Hacker Cinema
Batman
1989 · Film · 126 min
Part of Batman Collection
Directed by Tim Burton
Having witnessed his parents' brutal murder as a child, millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne fights crime in Gotham City disguised as Batman, a costumed hero who strikes fear into the hearts of villains. But when a deformed madman known as 'The Joker' seizes control of Gotham's criminal underworld, Batman must face his most ruthless nemesis ever while protecting both his identity and his love interest, reporter Vicki Vale.
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39 comments on Hacker News
In my small town Blockbuster was amazing. We had one or two video stores with tiny libraries and were poorly run before that. When Blockbuster opened we were ecstatic and mindblown by the selection. Blockbuster would often carry 30 or 40 copies of new releases and you could actually have a good shot at finding Jurassic Park or Batman or whatever the week it came out on VHS (this was early 90s). The mom and pops near me never did that and they were often disorganized and unclean.
Blockbuster may have not been the best for finding old niche classics but if your goal was to find anything mainstream released in the 80s or 90s it was great.
Many clerks were passionate about the movies even at Blockbuster, as it was one of the best places to get access to movies at a time when it was a lot of work and effort to even get ahold of a few hundred titles back then.
>three Batman movies
The first batman movie was a paint by numbers reimplementation of The Shadow (1997). You can find comparisons online, nearly shot by shot and most of the same plot beats. The second and third went sort of back towards a very mechanical batman representation that reminded me of the planned low budget Iron Man movie where he wouldn't have had the ability to fly. Just stomping around punching badguys like a Power Rangers extra. The new Bat Mobile seems to inspire some of this reputation
>Inception
Inceptions pretty flat for a film about dreams.
>Interstellar
Neuro-Diverse level of detail until the bits with space magic at the end.
>Tenet
I couldnt sit through 10 minutes of it. Its like the antifilm. It didnt want me to observe it otherwise it wouldnt have emitted such a piercing screeching noise.
>Dunkirk
He has an old period watch, and he recorded the ticking. He overlays the ticking constantly. Also he tells the story out of sequence for some reason. But theres lots of practical effects if you include the stupid watch.
>Oppenheimer
Between tenet hating me on a physical level, and the perfectly servicable fat man and little boy film from the 70s I just havent seen it to comment.
I'm feel old.. My library of childhood games in my head are from the 80s, for the Spectrum. Dizzy, Jet Set Willy, Operation Wolf, R-Type, and original movie/game conversations for Robocop, Batman etc.
What's odd is the apparent chasm between those games and the earliest flash games, but really it's just a few years. That's just a trick of the mind. When you're a kid, turning into a young adult, a few short years feel like a lifetime. Man, it speeds up after that...
I remember being amazed when the Michael Keaton’s Batman movie was released on VHS in the same year as the theatrical release. I had never seen a movie come out for home use that fast.
This is an intriguing anti-endorsement; I was too cool for Batman when this came out, but I feel like I have to watch this now haha.
I actually lived near a movie theater that got bought out by someone very weird and ostensibly rich, and they just played bad movies to jeer at and mock, and every... Friday was Rocky Horror Picture Show night. I think the small town I was in revolted and raised money to then buy that guy out, but man what a time. Surprised they didn't screen this steamer lol, is all I'm saying.
True! I also could feel the absence of Geena Davis and Alex Baldwin. They had real chemistry in the original movie and real connection to Wynona Ryder. They played perfect foils against Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice as well.
The original was an ensemble cast movie where each person put something into the movie all to support each other, which pushed Michael Keaton's performance far above what it could have been all on its own.
I mean, Michael Keaton was a great Batman in the 1989 movie. Putting him up against Jack Nicholson was a great move, and I think that as Batman he worked really well to both make Batman cool but also to make the villains look properly villainous. His only downfall was that he didn't make a great Bruce Wayne, his energy was too chaotic and over the top for a composed stoic billionaire.
That aside, I think Michael Keaton needs an ensemble to shine his brightest, and they did not give him a strong ensemble in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Don't get me wrong, there are great actors and actresses in the movie, but there was not a lot of time spent with them, reacting off of each other. Each person was on their own solo quest and Beetlejuice mostly either worked alone or so quickly and efficiently dispatched his enemies that they barely had a paragraph of interaction with each other.
