"Batman: The Long Halloween - Deluxe Edition" Feature Talkback (Spoilers)

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Yojimbo

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The two-part Batman: The Long Halloween animated feature comes together as one unabridged epic feature-length adaptation!



Batman: The Long Halloween - Deluxe Edition
Studio: Warner Bros. Animation
Release Date: Digital, Physical Media - September 20, 2022

Synopsis: Gotham's greatest mystery awaits! Held hostage by two warring crime families, Gotham City is rife with crime and corruption. Adding to the chaos is the mysterious Holiday killer, who has been targeting the underworld and leaving a trail of terror... and body bags. As Batman, James Gordon and Harvey Dent race to solve a deadly puzzle with ever-increasing stakes, a breach at Arkham Asylum draws Poison Ivy, Scarecrow and Mad Hatter into the game. Based on the critically acclaimed graphic novel, this Deluxe Edition of Batman: The Long Halloween seamlessly combines both feature-length parts into one epic saga!

Special Features:
4K, Blu-ray and Digital
–Batman: The Long Halloween - Evolution of Evil (featurette) - The mystery surrounding the Holiday Killer shrouds Gotham in a sinister darkness forcing Batman to stop the villain’s assault on the city. This is a comprehensive look at The Long Halloween with original writer, Jeph Loeb, and filmmakers.
-Four Batman: The Animated Series bonus episodes

Mod Note: This thread is to discuss all aspects about this release, including both the animated feature itself and the home media release, which covers audio and video quality, bonus content quality and the entire overall package.

Comments on Batman: The Long Halloween - Deluxe Edition?

Related Threads:

-Batman: The Long Halloween - Deluxe Edition Review (Spoilers)
-Batman: The Long Halloween - Part One (2021) Talkback (Spoilers)
-Batman: The Long Halloween - Part Two (2021) Talkback (Spoilers)
-Batman: Year One Feature Talkback (Spoilers)
-Batman vs. Two-Face Feature Talkback (Spoilers)
-Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Feature Talkback (Spoilers)
-Gotham Season Four Talkback (Spoilers)
-The Batman Feature Talkback (Spoilers)
-Batman: The Long Halloween Comic Talkback (Spoilers)

Note: We appreciate and encourage discussion, but please keep your posts civil, relevant and insightful. Please do not post any improper or inflammatory material, as we will issue warnings if we believe it necessary. And remember to keep the discussion ON-TOPIC!
 

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As an adaption, I think this animated duology did a good job remaining true to the spirit of the comic, even with some deviation, and adapting the major beats even if they had to condense and re-arrange some things :cool:.

I loved how the intro had Tim Sale's art and interspersed it with some story moments. I know there' a frame of mind that it wasn't worth adapting the story without adapting Tim Sale's art, but I think the style they went with worked for a neo-noir Batman animated film and didn't ruin the mood or tone of the story. In my personal opinion at least ;).

I don't know if the filmmakers deliberately framed it this way, but I was reminded a lot of Mask of the Phantasm in this film, especially where Batman is dealing with a new, mysterious, figure knocking off crime figures and never directly confronting them. They even throw in Joker to boot :knd1:.

It did seem at times that they used the Harvey Dent character model for Holiday at times. It's kind of why I thought that the Holiday that killed Alberto was Harvey, even though the motive to kill Alberto specifically, at the exact time he mentions his wife and child, makes more sense in light of Part Two for the real Holiday :ack:.

I never quite expected to hear Jensen Ackles get to actually play Batman, but it worked surprisingly well for me. We've got a younger, while still experienced, Batman and I thought Ackles meshed well into the role. He captured Bruce and Batman's subdued, dark, and righteous persona and made him sound like a person not as stiff as I feel Jason O'Mara's Batman could sound at times. He also sounded distinct from his Jason/Red Hood voice in my opinion. All in all I was really happy with Ackles as Batman :proud:.

