The
Dark Knight Plays Well Again
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...and
yet the cowl has a nose...
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Let
this be the first in an occasional series of us letting
you find some weird and wonderful corners of the web where
skill, storytelling sense and die-hard fandom all collide.
Today,
we point your attention toward a short film entitled Batman:
New Times, the final project for the December 2004
graduates of DAVE
school. That's an institute of higher learning located
in Orlando, Florida dedicated to training computer animators
and visual effects artists. Its graduates have gone on to
work for many major effects studios all over the world,
and apparently many are gathered in England working on the
CG Captain Scarlet series, which personally I'm
dying to see.
Back
to New Times. The class combined the work of Art
Asylum's Mini-Mates toyline with the obviously compatible
Lego toy system, and created a small epic of Batman facing
down the Joker, Catwoman and Harley Quinn on New Year's
Eve. Everything in the film has been modeled as if built
out of Legos.
But
that's not what makes it cool. To voice Batman, they got
Adam West. For the Joker, they got Mark Hamill. Because
computer animation has become a passion of his, Dick Van
Dyke stepped in to voice Commissioner Gordon (a brilliant
casting, by the way), and Courtney Thorne-Smith grew tired
of Jim Belushi long enough to be Catwoman.
The
plot hits all the standard fan moments, borrowing from several
incarnations of Batman to create a few minutes of fun. You'll
see nice swipes from the animated series, the 60's series
and Tim Burton's vision.
Though
DC has occasionally grumbled, it's nice to see that the
company understands that letting fans do cool things with
their characters in no way endangers their own franchises.
Certainly, taking a look at New Times isn't going
to dim your enthusiasm for the upcoming Batman Begins.
But it may make you want to go out and buy some Legos.
Click
here to enjoy!
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Harley
Quinn does her best to slow down the Batmobile...
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