Can't find a scene from Batman Begins that I remember from the theater

August 7, 2012 4:53 PM

I remember a scene from Batman Begins when Wayne is putting together the costume down in the cave. At one point he is working on the cowl and turns it over in his hands and you see two white dots near where his neck would be when he wore it. When I saw it and then I heard the voice in the movie I immediately thought they were voice modulators. I've watched the DVD, I've looked at deleted scenes, I've hunted through the internet, and I can find no reference to this scene. Was it possible I saw a miscut of the movie with a scene that wasn't supposed to go out? (Or more likely) Is it my faulty human memory playing tricks on me? Has anyone else seen this scene?
posted by Ikazuchi to Media & Arts (14 answers total)

Why would you have seen a "miscut?" Are you friends with the producer and you watched a rough cut in the editing room, or something?
posted by BlahLaLa at 5:05 PM on August 7, 2012

Yep, unless you saw a director's cut originally (and are now looking for that scene in the regular release), or saw a pre release version (which is next to impossible unless you're working on the film), there is very little chance that you saw anything other than the same version that everyone else saw.
posted by HuronBob at 5:07 PM on August 7, 2012

Response by poster: Yeah, I could see absolutely no realistic way I'd see a miscut, but I'm grappling for any possibility other than "false memory" (which I accept as the most likely option). I did see this at any special screening and I didn't have any special access.
posted by Ikazuchi at 5:11 PM on August 7, 2012

Response by poster: That's supposed to be "did NOT see this at any special screening"
posted by Ikazuchi at 5:13 PM on August 7, 2012

Could you have seen light through the mask's eyeholes that looked like dots on the neck? Could you be combining Batman Begins with another Christian Bale or live-action Batman movie? IIRC in the animated Batman series there have been costume-variants with neck apparatuses to enable breathing underwater, in space, etc.
posted by nicebookrack at 5:23 PM on August 7, 2012

What you probably saw were Cap Codes (aka Crap Codes) which were unique to the print of the film you were watching.

When initially deployed, the codes were patterns of dark dots against light backgrounds, but I think they eventually envolved to doing light-colored dots against dark backgrounds.
posted by Sunburnt at 5:27 PM on August 7, 2012

Response by poster: The light through the eye-holes was the best idea I've heard, but I just went back and scanned through all the scenes of Wayne making his costume and there isn't even a scene where he's working with his cowl - just scenes with the mask. I am still bereft.

I actively remember him holding the neck and shoulder part of the cowl and turning it over in his hands. This seems more and more like a false memory.
posted by Ikazuchi at 5:36 PM on August 7, 2012

It could have been a scene used in a movie PREVIEW, that was then cut from the final film?
posted by agregoli at 5:41 PM on August 7, 2012 [5 favorites]

It is absolutely possible for the DVD to have a different edit of the film than did the theatrical release. Whether that's the case here, I can't answer.
posted by gjc at 5:43 PM on August 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

You said you saw a special screening, perhaps preview screening? This somewhat backs up my "cap codes" anti-piracy hypothesis.

However, one other possibility is that somehow some light was admitted to the theater and some reflective surfaces beamed the light onto the screen.
posted by Sunburnt at 5:45 PM on August 7, 2012

Seconding agregoli. Have you gone back and checked the trailers and teasers? I've seen trailers for other movies that featured entire plot points that were nowhere to be found in the actual film. I don't remember this from Batman Begins but it seems entirely possible for one close-up to be cut.
posted by jeffhoward at 6:33 PM on August 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

I seem to recall some flash feature on the web with white dot-and-line callouts talking about the construction and features of the batsuit including the voice modulator. Can't find it at the moment, but perhaps this is what you're remembering?
posted by bfranklin at 6:50 PM on August 7, 2012

Best answer: I remember this too.... I think.

It looks like other people do too :

"Watching the movie, audiences saw Bruce Wayne install audio enhancements and a voice changer into the cowl."

"otsureifsrs but I believe a bat-voice modulator installed the bat-suit is the legit explanation, established in the first movie."

"that's correct, in batman begins there was a device shows/mentioned to alter his voice."

(but then the last comment says Nolan never mentioned it).


So at least you're not crazy. Or you're not alone in being crazy.
posted by frankdrebin at 7:12 PM on August 7, 2012 [4 favorites]

When Lawrence of Arabia was restored back in '89, Robert Harris, the man responsible for the restoration, said that after every screening, someone will ask about a rape scene they remember seeing when they first saw the film back in the 60s. Harris, who had painstakingly gone through every frame of the restoration process as well as all of David Lean's script notes, stated that there was never such a scene and that people had somehow imagined it. In the film, the rape is only implied, yet so many people still believe that they actually saw such a scene which if you think about it, could never have passed through the censors back then. So yeah, perhaps this is a similar false memory that many people share.
posted by cazoo at 9:12 PM on August 7, 2012 [2 favorites]