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Wikiquote talk:Quote of the day/June 17, 2005

Being in something of a last minute rush, I seem to have made a mistake. The Wikipedia page June 17 lists the 17th as Wesley's birthday... but this might this might have been the Old Style date, as the articles here and at Wikipedia list the 28th as being his date of birth. This is not the first time I didn't notice a discrepency in dates until it was too late, but hopefully it will be the last. ~ Kalki 00:16, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


text:
User talk:Phoenix-forgotten~enwikiquote

--Aphaia 00:40, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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title: User talk:Phoenix-forgotten~enwikiquote


text: User talk:Scxx

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User talk:Sc~enwikiquote

Thanks for experimenting with Wikiquote. Your test worked, and has now been reverted or removed. Please use Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing in articles will normally be reverted quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our compendium of quotations. Thanks.

And I would like to you know, even if on your talk, you may not violate Wikiquote policy. Thank you. --Aphaia 03:20, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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Thomas Burnet

Thomas Burnet (c. 1635 – 1715) was an Anglican clergyman, best known for his book Telluris Theoria Sacra, or The Sacred Theory of the Earth.

Sourced

 * 'Tis a dangerous thing to engage the authority of scripture in disputes about the natural world, in opposition to reason; lest time, which brings all things to light, should discover that to be evidently false which we had made scripture to assert …  We are not to suppose that any truth concerning the natural world can be an enemy to religion; for truth cannot be an enemy to truth, God is not divided against himself.
 * The Sacred Theory of the Earth, quoted in Stephen Jay Gould, Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle (1987), p. 32; ellipsis Gould's.

title: Thomas Burnet


text:
User talk:Akamad~enwikiquote

--Aphaia 03:19, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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User talk:Dbenbenn

--Aphaia 03:21, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Shadow & Claw book cover, once again
Hopefully this will be the last place I have to futz with this image. I've tried unsuccessfully to link the image in several different ways, but now I get the impression that this is intentionally prevented. Should I duplicated the image upload here, or should I consider the link back to en's page sufficient? I ask mainly because it doesn't seem like there are a lot of uploads to wikiquote, and there's no template. I can bounce this question off someone else if you're not the one to ask. Thanks for catching this use of the image, in any case! — HorsePunchKid → 龜 06:29, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Nope, I'm not the one to ask. I've only made a couple edits here.  Dbenbenn 01:31, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Dbenbenn


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User talk:67.34.213.181

Welcome to Wikiquote, the free compendium of quotations! You don't have to log in to read or edit articles on Wikiquote, but creating an account is quick, free and non-intrusive, requires you to provide no personal information, and gives you many benefits, including:
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title: User talk:67.34.213.181


text: User:HorsePunchKid/Sandbox

title: User:HorsePunchKid/Sandbox


text:
User talk:Bjorn2k

--Aphaia 11:33, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Bjorn2k


text:
Cecil Taylor

Cecil Percival Taylor (March 15, 1929 – April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet who was generally acknowledged to be one of the great innovative sources of free jazz (along with Ornette Coleman).

Quotes

 * I don't expect people who listen to Emerson, Lake, and Palmer to come hear me. I accept that reality.
 * Source: http://www.bluesforpeace.com/names.htm

 * Sometimes when it goes really well, you wonder, "who's that at the piano?"
 * Soure: http://www.furious.com/perfect/ceciltaylor.html

 * You practice so you can invent. Discipline? No. The joy of practicing leads you to the celebration of the creation.
 * Soure: Films on Demand, Films for the Humanities & Sciences, Films Media Group, & MVD Entertainment Group. (2011). Cecil Taylor All the Notes. New York, N.Y.: Films Media Group.

title: Cecil Taylor


text:
User talk:85.64.195.132

Shalom, Welcome to Wikiquote, the free compendium of quotations! You don't have to log in to read or edit articles on Wikiquote, but creating an account is quick, free and non-intrusive, requires you to provide no personal information, and gives you many benefits, including:
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User talk:81.155.101.129

Welcome to Wikiquote, the free compendium of quotations! You don't have to log in to read or edit articles on Wikiquote, but creating an account is quick, free and non-intrusive, requires you to provide no personal information, and gives you many benefits, including:
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User talk:212.149.48.43

Welcome to Wikiquote, the free compendium of quotations! You don't have to log in to read or edit articles on Wikiquote, but creating an account is quick, free and non-intrusive, requires you to provide no personal information, and gives you many benefits, including:
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title: User talk:212.149.48.43


text:
User talk:Phillytim

--Aphaia 13:03, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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User talk:212.248.196.131

Welcome to Wikiquote, the free compendium of quotations! You don't have to log in to read or edit articles on Wikiquote, but creating an account is quick, free and non-intrusive, requires you to provide no personal information, and gives you many benefits, including:
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Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.

Quotes

 * Quotes are arranged in chronological order

1950s

 * I’ll play it and tell you what it is later.
 * In, and in many other books Sometimes rendered as: I'll play it 'first and tell you what it is later.
 * During a recording session for Prestige, on the album "Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet" (1956).

 * I can't tell... All those white tenor players sound alike to me.
 * Assessing saxophonist for one of s "Blindfold Test" columns, c. 1957, in response to "Cycle," the opening track from Collette's '; as quoted in The Encyclopedia of Jazz'' (1960) by Leonard Feather, p. 478

 * Is that what you wanted, Alfred?
 * Miles Davis asking Blue Note producer Alfred Lion's approval of a recorded performance in Rudy Van Gelder's studio. Miles' was included at the end of "One For Daddy-O" on the Cannonball Adderley album Somethin' Else (March 9, 1958).
 * Quoted in: Jazz Journal International, (1983), p. 12.

 * The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them...I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.
 * About the new modal style. Interviewed by The Jazz Review (1958); Quotes in Paul Maher, Michael K. Dorr (2009) Miles on Miles: Interviews and Encounters with Miles Davis, p. 18.

 * "You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played." and "I love Pops" (Louis' nickname) … Louis has been through all kinds of styles. That's good tuba, by the way. You know you can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played — I mean even modern. I love his approach to the trumpet; he never sounds bad. He plays on the beat — with feeling. That's another phrase for swing. I also love the way he sings.
 * In The Jazz Review with Nat Hentoff (1958); also in, , , and in many other books
 * On Louis Armstrong in a Playboy magazine interview.

1960s

 * When they make records with all the mistakes in, as well as the rest, then they'll really make jazz records. If the mistakes aren't there too, it ain't none of you.
 * As quoted in "Mastersounds Heard Again in New Album; Miles Davis At the Blackhawk (Columbia C2L 20)" by Russ Wilson, Oakland Tribune (December 9, 1961), p. 9.

 * I love Pops, I love the way he sings, the way he plays - everything he does, except when he says something against modern-jazz music.
 * In Playboy to Alex Haley (1962); also in, , , and in

 * What am I supposed to say to that? That's ridiculous. You see the way they can ____ up music? It's a mismatch. They don't complement each other. Max and Mingus can play together, by themselves. Mingus is a hell of a bass player, and Max is a hell of a drummer. But Duke can't play with them, and they can't play with Duke. Now, how are you going to give a thing like that some stars? Record companies should be kicked in the ___. Somebody should take a picket sign and picket the record company.
 * Assessing the Ellington/Mingus/Roach recording of the Ellington-Tizol composition "Caravan", from '; in s "Blindfold Test" (June 18, 1964); reproduced in The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties'' (1966) by Leonard Feather, p. 29.

 * Take it off! That's some sad ____, man. In the first place, I hear some Charlie Parker cliches. . . . They don't even fit. Is that what the critics are digging? Them critics better stop having coffee. If there ain't nothing to listen to, they might as well admit it. Just to take something like that and say it's great, because there ain't nothing to listen to, that's like going out and getting a prostitute. [Leonard Feather: This man said he was influenced by Duke Ellington.] I don't give a ____! It must be . Right? I don't care who he's inspired by. That ____ ain't nothing. In the first place he don't have the - you know, the way you touch a piano. He doesn't have the touch that would make the sound of whatever he thinks of come off. I can tell he's influenced by Duke, but to put the loud pedal on the piano and make a run is very old-fashioned to me. And when the alto player sits up there and plays without no tone . . . That's the reason I don't buy any records.
 * Reviewing "Lena" from Taylor's ' in DownBeats "Blindfold Test" (June 18, 1964); reproduced in The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties'' (1966) by Leonard Feather, p. 29.

1970s

 * My ego only needs a good rhythm section.
 * In "My ego only needs a good rhythm section" is also the title of an interview/article by Stephen Davis for The Real Paper (21 March 1973)
 * On being asked what he looked for in musicians.