The movie actually addressing Batman's poor detective skills is putting to point one of the main criticisms of the story and making it part of Batman's character development in the film. I guess it does beg the question why a man who trained to fight crime in the most effective way possible would not train in actual detective work, but it seems like the implication is that he focused more on tracking criminals directly than trying to understand their motives and MO's. I can't say for sure whether this duology helped make him the World's Greatest Detective he's supposed to be, but I hope this made him the detective he needs to be for Gotham :crying:.

Gotham is as anachronistic as ever, with all the old-timey cars, crime, and fashions yet smartphones exist. Never change, Gotham :bugs1:.

It was nice to see Jim Gordon play a prominent role in a Batman animated film again (without being, y'know, a bad guy). I felt like in the last animated continuity he was so often under focused and like a third wheel to the plot, so it was nice to see him be a major character here. I feel like Billie Thomas did an excellent job injecting a lot of humanity, care, and upright stoicism that you would expect from Jim Gordon :).

I liked that we still got to see Jim and Harvey's family problems. Jim is a good dad but a workaholic, and it's trying on his family. Harvey is also trying to be a good husband but he too is a workaholic, and Gilda has obvious emotional issues. It really set a strong personal tone for the story :elle:.

Young Barbara Gordon dressed as a police officer for Halloween and looking so cute was...it was everything. I really felt bad for her when you saw how disappointed she was that Jim was leaving. I feel like, short of time-skipping, we'd only get a Batgirl: Year One movie eight years from now, but I feel like if they got to tell that story they already have the set up for something emotionally compelling from this one scene of the Gordan family. Also, hey, she and her brother are finally in an adaption together :D.

I never would have pegged Josh Duhamel as Harvey Dent, but he did a great job of capturing an aggressive, righteous, yet caring man who has his rough edges but is simply trying to do the right thing by his city and by his family. He was one of the biggest surprises of the movie for me :anime:.

Alistair Duncan is an old hat at playing Alfred and he does it as phenomenally as ever. I'm just happy at the prospect of hearing more of Duncan as Alfred in future Batman movies. My favorite scene is when he pulls a Batman and Bruce says the line Gordon always says about him :p.

It's hard to talk about Catwoman without mentioning Naya River's untimely and tragic passing, especially because she does such a good job here at playing Selina and making her seem strong, flirty, vulnerable, and human. She was such a great Catwoman that it's sad that she'll never get to play the role again, and even sadder that she was lost to us :sad:.

I kind of wonder what the game plan here is assuming we get more Batman movies in this universe (Dark Victory please). Recast? Or just write Catwoman out entirely? I mean, the Tucker-verse was pretty heavy with recasts so I wouldn't rule it out but at the same time Naya Rivera's death kind of makes it more complicated. I guess they could just write her off as having left Bruce and Gotham off-screen if they ever adapt Dark Victory or any other Batman story. I want to see more Catwoman, but I don't envy the producers on this one...

It's weird to think that Catwoman never stole anything in this entire duology (aside from Batman's heart). The most criminal thing she did was, really, playing with that money before they burned it. Is she even a cat burglar in this continuity? She was bailing Batman out of jams like she's auditioning for the new Robin. Also don't think we saw her with a cat once o_O.

I'm not surprised they didn't try to adapt Catwoman's purple costume, eschewing for something darker and surprisingly reminiscent of her original B:TAS costume minus the gold belt. And of course it's Catwoman so it's still absurdly skintight. I did also like that Selina's hair was like a classy Cleopatra cut which was a nice compromise between her sometimes short hair, sometimes long hair :).

Titus Welliver did a great job as Carmine Falcone. He really captured the style of a veteran mafioso who is cultured yet vicious, with the refined nature of an aristocrat but the fierceness of a lion when provoked. :evil:.

Julie Nathanson did a great job with Gilda in the movie. You could really feel that this was a woman with a lot of emotional pain, almost to the point of instability, and she seemed so sad and out of it :(.

Arkham Asylum being a Supervillain prison more than a mental institution does wonders for the idea that Batman only beats up the mentally ill. Design-wise it looked more like a conservatory than an asylum, so I wonder if there's some background there. Although it being so high up on a hill doesn't seem to make it any less difficult for the villains to break out, but it is Arkham at the end of the day :oops:.

David Dastmaclchian expertly playing yet another DC character with Calendar Man, finally bringing to life the most popular interpretation of the character as a calendar themed Hannibal Lecter who Batman and Gordon enlist to help catch Holiday. And you can tell he's messing with them for most of the movie :eek:.

I love how they introduce Joker with Batman freaking out when he realizes Calendar Man just told him Joker escaped. It really set the tone for how dangerous Joker was immediately and we get our first Batman vs. Joker fight of a new animated universe :evil:.

Troy Baker playing Joker is basically old hat for him (almost as much as Fred Tatasciore playing Solomon Grundy) but I think he worked well here. I mean, for a classic style Joker, he sounded like a classic style Joker, so I can't really complain. It was a very Joker move that he had no idea how to fly the plane that his entire plan hinged on and one of the only reasons anyone survived New Years was because Joker left the safety on :rolleyes2:.

I did feel like the BrucexSelina relationship needed another scene before we see them on the cruise together. Like, Bruce is avoiding her all movie and we only see her at Wayne Manor at Thanksgiving, and then suddenly it turns out she already knows he's Batman and letting him down gently? Feels like we were missing a lot of context to this version of their relationship and how it developed, especially in contrast to the comic :confused:.

"Bruce!" Rookie move Selina. I guess the idea is she was so flustered and shocked at almost kissing her half-brother that she just blurted it out when Batman showed up out of nowhere, but you'd think she would know not to say that in front of, y'know, Carmine Falcone's son. Although Alberto seemed to care more about being accused of being a serial killer than discovering Bruce Wayne is Batman :ack:.

I can't believe this movie made me actually feel bad for Alberto Falcone. I know people have complained about changing the plot, not making Alberto a Holiday, and killing him off, but to be honest it was a surprising twist that he was actually an innocent caught up in all this and suffering from an absence of his father's love, compared unfavorably to Bruce, almost committing incest when his half-sister tries to bond with him, then we learn about everything his father forced him to do in Part Two that ruined his life, and then he gets accused of being a serial killer and gets killed by the actual killer. It just really does not pay to be Alberto. And Batman's biggest failure was accusing him and not being able to save him :(.

It did seem at times that they used the Harvey Dent character model for Holiday. It's kind of why I thought that the Holiday that killed Alberto was actually Harvey, even though the motive to kill Alberto specifically, at the exact time he mentions his wife and child, makes more sense in light of Part Two for the real Holiday :mad:.

That's an interesting take on Ivy's brainwashing where she puts you in this idyllic, almost Elysium, field where you do nothing but desire her. And it doesn't seem like Ivy controls people through pheromones' or a hypnotic kiss, but through her plant :evil:.

I thought it was in bad taste that Carmine sicced Ivy on Bruce at Alberto's funeral, but using visiting his son's grave as an excuse to meet a hitman? Although there were at least other points where it seemed like he genuinely felt bad for what happened to Alberto. Maybe :rolleyes:.

Katee Sachoff was a solid Poison Ivy here, and I really liked her design. Also some things never change even when a universe reboots where once again Catwoman has to come in and take Poison Ivy out with one hit :harley:.

How much of a difference would it have made had Bruce and Batman been out there all those months Holiday kept killing with impunity :knd1:?

Some interesting symmetry in this duology. A young Bruce Wayne got the coin from a dying Carmine Falcone that his father saved, Batman gave the coin to Harvey, and Harvey as Two-Face used the coin to kill Carmine :(.

They sure got a lot of mileage out of Robert Atkin Downes in these movies. First he's Scarecrow, then he's Thomas Wayne, and then he's the guy trying to off Harvey :p.

Interesting take on the Waynes in this movie with their ties to the Falcone. It doesn't outright make them criminals or part of the mob like, say, the Telltale games, but their connections to the Falcones, even if benign and for a good cause, end up being seen as a black mark on their name. But I guess it does lend itself to one of the movies main themes about how difficult it is to hold on to one's integrity in the fight for good and how sometimes something good can come through evil means or people. Shades of grey :ack:.

