Patrick Explains BATMAN: THE MOVIE (And Why It's Great)

previously on patrick explains i think the success is going to his head you publicly admitted that you do not pay your taxes we'll see you in court so how's prison you know so far not as much fun as paddington 2 made it look i'm working on it [Music] the sun is shining the maple syrup is boiling what a wonderful day i've never seen a nicer one i can't think of a single thing that could ruin it no we interrupt this dad rock power hour for a breaking news bulletin a crazed movie-loving prisoner has escaped from the local prison he is considered unarmed unpopular with the female 18 to 34 demographic and way too into early 2016 drama the oc that's awful yeah they interrupted the power hour we were right in the middle of an allman brothers jam not that the news report you don't think they could be talking about hey guys it's me i'm back what patrick what are you doing here don't you know we could be arrested for harboring a fugitive i won't be long i'm sure to grab some supplies i'm taking a trip with a friend i met in the joints it's a dangerous journey and we might not survive hey where do you guys keep the chocolate chips around here so you busted out of the big house and now you're looking for a cozy place to cool off while a heat dies down hank please stop talking like an old gangster movie this is serious i'll say is this all the vanilla extract you guys have you know i like to triple the regular amount for my cookie recipe patrick please come in here and sit down i know it's been a hard year but you can talk to us you're right we should talk this might be the last time we see each other for a while i wanted to ask you guys have either of you recently watched the 1966 batman movie do you think we can get a reward if we turn them in weird question i know but see i've been walking through the woods for the past few days and at one point to feed myself i had to eat bugs which reminded me of bats which then obviously reminded me of batman now i've talked about batman here before i'm sure you remember my exhaustive explanation of the 1993 animated film mask of the phantasm and why it's great but today i want to talk about a very different version of batman i want to talk about the 1966 movie commonly known as batman colon the movie which was a spin-off of the tv show that premiered that same year for decades it was hated by vast swathes of bat fans who complained its campy tone made a mockery of the character but i disagree i think this version of batman should be celebrated for being more faithful to the comics than it gets credit for for its inimitable extremely cool style for being a good adventure movie and a great comedy for the genuinely brilliant adam west performance that still does not get the credit it deserves and for being a movie that forever changed my life you see batman the movie rules and today we're gonna talk about why holy lecture series [Music] [Applause] sponsored by raycon this is a movie from a different time a time when 20th century fox still existed and they owned the movie rights to batman batman the movie directed by leslie h martinson is a 1966 film that spun off from the 1966 abc tv series it was created and produced by william dozier and developed by writer lorenzo semple jr who also wrote the screenplay for the movie it is for lack of a better word a silly film it's full of comically over dramatic dialogue some of the angles of that rectangle is too monstrous to contemplate absurd costumes sets that resemble pop art installations dutch angles on dutch angles on dutch angles and of course animated sound effects usually when i show up here to explain a movie to you guys it's some kind of autourist masterpiece made by one of my favorite distinctive filmmakers this is not that batman the movie is a glorified episode of the tv show the director is a journeyman television director the movie brought over the same crew the same composer and same cinematographer from the show the writer was the head writer on the show also fun fact lorenzo semple jr would go on to write the screenplays for the parallax view and three days of the condor holy versatility batman while the movie lacks a few of the show's famous elements namely the batusi and the iconic narration that would come at the cliffhanger endings of episodes same bat time same bat channel it represents the best version of the show it has just about everything that made it great in one tight beautiful 105 minute package movie's under two hours you love to see it so let's talk about what actually happens in the movie because it is exactly what the title of some 41's debut album promised all killer no filler except unlike that album this actually delivers yeah i'm coming for you some 41. the film starts in a truly bonkers way with a dedication inscribed on a brick wall saying the film is for lovers of adventure and enemies of crime and yes i know what you're thinking but i do not consider the stuff i did to actually be criminal activities so this movie is still for me from there it goes into this rad as hell quintessential mid-60s title sequence that introduces the cast in bright vibrant primary colors and also has a little narrative of its own kind of like the pink panther title sequences that doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the movie if you're a kid this is exactly what you want from a batman movie it is all non-stop adventure and action and crime fighting it's almost all batman and barely any bruce wayne there's none of the boring stuff no angst no brooding no wayne enterprises business subplots and thank god no flashback to bruce wayne's parents getting shot because this movie is fun and i just don't really know how you make that scene fun [Music] yeah just doesn't work instead of a tedious origin story flashback which to be fair was not even really a thing yet since this was the first feature-length superhero movie the story jumps right into the action bruce wayne and dick grayson rush back to wayne manor to get the batmobile which brings them to the bat copter which brings them to a stolen yacht this is not a movie that needs to waste time explaining how batman got a helicopter he just has it get on board we're doing this in the story batman and robin as well as commissioner gordon and sergeant o'hara with his wonderfully terrible irish accent while they were luring you to a watery grave the commodore's yacht was being hijacked someplace else precisely plus alfred who gets to wear a little mask in one scene uncover a spectacularly sinister plot all of their greatest enemies the joker the penguin the riddler and catwoman have teamed up stolen a deadly piece of experimental weaponry and plan on using it to take over the world their minimum objective must be the entire world you know how so many modern superhero movies try really hard to make things grounded and realistic they make everything gray and metal and concrete and just boring looking well this is a movie that has some real [ __ ] style the villains ride around in a penguin-shaped submarine and fly through the sky on jetpack umbrellas the riddler has multiple costume changes including this very cool suit with a nice patterned lining that i genuinely would like for myself and they have a secret headquarters over a bar down by the gotham waterfront and for some reason all of their henchmen are pirates that's right this is technically a pirate film and there's also a pretty compelling batman story going on here catwoman disguises herself as a russian journalist who seduces bruce wayne so the villains can capture him to lure batman into a death trap but bruce actually falls in love with catwoman without knowing she's catwoman and to quote robin when the truth is finally revealed holy heartbreak the movie creates the feeling of reading a bunch of comic books in a row every few minutes there's a new bonkers twist or cliffhanger batman and robin are stuck to a magnetic buoy as the villains fire torpedoes at them the penguin infiltrates the bat cave with an army of dehydrated assassins batman must dispose of a bomb and a crowded seaport a shark jumps out of the water and bites onto batman's leg as he hangs from the bat copter on the bat ladder and that last one happens less than 10 minutes in this movie wastes zero time getting to the good stuff now i know what you're thinking patrick a shark a bat ladder isn't this all kind of ridiculous well i forgot to mention that the shark is also a robot shark that explodes but this is where we need to talk about the tone of the 1966 batman because this is where its brilliance becomes apparent [Music] for decades the show and movie's reputation has been as the silly comedy batman a parody who's always dancing and joking around when it premiered many batman fans hated the show four so they claimed making a mockery of the character for decades comic book fans complained that it ruined the reputation of the medium and the superhero genre turning it into a joke that did not accurately represent the source material but that's not entirely correct you see the 1966 batman is actually an incredibly faithful adaptation more than half the episodes in the first season of the show were directly based on specific issues of the comics the costumes sets vehicles and even the framing of shots were all ripped directly from the source material because as much as some comic book fans might insist that these have always been serious stories intended for adults we must acknowledge uh that there has always been an inherent absurdity to this stuff batman comics of the time were about two friends in brightly colored costumes masks and capes who beat up a guy in a top hat wielding weaponized umbrellas who commits bird-themed crimes and in the 1950s the comics had been even sillier with batman and robin constantly going on wacky sci-fi or fantasy adventures and hanging out with a magical interdimensional imp named batmite is that character ridiculous and stupid yes do i love him yes so the master stroke of the batman show and movie was to embrace all of that absurdity the costumes the overdramatic dialogue the secret lairs and themed henchmen and endless array of clearly labeled bat gadgets and to take it all totally seriously on my way over here walking through the woods when i wasn't tracking the police radio signal i was using this pair of raycon earbuds to listen to the audiobook of the caped crusade batman and the rise of nerd culture by glenn weldon in the section on the 1960s batman there's a quote i wrote down the abiding irony that hardcore fans decry the show for not taking batman seriously lies in the very fact that taking batman seriously was precisely the show's organizing principle the particular genius of the show's approach and the key to its mass appeal was this tonal jujitsu they reproduced the conventions of the era's one-dimensional batman comics in three dimensions and asserted them with a species of terrible poker-faced gravity that producer william dozier characterized as like we are going to drop the bomb on hiroshima in doing so they achieved something that television let alone the culture had never seen before this is what makes adam west's performance truly essential he treats batman like he's playing hamlet there is never a moment where you doubt his belief that what he's saying is the most important thing in the world i swear by heaven if you've harmed that girl i'll kill you all i'll rend you lem from lamb watching this you realize the mistake of casting george clooney in batman and robin joel schumacher mostly does a good job of capturing the spirit of the 60s batman but the problem is that clooney is winking why are all the gorgeous ones homicidal maniacs is it me he's smiling through the whole thing clearly aware