"Merry Little Batman" Animated Feature Talkback (Spoilers)

[Yojimbo]

Little Damian Wayne confronts enemies in his city after finding himself alone at Wayne Manor.

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Merry Little Batman
Studio: Warner Bros. Animation
Release Date: December 8, 2023 (Amazon Prime)

Synopsis: This Christmas, Damian Wayne wants to be a superhero like his dad – the one and only Batman. When Damian is left home alone while Batman takes on Gotham's worst supervillains on Christmas Eve, he stumbles upon a villainous plot to steal Christmas and leaps at the chance to save the day.

Discuss the Merry Little Batman animated release here!

Spoilers are allowed, so those who have yet to see the movie may want to avoid this thread until they have.

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Related threads:
-Merry Little Batman The World's Finest Review (Spoilers)
-Merry Little Batman Amazon Prime Video Page
-Merry Little Batman News and Discussion Thread (Spoilers)
-Bat-Family News and Discussion Thread (Spoilers)
-Teen Titans Go! "Mo' Money Mo' Problems" Talkbac (Spoilers)
-Justice League Action "Party Animal" Talkback (Spoilers)
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold "Invasion of the Secret Santas!" Talkback (Spoilers)
-Static Shock "Frozen Out" Talkback (Spoilers)
-Justice League "Comfort and Joy" Talkback (Spoilers)
-The New Batman Adventures "Holiday Knights" Talkback (Spoilers)
-Batman: The Animated Series "Christmas With The Joker" Talkback (Spoilers)
-The Batman Adventures Holiday Special Talkback (Spoilers)

Note: We appreciate and encourage discussion, but please keep your posts civil, relevant and insightful. And remember to keep the discussion on-topic!

 

[James Harvey]

The World’s Finest has published its review of the Merry Little Batman animated movie, which is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video. To read the complete review, click on the image below.

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[Medinnus]

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing, even as the horrid art style lived down to expectations.

 

[Fone Bone]

Merry Little Batman

I loved that. And I didn't expect I would, so I loved it even more for that.

I thought the character designs in the trailers and were so ugly and that would be a dealbreaker for me. I admit there is no good reason this movie needs to look as ugly as it does, but the truth is, it all animates well, and smoother than much of the rest of DC's current output. It was not the huge problem I worried it would wind up being.

What I loved most about it is how it refused to tie itself to the Batlore in ways that would hurt it. Bruce Wayne doesn't brood, is an "Aw, Shucks!" everyman, voiced by Luke Wilson, who wears flannel shirts and has a bad beard, and sees a therapist, and who loves his son more than anything. Damian is, believe it or not, a loving son who is both cute and likable, and someone the producers aren't trying to pit the audience against. And this is unlike any other interpretation of Damian outside of maybe the Batman Unlimited stuff. The difference there is Damian there may not be atrocious, but he's also bland. Here they made him cute and appealing.

It's okay in an alternate universe to suggest Batman and the Joker like each other deep down and want to spend Christmas together. That's perfectly all right. Just because the Joker is a purely irredeemable monster in almost everything else, doesn't mean he always HAS to be. It's alternate universe stuff. You'd figure DC would want to surprise the audience about stuff like that and switch it up a bit at times. But I'll take what I can get here.

The thing I loved second most was the soundtrack. Not just Warner Music. They paid for actual songs from other studios too. Honestly, the introduction with the flying bat and the Father Christmas song at the beginning eased all my worries before the first ugly design was ever seen, and my skeptical heart was won over about as quickly as it took me to warm up to Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor after he peeks his head up out of the TARDIS for the first time on Doctor Who. Some moments of joy, especially starting off a potentially polarizing project, can't help but put the audience's mind at ease, and make them stop worrying. It was a VERY good beginning for that reason.

Alfred's design was somehow the ugliest of all, but I will argue the last person to voice the character as well as James Cromwell did here was Efrem Zimbalist Jr.. That's how long it's been since there's been an animated Alfred I really liked.