It missed out on the synthesis and charm of the original in my opinion, even though each person was good to great on their own.
Didn't the Joker contaminate personal care products so they did in a Batman movie?
The current US copyright duration is 70 years after the life of the author. This is absolutely bonkers. 50 years from publication would be a significant improvement.
50 years ago was 1975. If copyright were limited to 50 years, we'd be looking at all of the Beatles works being in the public domain. We'd be midway though Led Zeppelin, and a lot of the best work from Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones.
Also, Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man. Disney would still profit from the MCU films which they produced in the 2010's, but they couldn't stop you from releasing your own Batman vs Spider-Man story.
The Harry Potter books would still belong to JK Rowling, but the Narnia stories would be available for all.
The Godfather 1 and 2 would be in the public domain, as would be original Star Trek TV show, and we'd be coming up on Star Wars pretty soon.
If there were no copyright protection, these works wouldn't have been created. It is good that Paul McCartney and George Lucas and JK Rowling have profited from their creative output. It would be okay if they only profited for the first 50 years. Nobody is counting on revenue over half a century in the future when they create a work of art today.
This is our culture. It should belong to all of us.
> had never even heard of someone seeing one, let alone own one.
Are you in the US maybe? Most of the Amiga market was in Europe (though here too it varied greatly by country). In my school classes alone there were several Amiga owners.
In the US Tramiel managed to burn Commodore's computer shop dealer network to the ground with his pricing shenanigans and deal with Kmart to bypass computer stores for the Commodore 64. As a result, when the Amiga was too expensive to sell well in budget outlets, Commodore US basically had to rebuild their dealer network from the ashes that Tramiel left on the way to buy Atari.
Meanwhile, in Europe, most Commodore subsidiaries grasped the opportunity to push the Amiga as a games machine starting with the Amiga 500, while Commodore US kept pushing it as a professional machine.
You see this difference very clearly in the computer press - where the US Amiga magazines are all serious, while e.g. in the UK the most famous Amiga tie-in was a package with game for the 1989 Batman movie[1]. While many of us also used it for non-gaming stuff, it was games that sustained the bulk of Amiga sales, to the point of e.g. putting Commodore UK in a position where they considered a management buyout of Commodore International when their parent company went bankrupt...
[1] https://amigaposters.github.io/amiga%20500/original%20commodore/recreated/packaging/2022/09/03/amiga-500-batman-pack.html
Comic book movies seem to be dethroning themselves. Super Mario coincidentally being #2 at the box office would be the sort of tipping point for the studios to hungrily eye an alternate source of IP to adapt. (https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/world/2023/ - I will concede that FNAF is all the way at #18, which isn't very impressive).
I mean, they're already greenlighting nearly twenty Mattel based projects just because of Barbie (https://www.insider.com/all-upcoming-movies-mattel-toys-barbie-2023-7), it seems like Hollywood hasn't come a long way from the video's intro anecdote about how the original Batman movie ushered in a wave of adaptations of retro pulp heroes, rather than the more naturally lucrative choice of comic book adaptations. So who's to say they won't look at the similar success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and mine video game IP for adaptations?
At the same time, I think that other than for Daniel Kaluuya's 'A24-Type' Barney movie, most of the Mattel projects are not even going to see the light of day. It's a much more limited IP vein and once there's a box office bomb or two, the studios will quickly put the kibosh on the outlandish idea. Battleship, for instance, didn't exactly unleash a huge trend of board game movies.
Outside of the theaters, The Last of Us being a huge hit and a critical darling would seem to indicate that after decades, we might finally be seeing the end of the video game adaptation curse. The fact that there are any quality video game adaptations now, let alone successful ones, is itself a sea change. And as the video theorizes, maybe this isn't 2008 so much as it's the early '00s when the original X-Men and Spider-Man adaptations came out. A sign of the shift that is to come. But I firmly do believe it so to come. There are far more video games than there are Marvel/DC superhero properties. More genres, even.
> Why pay cops if I’m not being murdered or robbed?
Why pay cops, they're already being bribed by criminals (batman, punisher, etc cops anyway :D )
> Why keep nukes behind launch codes, nobody’s trying to launch them?
Because if you get rid of launch codes you'll decimate the Hollywood Political Thriller movie industry
> Why eat every day, I don’t start to die until like 3 days in…
Why do you hate farmers?