Well, they were probably going to have to show the Wayne Murders at some point, what better way than a Fear Toxin induced hallucination? Although surprisingly they seemed pretty definitive that the killing was a mob hit brought on because Thomas helped save Carmine, and that Joe Chill was never caught :confused:.

They exchange the Bruce Wayne: Fugitive plot for one scene where Harvey and Jim interrogate Bruce at Wayne Manor. It was nice to get a Bruce Wayne as Bruce Wayne in public scene and the different personalities at play, and a Harvey and Bruce that aren't buddy-buddy, and Alfred making some scathing remarks to the duo when they leave the manor was pretty poignant. Also goes to show, ala Year One, that Bruce pays a lot of people off to create alibi's and covers for himself as Batman :proud:.

I did like how the movie humanized the criminals. Like, Carmine Falcone is poised as this brutal, vicious, crime boss, and terrible father but on another level you see him as a man with integrity, loyalty, and an old man trying to stay relevant in a changing world. He also seems to realize at times how badly he screwed his family up, with Alberto's death, how he treated Sofia, and driving their mother away. And he had a daughter he never even knew about until his last moments :sad:.

Even Sal Maroni, the guy betrayed Harvey and basically instigated his Two-Face transformation, but we see him as a son who witnessed his father get murdered before his eyes and so he tries to get, what is in his eyes, righteous revenge and to make peace with Carmine. And while it's not focused on much, his relationship with Sofia seems genuine. I also liked the contrast between him, his father, and Carmine where his dad seems like old Italian and Carmine also seems more at home in the culture than Sal does when his father has to correct his Italian :elle: .

It was nice to see Sofia Falcone in animation and she's still as tough and loyal a lady as ever...kind of a shame what happened to her entire family, although she never mentioned visiting Alberto's grave so I kind of wonder if she cared about him at all :confused:.

Mad Hatter still kept his Alice in Wonderland quote gimmick from the comic, and is absurdly short, but Scarecrow exchanges nursery rhymes for...just talking normally. Like that one scene of them together and Tetch is going at it and you can kind of see even Crane is getting a little weirded out by it :rolleyes2:.

I appreciated adding more build-up to Harvey becoming Two-Face, to the point where we hear Two-Face's voice in Harvey's head before the accident even happens and scars him. I do feel like it maybe would have made more sense for his voice to appear in Part One, after maybe the bombing of the Dent house, because it didn't seem like there was a proper enough instigating incident to "wake" Two-Face up aside from Harvey getting knocked out. They did mention his mental instability in Part One though, but they maybe could have showed it more...also, Josh Duhamel has a surprisingly great Two-Face voice :D.

Maroni mentioned Killer Croc and Killer Moth in the prior movie, but we don't see them in the Arkham breakout...are they at large? I guess the real reason is Croc was never in this story and they had Grundy as the resident sewer dweller :sweat:.

Even if Two-Face made it seem more exaggerated than it really was, people in the court laughing while Sal Maroni jokes about killing a bunch of people felt in bad taste :confused:.

I see Two-Face learned to speak Grundy by just using the Grundy nursery rhyme. Grundy talks repetitively but there's meaning there ;).

I love how Harvey as Two-Face goes to the trouble of getting a double-colored suit just for the sake of the Supervillain gimmick. He really went all out :anime:.

Calendar Man being the only villain that didn't get broken out because he called tails on the coin toss was priceless. Also the Taco Tuesday line. And did it seem like he really wanted to be out there with Batman to anyone else :oops:?

It pretty much clinches Holiday's identity, for both the audience, Harvey, and Batman, when you see the look in Two-Face's eyes when Gordon tells him they found the gun in his basement and he puts two-and-two together (maybe before Batman does). And the finisher is when he actually protects Holiday :(.

I like that they kept the moment of Batman revealing himself to be disguised as a guard even if they changed the context :).

