Batman (Michael Keaton) vs Batman (Ben Affleck)

[Cantget]

Scenario 1: Standard arena fight

Scenario 2: One week of prep

I haven't seen the new Flash, so I'm curious how Keaton Batman stacks up against Affleck Batman now.

If it makes a difference, we can use the young and old versions of Keaton Batman.

[Sharpandpointies]

*waits patiently for the inevitable posting of the outlier Keaton speedfeat*

^_^

[BitVyper]

*waits patiently for the inevitable posting of the outlier Keaton speedfeat*

^_^

You brought it up.

I don't super recall the feat in question because I haven't looked at it in a long time, but I think it's a bullet deflection you're talking about? I donno man, for it to be an outlier, I think you need a lot more clear depictions of where his speed is at, and I don't think you really get that in a couple of old movies of mostly 80s choreography punch-ups with what amount to cartoon characters. Anyway, while you can point to scenes where he struggles, lots of his scenes have him catching guys faster than they can react, or contemptuously punching guys the moment they emerge from the shadows without so much as breaking his stride. He sticks a bundle of dynamite to one guy's belt with no apparent movement and without the other guy seeing. The camera isn't on his hands and there's plenty of time for it to have happened, but I see no movements in his shoulders or arms so it seems like he probably did it at the same moment as he hit that guy. Also like those movies are *extremely* cartoony, so I'm not sure how to judge what is and isn't inconsistent. Like his programmable batarang takes out three guys and then gets snatched out of the air by a small dog. Joker shoots down a plane with history's most improbable revolver (it's that x4 crit).

Anyway, I think he's got a number of nebulously very very fast moments, and I think older movies can't just spill CGI everywhere with abusive labour practices, so the things they show once should be given more weight as intentional conveyance. Most of the fights in those movies are after a different kind of visual spectacle. In fact, I think his speedy moments don't stand out specifically because the movie is more interested in stuff that's more visually compelling with that kind of SFX.

Ignoring speed, I'm looking at some Batman Returns bits here, and strengthwise he seems like he's doing pretty good. When saving Selina Kyle, he kinda just pulls a whole chunk out of a concrete wall, like six inches thick. Like he just gives it a yank after shooting his grappler into it. He's got a lot of just hurling people around too. Catwoman pretty trivially punches through what looks like a metal door protecting a gas valve about two minutes before unloading quite a few hits on Bruce.

[Wildling]

Scenario 1: Standard arena fight

Scenario 2: One week of prep

I haven't seen the new Flash, so I'm curious how Keaton Batman stacks up against Affleck Batman now.

If it makes a difference, we can use the young and old versions of Keaton Batman.

Old Man Keaton Batman was still pretty spry, beating on Russian mercenaries after shaving and suiting up after what could have been a more than a decade old retirement. IIRC he was able to ricochet his Batarangs off walls accurately, and had explosive charges on him that would wreck Batfleck if he got the chance to detonate one on him. His suit is still bulletproof enough and insulated against electricity in addition to allowing him to parachute from high Batplane stealth mission heights, which is an upgrade from let's say Pattinson's Batman, and what I remember of his original Burton movies.

[Sharpandpointies]

You brought it up.

Yep. It was argued into the ground on the old board (which is why I recall it, was a very long and painful discussion), and I figured it would come up again. Why wait? ^_^

Rumbles has always been very picky when it comes to speed. Rumbles likes clear feats and clear support for said feats.

Additionally, Rumbles does not really care about FX budgets and limitations and such. One might recall the argument that 'Josh Whedon really wanted Buffy to be Spider-man level, but couldn't do it with the special effects limits, he said so' and that not flying. People find a way, even if they have to paint a giant chunk of styrofoam grey and call it a boulder. ^_^

Finally, as always with a debate, burden of proof is on the claim. It's not up to people to prove something ISN'T the case.

Here?

Your post itself notes that any supporting speedfeats are open to interpretation, unclear, or not really supportive of bullet-time speed if one decides to interpret them as speed (fast-punching someone as they jump at the character out of the shadows is not a good bullet-time-range speedfeat, neither is blitzing normals). And Batman DOES struggle with normal mooks at times.

For me, there isn't any clear evidence supporting the bullet-time speed, as there wasn't when all of this was discussed on the old board (dragged on until there needed to be a mod-ruling), and more than enough to indicate that he is not that quick.

[Wildling]

Given how much conspiracy theories and media/reality bubbles have invaded our actual real life, taking what it is for what it actually is the only way forward in general.

And talking about special effects, considering a strike could happen this year from actors in Hollywood regarding existing industry conditions, and just talking about Batman here, I thought the Flash movie was as good (that movie's debacles and all) as you could present Keaton Batman with modern resources. With a ruler and a quick question he came up with the right explosive charge to send the elevator he (and 3 other people he was with at the time) highly and quickly enough to escape Russian mercenaries that were practically spy movie elites rather than real life guys, given what they seemed to be doing with an alien refugee and hidden in some permafrost facility.

And talking about bullet stuff, that's ruled out in this movie too. The rookie Flash who is just learning to use his powers is able to react to a single Russian mercenary rifle shot to barely move original (and depowered) Flash out of its way. When the other mercenaries (all in the same room, not very far from each other) fire at the same time, rookie Flash is forced to use his movement speed to push depowered Flash out of the bullets way completely, which works but still made original Flash puke his guts out because rookie Flash is still rookie.

By comparison, Old Batman was dodged at every attempt by rookie Flash even when Batman made a barefoot attempt to knock out both Flashes from stealth. To be fair, overall it looked like Batman sacrificed the state of his manor (looked like a millionaire hobo lair with zero employees) by still keeping himself in shape for all those years even if Gotham didn't need him anymore (for once a story where Gotham became happy, even if off-screen). And because his Batcave was fully operational as soon as the Flashes poked at it without his open permission. And it also looked to me like he still kept himself well read and invested on tech.

[Dr Will Hatch]

And here I was thinking that the speed feat everyone is talking about was the time when Keaton Batman shoved a bomb down a clown's pants before the man had time to react.

[Wildling]

And here I was thinking that the speed feat everyone is talking about was the time when Keaton Batman shoved a bomb down a clown's pants before the man had time to react.

If anything, by the time he came back for The Flash he showed he still liked sticking explosives on people. Maybe aware some days you just can't get rid of a bomb.

[Dr Will Hatch]

If anything, by the time he came back for The Flash he showed he still liked sticking explosives on people. Maybe aware some days you just can't get rid of a bomb.

I very much noticed that detail and appreciated it.

If anything, Keaton got better at being Batman with age.

[Wildling]

I very much noticed that detail and appreciated it.

If anything, Keaton got better at being Batman with age.

Keaton in general still looks pretty good, he was a hitman antagonist against a much younger assassin (raised and trained by a Samuel Jackson character) in The Protege from 2021.

[Guy1]

[carrrnuttt]

He carried a grown man with his left hand while being yanked up at speed by his grapple carrying both his and Barry's weights with his right hand. That's a decent "beyond human" feat.

[Wildling]

He carried a grown man with his left hand while being yanked up at speed by his grapple carrying both his and Barry's weights with his right hand. That's a decent "beyond human" feat.

Yeah Flash Keaton Batman was still a powrhouse. Not a bullet timer remotely (those roles were for the Flashes) but I really though the Flash movie updated Keaton Batman to what we should expect Batmen (or other street powerhouses) to perform in modern movies, in general or as old badasses.

And in this case I feel Affleck Batman could have a bigger advantage with prep at least because unlike Keaton he already knew about Kryptonians so he had an armor suit ready in addition to sonic weapons.