 * Coleman Hawkins told me never to play with someone older than me, and I never have. With older players, there's no force, no drive. With younger players, it's not that you know it all, or I know it all—it's I'm trying to learn it all.
 * As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music (1978) by Julie Coryell and Laura Friedman, p. 40

 * I know what the power of silence is. When I used to play in clubs, everybody was loud; there was a lot of noise. So I would take my mute off the microphone, and I would play something so soft that you could hardly hear it... and you talk about listening. Roy Eldridge did that. He's one of my favorites.
 * As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music, p. 40

 * The only thing I'm interested in is the music and the musicians. I don't acknowledge applause 'cause I'm giving them something. They're not giving me anything with their applause. Can I write that down?
 * As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music, p. 40

 * Billie Holiday—she was the nicest woman in the world, you know. All she wanted to do was sing. They picked on her and picked on her to get money out of her. You do drugs 'cause you like to, not 'cause it's a life-style.... They picked on Billie so much. She said, "Miles, come and see me in Long Island." She was in love with one of my kids and his curly hair—he used to ride my bicycle and watch the horse at Aqueduct. She said, "Miles, if they'd just leave me alone; they could have the house—everything." You know the way singers shake their asses now. Billie didn't have to do that. Her mouth was so sensuous; she was pretty and she would say certain words and her mouth would quiver, and she always had this white gardenia and long gloves.
 * As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music, p. 41

1980s

 * If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow.
 * In: Jet (25 March 1985)
 * During an interview, after growing aggravated about questions on the subject of race.

 * He never wasted a melody. He never wasted a phrase. He and Duke Ellington changed the whole sound. There is no way to describe it because there's nobody on this earth that can do that anymore. What he did to the texture of an orchestration, what he did with a pop song is like writing an original piece. Students will discover him. They'll have to take his music apart layer by layer. That's how they'll know what kind of genius he was.
 * As quoted in "Gil Evans: The Art of Musical Transformation" by Scott D. Reeves, in Annual Review of Jazz Studies (2002), p. 33
 * Speaking with UPI on March 21, 1988, one day after the death of his friend and collaborator, Gil Evans.

 * For me, music and life are all about style.
 * Miles, the Autobiography (1989) (co-written with Quincy Troupe, p. 398.)

 * I've changed music four or five times. What have you done of any importance other than be white?
 * Miles, the Autobiography (1989) (co-written with Quincy Troupe, p. 371.)
 * At a White House reception in honor of Ray Charles in 1987, this was his reply to a society lady seated next to him who had asked what he had done to be invited.

 * Why'd you put that white bitch on there?
 * In, , and
 * To George Avakian after seeing the cover chosen by Columbia for Miles Ahead.

1990s

 * When you are creating your own shit, man, even the sky ain't the limit.
 * ; also in
 * Davis was questioning the increasing length of John Coltrane solos, and Trane answered "I don't know how to stop."

 * Don't play what's there, play what's not there.
 * In SPIN (December 1990). p. 30, and in many other sources, but I can't find the original one.

 * A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it.
 * On being called a legend.
 * Quoted in International Herald Tribune (17 July 1991); also in:

2000s

 * Try taking the fucking horn out of your mouth.
 * In, , , and in many other books

 * It's that goddamned motherfucking 'Machine Gun.'
 * Charles R. Cross, Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix (2005), ISBN 1-4013-0028-6.
 * Davis' response when questioned on what he heard in the music of Jimi Hendrix.

 * He could very well be the Duke Ellington of Rock 'n' Roll.
 * In as: he can be the Duke Ellington of our times. And in  as: Do you know who Prince kinda reminds me of, particularly as a piano player? Duke! Yeah, he's the Duke Ellington of the eighties to my way of thinking.
 * On Prince

About Miles Davis

 * A lot of Negro style-the style of a man like Miles Davis or Ray Charles or the style of a man like myself is based on a knowledge of what people are really saying and on our refusal to hear it. You pick up on the beat, which is much more truthful than words.
 * 1969 interview in Conversations with James Baldwin edited by Louis H. Pratt and Fred L. Standley (1989)

 * Another place I worked a lot was the Open Door, where we used to go to hear Miles. I didn't go to hear Miles; I went to see his wardrobe, because he had gorgeous clothes. He always played into the drapes and showed complete contempt for the audience.
 * 1994 interview in Conversations with Toni Cade Bambara edited by Thabiti Lewis (2017)

 * I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music. It’s tempting for the musician to prejudice his own views when recording opportunities are so infrequent but I for one am determined to resist the temptation.
 * Bill Evans, on about Miles Davis's change of style to jazz fusion.
 * http://jazztimes.com/articles/20128-miles-davis-and-bill-evans-miles-and-bill-in-black-white.
 * Miles said he looked on his need for constant change as a curse. However, Miles, along with Duke Ellington, in terms of looking for models of how you strategize with a band, have been there constantly in the background for me. Not the Beatles as a construct for a group, not Led Zeppelin, not the Floyd. My guides have always been Miles and Duke.
 * Robert Fripp, on how Miles Davis influenced his leadership in King Crimson.
 * As quoted in a Rolling Stone interview "The Crimson King Seeks a New Court" by Hank Shteamer (15 April 2019).
 * And on one particularly weighty draft he turned in, I told him to go home that night, pour a drink, and listen to some Miles Davis. I told him the thing about Miles Davis is the silences. The notes he doesn’t play. So with that in mind, go take another swing at your draft, find me some silences, and then I’ll get to work.
 * Barack Obama (c. December 2020) recalling advice he'd once given his chief speechwriter.
 * As quoted in "Barack Obama has created a playlist to accompany A Promised Land" by Walker Caplan, The Hub: News, Notes, Talk (21 December 2020).
 * When the world speaks of Miles, the legend, they have no idea who the man really was. The Miles I knew was sensitive and ailing, bruised by the hurts this life metes out. With trembling lips, he told me of the years during his childhood in East St. Louis when he'd been called Blackie by his friends and even some of his family, gazed down upon as a nobody, rendered invisible by his dark hue. He told me of the time, at age thirteen, when he'd been seduced by a grown woman, forced into his first sexual encounter with a friend of a relative. He spoke of the time when his father, a well-to-do dentist, had wanted him to follow in his career path, until a teacher who'd recognized Miles' gift intervened. "Forget it. Little Davis is not going to be any dentist," that teacher told Miles' father. "He's going to be a musician." The first time Miles blew that horn, he'd found his consolation. In playing that trumpet, he did the only thing he knew how, the one thing that made him feel worthy. That is the Miles I knew and, in time, grew to cherish.
 * Cicely Tyson
 * Just As I Am: A Memoir (2021) by Tyson (with Michelle Burford). p. 168
 * I don't excuse Miles' conduct any more than I dismiss my willingness, consciously or unknowingly, to indulge it. We mortals breathe incongruity. That I chose to stay with Miles is still, in many ways, confounding to me. And yet I've come to realize that Miles' behavior felt sorely familiar, a song, blaring and dissonant, that I'd learned in my early years. [...] My father had taught me the music. And my mother, in her own way, had emphasized each measure, hummed along with the clamor even as she railed against it. "Men will be men," she'd sometimes mutter, following a feud with my father, her way of rationalizing his adultery. [...] And in my Upper East Side high-rise, a world away from the slum of my girlhood and yet overlapping with it, Miles would be Miles.
 * Cicely Tyson
 * Just As I Am, pp. 326-327

title: Miles Davis


text:
User talk:Atchernev

Hi,, welcome back to Wikiquote ;-) Here are some useful links:
 * Browse To browse the site.
 * Reference desk To ask some questions related to quotes.
 * Village pump To discuss with other editors.
 * Community Portal Other useful links.

Shortly be bold and enjoy!--Aphaia 13:10, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * Hi Atchernev, thank you for your interlang links. It is very helpful. I hope you are liking many of the quotes that you encounter along the way. --Aphaia 5 July 2005 16:12 (UTC)

 * Hallo, Aphaia, like you I think the interlang links are very useful especially if you want to read some quote in it's original language. I'll keep working on it. I hope you'll help me with the japanese links in the Bulgarian Wikiquote Regards :)) --Atchernev 5 July 2005 16:59 (UTC)

 * My pleasuer. However, I have difficulty - I am not familiar to cyllic alphabets. So your interlang on English Wikiquote is double helpful for me ;-) I'll try to fix our interlang wiki following your work, and try to reflect your current update. Cheers, --Aphaia 5 July 2005 17:12 (UTC)

title: User talk:Atchernev


text:
Talk:Red vs. Blue

You have no tex quotes. I'lll try to get some for you.

How much money do you need to fund another season? If money is what you need, then look to your loyal fans for support. We are happy to donate. Just start working on some red vs blue stories that follow the events of season 13, post some teaser information about them all over social media, then start accepting donations. I alone would donate up to $100 contingent on a promise that season 15 would not be an anthology, but instead, be structured like the first 13 seasons. Imagine how many donations could be collected from 1 million Facebook followers. A relentless pirate once rightfully said, "Today is a good day to die." Ironically, his lazy subordinate who cherished any opportunity to stop and sleep said, "Fuck that." In stead of laying down and dying, he grabbed his badass grif shot and got to work. Rooster Teeth, Red vs blue is your grif shot, and you are Grif. However, will you be the Grif who wonders why he is here? Or will you be the Grif who knows exactly why he is here and what he must do? You must keep the wheels rolling. You have created an emotional roller coaster of a series that has viewers jumping from one emotion to the next. You do this so well. Please do not end red vs blue with anthologies. They can be amusing and interesting when it comes to the character's back- stories, but those mini stories will not keep viewers glued to the tv screens like the original seasons do. In conclusion, please ask for donations and keep your fans updated. Thank you

PSAs
Can people stop converting PSA quotes to entire transcripts of the episodes? This is Wikiquote, not Wikiscripts.--DooMDrat 07:02, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
 * DooMDrat, why dont we just take out all the stuff irrelevant to the actual episode? --Tymeup911 22:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * screw what i said then i didnt read further.--Tymeup911 22:11, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Someone should take out all the redundant "Church:"'s and other names preceding every single quote? They are pointless and look bad. We know that the quotes under the heading "Church" are all said by Church. Akrabbim 16:19, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

DooMDrat, what if the entire episode is a quote in and of itself, besides the artlcle is on Red vs Blue, thus quotes are entitled to any section of words spoken thoughout the entire series.