"I'm not looking for a partner!" That's what Dark Victory is for! Although all things considered, how would they handle a Dark Victory adaption? Alberto's dead, Mario would seem redundant with movie Alberto, and Sofia...might have survived? I guess they never said she was dead. And I don't know if the Hangman killer would work as well in the story without any familiarity with Year One. I feel like if they ever adapt Dark Victory they would probably have to change it more than they did Long Halloween o_O.

I wonder had Montoya not been there if Gilda would have been brazen enough to go directly at Falcone during the Supervillain attack. It seemed like part of the reason she was chafing at them being there to keep her safe was because she wanted to go out there to finish the job. And did she go out there to kill Maroni because of what he did to Harvey even though Batman and Gordon were there? It seems like the personal kills were the ones where she put herself out there the most and risked getting caught :confused:.

"You sanctimonious little @#$%" I love how that's Penguin's one line in the entire movie and he's just shooting stuff with his umbrella the entire time :p.

There wasn't really a dramatic fight between Batman and Two-Face, at least physically, and Batman doesn't even really stop him...but I guess they have Batman beating all of his main villains one-by-one made up for it :cool:.

Man, Catwoman was cold to Carmine in the end. At first you think she's unmasking so she can comfort her father, but then when he mentions "Louisa" because of how much, presumably, Selina looks like her mother, Selina immediately leaves him to die. She really only cared about getting her mother's name. I guess after losing Sofia too she just didn't care anymore, and now she has no family (unless Mario Falcone comes in out of the woodwork) :eek:.

So...Carmine realized Bruce Wayne was Batman in his last moments when Batman brings up what Carmine said to him as a kid? I guess in the end Bruce did respect Carmine on some level :(.

Now probably the most controversial part...the ending. I don't think it's as controversial that they were more definitive with Holiday's identity, or expanded on why they did it (we can debate the logistics another time), so much as the fact that the reveal also entails Batman having finally figured it out and seemingly let them go because Harvey is taking the fall and Batman is ready to put this case to bed. But in light of Alberto's killing, who was innocent if not in Gilda's eyes, doesn't it make it more glaring that Batman just lets her get away? Like, he could've stopped her from burning the evidence, although even then it seemed like Gilda was fully prepared to turn herself in and confess, because she didn't care anymore. But what would that do to Harvey? I guess there is some ambiguity at the end as to whether Batman ultimately did anything to her, let alone even tell Gordon, and Gilda's fate will probably be left ambiguous moving forward o_O.

Little kid as Batman for Halloween! Showing Batman has become an inspiration figure for Gotham City in light of the Long Halloween, and he's got Selina sleeping over too. So not a perfect ending for Bruce, but a relatively happy one :anime:.

As for that post-credit scene...well, I think that puts a definitive stamp that a shared universe of animated movies is definitively back on the table :proud:.
 

Yojimbo

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If anyone is curious if they should double dip or was it worth not buying the single releases and waiting for this version to come out: basically the first half (i.e. Part One)'s murders and battles have a bit more blood and violence now that the whole movie is rated R. So technically it is different than the Part One release. I'll have to rewatch Part One one more time but I'm sure at least the Chinatown battle and the murder on the boat was bloodier and more violent.

The special feature is the standard talking heads stuff that's more about the comics book rather than any insight on the making of the movie. And yeah, none of the releases for TLH has a commentary track. So you're really just buying this for the combined movie version.
 

Road to Gotham

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I waited for the Deluxe edition to watch this movie.
Frontier echos what I was thinking while viewing.
I reread the comic series 2 years ago, So I thought it was a very well done adaption.
The movie seem to make the motivation of Holiday more clear to me.
The color palette really pop for me.
Voice acting was on point.
No major complaints. Wish we had gotten the brief April Fool scene with the Riddler but I understand why it wasn't included.
Overall a 'B+'.
 

Otaku-sempai

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I waited for the Deluxe edition to watch this movie.
Frontier echos what I was thinking while viewing.
I reread the comic series 2 years ago, So I thought it was a very well done adaption.
The movie seem to make the motivation of Holiday more clear to me.
Fair, though the movie also changes the solution of the mystery.
 

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