Customer Reviews

THE ART OF BATMAN BEGINS: Shadows of the Dark Knight

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Length:: 1:03 Mins

This book is also pretty light on content, just like The Dark Knight: Featuring Production Art and Full Shooting Script. It explains very little on the production of the movie. You might probably even get more information on Wikipedia.

There are pretty detailed storyboards in the book, even if they are only a few pages. The paintings and concept art to be lacking in comparison to movie stills. A lot of movie stills were included. Some of these movie stills occupy a whole page, or two by themselves. By themselves, they really served no purpose.

The cinematography for the movie was great. The composition was amazing. But there are too few reference paintings included.

This book is only for the hardcore movie fans. Batman fans won't really miss anything if they stick to their comics.

The probable reason for the lack of depth, I believe, is that not much material was provided to the author, Mark Cotta Vaz. His two other art books which I have, The Art of The Incredibles and The Art of Finding Nemo, were fantastic.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

With any of the big-time, franchise, summer blockbuster films you always get a flood of merchandising, of course. Batman Begins is the start of a new Batman franchise and the start of a massive marketing campaign. The Art of Batman Begins takes you through a kind of step-by-step tour of the creation of the film and it's dark influences. The book begins with the cover to the classic Detective Comics #27, the first ever appearance of Batman along with a few panels from that issue by the late Bob Kane, Batman's creator. Then it's on to brilliant, full page concept paintings and drawings, and storyboards. A veritable treasure trove of material. If you haven't seen the film yet, this book is a great example of how Batman is being returned to his dark roots of the late 1930's and early 40's. A great book...one of the best merchandising items so far for the movie. Must-have for collectors!

If you like the movie and Batman, you'll like this book.
It's really quite an insight into the building of one of if not the best live 'superhero' movie yet made.
The pictures, drawings, digital sketches help to tell the story of taking these ideas from someone's mind... to paper... to the screen.
If you like knowing more about what it took to make this film come to life... this is a great book to own.

i have to admit i was a little dissipointed when i recieved this book, i was hoping for a little more than some movie shots, i kinda expected more concept drawing and designs but still a great book to read for the fans

Another book that seems to carry the tag "the art of" but not have any real art. As a aspiring cg, digital artist going to school I look to these books for direction ideas and examples but there where none in this book.

the item arrived in good condition, but I noticed a few pages are printed slightly out of register, making some of the images a little blurry. This is a printing fault and not an error on the part ofthe seller, but a closer inspection and more detailed description of the item would have been appreciated -

all in all, I'm happy 'cos I just want to use the book for reference.

thanks,
Hugh

Absolutely pales in comparison with similar books that came out in the 80s such as the Star Wars sketchbooks. After reading this sycophantic gloss, you'll actually feel like more of a groveling Batman groupie; Mark Cotta Vaz excels at superficialities while denying the reader true criticism. Simply, there is little understanding of the artistic mind and what we have here is nothing much more than 50 or so production pieces of art, most of which do not differ from the final product to any appreciable degree.

For instance, a little foam-rubber mock-up of the Batmobile takes up an entire page. Also, Cotta Vaz thinks a quote from Nolan such as "Gotham City is like New York on steroids" is a revealing statement. I give one star for a smattering of info. regarding various props and the reasoning behind them. But even this is something akin to a DK "Visual Guide" not an exploration of a film's artistry.

I got this book expecting it to have many concept drawings such as the the star wars concept books, and with that in mind, i was throughly dissapointed to find it was nothing like that. it was more so the making of the movie and shots of car sculpts. It does have alot of info about the making of the movie, so if your into that, this book is for you, if your into concept, stay away....

I was extremely disappointed with this book. Not only does it include very few of the conceptual design artworks from the movie, some of the artworks are displayed in the whole page that you can't help but wondering, did they run out of photos, pictures when composing this book? Also, without the inclusion of the film's script (which they published as a stand-alone scriptbook) I feel like I've been ripped off my money. I hope the Art of the Dark Knight book doesn't suck like this one.

Soon after 1997's "BATMAN AND ROBIN", directed by Joel Schumacher (argh...), I became seriously convinced that the character created by Bob Kane was gone for ever and no sooner it would return to the big screen. My conviccion lasted eight straight years until a young genious named Chris Nolan accepted the chalenge of Warner Bros to take the Dark Knigh back to his roots and to this past on a chaotic Gotham City handled by the worse crime lords you can think of. The result is BATMAN BEGINS, with Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Michael Caine as Alfred, the buttler, Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. The movie also stars Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner) as an ambicious business man from Wayne Enterprises, a man eager to take the full control of the company to himself. There is also a fabulous score signed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. I've already watched the movie and hope it arrives fast on DVD. This book, for its turn, is a beautifuly illustrated souvenir from such a great work of so many talents. It brings lots of pictures, storyboards and graphis wrapped in Mark Cota Vaz's unique way of writing a story. Don't miss it. I did not.