Akrabbim, site where you are talking about. PatPeter 22:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * PatPeter, that's from 2 years ago...from when the article was divided not by episodes but by character. So there was a section for Church's quotes, and all the quotes started with "Church:" --24.150.224.146 16:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Length of Article
Based on what it says in the edit section, maybe this could be broken up into quotes by red charachters, quotes by blue charachters, quotes by people affiliated by neither team, and quotes between 2 or more people.
 * Or we could split it into just two articles: Red and Blue characters, and Group and Misc quotes. Or, we could just do a big trim. We don't need every funny line from the show.--DooMDrat 13:12, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I've just done a lot of trimming. Removed about 10k worth.--DooMDrat 12:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
 * This needs some serious trimming again. Some bits have ballooned out to near half-episode transcripts.--DooMDrat 12:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we should start by picking a number of lines and chopping out everything longer? 10+ lines as a "quote" from a 5 minute episode is way over the top.--Almagesh 11:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've cut 10KB off by removing several of the longest quotes, because I just can't see any possible way these can be justified under Fair Use, and the remaining 63 KB shows there's no shortage of shorter quotes from which to choose.--Almagesh 17:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Who started this? they left a lot of stuff out. Ive been going through and adding some more character speaking while ive been around. leaving most all of it out leaves everyone hanging!--Tymeup911 21:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

TV standard.
I plan on converting this to the TV standard, as part of the process of getting the main RvB article on Wikipedia up to featured quality. Might as well improve all RvB articles. I will probably watch through the series again tomorrow, and start the conversion. I will probably also get rid of a quite a few quotes during the process to cut down on article size.--DooMDrat 13:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Finally, I'm done. This article may need splitting.--DooMDrat 06:45, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

'Ice' not Iron for crying out loud!
Trying to contribute to an argument on irony: I think it would be ironic if everyone was made of iron!

I've changed this numerous times to 'Ice', but it keeps getting changed back to iron. Listen to episode 38, and you'll see its ICE not iron.

 * Then I would suggest you get your ears syringed. I just listened to that bit, and it's iron. The unofficial resource site agrees.--DooMDrat 05:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Wow, yes indeed. Headphones make a huge difference. Now I can't even see where ice came from

Checkcopyright tag
I added the tag, as this excessive amount of quote surely goes beyond the limits of fair use. Besides that, the page is also very large at over 100 kilobytes. Some serious trimming is in order.--DooMDrat 09:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I just trimmed about 23 KB. More is needed. It might also be worth breaking this up by season and specials. TKD 10:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, I just read Copyrights and saw this: "As such, it is important, especially when quoting from things such as movies and television series, but also other published works, to make sure that there are not too many quotes from any single copyrighted work. Be especially careful not to even take too many quotations from a single television or movie series (which could potentially be held under one large copyright claim as well as per-episode copyright claims)." We need to trim this down drastically. TKD 10:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I've trimmed another 29k off it, from Season 3 onwards, bringing it down to 56k.--DooMDrat 14:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I've lopped off another 10KB. I'm thinking that it might be best to aim to have at most 1 longer joke or possibly two shorter jokes per episode. Remember, the episodes are only about five minutes long on average, so having, say, 6 lines could constitute 10% of a shorter episode (like the early ones in the first season). TKD 03:19, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Teaching alien english
Why isn't the scene where they are teaching the alien english in here (the one with "So we're teaching him English 101: Remedial kickass) from season four? That was really funny I thought. PS: I am Teh Tennisman on regular wikipedia.
 * See the above discussion, as well as the message at the top of this page. It's improper to include every single funny line from an episode. To do so borders on copyright infringement; remember that Wikiquote is licensed under the GFDL, which allows others to profit off of the collections here. So even though Red vs Blue is available without charge on the Internet, we can't just put everything here because that defeats the purpose of Wikiquote material being possibly commercially viable in the future. Don't forget, too, that Red vs Blue is a commercial product. TKD 16:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * WEll w/e then. I just thought that was funny. 24.231.183.229 02:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Episode transcripts
I've added an External Links section with a link to an "unofficial Red vs. Blue resource site" which has full episode transcripts - roostertooths.com. Hopefully, this will satisfy those who feel the need to see every single remotely funny line quoted... ― Grim Revenant 03:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Article Length / Wikiquote Profanity Policy
Obviously the series has some big fans who feel that there are great quotes that need to be remembered, or the article wouldn't be so long (currently reduced to 63KB but there's still a warning on the edit page advising a reduction to 32KB). Perhaps it would be easier to reduce the page size if we were to apply the profanity guidelines which read "Words and images that might be considered offensive, profane, or obscene by other Wikipedia readers should be used if and only if their omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternatives are available." (Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Profanity)

While Red vs Blue does use extensive profanity in its episodes, there are enough notable quotes without it that there should be no shortage of content to keep the article informative. This would give us a much more objective criteria for eliminating material to reduce potential argument about what belongs and what doesn't. Considering that the article is almost double the highest length and article can have without getting a warning on the edit page, some kind of criteria for cutting down is needed, or we'll need some logical way to break down into multiple pages.--Almagesh 17:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll see what I can do to trim it on the weekend. After months I've finally managed to log back in here again, having found out about the solution to my login problems (and feeling like a colossal idiot as a result).--DooMDrat 12:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Damn procrastination again. I'll wait until a week or so after the last episode is out, and things settle down.--DooMDrat 07:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Never did get around to it. Story of my life. Took me more than a year to even bother to obtain a new password after I forgot the old one. This article's become insanely excessive. I'll be taking the shears to it within the next few days.--DooMDrat 14:14, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Add yourself to Copyright Cleanup. I trimmed episodes 1-19 down to size, but there's plenty of work to go around. ~ S0CO  ( talk 03:40, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I know that the last post in this topic was back in 2008, but I just want to say this: mere replacement of vulgar words like "ass" to "butt" in these quotes is actually a problem. By doing so, certain edited quotes, such as in the conversation between Tucker and Caboose in "Repent, The End is Near," become less accurate as words like "butt" are not part of the series' normal vocabulary.  I have already fixed the aforementioned quote. --Lordhood117 (talk) 18:51, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Quotes should not be bowdlerized. --Tryst (talk) 19:55, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Lopez
How come Lopez doesn't have a section? Thermorules123 20:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC) It's because, at first, he doesn't talk at all, and when he finally does talk, he speaks in spanish, so not everyone can understand him.

Vic and Vic Jr
It would be great to put in some Vic and Vic Jr quotes, Vic is one of the funniest characters in the series.

title: Talk:Red vs. Blue


text:
User talk:Idan d

MosheZadka 16:20, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Re: Register
''Why don't you create an acount in the he Wikiquote??? Idan d 22:46, 2 September 2005 (UTC)''

 * I never contribute anything other than notes :) ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 03:35, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
 * o.k. I just thought it would easyer to contact with you. but I can here too... so, come visit sometimes... Idan d 16:12, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Idan d


text:
User talk:24.13.176.81

Hi! Please see the comment I made in Talk:Michael Savage. Thanks, MosheZadka 16:28, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi. First of all, you can deal with vandalism yourself, by undoing it. Secondly, you can go to WQ:VIP and report it. Last of all, if you have specific issues with a page, you can bring it up on the talk page or on WQ:VP. You can do all of those as an anonymous user, but I highly recommend registering an account. Thanks, ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 12:00, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikiquote, the free compendium of quotations! You don't have to log in to read or edit articles on Wikiquote, but creating an account is quick, free and non-intrusive, requires you to provide no personal information, and gives you many benefits, including:
 * The use of a username of your choice
 * The ability to view all your contributions via a "My contributions" link
 * Your own user page
 * Your own talk page which, if you choose, also allows users to send you messages without knowing your e-mail address
 * The use of your own personal watchlist to which you can add articles that interest you
 * The ability to rename pages
 * The ability to upload images
 * The ability to customize the appearance and behavior of the website
 * The eligibility to become an administrator
 * The right to be heard in formal votes and elections, and on pages like votes for deletion

Click here to create an account.--Aphaia 15:55, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:24.13.176.81


text:
Batman Begins

Batman Begins is a 2005 British-American superhero film in which, after training with his mentor, Batman begins his fight to free crime-ridden Gotham City from corruption.
 * Directed by Christopher Nolan. Written by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, based on the comic book character created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger.

The Legend Begins.taglines

Bruce Wayne/Batman

 * They told me there was nothing out there, nothing to fear. But the night my parents were murdered I caught a glimpse of something. I've looked for it ever since. I went around the world, searched in all the shadows. And there is something out there in the darkness, something terrifying, something that will not stop until it gets revenge... Me.
 * It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.

Dialogue

 * Man: Are you so desperate to fight criminals that you lock yourself in to take them on one at a time?
 * Bruce: Actually, there were seven of them.
 * Man: I counted six, Mr. Wayne.
 * Bruce: How do you know my name?
 * Man: The world is too small a place for someone like Bruce Wayne to disappear no matter how low he chooses to sink.
 * Bruce: Who are you?
 * Man: My name is merely Ducard, but I speak for Ra’s Al Ghul, a man greatly feared by the criminal underworld. A man who can offer you a path.
 * Bruce: What makes you think I need a path?
 * Ducard: Someone like you is only here by choice. You have been exploring the criminal fraternity, but whatever your original intentions, you have become truly lost.
 * Bruce: And what path can Ra’s Al Ghul offer?
 * Ducard: The path of a man who shares his hatred of evil and wished to serve true justice. The path of the League of Shadows.
 * Bruce: You’re vigilantes.
 * Ducard: No, no, no. A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can’t stop you, then you become something else entirely.
 * Bruce: Which is?
 * Ducard: A legend, Mr. Wayne. Tomorrow, you will be released. If you are bored of brawling with thieves and want to achieve something, there is a rare blue flower that grows on the eastern slopes. Pick one of these flowers. If you can carry it to the top of the mountain, you may find what you were looking for in the first place.
 * Bruce: And what was I looking for?
 * Ducard: Only you can know that.

 * Ducard: What do you seek?
 * Bruce Wayne: I seek the means to fight injustice. To turn fear against those who prey on the fearful.

 * [Bruce and Ducard spar on a frozen lake]
 * Ducard: Your parents' death was not your fault. It was your father's. [Bruce attacks him furiously] Anger does not change the fact that your father failed to act.
 * Bruce: The man had a gun!
 * Ducard: Would that stop you?
 * Bruce: I've had training!
 * Ducard: [counterattacks, driving Bruce back] The training is nothing! The will is everything! The will to act!

 * Ducard: You're stronger than your father.
 * Bruce Wayne: You didn't know my father.
 * Ducard: But I know the rage that drives you. That impossible anger strangling the grief, until the memory of your loved ones is just poison in your veins. And one day, you catch yourself wishing the person you loved had never existed, so you'd be spared your pain. I wasn't always here in the mountains. Once I had a wife, my great love. She was taken from me. Like you, I was forced to learn that there are those without decency that must be fought without hesitation, without pity. Your anger gives you great power, but if you let it, it will destroy you, as it almost did me.
 * Bruce: What stopped it?
 * Ducard: Vengeance.
 * Bruce: That's no help to me.
 * Ducard: Why, Bruce? Why did you not avenge your parents?

 * Alfred Pennyworth: I've prepared the master bedroom for you, sir.
 * Bruce: No. My room will be fine.
 * Alfred: With respect, Wayne Manor is your house.
 * Bruce: It's my father's house.
 * Alfred: Your father is dead.
 * Bruce: This place is a mausoleum. If I had my way, I'd pull the damn thing down, brick by brick.
 * Alfred: This house, Master Wayne, has sheltered six generations of your family.
 * Bruce: Why do you give a damn, Alfred? It's not your family.
 * Alfred: I give a damn, sir, because a good man once made me responsible for what was most precious to him in our world.
 * Bruce: You still haven't given up on me?
 * Alfred: Never.

 * Rachel Dawes: The D.A. couldn't understand why Judge Faden insisted on making the hearing public. Falcone paid him off to get Chill out in the open.
 * Bruce: Maybe I should be thanking him.
 * Rachel: You don't mean that.
 * Bruce: What if I do? My parents deserve justice.
 * Rachel: Well, you're not talking about justice, you're talking about revenge.
 * Bruce: Sometimes, they're the same thing.
 * Rachel: No, they're never the same. Justice is about harmony. Revenge is about you making yourself feel better. Which is why we have an impartial system.
 * Bruce: Your system is broken.
 * Rachel abruptly turns the car down a side street, taking them through the poorer sections of Gotham:
 * Rachel: Look beyond your own pain, Bruce. This city is rotting. People talk about the Depression as if it's history, and it's not. Things are worse than ever down here. Falcone floods our streets with crime and drugs, preying on the desperate, creating new Joe Chills every day. Falcone may not have killed your parents, Bruce, but he's destroying everything they stood for. [comes to a stop outside a bar] You want to thank him for that, here you go. We all know where to find him, but as long as he keeps the bad people rich and the good people scared, nobody will touch him. Good people like your parents who will stand against injustice, they're gone. What chance does Gotham have when the good people do nothing?
 * Bruce: I'm not one of your 'good people', Rachel.
 * Rachel: What do you mean?
 * Bruce: All these years, I wanted to kill him. [shows her the gun he planned to use on Chill] Now I can't.
 * [Rachel slaps Bruce. After a pause, she slaps him again]
 * Rachel: Your father would be ashamed of you.

 * Carmine Falcone: You're taller than you look in the tabloids, Mr. Wayne. [his men frisk Bruce] No gun? I'm insulted. You could've just sent a thank-you note.
 * Bruce: I didn't come here to thank you. I came here to show you that not everyone in Gotham's afraid of you.
 * Falcone: Only those who know me, kid. Take a look around you. You'll see two city councilmen, a union official, a couple of off-duty cops, and a judge. [draws a pistol and points it at Bruce] Now I wouldn't have a second's hesitation in blowing your head off right here in front of them. That's power you can't buy! That's the power of fear.
 * Bruce: I'm not afraid of you.
 * Falcone: Because you think you got nothing to lose. But you haven't thought it through yet. You haven't thought about your lady friend, down at the DA's office. You haven't thought about your old butler. [gestures with his gun] Bang! People from your world have so much to lose. Now, you think because your mommy and your daddy got shot, you know about the ugly side of life, but you don't. You've never tasted desperate. You're, uh, you're Bruce Wayne, the prince of Gotham. You'd have to go a thousand miles to meet someone who didn't know your name! So don't, don't come down here with your anger, trying to prove something to yourself. This is a world that you'll never understand. And you always fear what you don't understand.

 * Batman: [holds Gordon up with a gun] Don't turn around. You're a good cop, one of the few.
 * Sgt James Gordon: What do you want?
 * Batman: Carmine Falcone brings in shipments of drugs every week. Nobody takes him down. Why?
 * Gordon: He's paid up with the right people.
 * Batman: What would it take to bring him down?
 * Gordon: Leverage on Judge Faden, and a DA brave enough to prosecute.
 * Batman: Rachel Dawes.
 * Gordon: Who are you?
 * Batman: [reveals gun which is just a stapler] Watch for my sign. [retracts stapler, backs off]
 * Gordon: You're just one man?
 * Batman: Now we're two.
 * Gordon: "We"?
 * [He turns around, only to see that Batman is gone]

 * [Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox visit a special garage at Wayne Enterprises]
 * Bruce Wayne: [look at a very large and odd vehicle] What's that?
 * Lucius Fox: The Tumbler? Oh, you wouldn't be interested in that. [cuts to Bruce driving it on a test track, with Fox in the passenger's seat describing how it works] She was built as a bridging vehicle. During combat, two of these would jump over a river, towing cables. Over here on the throttle, flip that open and throttle up. This will boost you into a rampless jump. [Bruce goes to flip the throttle. The Tumbler accelerates] Not now! Not... not now, Sir!
 * Tumbler AI: Afterburner disengaged.
 * Fox: We never could get the damn bridge to work, but this baby works just fine. [Bruce swerves the Tumbler to a stop] So, what do you think?
 * Wayne: Does it come in black?

 * [Rachel Dawes visits a hotel and sees Bruce going out soaking wet with two European models in underwear and bathrobes walking out
 * Rachel Dawes: Bruce?
 * Bruce Wayne: [tries to recognize] Rachel?
 * Dawes: I had heard you were back. What are you doing?
 * Wayne: Ugh, just swimming. Wow, it is good to see you.
 * Dawes: You were gone a long time.
 * Wayne: I know. How are things?
 * Dawes: Same. Job's getting worse.
 * Wayne: [smiles] Can't change the world on your own.
 * Dawes: [smiles] What choice do I have. When you're too busy 'swimming.'
 * Wayne: Rachel, all of, all this, it's not me. Inside, I am more.
 * Model #1: [calls out] Come on Bruce, come on!
 * Model #2: We have some more hotels for you to buy.
 * Dawes: [smiles sympathetically] Bruce. Deep down, you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you. [Walks away]

 * [Dr. Crane walks in to the interrogation room where Falcone is sitting behind a steel table]
 * Falcone: (sarcastically) Yeah, Doctor Crane, I can’t take it anymore, it’s all too much, the walls are closing in, blah, blah, blah. A couple days of this food, it’ll be true.
 * Dr. Jonathan Crane: What do you want?
 * Falcone: I want to know how you're gonna convince me to keep my mouth shut.
 * Crane: About what? You don't know anything.
 * Falcone: I know you don't want the cops to take a closer look at the drugs they seized. And I know about your experiments with the inmates of your nuthouse. See, I don't go into business with a guy without finding out his dirty secrets. And those goons you used? I own the muscle in this town. Now I've been bringing your stuff in for months, so whatever he's planning, it's big. And I want in.
 * Crane: Well, I already know what he'll say: that we should kill you.
 * Falcone: [laughs] No, even he can't get me in here. Not in my town.
 * Crane: Would you like to see my mask? I use it in my experiments. [opens his briefcase and shows Falcone a burlap hood] Now, I'm probably not very frightening to a guy like you, but these crazies? They can't stand it. [pulls the mask over his head]
 * Falcone: So when did the nut take over the nuthouse?
 * [Crane presses a hidden button on his briefcase and floods the room with his hallucinogenic toxin; Falcone begins screaming in terror]
 * Crane: They scream, and they cry. Much as you're doing now.