The MGM titles at the beginning feel incredibly wrong and make me furious all over again at David Zaslav. This is the best kiddie Batman Project since Justice League Action. This was NOT the thing to write off for taxes and if Zaslav thinks it was, that is additional proof that he's bad at his job. I think this movie is going to be VERY popular on Amazon Prime, and maybe one of the most popular things on Prime ever.

Mom is a supervillain? Catwoman or Talia? Unclear, but I bet if Bat-Family is greenlit we'll find out for sure there.

That was a delight! If Zaslav is trying to kill projects this wonderful and with this much wide appeal how on Earth can Warner Discovery trust someone with that bad of judgment with their finances? He sucks at the very thing he was supposed to be best at.

I loved it. It was a nice thing, and I like that Prime allowed us the nice thing. And I'm also aware of who tried to deny us this nice thing and why. ****1/2.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

This looks cute! I'll check it out on Amazon Prime ASAP, and report back here.

 

[Yojimbo]

12/8: Here's the watch along hosted by The Breakroom with one of the writers Morgan Evans. Starts around 9 min or so. It's twitch so I'm not sure if it's a permalink or if it deletes after x amount of time.

EDIT: Just finished watching it and I loved it! Well worth the wait and tribulation to get it premiered somewhere. It was a perfect Christmas story/coming of age tale. I dug they went with an unlikely art style inspiration in Ron Searle and old school Christmas storybooks and even recruited two European animation studios rather than the conventional South Korean or Japanese ones, not that they're bad, but it's nice to see Warner trying new visuals. This was probably one of the most humorous titles, all the jokes landed with me anyway and I was surprised with all the different nods to past Batmen, even Dark Knight when Damian asked Bat-Dad about snooping into all cell phones or even the Batnipples suit. I wondered if that was Paul Dini or someone in the crew in the mall at 46:47 (EDIT: It was Mike Roth). I appreciated they hinted at the greater world past Gotham with the Justice League being around (even the Wonder Twins) or the emergency call list included the Kents and Nightwing. I'd vote this one the best DC animated movie of the year. Looking forward to the spin-off series.

12/9: An interview with Morgan Evans, includes some early sketches.

Benjamin Tong posted Damian posings.

Tong also posted Dan Haskett's art for Bruce, Alfred, Joker, and Selina here and Poison Ivy, Penguin, Francine, and Terry here.

Guillaume Fesquet posted his first Joker designs.

The very first illustration Fesquet did for the movie.

The first interaction between Damian and Seline he did for the movie.

 

[Corwin Haught]

The MGM titles at the beginning feel incredibly wrong and make me furious all over again at David Zaslav. This is the best kiddie Batman Project since Justice League Action. This was NOT the thing to write off for taxes and if Zaslav thinks it was, that is additional proof that he's bad at his job. I think this movie is going to be VERY popular on Amazon Prime, and maybe one of the most popular things on Prime ever...

That was a delight! If Zaslav is trying to kill projects this wonderful and with this much wide appeal how on Earth can Warner Discovery trust someone with that bad of judgment with their finances? He sucks at the very thing he was supposed to be best at.

This particular film was never written off, and Zaslav never tried to kill it. He pulled from Max, and allowed the film to be sold to Amazon. If he had tried to kill it, you wouldn't be watching it because it would be dead. It's disappointing for anyone who subscribed to Max specifically to watch this movie, and and does reflect Zaslav's negative view of the service as a platform for original features, but this is not the hill to die on in comparison to Batgirl and Scoob: Holiday Haunt.

 

[Otaku-sempai]

I really liked this--a lot more that I thought I would considering that I find the art-style pretty ugly. I did find it odd to tie Oswald so much to Batman Returns, but then Victor was pretty clearly based on Ah-nold's portrayal of Freeze.

 

[Yojimbo]

I really liked this--a lot more that I thought I would considering that I find the art-style pretty ugly. I did find it odd to tie Oswald so much to Batman Returns, but then Victor was pretty clearly based on Ah-nold's portrayal of Freeze.

