Batman Begins (2005)

Film Type:

Feature

Language:

English

Colour Info:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital, DTS, Sonics-DDP, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound

Frame Rate:

24 fps

Aspect Ratio:

2.35:1

Stereoscopy:

No

Movie Connection(s):

Followed by: The Dark Knight Rises (English)
Followed by: The Dark Knight (English)
Referenced in: Batkid Begins (English)

Goofs:

Audio/Video Mismatch
Before Bruce makes his speech at the birthday party, he knocks at a wine glass twice, producing two differently pitched tones. In reality, it should be the same tone, because the pitch is defined by the level of liquid inside the glass.

Audio/Video Mismatch
Bruce Wayne's birthday party - the birthday song does not match the lips of the party-goers.

Audio/Video Mismatch
As Ra's Al Ghul is placing the blue rose under Bruce's lapel, he says "Tell me, Mr. Wayne, what do you you fear?" The word "you" is repeated (presumably having been resynchronized).

Character Error
The Gotham City police cars have a large "GPD" on the side but the abbreviation used on jackets is "GCPD".

Character Error
A newspaper article has the phrase "loose faith" when "lose faith" is meant. In the same article, the all-caps "METHAMPHETAMINE" is spelled "METAMPHETAMINE."

Continuity
When Bruce is thrown off the truck after being released from prison, his bag is several feet away from him. In the next shot it is at his feet.

Continuity
During his conversation with Rachel in the car outside Falcone's, Bruce's seatbelt is visibly fastened, but he later gets out of the car without unbuckling the belt.

Continuity
When Bruce is hit by the burning wood, it rolls off him to his feet as he falls back and hits the floor. As soon as he hits the floor and is unconscious, its placed as if it landed on his chest.

Continuity
When Bruce approaches Falcone in the restaurant, his hair changes between the shots.

Continuity
After Rachel slaps Bruce in the car outside Falcone's, his hair is messed up; the next shot it's nicely combed; and the next it's messed up again.

Continuity
As Bruce is spraying the Batsuit with black paint, he first sprays down the arms and across the neck. In the next shot, we see him coating the chest, but the arms are bare of any paint.

Continuity
In the scene where Batman saves Rachel and the Little Boy from the released Arkham maniacs, the boy is seen holding his arms around Rachel with his face against her chest. Yet when the camera angle changes he is sitting and facing in a completely different direction.

Crew/Equipment Visible
During the wide shot depicting the batmobile sitting idle atop the parking garage, a swift sweep of the SWAT helicopter's spotlight reveals dozens of cast and crew packed into the elevator waiting area.

Crew/Equipment Visible
There is a stunt ramp visible when the second police car flips during the city chase.

Factual Mistake
You cannot open a water main and see water flowing through it. Water mains that feed uses including sprinklers are pressurized to over 150 psi. Opening a main in the fashion shown would have flooded the basement in minutes. Also, mains serving other areas do not pass though buildings.

Revealing Mistakes
Ducard should be unconscious while sliding down the mountain side, but he still keeps his head elevated away from the ice.

Revealing Mistakes
During the roof jump part of the Batmobile chase there is a police officer who orders Batman not to move on the bullhorn. He is the same actor that later delivers the line 'Can you at least tell me what it looks like?' as the Batmobile whizzes past him. (In mitigation, they could be twins.)

Revealing Mistakes
During the 'criminal execution' scene, it is clear that the sword Wayne is holding has no edge. It has been squared off for safety on-set.

Revealing Mistakes
When the Batmobile fishtails in the tunnel you can see the tire tracks on the ground from several previous takes of the same action.

Revealing Mistakes
In the short segue scene where Rachel Dawes is driving to Arkham Asylum, the street clearly has three lanes separated by white dashed lines indicating a single direction of traffic, yet traffic is flowing in both directions.

Revealing Mistakes
When Bruce Wayne loads up his older model snub nose Taurus Model 605, the .357 Magnum rounds have dented primers, indicating they were already fired to turn the rounds into inert "dummy" bullets.

Revealing Mistakes
When the S.W.A.T. officer goes to place the explosive charge on the wall, you can faintly see the outline of where the hole will be once it explodes.

Trivia:

Christian Bale's active dislike of his uncomfortable Batman outfit helped his performance as the Dark Knight as he was perpetually in a foul mood when wearing it.

Director Christopher Nolan is reputed to have been so fascinated with Cillian Murphy's bright blue eyes, that he kept trying to find reasons/ways to have Crane remove his glasses.

The language used by actor Ken Watanabe is neither Japanese nor Tibetan, or in fact any known language at all. It's just some gibberish he says he made up himself for the role.

Christian Bale revealed in interviews in 2009 that in his first ever scene with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman (one involving Bale waking up in bed to find them waiting there), he fell asleep after getting ready for the scene. Bale described waking up to find Michael Caine poking him the ribs, saying "Look at that! He's bloody fallen asleep".

When Christian Bale and Liam Neeson were fighting on the frozen lake they could hear the ice cracking beneath their feet. The next day, the lake was completely melted.