 * [Rachel observes Falcone, truly insane and muttering "scarecrow" over and over; Dr. Crane walks in]
 * Crane: Miss Dawes, this is most irregular. I have nothing further to add to the report I filed with the judge.
 * Rachel Dawes: I have questions about your report.
 * Crane: Such as?
 * Dawes: Isn't it convenient for a 52-year-old man who has no history of mental illness to suddenly have a complete psychotic breakdown, just when he's about to be indicted?
 * Crane: Well, as you can see for yourself, there is nothing "convenient" about his symptoms. [they look at Falcone, still muttering "Scarecrow"]
 * Dawes: What's "scarecrow"?
 * Crane: Patients suffering delusional episodes often focus their paranoia on an external tormentor. Usually one conforming to Jungian archetypes. In this case, a scarecrow... Outside, he was a giant. In here, only the mind can grant you power.
 * Dawes: You enjoy the reversal?
 * Crane: I respect the mind's power over the body. It's why I do what I do.
 * Dawes: I do what I do to keep thugs like Falcone behind bars, not in therapy.

 * [Gordon carries an unconscious Rachel]
 * Batman: How is she?
 * Lt. James Gordon: She's fading. We've got to go. [pause] I'll get my car.
 * Batman: I brought mine.
 * Gordon: Yours? [turns, sees Tumbler start up; it races past him, runs over a police car] I've gotta get me one of those.
 * [Tumbler races across river]
 * Policeman #1: He is in a vehicle.
 * Dispatcher: Make and color?
 * Policeman #1: It's a black... [pause; sirens activate elsewhere] tank!

 * Batman: Taste of your own medicine, doctor? [Gasses Crane with the fear toxin] What have you been doing here? What was your plan? Crane! Who are you working for?
 * Crane: Ra's! Ra's al Ghul!
 * Batman: Ra's al Ghul is dead! Who are you working for? Crane!
 * Crane: [Hallucinates Batman as a grotesque bat creature] Dr. Crane isn't here right now, but if you'd like to make an appointment...

 * Ducard: Amusing, but pointless. None of these people have long to live. Your antics at the asylum have forced my hand.
 * Bruce Wayne: So Crane was working for you.
 * Ducard: His toxin is derived from the organic compound found in our blue flowers. He was able to weaponize it.
 * Wayne: He's not a member of the League of Shadows?
 * Ducard: Of course not. He thought our plan was to hold the city to ransom.
 * Wayne: But really, you are going to release Crane's poison on the entire city.
 * Ducard: Then watch Gotham tear itself apart through fear.
 * Wayne: You're going to destroy millions of lives.
 * Ducard: Only a cynical man would call what these people have "lives," Wayne. Crime. Despair. This was not how man was supposed to live. The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. We sacked Rome, loaded trade ships with plague rats, burned London to the ground. Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence, we return to restore the balance.
 * Wayne: Gotham isn't beyond saving. Give me more time. There are good people here.
 * Ducard: You are defending a city so corrupt, we have infiltrated every level of its infrastructure. When I found you in that jail, you were lost. But I believed in you. I took away your fear, and showed you a path. You were my greatest student. It should be you standing by my side, saving the world.
 * Wayne: I'll be standing where I belong: between you, and the people of Gotham.
 * Ducard: No one can save Gotham. [nods to henchmen, who begin vandalizing the house and set it on fire] When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural. Tomorrow, the world will watch in horror as its greatest city destroys itself. The movement back to harmony will be unstoppable this time.
 * Wayne: You've attacked Gotham before?
 * Ducard: Of course. Over the ages, our weapons have grown more sophisticated. With Gotham, we tried a new one - economics. But we underestimated certain of Gotham's citizens. Such as your parents. Gunned down by one of the very people they were trying to help. Create enough hunger, and everyone becomes a criminal. Their deaths galvanized the city into saving itself, and Gotham has limped on ever since. We are back to finish the job. And this time, no misguided idealists will get in the way. Like your father, you lack the courage to do all that is necessary. If someone stands in the way of true justice, you simply walk up behind them and stab them in the heart.

 * Bruce Wayne: I wanted to save Gotham. I've failed.
 * Alfred: Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.
 * Bruce: You still haven't given up on me?
 * Alfred: Never.

 * Ducard: [pinning Batman down] Don't be afraid, Bruce. You are just an ordinary man in a cape! That's why you couldn't fight injustice, and that's why you can't stop this train!
 * Batman: Who said anything about stopping it?! [as Ducard sees the train about to crash, Batman overpowers him] You never learned to mind your surroundings!
 * Ducard: Have you finally learned to do what is necessary?
 * Batman: I won't kill you...but I don't have to save you. [Batman escapes, leaving Ducard to his fate]

 * Jessica: The meeting's already started.
 * William Earle: What meeting? [enters conference room, sees Fox distributing materials to board members seated around table] Fox? I seem to remember firing you.
 * Lucius Fox: You did. I got another job: yours.
 * Earle: On whose authority?
 * Alfred Pennyworth: [driving Bruce Wayne] Batman may have made the front page, but Bruce Wayne got pushed to page eight.
 * Bruce Wayne: [Bruce reads headline, answers phone] Bruce Wayne.
 * Earle: What makes you think you can decide who's running Wayne Enterprises?
 * Wayne: Well, the fact that I'm the owner.
 * Earle: What are you talking about? The company went public a week ago.
 * Bruce Wayne: And I bought most of the shares - through various charitable foundations, and trusts, and so forth. Look, it's all a bit technical, but the important thing is that my company 's future is secure. [speaks slightly louder] Right, Mr. Fox?
 * Fox: Right you are, Mister Wayne. [turns to Earle, takes off glasses] Didn't you get the memo?

 [Last Lines]
 * Batman: [knocks on new Bat-signal] Nice.
 * Gordon: Couldn't find any mob bosses.
 * Batman: Well, Sergeant?
 * Gordon: Oh, it's Lieutenant now. You really started something. Bent cops running scared, hope on the streets …
 * Batman: But?
 * Gordon: The Narrows is lost. And we still haven't picked up Crane or half the inmates of Arkham that he freed.
 * Batman: We will. We can bring Gotham back.
 * Gordon: And what about escalation?
 * Batman: Escalation?
 * Gordon:  We start carrying semi-automatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar, they buy armor-piercing rounds.
 * Batman: And?
 * Gordon: And you're wearing a mask ... and jumping off rooftops. Now take this guy. Armed robbery, double homicide. Got a taste for the theatrical, like you. Leaves a calling card. [hands Batman a clear plastic evidence bag containing a playing card; Batman turns it over to reveal that it is a Joker card]
 * Batman: I'll look into it. [walks to edge of roof]
 * Gordon: I never said thank you.
 * Batman: [looks at Gordon] And you'll never have to. [spreads cape, leaps off roof]

About

 * In this retelling of the story, Bale's Bruce Wayne is the son of an idealistic American billionaire, an FDR-style patrician liberal who withdrew from the day-to-day running of the family corporation to practise medicine and donate vast sums to establishing a proper public transportation system for Gotham: a gleaming new monorail. As a child, Bruce remembers riding on this train with his parents, instead of in a limo, but Nolan neatly contrives that it is this monorail which, in the denatured and decadent city of Wayne's adulthood, is the scene of Gotham's operatic Armageddon.
 * But Nolan's film gives us an interesting new twist. After 13 years in the joint, this mugger is up for a parole court hearing, proposing to offer inside information that could convict Gotham's biggest villain Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson). It turns into a Jack Ruby-style bloody fiasco; Bruce flees abroad to find himself and brood on who the real bad guys are, and winds up thrown in jail in China where he encounters a mysterious sect of righteous assassins, led by Liam Neeson, who propose to instruct him in the vocation of the masked avenger. This is the movie's big influence: a wholesale borrowing from the new wave of action movies like Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Batman's big credibility gap has always been that he is the superhero without superpowers. Nolan's film imports the concept of Asian martial arts to bolster Batman's credentials. Back home, the young corporate princeling works on his new persona, with the help of his butler and confidant Alfred, amiably played by Michael Caine. As Batman, Bale does look quite creepy, especially close up, his mouth and chin transformed into something bestial - with a growling voice that drops an octave when in character. His batmobile isn't the sleek black convertible of old but a chunkier Humvee-ish ride, more suitable for paranoid urban combat and originally designed for the military by the Wayne group's tech maestro (played by Morgan Freeman). Bale brings to this some of his American Psycho performance, a rich loner compulsively assuming a new identity to purge his self-loathing, and indeed ambiguous loathing of a father who failed to stand up for himself. Certainly, the muddy colours of Nolan's visual palette make everything look appropriately dark - and dark is what so many movies nowadays claim to be, perhaps confusing darkness with factor, however, by casting Cillian Murphy as an unprincipled psychiatrist who specialises depth. (I am tempted to say: you want dark? Try the daylit nightmares of Neil LaBute or Michael Haneke.) Nolan certainly intensifies his own darkness-visible in getting obvious villains off on insanity charges, and is involved in a plot to use a fear-inducing poison gas. Murphy, with his uniquely sinister good looks and sensuous, predatory mouth, is the scariest actor I know.
 * Peter Bradshaw, [HTTPS://WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM/THEGUARDIAN/2005/JUN/17/1 "BATMAN BEGINS"], The Guardian, (16 JUN 2005).