There was a couple nods to different movies. For example:
-Damian asking Bruce if the present are Bat-Ice Skates, the voice of Freeze, the Batnipple suit were Batman & Robin nods
-Damian asks Bat-Dad if there's a way to tap into all cell phones at once, the Batpod were Dark Knight nods
-The penguin exhibit, the rocket Penguins nods to Batman Returns

During interviews and the watch-along, Morgan Evans admits he grew up watching Batman & Robin and that was his jam as a kid then as he got older he branched out to the animation, other shows, movies, and comics.

Then of course the Batman smells version Joker sings is from BTAS. I think Jolly Jack's Candy is from Return of the Joker (don't remember if it originates from the comics, figured it was a Jack Kirby nod from the ROTJ crew) and like ROTJ, something pops out of the factory towards the end of the movie. And Bruce and Damian singing the '66 tune, Batphone, and the Shakespeare bust.

Then your odds and ends like Selina being named after Catwoman, Damian's great-grandfather's asshes being Kenneth Wayne, a Picasso wrecked o.s., the Talia tattoo and alluding to her as "complicated", the Justice League, Superman, Wonder Twins being referenced, The Kents, Nightwing on the contact list, Batman talking Martian Manhunter when he's stranded in Nova Scotia, Home Alone nods (Damian telling Francine and Terry to 'come and get me' was a lift, Thomas & Martha Wayne gravestones, Bob Kane and Bill Finger on the sign, Dankworth's probably a stand in for Woolworth's, Sgt. Rock action figures, Mike Roth has a cameo around 47 min., Carmine Infantino has a posthoumous cameo as the man whose coffee is spilled, Ivy calling Damian Bat-Mite in the Santa scene, Joker thinking he should move to Metropolis, stealing all the presents is a lot like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, a vague nod Knightfall when Bane is falling he says "My back!".

EDIT: There's a digital soundtrack through WaterTower Music.

 

[Spider-Man]

I loved this movie way more than I thought I would. The design work didnt bother me once I got 'used' to it I guess. I thought it was quite funny and I like how the designs actually added to the films tone too I thought. A pretty basic story but it was just so much fun and I didn't expect to see so many Batman rogues in here. It's lots of fun, lots of laugh-out-loud moments and worth giving a watch I'd say. Out of all the DC animated movies this year this one is hads down the best out of all of them. Not even a contest.

 

[Medinnus]

Mom is a supervillain? Catwoman or Talia? Unclear, but I bet if Bat-Family is greenlit we'll find out for sure there.

Bruce had a <3 tattoo with Talia's name. Not conclusive, but indicative.

I loved it. It was a nice thing, and I like that Prime allowed us the nice thing. And I'm also aware of who tried to deny us this nice thing and why. ****1/2.

I was pleasantly surprised to find it free on Prime.

 

[RoyalRubble]

12/19/2023:
My full review is now up on the Anime Superhero Forums front page.

There have been a number of other Christmas offerings from DC Comics, some of them animated and most of them featuring Batman, in one way or another, but Merry Little Batman is one of the best so far. It’s a refreshing take on the Caped Crusader and his family, with a lot of heart put into it. The father and son dynamic is played well and Damian’s character arc, through which he learns what it means to be a hero, was handled nicely. Overall the movie was more entertaining than I expected and it just might become a yearly holiday tradition for me. I am also interested in and eagerly await the spin-off “Bat-Family” series. If this movie is any indication, that will be a lot of fun, too.

01/11/2024:
Annie Awards nominations were announced:

BEST CHARACTER DESIGN – FEATURE
Merry Little Batman – Amazon MGM Studios, Warner Bros. Animation, DC Entertainment — Nikolas Ilic

BEST VOICE ACTING – FEATURE
Merry Little Batman – Amazon MGM Studios, Warner Bros. Animation, DC Entertainment — David Hornsby (Character: Joker)