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Out of all the live action depictions of Gotham who had the best version of the city?

RedVejigante

RedVejigante

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Aug 18, 2018
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I initially was annoyed at Nolan's decision to simply film in Chicago as well until I actually went to Chicago and walked around downtown for a bit and realized; "oh shit, this place actually IS Gotham in the real world". That being said, I still prefer my depictions of fictional comic-book cities to err more on the side of the fantastical, so I'm probably going to have to give it to the Burton films. Haven't seen Gotham, though.

Kuraudo said:
It's 89/Returns. But I want to give a shoutout to the Bladerunner neon Gotham from Forever.

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You know what, the movie was garbage, but there was something I genuinely dug about the weird, hyper-pop, Dick Sprang on acid aesthetic of Forever's Gotham.
 
RedVejigante

RedVejigante

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Old Man Spike said:
The best version of Gotham City is the 1966 version, because in the daytime it's a pretty normal looking city and a nice place to live aside from the occasional wacko in a cryo-suit threatening to freeze every toilet in town unless he gets to be mayor for a day or whatever.
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The real treasure of Batman 66's depiction of Gotham was its citizenry, who by and large never seemed terribly perturbed by the various costumed lunatics who just so happen to incessantly hang around their city.
 
Moose the Fattest Cat

Moose the Fattest Cat

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Adding to the chorus

I loved how the GOTHAM series melded all of the various interpretations into one big crazy industrial nightmare metropolis.
 

OliviaColemanWithGun

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Feb 16, 2020
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Burton nailed the look of the city in that it's supposed to be heightened and bleak looking. Honestly, I wish the Arkham City in the game looked more like that.
 
Prine

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Nolan's Gotham, i loved that it's grounded, made the events more relatable.

But Tim's warped, twisted and contorted Gotham is definitely the most striking. My only issue is that it suffocates you with its demented take and you end up not wanting to watch, it depressed me and is partly why I'm reluctant to go back to it.
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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Wingfan19 said:
Fun fact, in Suicide Squad when Rick Flag looks through the mugshots of the squad, Deadshot's says he's from Gotham, New Jersey.
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Yeah. Gotham and Metropolis move around the East Coast a bunch but the New Jersey/Delaware combo seems to be the most logical permanent place for them.

Central City by comparison is a MESS. That city has been Chicago, St. Louis, Missouri, somewhere in Iowa...they have absolutely no idea where to make its permanent location. In the Flash TV show this current season they portrayed it as being where Chicago is on the edge of Lake Michigan and then negated that like two episodes later.
 
LabRat

LabRat

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Mar 16, 2018
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overall definitely TAS, those police blimps alone are just... i can't even describe how much i love them
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i've read a rumour somewhere that the police blimps are going to be in the matt reeves batman movie and that gotham is going to be very inspired by TAS

live action: definitely the burton movies for me, that art deco style was just amazing. i can't tell you how many times i was driving around the 1989 batman race track in arkham knight. more recently the Joker movie also had a fantastic live action version of gotham.
 
Wingfan19

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PlanetSmasher said:
Yeah. Gotham and Metropolis move around the East Coast a bunch but the New Jersey/Delaware combo seems to be the most logical permanent place for them.

Central City by comparison is a MESS. That city has been Chicago, St. Louis, Missouri, somewhere in Iowa...they have absolutely no idea where to make its permanent location. In the Flash TV show this current season they portrayed it as being where Chicago is on the edge of Lake Michigan and then negated that like two episodes later.
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TV Show Flash showed that Gotham was where Chicago is. Central City was actually kinda in Missouri.
 
Slayven

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Wingfan19

Wingfan19

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PlanetSmasher said:
Just a couple weeks ago they showed Central City where Chicago is when that guy was going to blast it with an orbital laser. That's part of the problem, it keeps bouncing around.
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Oh really? Must've missed that one. Can't DC just make a Star Wars like rule to make stuff canon (for certain things) and stick to it across all mediums already?
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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Wingfan19 said:
Oh really? Must've missed that one. Can't DC just make a Star Wars like rule to make stuff canon (for certain things) and stick to it across all mediums already?
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It was the James Bond parody episode with Ralph before Crisis. I think they contradicted it AGAIN when Cisco drew that map after Crisis?
 
