On Friday at the New York Comic Con, there was a world premiere screening of The Batmobile, an hour-long documentary about Batman’s most wonderful of wonderful toys. A half-hour version of the documentary aired earlier this year on the CW. This hour-long version will be available as a special feature on The Dark Knight Rises Blu-ray.
I don’t want to go into too much detail about the content of The Batmobile since it’s a fun watch, but I can say that it’s well-made and well put together. The Batmobile features interviews with Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher, Christopher Nolan, Adam West, Christian Bale, and many others. It functions as a brief history of the Batmobile, and even has a little emotional punch when you see what this vehicle means to people.
There’s special focus on the Batmobile from the 1966 show and the feature films, and you get to learn how each was conceived and created. There’s a glimpse at H.R. Giger’s bizarre, unused Batmobile design for Batman Forever (part arachnid, part pretzel) and remarkable test footage of the Tumbler. The Tumbler was created through clay maquettes and a hodgepodge of model airplane bits rather than through sketches, and you get to see those crude models turn into something part Lamborghini, part Humvee, and practically indestructible.
The Dark Knight Rises hits Blu-ray and DVD on December 4th.