of how silly it is but for west every moment is life or death this is the brilliance of batman the movie if you're watching it as a kid it's an awesome straightforward faithful batman story ripped right from the comics but as you get older you start to see the second layer to it you start to realize that this is one of the very best comedies of the 1960s now the word everyone associates with this version of batman is camp camp can be hard to define but susan sontag in her famous essay notes on camp described it as a sensibility whose essence is it's love of the unnatural of artifice and exaggeration it usually refers to unpretentious pieces of mass culture defined by their sincere commitment to stylization that are playful in her essay sontag lists old flash gordon comics as an example of camp so if those are camp then the batman comics of the 50s and 60s are definitely camp batman was camp way before the 1966 show so let's stop complaining that this is what made batman camp or that a camp batman is in any way a bad thing so as i mentioned a minute ago while walking through the woods i was listening to the audiobook on a nice pair of raycon earbuds come on you're on a run from the cops and you're doing an ad this is ridiculous and these things are great they are premium wireless earbuds that are only half the price of their competitors and the company is co-founded by rayjay who everyone knows i am a huge fan gotta respect that hustle and diversifying your income streams they fit great and look great and the bluetooth pairs seamlessly with this phone that i stole from one of the prison guards they have over six hours of battery life which let me tell you is great when you're spending all day walking through the woods and eating caterpillars for sustenance and they come in this cool little charging case so i can discretely charge them when we stop at gas stations for supplies right now you can get 15 off your own raycon earbuds by clicking the link in the description or going to buy raycon.com patrick williams this is a product that i genuinely recommend and plus any money i make from this sponsorship goes directly towards the free patrick foundation an important cause i care about deeply batman the movie is not a comedy with traditional jokes setups and punchlines once in a while there's something resembling that like when batman says the drinking water dispenser is clearly marked and the camera pans over to a machine with a giant drinking water dispenser sign but more often the comedy comes from the combination of delivering utterly bonkers absurdity with a completely straight face like when west dramatically calls for the shark repellent bat spray hand me down the shark repellent bat spray and the scene reveals this entire collection of oceanic repellents including one for wales or the total conviction of their performances as the heroes deduce which villains are responsible for a crime with some truly head-spinning logic pretty fishy what happened to me on that ladder you mean where there's a fish there could be a penguin but wait it happened at sea see see for catwoman yet that exploding was pulling my leg the joker it all adds up to a sinister riddle riddler riddler if you wanted to make grand declarations you could say that adam west's performance here paved the way for leslie nielsen in airplane and the naked gun i'm not sure i'm gonna go quite that far but it's a thing that you could say i love the way that each of batman and robin's near-death cliffhangers is resolved thanks to true absurdity but presented as great drama they are saved from a deadly torpedo when a noble porpoise hurls itself in the way it was noble of that animal to hurl himself into the path of that final torpedo when the bat copter is hit by a missile it crashes toward the ground but miraculously lands on a foam rubber wholesale convention this stuff was laying the groundwork for gags and goofs for years to come paving the way for jokes like this now i'm a man who loves a good silly name and this is a movie that truly has some of the best silliest names around there's a major character named commodore schmidlap another named admiral fangschleyster and then there is catwoman's alias she disguises herself as a russian journalist who goes by miss kitka but kitka is actually wait for it an acronym which stands for her full name catania arena to tanya karenska alisoff my name is kitanya irena tatania karenska like seriously holy [ __ ] what a goddamn name every element in this movie works together in harmony to perfectly create this bizarre wonderful tone every performance is on the same wavelength every costume is the right kind of theatrical the cinematography makes the brilliant choice of shooting every single shot in the villain's hideout with a dutch angle the art direction not only labels every bat gadget but also gives each villain their own shelf in their hideout full of their own individual traps and weapons and then there is nelson riddle's score first of all nelson riddle great name and yeah he's got the catchy theme song that we all know and love but start to finish the score just completely slaps i mean the bat boat theme [Music] hans zimmer top that i dare you batman the movie is not a satire or parody of batman it is a totally legitimate even great version of these characters and in terms of movies where batman has to get rid of a big bomb this is definitely the better one now as i've made it very clear by now i think this movie is great i love it and there are so many things in it that i love but i just couldn't fit them all into this preceding speech so now here at the end are an assortment of several of my favorite things about batman the movie i love that this batman and robin give press conferences the way lee meriwether says cossack in her russian accent report these riddles to your police or or perhaps to that mass cossack batman the