Synopsis:

Batman & Robin DEEP FREEZE doesn't attempt to be as serious as The Batman or as dark as the Nolan trilogy, but something closer to the feel of The Animated Series, just in live form. Mr. Freeze, now a more sympathetic villain, has little to no one-liners, Bane is completely excised and Poison Ivy isn't created by a mad scientist pushing her into a shelf. There is no Elliot Goldenthal Batman theme, but a lot of his music is still included. New opening titles and a small set of end credits have been created (and of course giving Bill Finger the credit he deserves).

Intentions:

I happened to catch a little bit of Batman and Robin on TV and as I watched, my editing brain kicked on and I wondered what it would be like if it looked more like a noirish/German expressionist look while also scaling back as much of the cheese as possible. That accompanied with music from the Arkham games has led to the DEEP FREEZE cut, where Mr. Freeze is a more sympathetic victim, Bane doesn't exist, and Batman and Robin bicker less. Also, no dated "sexy sax" music whenever Ivy is on screen.

Change List:

There were A LOT of cuts that totaled 41 minutes. Here is the basic idea: -Converted the whole movie to black and white -Added in a shot of the batsignal in the sky from Batman Forever -New opening credits -Cut the Schumacher Batman gearing up (including no butt shots) -Cropped out all opening credits (this was to help mask big cuts from the museum sequence) -Cut ALL Mr. Freeze "Arnold" one-liners -Cut goofy cartoon sound effects when Freeze throws a guard into a wall or tosses a guard -No ice skating heroes -No rocket ship getaway, air surfing heroes or flying icemen -Trimmed back all arguments between Bruce and Dick. They still bicker, but it really only happens once Ivy comes into the picture -No Pamela Isley in South America and NO BANE! -Mr. Freeze does not lead a chilling sing-a-long and isn't seen turning down his henchwoman's advances -Cut out Bruce stammering after being asked about getting married. He's asked and immediately asks Julie to give him a hand. -The first encounter between Bruce and Pamela is cut so that there is no reference to the mad scientist. Now, Bruce mentions he cut funding due to a difference in ideologies and it comes off as that it was due to Pamela's ideologies as she then proceeds to talk about saving mother nature. It worked so beautifully well. -Mr. Freeze watches his home movies, is feeling remorse for what he is about to do as it cut to him closing his eyes while holding the newspaper about the Wayne diamonds and then back to him watching the movies and saying it's only one more diamond. No henchman interrupting the movie. -A LOT was done to the gala scenes. NO gorilla suit, NO Bat credit card, The 90's sexy music for Ivy was replaced with Ivy's themes from Goldenthal's score and from the Arkham games. -Freeze crashes the party and Batman immediately shoots the freeze gun out of his hands with a grapple hook. Freeze DOES NOT swing onto stage, but simple gets there during the ensuing fighting. He is polite to Ivy without asking what her dumb names are (Garden Gal for instance) and then takes the diamonds and leaves. There was a lot of restructuring of this action sequence. -The chase scene is pretty much the same, but with some changes in the music. Freeze doesn't obnoxiously laugh or say anything after he crashes. -The movie was heavily restructured from here as we deal with Barbara's antics, Bruce and Julie and Dick trying to catch Barbara. -Freeze is broken out by Ivy just by her using her methods of getting in, killing the guards with a kiss and recruiting Freeze. That's it. We don't need to see anything else. If she got herself in, she could get them out. -In order to cut Bane related stuff, I cut Batman and Robin watching any video footage of the escape while at Freeze's lair. They find his wife and then go after Ivy. Freeze subdues the police and gets his stuff without encountering them. Batman and Robin climb down in the boiler room area and find nothing (this was where the Bane encounter happens, but it's been cut). With Freeze outta there and Batman and Robin on a wile good chase, Ivy emerges and unplugs Nora. -At the Turkish bathhouse, I cropped out Bane as Ivy grabs one of her mutant plants. To help cover some of this and the reframing, I doubled up on shots of Freeze looking at her. -Cut Ivy getting Gordon to give her the batsignal. Most of this was because of Bane. Also, I felt that with the Bruce/Julie/Ivy scene, Julie would've broken up with him and that gave her an ending since it really doesn't go anywhere due to scenes that were either cut or not filmed with her fate. -Trimmed back on the bickering between Bruce and Dick as they finally bury their issues. -Barbara, excuse me, Batgirl's new theme starts to lightly play as she discovers the batcave. No suit up nonsense with her either. -No "ta da" music when Ivy's Venus flytrap bed is shown. Their dialogue between each other has been trimmed back as it was just bad. -Batgirl crashes in and there is very little dialogue left during their fight because it was soooooooooooo bad. I did of course leave her revealing "this is a one woman show" for later. -With their dialogue cut and removing an obvious reverse shot of Robin struggling for air, it moves much quicker. The awful dialogue between Batman and Batgirl has been restructrued so Batman says "and you are?" to which Barbara replies that it's her to which Batman then responds "I know". Felt much more like a Batman thing than the PC speech he gives. The Arkham City theme plays as they unite as a team. -Some cropped shots due to Bane being around at the observatory -We see the Batfamily driving to the observatory, but no encounter with any henchmen. There was some head scratching decisions made in the original cut that I don't know why it went into the final draft. -A LOT was done with the climax. Here's the gist.....lots of rescoring, lots of new sound effects, Robin and Batgirl do not encounter Bane, but are stuck until Batman.

Additional Notes:

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Other Sources:

-Batman and Robin blu ray -Batman Forever blu ray -Batman and Robin expanded score -Batman Arkham City soundtrack -Batman Arkham Knight soundtrack.

Special Thanks:

DwightFry for helping me bounce ideas around in the early days of this edit prior to the official announcement and for the preview screening!