 * The idea that Batman has a dark side has had mixed success at the box office. Michael Keaton seemed disoriented and sad, batty rather than dark. The preening Val Kilmer perfected an air of preoccupation, but you suspected it was merely with himself. I spent most of Batman Foreverworried that any moment Kilmer would stop proceedings to ask "Does my bum look big in this?" And George Clooney? Well, George Clooney looked like a man who'd turned up in fancy dress to the wrong house. The latest model, Christian Bale, offers some hope. We've already seen him as a pale screw-up in Velvet Goldmine and considerably more screwed up in American Psycho.
 * Matt Buchanan, [HTTPS://WWW.SMH.COM.AU/ENTERTAINMENT/MOVIES/BATMAN-BEGINS-20051004-GDM6X2.HTML "BATMAN BEGINS"], SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, (4 OCTOBER, 2005).

 * If Bale's superhero and Katie Holmes' assistant district attorney were more romantically inclined in Batman Begins, you could imagine her telling her gal pals, "There's just something about his chin."
 * Batman has a twisted and repressed relationship with Holmes' Rachel (read: Peter Parker and Mary Jane). The idea is frustratingly underdeveloped, but then, he is Batman; he's not going to go on Oprah to profess his love.
 * "Batman starts stripping away each layer of Gotham crime only to discover a sicker and more monstrous evil beneath, his rancid city simultaneously invokes early '90s New York, when criminals frolicked to the tune of five murders a day; Serpico New York, when cops were for sale; and today, when psychos seek to kill us all at once rather than one by one.
 * Mike Clark, "Batman role fits Bale, but 'Begins' wears thin", USA Today, (June 13, 2005).

 * Nolan asked a very simple question for what would come to define his Batman movie. Why would a grown man dress up like a bat? This is a query that Tim Burton glossed over in 1989, because the world he created didn’t need an explanation. Nolan took a wholly opposite approach. Citing influences like Richard Donner’s 1978 adaptation of SUPERMAN, he wanted to ground Batman, as much as possible, in a world similar to our own. Instead of Batman being a product of a fantastically gothic world, he’d be a man who could justify costume dress-up as a lifestyle choice. To help with the shift, he brought in life-long comic book fan David S. Goyer to co-write the first draft of the screenplay.
 * In Nolan’s world, Batman isn’t so much a character as an idea. He is a construct that Bruce Wayne creates to galvanize the people of Gotham to improve their rotten lives. His goal isn’t an eternal war on evil, but a targeted campaign against corruption and crime. Most of Batman’s toys were created by Fox for military application. The only thing Bruce adds are black paint jobs. Gordon isn’t so much a piece of expositional furniture as in the previous series, but a partner and confidant for the winged avenger. Only together can they wage war on the mob and clean up the police force. In this Gotham, it takes a village to make a Batman. And that all feeds into the underlying draw of this Gotham. Events and characters have repercussions, because this time the city isn’t a fantasy island. In the previous four Batman pictures, Gotham always went through a subtle or massive reworking. The only major consistency for the urban environment is it was always created on back lots and sound stages. In Nolan’s iteration, Gotham is the scariest thing of all…an American city. Shot primarily in Chicago, Batman inhabits a living and breathing urban jungle. The film still pulls from Batman’s pulpy roots for its backdrop to a point. The initial threat is super-sized organized crime, reminiscent of 1930s gangland. However, Wilkinson’s deliciously broad mobster is soon suppressed by what the filmmakers know really scares us today. The villains are more than just criminals or the madmen of the comics. Scarecrow isn’t a demented gangster like Jack Nicholson’s Joker. No, these are terrorists. The League of Shadows is an ideologically driven organization of non-state actors who want to make a statement by destroying a major American city. You can find that just as easily in a newspaper as a comic book these days. What is Scarecrow’s master plan? It’s to infect the city with a toxin that would literally cause citizens to destroy each other out of fear. In a post-9/11 world, that isn’t exactly a subtle metaphor. Nolan may have originally pitched this as a Batman origin story, but what he made was an unbridled epic reflecting its time. He and Goyer pulled from several comic book sources, most notably “Batman: Year One” and Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s “The Long Halloween” and created a protagonist who more closely resembled his modern comic book likeness. This Batman would not kill, was not created by his villains and he was a worldly super-ninja detective. However, even if it still features a guy jumping off rooftops and gliding to our rescue, he now fights bearded fanatics bent solely on our destruction. It is a theme that would only become better articulated in its sequels, but it works just fine in BATMAN BEGINS.  This is the movie that brought Batman back from the dead and reintroduced him as the king of superheroes for a whole new generation. It gave depth to Bruce’s problems while also telling a rip-roaring adventure. Even if it suffers from a far too conventional third act, BATMAN BEGINS’ overall approach was anything but that in 2005. It took the franchise and genr to new heights. And it did come in black.
 * David Crow, [HTTPS://WWW.DENOFGEEK.COM/US/MOVIES/BATMAN-BEGINS-LOOKBACKREVIEW/39094/BATMAN-BEGINS-LOOKBACKREVIEW], Den of Geek, (Dec 23, 2012).

 * *“Like [Frank] Miller’s Batman, Mr. Nolan’s is tormented by demons both physical and psychological. In an uncertain world, one the director models with an eye to our own, this is a hero caught between justice and vengeance, a desire for peace and the will to power,” Manohla Dargis wrote in The New York Times. But Nolan memorably made his mark with the death scene that incites Bruce Wayne’s eventual transformation. There’s certainly no shortage of Bruce Wayne’s parents dying in film and television, but Nolan’s interpretation, which builds for a surprisingly long time before Batman appears in full cape and cowl onscreen, has become one of the defining iterations of the sequence, exploring the man behind Batman more so than most films had before. (As the Washington Post‘s Desson Thompson put it, the film had a “thoughtful, methodically structured narrative that works on you for days afterward.”)
 * And perhaps that quest to ground Batman in a believable world is Begins‘ greatest lasting impact. Nearly every superhero origin story to which the words “dark and gritty” could even vaguely apply is framed in terms of its similarity or dissimilarity to Batman Begins—and from Daredevil to Arrow, Batman Begins has a number of direct descendants within the superhero genre. But Begins was originally favored, and continues to be such a source of inspiration, because of its content, too—not just its structure or its style. Batman Begins cared about making its billionaire-playboy hero someone audiences could relate to, even if he had some serious problems to work through.
 * Jonathan Dornbush, [HTTPS://EW.COM/ARTICLE/2015/06/15/BATMAN-BEGINS-10-YEAR-ANNIVERSARY/ "Batman Begins' reviews and reception, 10 years later"], (JUNE 15, 2015).

 * "Batman Begins" at last penetrates to the dark and troubled depths of the Batman legend, creating a superhero who, if not plausible, is at least persuasive as a man driven to dress like a bat and become a vigilante. The movie doesn't simply supply Batman's beginnings in the tradition of a comic book origin story, but explores the tortured path that led Bruce Wayne from a parentless childhood to a friendless adult existence. The movie is not realistic, because how could it be, but it acts as if it is.
 * I admire, among other things, the way the movie doesn't have the gloss of the earlier films. The Batman costume is an early design. The Bat Cave is an actual cave beneath Wayne Manor. The Batmobile enters and leaves it by leaping across a chasm and through a waterfall. The Bat Signal is crude and out of focus. The movie was shot on location in Chicago, making good use of the murky depths of lower Wacker Drive and the Board of Trade building (now the Wayne Corp.). Special effects add a spectacular monorail down La Salle Street, which derails in the best scene along those lines since "The Fugitive."
 * Bale is just right for this emerging version of Batman. It's strange to see him muscular and toned, after his cadaverous appearance in "The Machinist," but he suggests an inward quality that suits the character. Rachel is at first fooled by his facade of playboy irresponsibility, but Lt. Gordon figures out fairly quickly what Batman is doing, and why. Instead of one villain as the headliner, "Batman Begins" has a whole population, including Falcone, the Scarecrow, the Asian League of Shadows leader Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and a surprise bonus pick.
 * Roger Ebert, [HTTPS://WWW.ROGEREBERT.COM/REVIEWS/BATMAN-BEGINS-2005 "BATMAN BEGINS"] Rogerebert.com, (June 13, 2005).

