since it takes place in Year Two.
Chuck420Taylor
Chuck420Taylor - 9/13/2021, 2:25 PM
@bigdannymac - between that and being 10years since original release, two birds one stone. not to mention another batman movie to keep him fresh on everyone mind.
bigdannymac
bigdannymac - 9/13/2021, 2:35 PM
@Chuck420Taylor - Absolutely 🦇
marvel72
marvel72 - 9/13/2021, 2:22 PM
Already own but one of the best Batman stories ever in animation.
Skestra
Skestra - 9/13/2021, 2:48 PM
I wonder if the re-release will include the "Catwoman" DC Showcase written by Paul Dini like the original had.
DarkDetective
DarkDetective - 9/13/2021, 3:03 PM
Wasnt Selina black in this story?
Darkknight2149
Darkknight2149 - 9/13/2021, 3:19 PM
@DarkDetective -
No, but she had short hair.
dracula
dracula - 9/13/2021, 8:26 PM
@DarkDetective - she is darker than others but not black.
Darkknight2149
Darkknight2149 - 9/13/2021, 3:19 PM
Probably one of the most disappointing ones. Besides Brian Cranston, the voice acting was robotic and off. The animation didn't fit the tone of the story. Some of the most cinematic scenes from the comic were botched (especially "I shall become a bat" and the SWAT fight). The pacing was pretty bad as well.
Darkknight2149
Darkknight2149 - 9/13/2021, 3:20 PM
Overall, it felt like they rushed through the story and changed the tone and visual style a bit too much.
BIGBMH
BIGBMH - 9/13/2021, 5:50 PM
@Darkknight2149 -

" The animation didn't fit the tone of the story."





Idk what you wanted from the animation style. It's about as close as you can get to the comic's style on the budget they were working with.
Darkknight2149
Darkknight2149 - 9/13/2021, 6:21 PM
@BIGBMH -
The use of CGI in certain parts and the nice clean animation were the biggest problems. You can cherry-pick certain panels, but the grittiness and Scorsese-esque tone, the use of traditionally "ugly" colours, and the rundown streets of Gotham City were completely absent from the film. The movie had no style, and that's not even its only flaw.





https://2.bp.blogspot.com/ZKzNT0pz5JsnlEiGzcaUhqo9dvk04Az9uN6boE8aSQOuGFNnySVUv3E6q93saFAmdWEvq79jm5-Q=s1600



I'm just going to say, despite being "faithful" (in a superficial sense like The Killing Joke), it wasn't a very good adaptation. It wasn't terrible, but it was definitely a waste. Nobody who didn't read the graphic novel first is going to look at this film as some sort of masterpiece or definitive take on Batman's origin.

It needed better voice acting, better direction, the grounded realism of the graphic novel, and a more fitting animation style. The graphic novel feels more like a movie than the movie did.
dracula
dracula - 9/13/2021, 8:25 PM
@Darkknight2149 - problem is unless you go hand drawn, you cant get that old dirty look, at least not in any way that is believeable. Now even 2d is done on a computer
Darkknight2149
Darkknight2149 - 9/13/2021, 8:44 PM
@dracula -
I think it's definitely possible to create a gritty look with modern animation, though. A lot of darker animes (Black Lagoon, Castlevania) have accomplished that. Hell, other DC animated shows and films have done a better job.

The problem with Batman: Year One is that they kind of just lazily copy/pasted the graphic novel 1:1 and rushed through it without putting any thought or effort into the performances, mood, direction, pacing, or any of the things that would make it good. As I mentioned earlier, certain scenes that should have been cinematic (especially "I shall become a bat" and the SWAT fight scene) fell completely flat because of the robotic voice acting and lackadaisical direction. This is a movie solely for people who have already read the graphic novel.