:D
> The US/Hollywood is far more prudish since my youth.
The prudishness manifested differently. I recall a lot more nudity and at least as many sex scenes in movies I watched as a kid (under 18).
Highlander
Lethal Weapon
Robocop
Life of Brian
Even OG Batman had some nudity and referenced sex in it as a PG-13.
Exposed breasts and sex scenes were pretty common. Full frontal nudity was even relatively common. And sometimes wouldn't even garner an R rating.
90s Batman and original Spiderman were super hero films and has lot more sexuality than what we have now.
The first ‘12’ general release was I believe for Batman.
I went to see that with my older, cool as fuck aunty who went to university, shaved her head and had a CAR.
All of that was cool as fuck to me.
I felt so grown up going to see that! I was not sure if adults ate sweets (candy) at the pictures so I declined her offer only to see everyone get a stuff!
Ah the pressures of growing up. Spend half your life desperate to be grown and the other half wishing you weren’t!
Sally later confided to me that no adult would go with her to see Batman. Comic book movies except Superman were very much not for ‘adults’ in late eighties Liverpool !
Yeah, the difference is just that the first movie’s DP was aiming for a naturalistic shot, whereas the second DP wasn’t. Tons of 80s and 90s movies have heavily-stylised non-naturalistic lighting (e.g Tim Burton’s Batman)
No, it doesn't work for me. I'd turn on context-sensitive ads on my sites, and then see what ads it supplies.
Unrelated garbage. I remember once buying a kitchen faucet, and for months it seems every site I visit showed me ads for faucets.
For example, on a programming site it would keep pushing ads for the Batman movie. Phooey.
I've only seen a couple of MCU movies and a few (mainly Batman) DC ones, never much cared for the comic book medium but for a few exceptions; however, I don't really see what you're describing as a problem among my friends who do really get into that stuff. You can find obsessive fans for anything, I don't think most people who get into the MCU are particularly obsessive though.
Also, while the franchises have moved away from being for young kids anymore I can tell you that my friends who have kids in the teenage bracket certainly bond with them over their shared interest in such movies.
Disclaimer, I don't really sort humor into high brow and low brow per se, and probably listen to a whole lot more than 20 bawdy or indecent jokes in a single day. There are plenty of comedians who are too mean-spirited for my taste though.
It doesn't hate children. It created content geared towards the most lucrative audience, which skews older, that's all.
Batman in 1989 showed that superhero movies could still be extremely popular & attract an older audience. It also sold so much merchandise-- consumed primarily by younger members of the audience-- that by the time the 4th movie "Batman & Robin" came around merchandise & its design was driving movie creation rather than quality content and the genre went into hiatus for a few years.
When the genre reemerged with the 2002 Spiderman movie and subsequent hits & creation of the MCU, movie makers seemed to realize that they had to appeal to the older audience as well as those on the younger tween+ spectrum, even if it meant giving up ticket sales on for the youngest. And the extreme popularity of the movies made them enough of a cultural phenomenon that they still sell tons of merch to younger kids anyway.
Gascon is the type of DA that you would see in a Batman movie, that is working for the villains. The decisions he has made on behalf of the criminals is shocking. It's as if he's trying to do as much damage as possible. The one that drew the line for me was the machete attack in Malibu by a homeless person where someone lost an eye and was disfigured. The assailant had months previously attacked someone with a knife, but Gascon only charged him with a misdemeanor so he was out and about.
As far as I'm concerned, Gascon is working with the criminals to maximize their damage on our society. The same is going for Boudin, but it seems that he will lose his job soon.
And don't even get me started on the effect of these vendors' compression methodologies. I watched the Burton Batman movies when HBO MAX debuted and I couldn't believe how dogshit they looked due to their dark palette not playing well with the very aggressive compression. Esp. wild when you consider the amount of money the the Batman movies have brought in for WB. It's their flagship franchise and I assume the highest brand recognition of any IP they own (sorry, Bugs).
HBO didn't roll out 4K content until months later, though, so things may have improved since then.
As a kid I worked in a comic book shop in the SF Bay Area.
Before eBay there was a type of collector-hustler, really a junker, who does a circuit around to comic book shops when they have something new.
They buy at auction abandoned storage unit contents. They’re thrift store spelunkers, garage sale hunters.
