Superhero costumes in movies...

[jds1911a1]

The rubber suit was developed to make tiny Michael Keaton look believable. The body armor angle was developed around it, although it was also influenced by Frank Miller's Dark Knight and the revelation that Batman wore body armor under his shirt.

Ever since, Hollywood has been stuck on over-armoring the hero. I think part of it is the fact that they want the hero wrapped in the budget. A big budget movie would be ill-represented in a costume no better than the Spider-Man making a mall appearance, to their minds.

Christian Bale is the first official actor to be built to play Batman, but yet he's armored. At least his armor is flexible and makes sense within the story though. I wasn't impressed with early concepts of Chris Evans' Cap suit, but I am now a big fan having seen it in action.

Chris

The cap ride armor still hasn't grown on me it's not quite Ultimates enough. I did like the wool linen shots of him on the bond sales tour which did a good job showing why a true to period comic look wouldn't work though

I think the Iron Man armor for the films has been suceessful.

[Brazoo]

As much as I love comics, I'll never be able to shut off the part of my brain that tells me real people wearing tights looks crazy.



The Phantom tried to go the traditional route, but even they added little textures, details and flourishes so he wasn't just a big purple dude.

The low-tech version of doing this:



To me The Phantom looks distractingly laughable. I can't imagine turning off the part of my brain that gives in to accepting that character's motivation for fighting for his life while wearing something that reminds me of the Fruit-of-the-Loom grape:



MOST superhero costumes look crazy in real life to me.

I think if the costume is EXTREMELY iconic - like Superman's - people are SO use to seeing it, that it blends in a little more - I think that might work.

Otherwise, I disagree. Putting a superhero in the modern real-life world needs some visual transformation - needs some adapting. One thing I've never understood - if you just want a 100% faithful version of the comic - why not just stick to the comic?

[kingdom warrior]

Otherwise, I disagree. Putting a superhero in the modern real-life world needs some visual transformation - needs some adapting. One thing I've never understood - if you just want a 100% faithful version of the comic - why not just stick to the comic?

But that's what kills me...why do we need so much reality NOONE dresses up like a rubberbat in real life fighting crime.

I think it's a slap in the face to the loyal comicbook fan who wants the comicbook version come to life.

They camped it up in the 60's and it worked. when I was kid I did not get any of the adult jokes they would throw in there. so all I got was Batman the crimefighter in the correct costume. no super extreme violence, just good old fighting.

Everything now has to be extreme, and for me that rubber suit is ridiculous. I can't see how a trained martial artist could ever move in that stiff rubbersuit.

Movies are escapism but producers want it to be real and that just doesn't work for me.
In Batman Dead end Sandy's Batman could move and at the same time be vunerable so that for me made it more realistic that he could get hurt.

In Batman 89 Batman took shots at point blank and didn't get hurt I thought W T F??? he's now Superman?

In the Comics you would never even get that kind of shot because Batman is hit and move. not stand there and take hits.......



For me the Phantom was Perfect I love that movie and I love that they made his costume work on screen and it wasn't rubber...........

[jwyblejr]

As much as I love comics, I'll never be able to shut off the part of my brain that tells me real people wearing tights doesn't look crazy.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2Dcc6625K9w/TeKtnJ2cf_I/AAAAAAAAA4s/NHzFyaug1ss/s1600/phantom.jpg

The Phantom tried to go the traditional route, but even they added little textures, details and flourishes so he wasn't just a big purple dude.

The low-tech version of doing this:

http://content.internetvideoarchive.com/content/photos/7095/29801019_.jpg

To me The Phantom looks distractingly laughable. I can't imagine turning off the part of my brain that gives in to accepting that character's motivation for fighting for his life while wearing something that reminds me of the Fruit-of-the-Loom grape:

http://s4.thisnext.com/media/250x250/DC272BC6.jpg

MOST superhero costumes look crazy in real life to me.

I think if the costume is EXTREMELY iconic - like Superman's - people are SO use to seeing it, that it blends in a little more - I think that might work.

Otherwise, I disagree. Putting a superhero in the modern real-life world needs some visual transformation - needs some adapting. One thing I've never understood - if you just want a 100% faithful version of the comic - why not just stick to the comic?

Another thing with using comic book costumes,most look like what's used at various theme parks. Just look at the Daredevil costume used in Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back as an example.