This honestly reminds me of when people say "Batman: The Killing Joke was a good adaptation if you ignore the Batgirl stuff!" I'm sorry, but nooooo it wasn't. Even the rest of the movie made questionable decisions, left out a bunch of details and visual symbolism from the graphic novel, suffered from poor animation, and completely botched the pacing and line readings by breezing through the story.

Batman: Year One is a lot better than The Killing Joke, but it did make some similar mistakes. Just because something is technically "faithful" doesn't mean it was adapted well. The Year One movie isn't bad, just painfully dry and mediocre.
GwenLantern
GwenLantern - 9/14/2021, 12:36 AM
@Darkknight2149 - It's Sam Liu. He's good, but he's an acquired taste and all but ruined Killing Joke for me, for the very reasons you point out.
His style is evocative and reminiscent of B:TAS (which is probably why Bruce Timm likes him so much), but without the warmth and earthiness.
It can be very dry, stilted and empty.

I didn't actually mind it too much on Year One, I thought it gave it a nice understated, apathetic, meditative feel, but I can see why you would be missing the Scorcese-esque filmic, gritty feel.

Something more like the New York sequence from 1981's Heavy Metal might have been more befitting.
BIGBMH
BIGBMH - 9/14/2021, 1:48 PM
@Darkknight2149 - I'm talking about one specific area, not the whole film. You critique the animation, but you haven't provided any examples of feature-length animation on a similar budget that comes closer to the look of the graphic novel. If you give the studio the budget of a Ghibli film or hand drawn Walt Disney Animation Studios film it could look much better, but I think you have to critique within the constraints of a home release animated feature budget.

DC's straight to home release films arguably got worse looking and more generic as they continued and started connecting various movies. When the overall visual standard for their films is less faithful to the source material and has less character, it feels odd to attack one of their few films that makes a decent attempt at translating a comic artist's style.
Darkknight2149
Darkknight2149 - 9/14/2021, 5:59 PM
@BIGBMH -
The problem isn't that they didn't make it look 100% like the drawn page, the problem is that they made no attempt to capture the atmosphere or tone of the graphic novel, and the animation style they went with was detrimental in that department. In some ways, the Year One and Killing Joke movie did to Batman what The Junji Ito Collection did to horror manga.



If you want an example, Spawn HBO is a master class in building tone.
CAPTAINPINKEYE
CAPTAINPINKEYE - 9/13/2021, 4:06 PM
This was one of by favourite ones.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 9/13/2021, 4:41 PM
I'd like to see a sequel to this, titled The Man Who Laughs
BIGBMH
BIGBMH - 9/13/2021, 5:38 PM
@dagenspear - That would be awesome. Man Who Laughs is an underrated story, but I think it's a great Year One follow-up that I recommend to people who are getting into Batman comics.
mrbioshock1984
mrbioshock1984 - 9/13/2021, 5:12 PM
I like Frank Miller but Frank Miller is kind of overrated and his dialogue is not that good! Now give Denny O'Neill 🦇 any day of the week☺️❤️
dragon316
dragon316 - 9/13/2021, 6:02 PM
Didn’t know about this movie will check this out
blitzkreg
blitzkreg - 9/13/2021, 7:38 PM
This is why you never buy the first version of a movie.
roxas1003
roxas1003 - 9/13/2021, 9:11 PM
Eliza Dushku should come back as catwoman she did an amazing job!
TheDpool
TheDpool - 9/14/2021, 12:43 AM
I got this way back, forgot all about this movie!

Got it in a five movie boxset, was only after Mask of the Phantasm.
CAPTAINPINKEYE
CAPTAINPINKEYE - 9/14/2021, 4:31 PM
musicsuperhero1
musicsuperhero1 - 5/16/2022, 4:57 PM
Batman: Year One is one of my favorite stories. But this movie was really, really disappointing. I think it goes to show you, not all stories need nor should be adapted to movie.

Ben McKenzie was --IMHO-- horrible as bruce wayne/batman.

I also felt the voice-over timing and direction was just off.


*shrugs*
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