 * As we saw in Burton's films, the portrayal of Gotham is often directly related to the overall take on Batman. Burton's Gotham was like a twisted nightmare come to life. It was surreal -- beautiful to look at, but not an actual city. The Gotham City of Batman Begins, which was filmed largely in Chicago, is a sprawling Metropolis. It looks like a real city, in part, because it is a real city. The altered Chicago is made to look like a vast metropolis, too big for its own good. So large, in fact, that it feels inescapable. Connecting the sprawling city is a commuter rail built by Bruce Wayne's father just short of his murder. It's one of the few noticeable CG images in the film, but the train plays a vital role. Gotham is vibrant and its demise into poverty is explained in the film. This isn't just a version of New York gone bad, Gotham is a city that has been bludgeoned by corruption and crippled by an insidious economical plague. This is a city that has lost the war to save itself. What hope does Batman have?
 * Bruce has indeed wandered the world and had some training. However, that singular purpose often shown in the comics is not evident at first. He is merely rage without direction. It is Ducard (Liam Neeson), who finds Wayne and gives him the training and guidance he needs to get on the proper path. It should be noted that Ducard is never referred to by his first name Henri, nor does he bear a French accent (thankfully).
 * Most of the Batman comics offer little true motivation for Bruce becoming Batman. They say, merely, that he witnessed his parents murder and swore to avenge them by cleaning up Gotham. Batman Begins takes this further. It gives a real sense of who Bruce Wayne is and why he must fight criminals. Further, it shows the moment when Bruce gains understanding that he cannot fight crime just as a man, that he must become a symbol, a myth, a legend.
 * The main piece of advice from just about everyone who saw Joel Schumacher's terrible take on the Dark Knight in Batman & Robin was to focus on a single villain. Nolan has ignored this advice. He focuses on no villains -- the focus is all on Batman. However, there are more villains in Batman Begins than any Batman film since the camp '60s flick. Yet it works, because this is a story about The Batman and none of the villains comes close to overshadowing the bat.
 * Remember how stiff Batman was in those other films? Guess what -- he can finally move his neck! The battles in Batman Begins are frenetic, fast and almost impossible to see clearly
 * There's some brilliant psychology at work in Batman Begins. The way Goyer and Nolan have crafted this tale, it becomes clear that there is no other possible path for Bruce Wayne other than as Batman. It's not just a conceit that he's going to wear a suit, you will actually understand why he must. Sure, it's not a 100% perfect and literal translation of the comic, but it doesn't have to be. Again, this is not a comic-book movie, just a movie that happens to be based on a comic book. Oh, and it's great.
 * Hilary Goldstein, BATMAN BEGINS: COMIC VS. FILM, (13 JUN 2005).

 * Bale is the first Batman since Michael Keaton to bring a skewed and somewhat vulnerable sensibility into the psychological equation. Bruce's ultimate decision to become the caped crusader is presented here as a neurotic person's way of channeling his neurosis toward a positive end. Since he knows he'll never stop obsessing about crime -- even his stint in the Asian prison was by way of researching the criminal mind -- he might as well do something positive with his obsession. Keaton suggested these qualities and motivations, as well, but what Bale has that Keaton didn't is a physicality that also makes sense of all the action hero elements. In an early scene, Bruce Wayne beats up a half dozen guys in a prison yard. In terms of direction, it's one of the worst scenes: Nolan, as if uncomfortable shooting a conventional action number, relies on the modern cliches of constant intercutting and of filming so close to the action that it's impossible to see what's going on. But the sequence nonetheless demonstrates that Bale, the most cerebral Bruce Wayne since Keaton, is the most lithe to date. He's physically loose and graceful and looks like what Bruce Wayne pretends to be, a handsome playboy.
 * "Batman Begins" lives up to its title, concentrating mainly on the hero's pre-history. He's trained like a Ninja by a great teacher (Liam Neeson). Later, in a crime-ridden, economically depressed Gotham City, he encounters none of the familiar villains, such as the Joker, the Riddler or Catwoman. They're in the future. The villains who turn up in this early era are normal in appearance, at least by "Batman" standards. Tom Wilkinson plays an Italian mob boss, and he's like any other mob boss, full of threats and resentment, while Cillian Murphy is a perverse psychiatrist, on the mob payroll. On the side of good is Gary Oldman, as a gruff, honest cop, and an assistant D.A. played by Katie Holmes, who, alone among the actors, doesn't quite seem comfortable in her role.
 * Mick Lasaslle, "BATMAN / The caped crusader has come back. He's brawnier, but he still has brains.", (June 14, 2005).

 * Q: This film seems to deal a lot with the underlying issues of what makes Bruce Wayne become Batman. How much of his anger is really under control by the end of this film?
 * NOLAN: Well, I think when it's harnessed, and that is a form of control, that doesn't mean it's not there and it doesn't mean it's suppressed it's channeled and it's harnessed. And that to me is what keeps him as a character frightening to his opponents and all of us to some extent.

 * Q: What was your inspiration for the look of Gotham City?
 * NOLAN: We tried not to be too specific. When Nathan Crowley, my production designer, started discussing the look of the film with me, we immediately rejected any reductive notions. The driving force was not to, "OK, they've done an art deco city, we'll do a modernist city," nothing like that. We wanted something that reflects the reality of a large modern city which is a tremendous variety of architecture. A tremendous variety of periods in which things were built. We wanted a history to the place as well as a contemporary feel. What we wound up doing, is that the way that we approached Gotham as an exaggeration of New York, an exaggeration of a modern American city was to look at interesting geographical features of different cities of the world. A lot from New York, some from Chicago, a lot from Tokyo because of elevated freeways and monorails. From Hong Kong we took the walled city of Kalhoon [which] is the basis for the narrows which is this kind of walled in slum. So what we really did was putting together the elements that let you exaggerate all the socio-economic factors that feed into Gotham as an exaggeration of the modern American city
 * Chris Nolan in "Interview: Christopher Nolan" by Jeff Otto, IGN, (June 5, 2006).

 * This is the Batman film you've been waiting for. Batman's evolution into the fabled crime fighter is carefully constructed from the first piece of the puzzle to the chiseled and fierce ultimate evolution. Each part of the process is chronicled with astute precision. Nolan actually finds a way to set-up and explain why a guy runs around in a bat suit. He explains every nuance of the character, from why he chooses the bat as his symbol to why he dons a cape to why he uses the weapons he uses. Nolan leaves no stone unturned. During one sequence, the Batmobile jumps from cityscape rooftop to rooftop. It occurred to me watching this, how exactly does he know that he won't crash through the roofs of these buildings? On the second viewing, however, I noticed something. They thought of that too! Batman has a GPS-like navigation system that gives him info on the rooftops before he topples onto them. By the end of the film, you can try to pick it apart all you want, but you will find that Nolan has covered his bases extremely well, explaining each and every aspect of the Batman arsenal.
 * Alfred has always been an important character in the Batman universe, but here Michael Caine elevates the dedicated butler to a new level. He is Bruce Wayne and Batman's foremost confidant. He understands why Wayne has become Batman and he helps him to create and initiate his vision. Caine is terrific in the part, undoubtedly the best choice one could imagine. Lucius Fox, who was a slightly different character in the comics, also becomes an integral part of Wayne's crusade. Now we can understand where Batman gets all his wonderful toys and how he learned to put them to their appropriate uses. Gary Oldman is another great choice as James Gordon. This is an early incarnation of the character, before he became commissioner. The character is played very differently from prior visions of Gordon. Here he is a quiet, dedicated cop, one of the few legit men left in a town rife with corruption. Oldman is excellent, and Gordon and Batman have a very nice connection that will serve future films well.
 * Jeff Otto, "Batman Begins Review", (13 JUN 2005).

 * As Kane tells it, the pre-teen Bruce is out at night (circa 1924) with his parents when an armed mugger kills both of them. The orphaned lad, his hands clasped in prayer, his bedroom illuminated by a single candle, swears 'to avenge their deaths by spending the rest of my life warring on all criminals'. He 'becomes a master scientist' and 'trains his body to physical perfection' and, because 'criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot', chooses to become 'a creature of the night, black, terrible... a bat... the Batman'. From these two garishly printed pages, Nolan and Goyer have fashioned a whole movie. To a narrative that itself draws on a tradition of avenger heroes in foppish disguise stemming from Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel, they have added elements from sources ancient and modern, among them Fritz Lang's expressionist thrillers, Da Vinci Code conspiracies, kung fu flicks and Bond movies.
 * Christian Bale is persuasively melancholy but less gloomily brooding than Michael Keaton, a sturdier figure than George Clooney and Val Kilmer, and more likable than any of them. He doesn't manage his character's playboy persona as easily as Leslie Howard does in The Scarlet Pimpernel or Pimpernel Smith, but that may be part of the joke.
 * Marc Savlov, "Batman Begins", Austin Chronicle, (JUNE 17, 2005).

 * And only then does Batman find his wings, and his mission. That Bruce’s parents were killed before his eyes, and that the heir to the Wayne fortune would be nowhere without his butler, Alfred, even the greenest newbie to the hagiography knows. But knowing doesn’t pack the same pleasurable jolt as seeing primly smoldering Christian Bale’s Batman No. 4 play so comfortably against expansively proper Michael Caine’s Alfred (taking over for Michael Gough as if to the manor born) and watching the two devise the very first Batsuit. Any familiarity with Commissioner Gordon and his place as one overmatched good cop is only rewarded by the participation of Gary Oldman as the younger Detective Gordon. Simpatico Wayne Enterprises inventor Lucius Fox contributes his mechanical expertise (handy when it comes to Batmobiles) and cool to the proceedings in the person of Morgan Freeman. Katie Holmes provides obligatory, chaste romantic interest — superheroes are notoriously dull boyfriends, if you ask me — as Bruce’s childhood sweetheart? turned?incorruptible DA. It’s not just the birth of Batman we’re seeing here, it’s also the dawning of Gotham City’s age of corporate greed (Rutger Hauer plays a ruthless CEO), unchecked corruption (Tom Wilkinson swings by as a crime boss), and the insidious misuse of the mentally ill by those appointed to their care (Cillian Murphy is one great creep as psycho psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Crane). In Batman Begins, as Nolan tells it, Gotham is poised somewhere between the Jazz Age and the Space Age, a vertiginous time warp where only a risk-taking artist can navigate. Nolan ought to get back there soon and tell us what happens next.
 * Lisa Schwarzbaum, “Batman Begins“, Entertainment Weekly, (JUNE 15, 2005).