One of these fellows would visit our shop. He was also an autograph fiend.
He collected all sorts of autographs—-sports, entertainment, politics—-and would give account of if his latest exploits. Share the tips for how to get signatures.
Seeing in the story the quilt, I now understand the (non-illegal) value of having a collection of autographs. What a curious history.
The only autograph I ever endeavored to obtain was Jack Nicholson’s signature on a Batman movie poster. Another friend from the shop (Dave. There’s always a _Dave_. Though this guy delivered pizzas for Domino’s in his electric blue VW beetle—with atomic bomb artwork etched into the glass of the rear window. Haha) So we got our hands on these glossy teaser posters 50$, and he had the address to send the posters for a signature. Well, months later the posters were returned but not on the $50 poster we sent but a cheaper reprint. Haha. Obviously actors of his caliber receive many requests, and had stacks of the posters to send—just not the one they received. Whatevers.
Like the remaster of The Day of the Tentace... The original has a vaguely German Expressionist (from 1920s films) look that I like. The artists of the remaster smoothed out many of the harsh edges, apparently assuming that they were only due to technical limitations. Technical limitations, like in the old movies, influenced the style, sure... but it works the way it was initially created and ignorant "improvements" don't do it any good.
Have a look at the second image (jail), especially the lamps and the grate. They should be more angular in higher resolution, not less. https://rebell.at/artikel/day-of-the-tentacle-bekommt-ein-remake-screenshots-im-vergleich
This kind of modernization can be done right... Jim Burton movies and Babylon Berlin borrowed from German expressionism, especially in certain scenes - often night scenes. Tentacle is somewhere in between - the artists could have taken their inspiration from looking at the Caligari (1920) - Batman (1989) - Babylon Berlin scale and some 30s cartoons.
Disclaimer: I cannot art for shit. I can only look and talk about it.
This is not unexpected. The UK banned gym commercials for daring to suggest that one may be improving the body in order to be "beach ready" (i.e. show off sexiness). No no no, it is not allowed to say that you try to look better for other people.
As for movies, of course we want to look at beautiful people.
I'll just leave that hanging there for a few seconds. It really should be that simple.
So movies need to show the beautiful people, but they can't "objectify" them. But that's not the same thing. A movie will catch shit for one when they've done the other, though.
Which of Lost in Translation and Batman (1989) caught heat for objectifying women? Which one had a 2D damsel in distress, and which showed off more body?
So you make movies with beautiful people (because that's what people want, all else being equal), but you only put the sexiness "on display", and don't acknowledge it in any way what so ever. Because acknowledging that there such a thing as sexy, or sexual attraction, is harassment.
If you acknowledge it, it has to be made a joke, and as nonsexual as possible. E.g. it's only the men who get to compliment Captain America's ass. It can't be sexual, because the men who said it have an established history of not-gays (a female partner).
But again, back to the beautiful sexy people. Should we be surprised that actors have been wearing wigs (or wig-like fillers) since the days of black&white? Should we be surprised that people want to look at post-hairplug Elon Musk instead of pre-hairplug?
"Fetishize" the body? Wat? It's a fetish to be attracted to "beautiful people" now?
>> This decade has seen an explosive series of breakthroughs in the field misleadingly known as Artificial Intelligence.
It's the field of research on artificial intelligence. I don't know what's misleading about a field named after its subject.
I think perhaps the confusion stems from the fact that people have preconceived notions of what any thing called "artificial intelligence" should be and they are surprised to find that it is... a research field. Rather than, say, a robot, or a computer. Or, you know, a Terminator.
I'm reminded of the following conversation from the first Batman movie; Bruce Wayne has just been served and has tasted a spoonful of his dinner:
Bruce Wayne: [spits] "It's cold!" Alfred: "It's vichyssoise sir. It's supposed to be cold".
Indeed, it's a surprise that soup can be cold, but the surprise is not the fault of the soup. Rather, what's lacking is a bit of context, a broader view of the world and a deeper understanding of a subject- soup, say, or AI.
Because of this lack of context I often see comments (on HN say) like "artificial intelligence is a misnomer, in reality it's just X". Where "X" is the person's reductive interpretation of some very specific technique (deep learning, these days) that is the only thing the person knows of AI and that they therefore assume, synechdochically, is the entire field.