hand-drawn animation whenever anything gets zapped i love that the movie ends with batman and robin accidentally swapping the brains of the members of the um security council and then discreetly just climbing out the window i love that robin is not allowed to drive the batmobile catwoman's cat-shaped radio i love that bruce wayne's romantic move is to quote edgar allan poe and all my days our trances and all my nightly dreams are where thy dark eye glances okay the way the riddler lays out this elaborate death trap that will throw batman into the waiting arms of the penguins exploding octopus penguins exploding octopus and then in the middle of a fight one of their goons just accidentally triggers the death trap himself i love how batman and robin are beloved members of the community and everyone waves to them as they fly overhead in the bat copter it's nice i love how when the batmobile breaks down it just happens to be right next to the spot where they have stashed a hidden bat cycle which makes me wonder did they just get really lucky or does batman have bat cycles stashed all over the city now look if there is one fact you know about me it's that i love to explain things but if there's a second fact it's that i love ranking things as well so don't worry here are my top five moments of alliterative dialogue in batman the movie each about treacherous trumps my fine opinion the pirates holy halloween plagueis with his criminal conundrums this brassy bird has us buffaloed and now the big one my top five bat gadgets number five the magnifying bat lens number four bat gas another sniff of bad gas which just sounds funny number three the anti-penguin gas tablets number two the super molecular dust separator and number one obviously the oceanic repellents now we've had a lot of fun here today but you may be asking patrick why this movie there are many batman movies you've even explained one to us before so why this one and why now well dear parents it's because this movie holds a special place in my personal history i've had an exciting past few years full of disorienting highs perilous lows and moderately comfortable middles but none of this would be possible if it wasn't for you two and a choice you made many years ago you see when i was four years old you decided to show me this movie until then i didn't really know anything about batman and i had no great interest in movies or comic books but this changed everything as you may remember i would rent this movie over and over and over again because i could not get enough i was obsessed and that obsession led to more obsessions which snowballed over many years and now the path you set me on has brought us all to this point so you see mom and dad you two are responsible for this for all of this for creating a person so obsessed with movies and comic books that he can simply never talk about them enough to fill the void at the center of his being so obsessed that he stopped caring about frivolous things like personal hygiene or what some stupid company called the irs had to say about his taxes patrick williams we have the house surrounded please step outside with your mouth taped shut we would prefer duct tape but scotch is also acceptable okay looks like it's my time to boogie patrick you really should turn yourself in if you're good they might reduce your sentence okay it's been about 30 minutes charles said he needed 30 minutes to get the interdimensional portal ready charles yeah charles my buddy from prison the one i mentioned earlier he's actually been out in the barn this whole time getting the rift and the fabric between dimensions ready for our escape it's a long story but are you sure there is no more vanilla extract in the house try the cupboard over the sink hey take some of willem's homemade maple syrup for the ride out the back window and go to the left to the barn quick before they see you hank what and i got the youtube channel covered okay maybe a little more woodworking in la crosse but it'll be just fine it'll be here when you get back mom dad over the past few years i couldn't have asked for two better people to whom i could explain why various movies and tv shows are great i've got a whole new universe of potential subscribers to go meet but just know that to me you too will always be my first subscribers the very first people to ever smash that like button metaphorically speaking a rift in the fabric between dimensions i know we always encouraged him to be imaginative but this has gone way too far charlie charles you looking good yet you look different a fresh look for our new audience whatever you say buddy honestly the new look it's pretty adorable so we're ready ready for a new world and new clout [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Patrick (H) Willems

Views: 148,183

Keywords: patrick willems, lumberjack films, patrickhwillems, patrick h willems

Id: ZWqnT147OAE

Length: 30min 45sec (1845 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/bv310]

That ending was gold.

[u/1900maggotworms]

I’m so invested in the ending of the charl saga

Also, is this the first time charl has appeared in the explains series videos?

[u/j11430]

Love how he calls his video about Mask of the Phantasm “exhaustive” and it’s half the length of this one

[u/Jaredlong]

Here's hoping for Patrick's Dad Explains

[u/TheSuperGerbil]

I KNEW IT WAS TAX EVASION PATRICK!

[u/beautifullyShitter]

If the narrative part keeps the same level of evolution I can't wait to see where we'll be in two years. Amazing work, Pat.

[u/Ex_Hedgehog]

When the portal opened, I half expected Charl to ask Patrick: Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

[u/MtHammer]

As someone who's about Patrick Willems' age and also completely wore out a VHS tape of Batman: The Movie when he was 4 or 5 after being introduced to it by his parents, that bit near the end resonated with me hard.