Rygar 8Bit

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89 Batman is what comes to my mind first. Exposed pipes, crazy lighting, smoke everywhere, gargoyles and ornate statues everywhere.
 
AliceAmber

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Sega Dreamcast said:
I thought Birds of Prey took an interest approach by showing Gotham almost exclusively during the daytime, and by focusing on the East End. The shots of Amusement Mile's roller coasters in disrepair as Harley confronts Black Mask on Founder's Pier got my imagination spinning.
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This was going to be my pick as well. Everything in the amusement park was just SO Gotham. And doing so much during the daylight was an interesting and daring choice.

And I'll always be a bit nostalgic for the Burton Gotham as well.
 

Deleted member 18400

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I think Tim Burton put into my head what Gotham was supposed to look like as a kid.

But the late Gotham TV show did a really great job of capturing the gritty dark world of the city as well, considering it had a fairly low budget.

The show wasn't great, but it did an all around good job capturing the absolute bat shit crazy villains and city for Batman.
 
hikarutilmitt

hikarutilmitt

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Dec 16, 2017
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Ruisu said:
I'll be honest I'm not a fan of Schumacher's movies but his absurd Gotham with huge statues and crazy architecture is something that always comes back to my mind. I understand that people don't like the "artificial" aspect of a city mostly done by CGI, but I don't care and really like it. I'd post screens if I wasn't on mobile
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I'm not alone!

I think Gotham nailed the "most realistic" depiction, for sure, but the gothic, grandiose look that we got with TAS translated better into Schumacher's movies (even if B&R is complete trash) than the Burton ones.
 
hikarutilmitt

hikarutilmitt

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PlanetSmasher said:
Yeah. Gotham and Metropolis move around the East Coast a bunch but the New Jersey/Delaware combo seems to be the most logical permanent place for them.

Central City by comparison is a MESS. That city has been Chicago, St. Louis, Missouri, somewhere in Iowa...they have absolutely no idea where to make its permanent location. In the Flash TV show this current season they portrayed it as being where Chicago is on the edge of Lake Michigan and then negated that like two episodes later.
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CW-verse really should just establish where things are post Crisis and stick to them. I can kind of forgive them changing it post, but need to freaking stick to it. I mean, Metropolis was always supposed to be NYC and I don't think any medium ever decided if Gotham was Boston,Chicago or a mix of the two, but given the coastal sections of the city, Boston seems like a better overall fit, IMO. At least with "Central" City Chicago or maybe St Louis makes sense. Though, TBF, this may also be the show poking fun at the comics never deciding on where it is.

Star City is basically LA, though, right? Because we could easily put National City in or at San Diego (or, well, the real National City...).

Fake edit: I know Gotham is "supposed" to be in/around New Jersey but I've always found that bullshit with how much of Boston is always in there. The only problem with these is that Metropolis and Gotham being sister cities is tossed out the window. sometimes you see them right across the river from each other, other times they don't seem to be anywhere near each other.
 

Deleted member 32822

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hikarutilmitt said:
CW-verse really should just establish where things are post Crisis and stick to them. I can kind of forgive them changing it post, but need to freaking stick to it. I mean, Metropolis was always supposed to be NYC and I don't think any medium ever decided if Gotham was Boston,Chicago or a mix of the two, but given the coastal sections of the city, Boston seems like a better overall fit, IMO. At least with "Central" City Chicago or maybe St Louis makes sense. Though, TBF, this may also be the show poking fun at the comics never deciding on where it is.

Star City is basically LA, though, right? Because we could easily put National City in or at San Diego (or, well, the real National City...).

Fake edit: I know Gotham is "supposed" to be in/around New Jersey but I've always found that bullshit with how much of Boston is always in there. The only problem with these is that Metropolis and Gotham being sister cities is tossed out the window. sometimes you see them right across the river from each other, other times they don't seem to be anywhere near each other.
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I've never found any bit of Boston in Gotham. I'm all honesty, DC has always been in a tug of war over whether Metropolis or Gotham gets to be NYC.
 