[Brazoo]

But that's what kills me...why do we need so much reality NOONE dresses up like a rubberbat in real life fighting crime.

I think it's a slap in the face to the loyal comicbook fan who wants the comicbook version come to life.

They camped it up in the 60's and it worked. when I was kid I did not get any of the adult jokes they would throw in there. so all I got was Batman the crimefighter in the correct costume. no super extreme violence, just good old fighting.

Everything now has to be extreme, and for me that rubber suit is ridiculous. I can't see how a trained martial artist could ever move in that stiff rubbersuit.

Movies are escapism but producers want it to be real and that just doesn't work for me.
In Batman Dead end Sandy's Batman could move and at the same time be vunerable so that for me made it more realistic that he could get hurt.

In Batman 89 Batman took shots at point blank and didn't get hurt I thought W T F??? he's now Superman?

In the Comics you would never even get that kind of shot because Batman is hit and move. not stand there and take hits.......

Oh - I'm with you that way. I'm not nuts about the rubber suits per se, and I think some of the attempts at keeping the recognizable features of superheroes, but trying to make them more realistic fail miserably. Maybe even worse than just playing things straight.

I mean, it's probably just me - but I thought Hugh Jackman's hair looked laughable:



I'm glad comic fans embraced his performance and had fun - but I could never get over how weird this semi-Wolverine do looks in real life.

I think the push to make things more realistic, in a real setting is that most of the people making these movies aren't very visionary. They want to just slap a superhero in real life - and by contrast a guy running around in a unitard looks silly. To me it's really narrow view of the appeal of superheroes.

The first Superman movie wasn't pure reality - it was realistic, but there was an extension of reality that played with every aspect being a fantasy. I'm not sure I'm making sense - but to me the movie didn't try to LOOK like reality. It LOOKED like fantasy - and people acted like they were in a fantasy - based in reality to some degree, but not reality. And Superman fit in.

Marvel comics have always played with the idea that their superheroes are in REAL life - but there's always been a balance to further the fantasy. For one thing, just the fact that they're drawn meshed the fantasy and reality better for me.

Honestly - my favorite superhero movie of all-time is The Incredibles. I think that's as pure an attempt at making the Marvel-style of reality-meets-fantasy work. I enjoyed the first two Spider-Man movies - but instead of seeing a CGI Spider-Man swinging around the in action scenes why not just go the extra mile and make a great animated Spider-Man movie?

To me, the appeal of seeing actors dressed up like superheroes isn't that strong. From the other end I'm annoyed because I like great smash-up action movies - and these movies have negatively effected those movies now too - because every action movie needs a near super-human hero with big CGI set pieces. Ugh. I'm sick of it.

[Brazoo]

Doing it right!

[Figuremod73]

I wonder sometimes if the batman tv show would have been better if it had been more like green hornet. What do you guys think? Could a serious batman action/drama done in that distinct sixties style work with the costumes they wore?

[thunderbolt]

I don't think the Batman show would have been such a cultural phenomenon if were a serious version of him, and wouldn't have saved the comic from cancellation and possibly the entire superhero genre.

[aquatroy]

I appreciated that Watchmen was very faithful to the Minutemen.

[johnmiic]

The look of The Incredibles works because they are cartoon/CGI. They are also caricatures. They don't look like real people in a costume. People accept it because it's not a person wearing it.

The costumes in the FF films were taken from the Ultimate FF. I don't think a lot of people get how different costumes work for different heroes. John Byrne probably nailed it when he said the FF's costumes are actually functional jump-suits. They're not superhero costumes. Even Captain America's costume has that look to it, (probably because Kirby drew it).

[Brazoo]

Yeah - that's my point about The Incredibles. The idea of putting superheroes in REAL life is wrong (to me) in the first place. If the vision of the thing is to create a world where a superhero can exist, then it works.

You can deal with real life themes - like The Incredibles did - AND mix the unlikely choice of someone choosing to wear a tight-fiting cloth onesy - IF you hit that balance. In my opinion.

[ctc]

>the movie didn't try to LOOK like reality. It LOOKED like fantasy - and people acted like they were in a fantasy - based in reality to some degree, but not reality. And Superman fit in.