Like I say, a lack of context. But of course this will not get any better. People outside the field will continue to misunderstand the field. Researchers within the field will even minsunderstand it. Frustrating, but such is life.
The 1989 version of Batman. The hype was huge. You couldn’t move without seeing marketing for it. And it was one of the most successful comic book movies ever made, certainly one of the better DC movies.
> In the months before Batman's release in June 1989, a popular culture phenomenon known as "Batmania" began. Over $750 million worth of merchandise was sold
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(1989_film)
No it doesn't. The Tim Burton movies were also campy and they reveled in it. Also, the point isn't about whether the movies are campy or not but simply that we're at the point where you can show superheroes on screen believably. Even Burton's Batman had to use fake penguins and matte paintings to try and make Gotham seem real and it still looks wooden and lifeless.
I would say that Raimi's Spider-man (though not fully) and Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy pushed us into the age of superhero believability and popularity.
It's the difference between Lou Ferrigno being painted in green makeup lifting up cardboard and foam vs. a fully realized Hulk that matches what was originally in the comic books in ferocity and strength.
The '90s were twenty years ago. It's not that long, but about the same amount as time between the original Star Wars and The Phantom Menace. Or between the Batman movie with Adam West and Tim Burton's Batman. And it was only 34 years from the silent version of Ben Hur to the Technicolor classic.
Think about this, since it's the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. When that festival happened, rock and roll[1] music wasn't even 20 years old.
[1] https://www.knkx.org/post/we-agree-was-first-ever-recorded-rock-and-roll-song
The actual outcomes of cheaper distribution have been realized as less equal outcomes: the biggest hits are bigger than ever, the rest are part of an ever-increasing undiscovered long tail.
Even though distribution is cheap, when the product is consumable entertainment, you are competing on the basis of marketing for people's attention, which is a scarce resource. Capital can buy up attention through a variety of means:
* A saturation advertising blitz around release(as was realized with 1989's Batman campaign, and repeated countless times since). Rather than just release the product with a standard press kit, go all out: advertise a pre-event event, like a panel at a fan convention. Make secondary products that serve as loss leaders, each one creating a new advertising hook.
* Bundling and cross-promotional tactics(buy this new graphics card and get a free game!). When you have a large sales organization, you can afford the time and resources to negotiate complex deals of this nature.
* The inflated production values are the product: Avatar was a hit because it was a big, expensive, technically advanced production, and there are only so many of those in the world. Although it is a huge risk, this is the modus operandi of Hollywood blockbusters, AAA games, and many live acts.
* Franchise marketing: Instead of just having a piece of media, build a collection of IP adaptable to many mediums and release products for all of them, building a new hook for the brand with each release. This gives the same kind of effect as a saturation campaign, but is playing a longer game, and aims to make each release solid and more than a tie-in(e.g. why is Avengers: Endgame a record breaking hit? It's because it's the capstone to a decade of Marvel movies that build up to this moment, all using a consistent style and maintaining a similar level of quality).
While it's true that you don't have a definite formula for success, the quality of the result is a thing you can control for in some degree just by hiring people with a track record(another avenue of capital: buy the visible superstars), and then providing them with this marketing infrastructure to work within.
So I don't see an escape from these tactics without a change in the rules of how to capture human attention. Brand building for pop culture is a hugely expensive exercise, and this has made for a market that fights tooth and claw to get a small promotional edge. But like with other lines of business, waves of opportunity come and go that allow new products to get through, and Game of Thrones is one such example of the wave of "prestige TV" that appeared around the end of last decade.
It is infringement not theft despite the extensive rhetoric to conflate the two. If something is stolen they no longer have it. If something is infringed then it is only their exclusivity undermined.
Say you own the Batmobile from a particular Batman movie and all rights to its reproduction. If make an exact copy of your Batmobile you would still have it in your garage. The value might be undermined some because it is a substitute good but only one was involved in the filming.
Infringement may still be wrong (it varies by circumstances just like how breaking a baptismal font to save a boy from drowning isn't simple sacrilegious vandalism) but it isn't theft.
> The drug flopped for those uses, but Viagra
I can't help wonder if that was intentional by the author.
BTW, reading any article on batman style gizmos brings to mind the Joker like from the 1989 movie: Where do he get those wonderfull toys?!
