Product Description: The Dark Knight returns - to the big screen! After four blockbuster movies, director Christopher Nolan (Memento) goes back to the origins of Batman in Batman Begins, with a stellar cast including Christian Bale and Michael Caine, joined by Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy! The Art of Batman Begins is the must-have official companion to this highly anticipated re-imagining of the Batman movie mythos, and is simply one of the most in-depth 'art of' books ever produced. It features exclusive interviews and background information accompanying hundreds of photos, sketches, storyboards and pieces of stunning, fully painted production art, chronicling every aspect of the movie's design - from the Bat-suit and Batmobile, to Arkham Asylum and Gotham City!
Slightly lacking in depth Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1O0G2KVNUEO7M 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.
There are more pictures on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for my blog's link.
Poor insight into the film. 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.
Disappointing 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.
Bad customer service I ordered this book and realized the day after I placed the order that my boyfriend had bought it for himself. When I emailed the seller to see if it was too late to cancel my order and the reason I got no response. I sent another email 2 days later and I still never received a response. I then got the book (which I'm stuck with) and not even in good condition! BAD EXPERIENCE.
The Art of Batman Begins It was a pretty easy fast read. I wish it had more info as, "Behind the mask of Spiderman" written by the same author. Nice pics and info but I finished reading it in a couple of hours at the most.
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Trevor
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