PlanetSmasher

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hikarutilmitt said:
CW-verse really should just establish where things are post Crisis and stick to them. I can kind of forgive them changing it post, but need to freaking stick to it. I mean, Metropolis was always supposed to be NYC and I don't think any medium ever decided if Gotham was Boston,Chicago or a mix of the two, but given the coastal sections of the city, Boston seems like a better overall fit, IMO. At least with "Central" City Chicago or maybe St Louis makes sense. Though, TBF, this may also be the show poking fun at the comics never deciding on where it is.

Star City is basically LA, though, right? Because we could easily put National City in or at San Diego (or, well, the real National City...).

Fake edit: I know Gotham is "supposed" to be in/around New Jersey but I've always found that bullshit with how much of Boston is always in there. The only problem with these is that Metropolis and Gotham being sister cities is tossed out the window. sometimes you see them right across the river from each other, other times they don't seem to be anywhere near each other.
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Yeah. They're very inconsistent and it's frustrating. Especially with Bludhaven ALSO being very close to Gotham. How many major cities are all clustered together like that?
 
hikarutilmitt

hikarutilmitt

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Sega Dreamcast said:
I've never found any bit of Boston in Gotham. I'm all honesty, DC has always been in a tug of war over whether Metropolis or Gotham gets to be NYC.
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I think I see so much Chicago and Boston in Gotham because of the overall city layouts, skyline and the social structures with the crime bosses. It's not a "tall" enough city to be NYC, for me, but Metropolis clearly is.

This is a good thing Marvel avoided by just putting the characters in fictionalized versions of the real cities.
 
fontguy

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Batman Returns has a Gotham so visually hopeless and wretched that the birth of a crazy person dressed like a bat to fight crime just feels like a natural consequence.

Of course it still feels like a competition for second place when you have BTAS.
 
PlanetSmasher

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hikarutilmitt said:
I think I see so much Chicago and Boston in Gotham because of the overall city layouts, skyline and the social structures with the crime bosses. It's not a "tall" enough city to be NYC, for me, but Metropolis clearly is.

This is a good thing Marvel avoided by just putting the characters in fictionalized versions of the real cities.
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There are also DEFINITELY parts of Boston that have the aged, cracking Gotham feel whereas Chicago just feels significantly NEWER so it's harder to really draw a connection. And I say that as someone who has lived in both cities.

Gotham is supposed to almost feel like a rotting husk of a city.
 
Razgriz-Specter

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Penguin said:
I mean Gotham, it had more time to show different parts of the city and give it personality.
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Gotham's aesthetic was so damn good, they could go to a set for literally 2 minutes and it would have designs, detail and esthetics of main sets you look at all series(the train interior looking so 1930's, Toyman's shop looking 1900s for example)

LabRat said:
overall definitely TAS, those police blimps alone are just... i can't even describe how much i love them
90957047203459.5607f81b55dbf.jpg

i've read a rumour somewhere that the police blimps are going to be in the matt reeves batman movie and that gotham is going to be very inspired by TAS
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Hope so, even Gotham worked some blimps in
thats-entertainment-blimp-in-the-sky.jpg
 
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PlanetSmasher

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Rygar 8Bit said:
Gets crazy when NYC and all our normal cities still exist in that universe as well.
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Yup. While I LIKE the fact that DC has unique cities that have their own visual identities and tones and histories, they really messed up by being like "BUT ALSO ALL THE REAL CITIES ARE THERE TOO"...and then virtually never dealing with the consequences of that.

Does DC's NYC have its own superheroes we just never hear about? It would probably have to.
 
hikarutilmitt

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PlanetSmasher said:
Yup. While I LIKE the fact that DC has unique cities that have their own visual identities and tones and histories, they really messed up by being like "BUT ALSO ALL THE REAL CITIES ARE THERE TOO"...and then virtually never dealing with the consequences of that.

Does DC's NYC have its own superheroes we just never hear about? It would probably have to.
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This is the part that annoys me most about DC's fictional cities existing alongside the real thing. There's a clear correlation but then the inspiration also exists in its real location. They should have just kept it all fictional or not. Marvel goes the other route and it works well because most of the fictional places are hidden or obscured.
 
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