RIP Joel Schumacher

Hey everyone, I know I am late on this, but I just wanted to say RIP Joel Schumacher. The reason why I took so long was because I wanted to make a blog post on something that has been in my mind for a while, that being was Joel Schumacher better at writing Batman than Tim Burton. It took so long, because I haven't seen the films in a long time and I've been trying to find a way to see them. What kept me in my way was work and how I tried to watch those movies again was online, but there were always pop up ads and that can get pretty annoying. Last week I was at my dad's and we rented the movies from the library, but unfortunately his DVD player wasn't working. I just rented Batman '89 and Returns from the library and was intending to rent Batman Forever and Batman and Robin when I return the first two movies I rented, due to libraries giving you a limited number of films or books for you to rent. But then I realized Burton and Schumacher were simply directors of the Batman movies and not writers, so I just realized I just wasted my time. Ugh. Who knows though, maybe the handling of Batman in the old movies is something I'll cover another day.

But for now, I feel I should just cover Schumacher's death, because if I wait longer, it'll be too late. Sure it's been four weeks since he died and I should have covered this sooner, but four weeks is better than four months.

Joel Schumacher was the director of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, as well as other films that are well received like Lost Boys, A Time to Kill, etc. He started off as a costume designer and became a writer for Car Wash, Sparkle, and The Wiz. He then made his way into directing, I haven't seen any of his films aside from his two Batman movies, but I have heard that some of them were pretty good.

As a little kid, I enjoyed his two Batman movies. They were fun and exciting for me at that age, but as I got older I began to grow out of them and my opinion began to change that they weren't good movies. At least that was my opinion at the time, but now I feel that there are some good things about them, like Val Kilmer as Batman, the look of Gotham City, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, and Jim Carrey as the Riddler.

I heard that Joel wanted to make Batman Forever dark, but the studio wouldn't let him, because they wanted a more kid friendly approach to the franchise due to his dark Batman Returns was. To me, it's a real shame that we never got to see how Joel Schumacher would have done a darker Batman movie, because I'd be interested to see how he'd do a dark Batman after seeing him do a light hearted one.

I also feel that people have given Joel Schumacher too much crap over the years for his Batman movies and supposedly ruining the franchise. I plead guilty to this as well, because there was a time in my late elementary to middle school where I blamed him for literally everything had in those movies. But hey, I was only a kid and they can often form opinions without knowing the full facts. If anything, Warner Brothers is to blame for these movies being kid friendly, because that's how they wanted it. Some I guess would say the franchise died with Batman Forever or Batman and Robin, but I'd say it died the moment WB decided these films should be kid friendly. So yeah, Schumacher shouldn't get blame for this. One thing I feel that I should note too is that Joel Schumacher seemed pretty self aware, because when faced with the backlash of Batman and Robin, He understood it and even apologized. Sometimes I find it so funny that the film was so bad the director apologized for it, but considering it was part of a big well received franchise I can see why someone like him would feel so bummed about it that they feel they need to apologize for it. I bring this up, because in recent years, directors like Rian Johnson blame fans for poor reception and don't own up to their mistakes, but Joel on the other hand showed he wasn't like that and was willing to own up to his wrong doings.

When I say I felt Schumacher was better with Batman than Burton, I meant Batman as a character. Reason why I say that is because Tim had Batman kill, going against his one rule, which is an important part about his character, highly important. Joel seemed to remember that, because in his script for Batman Triumphant, it would explore Bruce regretting killing the Joker, showing he'd be aware that he shouldn't play out as judge, jury, and executioner, and then he'd learn to be a better hero. Harley Quinn was going to be the Joker's daughter instead of his girlfriend and while that's not a change I'd go for, I think I can see what Joel was going with this. Batman did what the Joker did to him, take a father away from his child. No doubt that would lead to Bruce regretting his actions in the first two movies. I would have really liked to see Batman Triumphant, it would have made a find conclusion to the old Batman movies. Plus it would have had the Scarecrow as the main villain and we've never had a movie like that. Batman Begins doesn't count, because Scarecrow was only a wasted side villain.

I don't know my exact opinions on Joel Schumacher's Batman movies right now, because it's been a very long time, but I cannot deny that I really enjoyed them when I was young. I most certainly had a great time watching them at young age and Joel never failed at making a movie us young kids could enjoy and look back with fond memories of our time watching them. RIP Joel Schumacher.