See.... THAT'S key. It kinda bugs me when folks want a superhero AND realism. They're kind of at odds right from the get-go. Superheroes are silly. A guy in red panties who can fly with no regard to physics is silly. A nuke making you real big and strong is silly. Radioactive bugbite gives me esp? Silly. AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! MOST stuff that folks like is inherently silly. That's what makes it different, entertaining and fun. Think about some of the stuff that's currently popular:

-whiney monsters who complain about their girlfriends
-pro wrestling
-left turns (I'm looking at YOU, NASCAR fans)
-yard sale: the tv series (ALL of 'em!)

NONE of these are any stupider than superheroes. But you got some problems bringing this idea to an audience. The biggest one; preconceptions:

>instead of seeing a CGI Spider-Man swinging around the in action scenes why not just go the extra mile and make a great animated Spider-Man movie?

'Cos folks would be put off by a cartoon. (Even though that's what CGI is.) There's no reason they SHOULD be, and a fully animated film would let them do stuff they still can't live action.... but folks would assume it was a kids story. (Which would be okay for the oldsters, since a lot of them WANT superheores to be kid stuff again.... tying into a few other preconceptions....) That's why things like "Heavy Metal" are called "animated films." It somehow differentiates stuff for people. (Like calling a comic book a "graphic novel.") It's the same thing; but you gotta game the audience to get them into some stuff. I'm okay with calling stuff a cartoon: cartoons are a medium, not a genre. Insisting that it's an "animated feature" shows pretention, self-consciousness and starts the ball rolling for moving away from the best parts of the medium.

THAT'S a big part of why I cringe when I see "realistic" comic movie designs. It shows that the crew is already worried about what they're doing, and feels the need to tone it down so's to be more palatable. Invariably bringing it closer to the mean; neccessary for sales, bad for story. And since I'm not a producer; I'm an audience member, sales is the least of my concerns.

>Marvel comics have always played with the idea that their superheroes are in REAL life - but there's always been a balance to further the fantasy.

What you're looking for here is "plausibility." The default for Marvel was "real life," but back in the day they'd play out the sort of things that would plausibly occur, given the proliferation of superheroes. Prior to that there was a tendency to slap on a superhero without really thinking through the ramifications. During WW2, nobody REALLY thought about what might happen politically if there were supers.... and even then Superman, Batman et al would punch out Hitler on a regular basis; yet the war carried on. Aliens would show up in the (proto) DC universe every couple of issues, and yet (other than Batman: Space Cop) the human race wouldn't reach the moon for decades. Marvel sought to change that sort of thing by thinking through the "common man" bits. Hence, plausibility.

....but there's a problem with the process: eventually reality supercedes your stories; especially if they've been running for decades. (Peter Parker, 20 years as a grad student.) Dealing with that is the trick; compounded if you're trying to make the jump from one medium to another.

>just the fact that they're drawn meshed the fantasy and reality better for me.

Yeah; like that. A comic, 'cos it's drawn brings with it certain expectations. Not always founded, but they're there. (One of the reasons my characters aren't humans is 'cos making them more cartoony and of a different species lets me get away with stuff a reader would be hyper-critical of otherwise.) Reboots, redos, reimaginings and giving Batman rubber nipples are some of the (not always effective) ways of dealing with it. The problem is getting the audience to buy into it. Sometimes that's not possible. Sometimes the difference between factions of your audience are too wide. Sometimes your audience is too needy, whiney or unrealistically demanding. Sometimes the product you want to sell just isn't going to go over, no matter what you do.

>because every action movie needs a near super-human hero with big CGI set pieces.

Once again, I defer to the source of all wisdom; Cracked.com. Read the "Transformers" bit:

Cracked 64: The Top 8 of Everything of 2011 - David Wong | Cracked.com

Don C.

[Figuremod73]

From what I understand Hitler actually SAW a issue of Superman where he was getting his butt kicked. I sure that didnt go over well...

[david_b]

Probably alone here, but I actually LOVED the Phantom outfit..

It was natural, impressive, and he wore it VERY well. It didn't seem like tights at all.

[emeraldknight47]

Probably alone here, but I actually LOVED the Phantom outfit..

It was natural, impressive, and he wore it VERY well. It didn't seem like tights at all.

I think the person IN the suit is definitely what MAKES the suit. If the actor/actress has the proper physique, they can pull it off and don't need a lot of padding (physically or CGI) or rubber...