I was also living in downtown Baltimore during the post-Freddie Gray unrest. I was disappointed to see the acquittals. At the same time, if I were in those cops' shoes, I'm not sure if have the moral strength to be any different. Society needs a certain amount of order to function.
The thing is, though, the Baltimore police aren't agents of "order." See http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article94829582.html -- these clowns belong in a Batman movie.
Gangs are in charge
Yes, that certainly appears to be true, as that newspaper article makes clear.
At the same time, if I were in those cops' shoes, I'm not sure if (I'd) have the moral strength to be any different
I think you would, as would most of the rest of us.
A free pirate copy isn't really in the marketplace, notwithstanding the manifest flaws in our system of administering legal copyright. If we admit this as normal commerce, how is it functionally different from uncompensated eminent domain? where is the incentive to produce if one cannot exert any control over the distribution and sale of creative works?
Sure, everyone who worked on Batman got paid years ago. But if I want to produce a film tomorrow, I'm facing essentially the same problem - I can't compete with free, and that makes it harder to recoup an investment. If I don't have an existing franchise to leverage so as to raise capital advance, then distribution rights are the only tool I have.
Try to actually think about it. What movies fit that formula?
Iron man - no, an arrogant man built his own powers Thor - no, an entitled boy temporarily had to cope with the absence of his powers to earn them back The Hulk - no, he is not a great wizard, he is trying to cure himself Captain America - you could make an argument for it, but no, he auditioned for his powers Batman - no Guardians of the Galaxy - no Spider-man - OK, especially in "The Amazing Spider-man" they played the destiny card Superman - sort-of, but he grew up with his powers Green Lantern - yes Daredevil - sort-of, but his wizards power is "not actually blind" X-men - sort of, but their powers are a civil rights race analogy
Most comic book movies do not fit the boy-who-thinks-he-has-nothing-is-actually-a-great-wizard formula and those that do tend to be less successful.
I remember I used to enter the chat rooms by saying "Ever dance with the devil in the pale moon light?" Being a popular quote from the original Batman movie and it went well with my screen name (xsatanx) it usually got a laugh...
... until I stumbled into a religious chat room.
Got my account disabled and had to have my mom call as well.
I am not sure if I would call Jack Nicholson's Joker a goofy prankster. Well he was, but... he was just a different flavor "all out sociopath" than Ledger's Joker. I say this as a huge fan of both Batman (1989) and The Dark Knight (2008).
I am assuming you must have been talking about the Adam West TV series Joker.
I do observe the same trend as you however in general. I think the rise of of video games has a big role. People can play action movies now. If they are going to be reduced to spectators, the movies need to one up the games on other metrics like storyline and acting (rare), or effects and violence (more common).
"My first thought when watching the segment where a clip from Batman is shown is, if this can be applied to movies, it may ruin some of the magic when the video picks up the microscopic motions of supposedly 'dead' characters (as the actors are still breathing and pulsing)."
Because you'd need fancy algorithm to believe that actors in movies aren't really dead ?
I recall an interview with him in which he said he sang the theme to the 1989 Batman movie into a tape recorder. The reason was, he thought of it during a commercial airline flight and didn't want to forget it. According to the interview, he went into the restroom and sang it into his tape recorder as loud as possible in order to be heard over the plane noise. That story or one like it is probably where the notion comes from.
This. I worked for AMC Theaters for 4 years as a developer. One of the wonderful things about that company is that every employee has to go thru a week long training program in the theater business, to include working at a theater.
One of the things I'll never forget is the trainer telling us one day, "We're not in the movie exhibition industry. We're in the snack concession industry. We just use movies to get the patrons in the door."
The reason is that, in the movie industry, the Hollywood studios have almost all the power. When the original Batman came out and lines were around the block, the company actually lost money on ticket sales (after theater costs). That's because Batman cost the theaters 90% of the gross ticket sales.
If the theaters were really making big profits the companies would have margins -- and stock prices -- akin to Apple's. They don't. Check the stock listings: they have a marginal business.
An absurd question that reveals little about a person's programming ability. I would change the question entirely:
On a Cartesian grid is drawn a solid logo (e.g., show a picture of the Batman logo from the 1989 film), where each square represents a black or white pixel. How would you represent the image if you had to type the data points by hand for the computer to draw?
Both questions elude to run-length encoding.