 * Batman starts stripping away each layer of Gotham crime only to discover a sicker and more monstrous evil beneath, his rancid city simultaneously invokes early '90s New York, when criminals frolicked to the tune of five murders a day; Serpico New York, when cops were for sale; and today, when psychos seek to kill us all at once rather than one by one.
 * Kyle Smith, "Kyle Smith review of Batman Begins". KyleSmithOnline. (March 10, 2007).

 * … And it’s about time. Christopher Nolan’s vision of Bob Kane’s seminal hero returns the character to the stripped-down 1939 proto-noir of Detective Comics No. 39, flaying away all but the name and the cowl from the previous big-budget outings by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher. This is as close to the Depression-era Bat Man as films have yet ventured, and although Nolan’s Gotham isn’t sporting flivvers and tommy guns – to judge by the art direction, the film takes place in the sort of retro-futuristic metropolis reserved especially for Good, Evil, and assorted Minions – Batman Begins has the denuded color palette of a chiaro-sclerotic nightmare.
 * Peter Travers "Batman Begins", Rolling Stone, (JUNE 15, 2005).

 * Shake off those cobwebs. There’s a new Batman in town, and he’s younger, fiercer and klutzier than before. What do you want from a rookie? The Caped Crusader that Christian Bale plays so potently in Batman Begins is still working out the kinks. He nearly gives himself a wedgie scaling a building in a self-designed Batsuit that weighs a stylish ton. Director Christopher Nolan, who wrote the script with David Goyer, shows us a Batman caught in the act of inventing himself. Nolan is caught, too, in the act of deconstructing the Batman myth while still delivering the dazzle to justify a $150 million budget. It’s schizo entertainment. But credit Nolan for trying to do the impossible in a summer epic: take us somewhere we haven’t been before. This stripped-down prequel grounds the story in reality. If Tim Burton lifted the DC Comics franchise to gothic splendor and Joel Schumacher buried it in campy overkill (a Batsuit with nipples), then Nolan — the mind-teasing whiz behind Memento and Insomnia — gets credit for resurrecting Batman as Bruce Wayne, a screwed-up rich kid with no clue about how to avenge the murders of his parents. Batman Begins answers a long-standing question about Bruce the tycoon playboy — a Paris Hilton with balls as previously played by Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney — by showing us what he was doing before he put on his Bat drag, accessorized with lethal toys and learned to kill like a vigilante.
 * The buildup is steadily engrossing. That’s because Nolan keeps the emphasis on character, not gadgets. Gotham looks lived in, not art-directed. And Bale, calling on our movie memories of him as a wounded child (Empire of the Sun) and an adult menace (American Psycho), creates a vulnerable hero of flesh, blood and haunted fire.
 * Although shot in Iceland amidst spectacular terrain that recalls the Alaskan setting of “Insomnia,” this long instructional section is filled with philosophical gobbledygook about developing strength by facing your deepest fears, methods of focusing anger and vengefulness, and how “you must journey inwards.” Some of this is delivered while Ducard and Bruce face off with large swords on a frozen lake, and one must be forgiven for imagining that what’s onscreen are outtakes from “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” with Neeson’s Jedi knight teaching Obi-Wan Kenobi dueling techniques. It doesn’t stop there, however, as “The Last Samurai” is invoked with the entrance of Ken Watanabe as the charismatic leader of a vigilante ninja org called the League of Shadows. In the end, Bruce proves himself a worthy student, returning home to take on the rampant corruption in Gotham (or is it Sin City?). Half the city is in the pocket of gangster Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson). Others up to no good are Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), a young psychiatrist who leads a double life as the sinister Scarecrow, and Earle (Rutger Hauer), who has taken charge of the Wayne family industries.
 * What this incarnation of Batman lacks is theatricality, a sense of showmanship to put over the new approach. Although little jokes and quips are gradually introduced, only slowly does Nolan dare to begin having any fun with the material, and even then far too cautiously. It’s not that the film is prosaic, but it is terribly sober, afraid to make grand gestures and build to major payoffs. It’s as if, out of a desire to appear smart and not to pander to the large public destined to see the picture, Nolan restrained himself from providing moments that might prove too audience pleasing. As opposed to the highly designed Gotham City of the Tim Burton pictures, this one features cityscapes that recognizably belong to the real Chicago, with a fictional monorail system added in. Nor is there anything fetishistic about the Batman costume, which is plain and functional.
 * Variety Staff, "Batman Begins", (June 3, 2005).

 * Forget that guy who can't remember what happened to him five minutes ago: Nolan wants to make sure we understand that this deeply gloomy Dark Knight is really messed up. As a filmmaker Nolan has made a name for himself as a purveyor of faux-Hitchcockian gloomy cleverness ("Memento,""Insomnia"), and he has meticulously designed "Batman Begins" to be the feel-bad movie of the summer. And yet "Batman Begins," its dim lighting and relentless fixation on childhood trauma aside, doesn't make us feel quite bad enough. In fact, it makes us feel virtually nothing at all, except maybe a shuddering, reluctant nostalgia for Joel Schumacher. Schumacher's two "Batman" pictures may have been wretched, but at least they didn't mistake oppressiveness for emotional depth. "Batman Begins" leaks existential phoniness from the first frame. Young Wayne -- remember, his Batman alter ego isn't even yet a wriggly tadpole in his completely screwed-up mind -- has traveled the world attempting to understand the criminal mind. He has been falsely arrested and thrown into a tastefully sepia-toned Asian hellhole. Suddenly, a mysterious stranger appears in his cell: It's Liam Neeson, with a list of questions about his sex life. Actually, no -- Neeson's character is Henri Ducard, and he's the associate of a mysterious baldy named Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe). They have a plan for Wayne, luring him into their nefarious scheme by promising that if he goes along with them, he will find the spiritual answers he seeks.
 * But neither Nolan nor, unfortunately, the usually superb Christian Bale seems to recognize that darkness takes on many shades and colors: "Batman Begins" is a dull monotone of heavily theatrical, and yet wholly unmoving, angst. Nolan obviously didn't want his picture to be too cartoony, and that's a good impulse. But "Batman Begins" needs much more energy and kinetic flow -- less dolor and more dolomite. Bale can't seem to find an anchor for the character of Bruce Wayne; at times he's mildly affecting, but he can't locate that elusive hairline at which a character's self-absorption becomes engaging for an audience. His Wayne is so deep inside himself we can barely bring ourselves to care about him. (Bale made me long for Michael Keaton's first appearance, in particular, as Batman -- a performance that seemed breezily neurotic on the surface but actually cut to the heart of existential dread.) There's another problem with "Batman Begins": Batman's stuff has no soul. His mask, with its alert, pointed ears, does manage to give Bale a somber grace from some angles. But Bale (unlike Keaton) has trouble connecting from beneath it -- it wears him instead of the other way around. In a movie whose production design is both massively ambitious and uninspired, the Batmobile is one of the biggest bummers of all: It's like a squat bug covered with clumsy square scales, a dismally unromantic vehicle that looks wholly unsuited for parallel-parking practice, let alone flying through the streets of Gotham. And as hard as Nolan tried to make something other than a typical comic-book movie (although anyone who keeps an eye on comic-book movies realize there's no such thing), the script, by David S. Goyer, works at cross-purposes. As the movie grinds dully toward the finish line, Neeson announces, with drawing-room enunciation, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a city to destroy." And Tom Wilkinson, who seems to have wandered in from another movie with his cigar-chomping performance as a mob boss, actually says at one point, "Don't burden yourself with the secrets of scary people." In the midst of all this, Gary Oldman gives a finely tuned performance as not-yet-commissioner James Gordon: We see intelligence and honor in his blinking, nearsighted eyes and his twitchy mustache. In a movie that aspires to emotional complexity and comes up empty -- even the action sequences are cluttered and confusingly shot -- he hits the notes right. Playing a character and not a psychological case study, he's one of the few actors here who's unburdened by the secrets of scary people.
 * Stephanie Zacharek, "Batman Begins", Salon, (June 15, 2005).

Taglines

 * The Legend Begins.

 * This Summer, Evil Fears The Knight.

Cast

 * Christian Bale – Bruce Wayne/Batman
 * Liam Neeson – Henri Ducard/Ra's al Ghul
 * Katie Holmes – Rachel Dawes
 * Michael Caine – Alfred Pennyworth
 * Gary Oldman – Detective Jim Gordon
 * Morgan Freeman – Lucius Fox
 * Cillian Murphy – Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow
 * Tom Wilkinson – Carmine Falcone
 * Linus Roache – Dr. Thomas Wayne
 * Rutger Hauer – William Earle
 * Mark Boone Junior – Detective Flass
 * Tim Booth – Victor Zsasz
 * Ken Watanabe – Ra's al Ghul decoy

title: Batman Begins