While shooting on the streets of Chicago, a person accidentally crashed into the Batmobile. The driver was apparently drunk, and said he hit the car in a state of panic, believing the Dark Knight's vehicle to be an invading alien spacecraft.

An unforeseen problem with the ninja training academy was that Liam Neeson towered over the rest of the men. This was swiftly solved by putting most of the ninjas on wooden blocks.

Although Christian Bale performed many of his own stunts, he wasn't allowed anywhere near the Batmobile.

Both Tim Burton and Michael Keaton, from Batman (1989), have said they were impressed by this film.

In an interview with Moviefone, Christian Bale said that he became interested in playing Batman after a friend of his loaned him the graphic novel "Arkham Asylum" (by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean) in 2000. After he read it, he told his agent that if anyone was making another Batman movie, he wanted in.

The 2006 Forbes Fictional 15 ranks Bruce Wayne as the 7th richest fictional character with a net worth of approximately $6.8 billion.

At the time of this film's release, Forbes Magazine did a breakdown of how much it would actually cost to become Batman. The magazine estimated that total expenses in US dollars would be around $3.5 million.

Contrary to the previous Batman films, in which the Batcave was realized as a combination of a live set and matte paintings (done either by hand or computer), no visual effects were used in this film to show the Batcave. The entire Batcave is instead a massive full-scale set.

"Batman Begins" inspired James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccolli to reboot the James Bond franchise and reinventing the character of British secret agent James Bond and making him much darker and more realistic.

Christian Bale lost his voice three times during filming after altering his voice while playing Batman.

According to DC Comics, Batman stands 6'2" and weighs 210 lbs. Christian Bale stands 6'0-1/2" (according to his IMDb profile) and at the time of filming weighed 210 lbs.

Before the shooting began, Christopher Nolan invited the whole film crew to a private screening of Blade Runner (1982). After the film he said to the whole crew, "This is how we're going to make "Batman"."

Much of Batman's gear and apparel, including his cape and suit, is based on actual military technology.

During interviews with Christian Bale whilst promoting the movie, he continued using the American accent he'd adopted to play Bruce Wayne/Batman. He explained that he didn't want potential moviegoers to be confused about why Batman, an American institution, was being played by an Welshman. However, this may not be the whole truth, as Bale rarely gives an interview in his native Welsh accent. It is believed that this is because Bale is always using whichever accent is required for his next role, which reflects his commitment as a method actor.

Due to his part in The Machinist (2004), Christian Bale was vastly underweight (about 120 pounds on his 6 foot+ frame) when he was under consideration for the part. After being cast, he was told to become as "big as you could be" by Christopher Nolan. Bale underwent a 6 month dietary and exercise regimen and ending up weighing about 220 pounds (about 40 pounds above his normal weight). It was decided that Bale had become too large (friends of his on the film's crew dubbed him "Fatman") and he quickly shed about 20 pounds to have leaner, more muscular frame. Bale described the experience as an unbearable physical ordeal.

Only days before the role of Batman was cast, eight actors were asked to audition for the part. The actors were Christian Bale, Joshua Jackson, Eion Bailey, Hugh Dancy, Billy Crudup, Cillian Murphy, Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal. While Bale won the part, Christopher Nolan liked Murphy's audition so much, he cast him as Dr. Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow. Part of the audition process involved the actors wearing a Batman mask and an old mask used by Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995) was brought out of storage for this purpose.

In a 2012 interview, Christopher Nolan admitted that he invented the line "rub your chest, your arms will take care of themselves," spoken by Henri Ducard/R'as Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) after Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) falls into the frozen lake, and that it has no scientific basis, adding that he imagined "Boy Scouts everywhere freezing to death" because they took the advice literally thanks to Neeson's convincing delivery.

Christian Bale's trailer didn't have his name on the door but said "Bruce Wayne" instead.

Christian Bale decided early on in the audition process that he didn't want to play Batman straight but to play him as a rage-filled monster, figuring that it might polarize Christopher Nolan. To his delight, Nolan was thrilled with his off-kilter interpretation.

David S. Goyer mentioned in an interview that his favorite pre-audition choice for Batman was Jake Gyllenhaal, but that he was won over by Christian Bale after seeing his test.

The first day of filming that Christian Bale tried on the Batsuit, he stayed in it all day in an effort to get used to it.

This marks one of the first times the Keysi fighting style has been showcased on film.

First live action appearance by Scarecrow, a villain dating back to Batman's earliest comic stories. While considered for the 1960s TV series he was never used, and was to be the main villain in the fifth Burton/Schumaker film that was shelved.

The cape was made with a technique called electrostatic flocking, taught to the crew by the British Ministry of Defense and normally used to decrease the night-vision visibility of objects. Nylon parachute fabric was brushed with glue and covered with fine hair-like material. An electrostatic current was then passed under the material, creating a dark sheen while maintaining the billowing appearance.

Hans Zimmer named the tracks in the soundtrack after types of Bats. The first letters of tracks 4-9 in the soundtrack, spell "BATMAN". ("Barbastella", "Artibeus", "Tadarida", "Macrotus", "Antrozous" and "Nycteris").