Robin Debate....Grayson Trailer!!

When it comes it Batman, there has always been a long debate about Robin. Is he needed in the Batman films at all? Comic purist's usually side on the coin of, Yes! If you have read, Dark Victory by Loeb & Sale, you know that a Dick Grayson story arc can be very good. Another great example, is Frank Miller's two book set Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Strikes Again, both feature a female version of Robin and are outstanding pieces of work.

A couple weeks ago, Christian Bale the dark knight himself, came out on the other side of the coin. He had said to Starpulse, "If Robin crops up in one of the new Batman films, I'll be chaining myself up somewhere and refusing to go to work." What!?! There is no Batman without Bale, he is the best batman to date! He is the only reason DC comics have had any impact at the box office at all. Why is Bale so worked up about Robin? If he is basing his idea of Robin from Schumacher's "so-called" Batman films or the old chessy TV show, I agree, No! Bale though, has said his favorite batman comic is Dark Victory! So Bale knows a good Batman story with Robin included, but for some reason he is not coy on the idea of Robin in his Batman series. Christopher Nolan who has been quite mum on the idea of a third Batman film at all, he has said Dark Knight is a complete film.

More recently, Jeph Loeb came out and defended why Dick Grayson is a strong character in a Batman film. Loeb said to MTV, “It’s all about building the relationship between Bruce and Dick. Dick hates Bruce....Bruce doesn’t understand why he’s doing it either because he’s not a parent. He doesn’t know how to be a parent,” Loeb said. “And together, they make each other better people. So that for me would be the next step.” (If your reading these quotes, you are beginning to see that a strong Robin story mainly focuses on Dick Grayson. You might not even need to ever put Grayson into the suit, untill maybe the finale.) Loeb then added, “I wouldn’t let him become Robin until the third act, if that. I think that’s the other problem when you tell that story is that there’s this rush to put him in a costume by the end of the first 20 minutes and in that case I think it’s a disaster,” Loeb said. “So if you look at ‘Dark Victory’ Tim and I went nine out of twelve chapters before you even started to talk about putting him in a costume and he doesn’t put the costume on until the last chapter of that book.”

I feel that in Nolan's Batman series Dick Grayson isn't really needed. They can do a third film and leave him completely out. My feeling on the matter, is that Bruce is far older in the Dark Victory than Bale is now, and much closer to being able to be a fatherly figure. In Nolan's vision, batman is still young and developing. Why introduce a character he must train, if he hasn't perfected the art himself. If in Nolan's vision, Batman was in his forties or fifities it would make much more sense. I think leaving Robin out is a good decision. Leaving Nolan to persue more of the inner demons of Batman.

Despite my feelings for Robin not to be in Nolan's version of Batman, what about a stand alone film? A movie that moves around Robin instead of the Bats. Well John Fiorella feels the same way and has gone out and made a 5 minute trailer for his stand alone Robin film called, "Grayson." The trailer is actually quite cool and if it the script were polished up a bit, it could make for a really entertaining film. The one-sheet and trailer for Grayson is below. You can also read the screenplay for Grayson at Fiorella's site.

Watch Grayson trailer below: