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This (silent) video shows the Batmobile in the new Batman v Superman movie:

However, 14 seconds in we see:

NO STEP on the Batmobile!

Why would the Batmobile need to have "NO STEP" on the side? Batman knows the risk and it's not like he's running a taxi service. Is Batman worried about getting a ticket from an overenthusiastic Health & Safety officer?

Mithical
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Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE
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    It's to remind him not to step there. – Valorum Apr 29 '15 at 05:52
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    @Richard - does Batman really need a reminder? – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Apr 29 '15 at 05:54
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    The evidence would suggest that he does – Valorum Apr 29 '15 at 07:29
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    Probably to remind Robin. – Boelabaal Apr 29 '15 at 07:33
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    Maybe they're wings - airplane wings often have a section marked "NO STEP" to denote areas where it would be unsafe for a passenger to tread (in the event of an overwing evacuation). – nneonneo Apr 29 '15 at 15:39
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    I have doubts that this sign will actually appear in the theatrical release. This is just early b-roll footage which has not finished going through post production (hence the silence). The sign is probably there to warn the cast and crew to not step there because that piece isn't strong enough to hold the weight of a person and would probably break. That would be an expensive mistake. – Jason Hutchinson Apr 29 '15 at 18:55
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    I think it has more to do with the fact that they wanted the Batmobile to look like a military aircraft, which has things like this painted on delicate control surfaces (among others). I doubt the filmmakers really understand why they're there on the aircraft parts. – Ernie Apr 29 '15 at 19:17
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    @JasonHutchinson: that's probably the most realistic answer! – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Apr 29 '15 at 19:43
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    @JasonHutchinson Consider adding your comment as an answer. –  Apr 30 '15 at 08:08
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    Obviously JasonHutchinson answer is the correct one, anyone could have thought of that, that's not why this question is asked is it? We want in universe explanations, much like all the Whovians go through extreme lengths to explain every little detail :P – Vincent Apr 30 '15 at 14:39
  • Also @JasonHutchinson the truth is never as funny. – Vincent Apr 30 '15 at 14:39
  • @VincentAdvocaat: it is not obvious to me, if Jason is correct it's great! – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Apr 30 '15 at 15:38
  • Maybe it's to trick SUPERMAN into not stepping there! >.> – Smithers Apr 30 '15 at 16:15
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    That is odd. It should be "BAT NO STEP." – Darth Wedgius Apr 30 '15 at 16:18
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    The bigger question is: Why would an armored vehicle like the Batmobile have a section of the body that breaks when you step on it? – Ben Miller Apr 30 '15 at 18:54
  • Another thought: maybe this just parodies the 1966's Batman TV series? After all everything was labeled back then - from Bat-Hook to Bat-Anti-Shark-Spray. – Ghanima Apr 30 '15 at 20:31
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    @nneonneo - I think the "no step" warnings on the wing are there for ground crew to prevent them from damaging a delicate or moving part of the wing. No passenger in an evacuation is going to be looking down at the wing (even if they could see the writing and it wasn't obscured by smoke, water, darkness, etc). If were truly something passengers would be expected to avoid during an evacuation, it would be mentioned during the safety briefing. – Johnny Apr 30 '15 at 22:29
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    I'm sure its more just an aesthetic to remind us, the viewers, humorously that the batmobile is more like a jet fighter than an automobile. – Octopus May 01 '15 at 16:31
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    @Richard, is your "evidence" link intended to be recursive? – TecBrat May 03 '15 at 04:22
  • @TecBrat - Yes :-) Responding to Wikis comment (does he really need a reminder?), clearly he does, or there wouldn't be a sticker. – Valorum May 03 '15 at 06:19
  • As I posted elsewhere - there are other decals on the prop (an electric shock hazard, etc). These are very, very obviously not there for the film crew. They are there for visual interest, part of the "greebling". – Dewi Morgan May 05 '15 at 06:13
  • If this is a safety feature, I wonder what other safety features it has. Maybe there are flashing lights and dinging noises when Batman doesn't wear his seat belt. – Jason Hutchinson May 07 '15 at 17:45
  • In this exhibition (see video) the Batmobile has a NO STEP sign. Maybe it will be in the movie. – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Jun 10 '15 at 07:51
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    Obviously it's because you're only allowed to jitterbug on the Batmobile. No step dancing allowed. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 12 '15 at 07:36
  • It's because he likes to eat Nachos while listening to Jethro Tull – John Bell Nov 27 '15 at 09:38

8 Answers8

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I don't know how chivalrous Batman will turn out to be in this movie, but the Dark Knights of the past have had cause, once in a while, to take civilian passengers. Vicki Vale in Batman and Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins both got to take a ride in their respective Batmobiles after being rescued by their respective Batmen.

So, even if he's not running a taxi service, it's by no means unimaginable for him to bring the Batmobile to a screeching stop, retract the hood, and grunt "Climb in!" to someone in danger. Batman has, of course, anticipated this contingency, and marked an unsafe area—to better protect the citizens of Gotham.

Ryan Veeder
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Because it's not only batman who works worked on the Batmobile

Note that the earlier batmobile was designed by one man (Fox), built by others (Waynetech), driven by another (Wayne) and maintained by yet another man (Alfred).

At a minimum there are four and potentially dozens of people who've worked on the various batmobiles, any of whom could have thought that that was a step.

Because the car is built out of stock (airplane?) parts

As Patrick and Monty have pointed out in their comments above, the parts used for the Tumbler were cannibalised from Waynetech's military assets rather than being custom-made from scratch. The same is almost certainly true for the modified Batmobile. These parts may well have been pre-painted with the "no step" designation before they were appropriated for this 'black project'

So he knows where not to step

Since Bruce wasn't fundamentally involved in the design of the car, it's clearly in his interest to know which bits can be stepped on and which bits can't. Causing thousands of dollars of damage to his funky new Batmobile for the sake of a 1$ stencil is not a good tradeoff.

Community
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Valorum
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    That was my thinking as well. This batmobile could be similar to the Tumbler in that it was a repurposed vehicle originally designed for a larger distribution. Therefore it would have to meet some safety regs such as caution stickers and seatbelts. – Monty129 Apr 29 '15 at 09:31
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    A sign you've been on the internet too long: "Tumbler" looks like it's spelled wrong. – phantom42 Apr 29 '15 at 13:14
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    @phantom42 A sign that the internet's been around too long: Google redirects searches for "tumbler" to "tumblr" – Turch Apr 29 '15 at 14:52
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    @phantom42 A sign you've been on the internet too long: you read "Tumbler" as "Tumblr". –  Apr 29 '15 at 18:02
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    I think the most important workers here are the prop masters and special effects team members, who don't want people stepping on part of their not really armored metal car and causing damage. –  Apr 30 '15 at 18:41
  • @Turch...that's...too...much. – Paul Draper May 03 '15 at 18:49
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By popular demand, I am reposting my comment as an answer.

Just to clarify, this footage is not the finished product, so don't expect to see this sign to appear in an official release. It will most likely be digitally erased in post-production. You would not see this any more than you would see the wires that hold up the stunt men in an elaborate fight scene.

I seriously doubt the sign is there for Batman, or his damsel in distress. It is most likely put there by the prop master to alert the cast and crew not to put too much weight on that part because it would probably break, or damage something underneath the body panel. Time will tell if I am correct.

Jason Hutchinson
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  • I was going to answer this exact thing, so +1. The footage shown is clearly not post-production footage, and is merely meant to show us how the prop looks and get us excited for it. –  Apr 30 '15 at 18:39
  • Nice idea, but not very likely.

    "No Step" signs are used on aircraft and military vehicles for very specific purposes, and the use of such a sign on a prop says this was the look they were going for.

    Think about it: why'd you put a sign on a prop to instruct people in the use of it as a prop, when everyone using it will be instructed in its use anyway? Why'd the makers of this vehicle go to such great lengths and put so much detail on it, then put what's effectively a bright pink neon sign on it saying "this is a prop!"? It'd end up onscreen, as you see here. Prop makers don't do that.

     – Dewi Morgan May 01 '15 at 01:52
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    The reason they don't do that is that "digitally erasing" stuff in every frame of a scene is expensive. Putting something like that on a prop and saying "just fix it in post!" will not get you far.

    There's a reason that every real-world set is combed for things like writing, logos and labels prior to use. Only those that are meant to be seen, should ever end up on camera.

     – Dewi Morgan May 01 '15 at 01:57
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    @DewiMorgan There is a lot of post production cgi, the whole film will be much darker and removing this is childsplay. They have to do a lot to the batmobile post production, removing those letters won't be a problem. – Vincent May 01 '15 at 06:58
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    @DewiMorgan I agree with Vincent on this. It doesn't take very long to erase artifacts like this with modern processing software. They can write a script that will filter out 90-99% of it automatically. There would only be a handful of frames which would need more detailed work. These would be scenes which would have closeups of the Batmobile. Mind you, that at least 75% of the film will probably have CGI composite images which will seamlessly blend into the rest of the film. – Jason Hutchinson May 01 '15 at 12:56
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    It'll be interesting to see the final version. The trailer may not have sound, but the visual production values are fairly high and the whole point of the trailer is that it's lovingly admiring the Batmobile from every angle. Leaving a glaring prop reminder on it just makes no sense. I think it'll be there (modulo the vissitudes of film production genereally), I suspect it's for the subconscious tie-in to aircraft. – T.J. Crowder May 02 '15 at 15:52
  • The tech for removable signage exists (tape, magnets, whatever) and removing this sign along with all the other protective stuff that would be on the prop off-set is a whole lot cheaper than getting it removed in post.

    CG is not the same as color balancing. It is very far indeed from "writing a script" to just remove every instance of "no step" from the film. Every single CG change in every single shot should be known from storyboard onwards. Each one takes money and time, which must be budgeted for in advance. A sign to be "airbrushed out whenever it drifts into shot" wouldn't fly.

     – Dewi Morgan May 05 '15 at 05:55
  • If it were meanta be removed in post, it'd be dayglo, so you couldn't miss it in the cutting room. When you spend as much as they did on a workable, drivable hero prop like this, "fix it in post" is absolutely not an OK thing to say. Hero props must look perfect.

    Props guys DO NOT get to dictate where the CGI budget will get spent. The exception is props specifically for CG, for effects impossible with a realworld prop. This class of props means getting sign-off from different people than a hero prop: mixing the two would be painful at best.

     – Dewi Morgan May 05 '15 at 05:57
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    Has time told whether you're correct yet? – Molag Bal Jun 06 '16 at 00:54
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It could be a bit of engineer's humor on the part of Batman or the actual builder of the batmobile, like this notice on the Space Shuttle Carrier aircraft:

enter image description here

"Shuttle mounting point" by Rob Elliott (Zeeeter at en.wikipedia) - Self-made; originally uploaded to en.wiki here. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Gallifreyan
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Kenster
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I've interpreted the evidence differently from most here.

I would be surprised if the signage doesn't make the final version. It was placed intentionally, with very neat lettering, to give the Batmobile an 'aerospace-y' or 'high-tech' feel.

If you do a google search, you'll find that most actual 'no step' signs (that are to keep actual people from stepping on some non-weight-bearing surface,) are brightly colored and often red or yellow.

My opinion (and that is all that it is) is that the Batmobile is so marked to give the impression that it might be subject to service by his team of engineers and/or was just provided by the manufacturer (Wayne Industries) with said marking in place. Just like it would be for anyone who ordered one -- as if it is an actual product with all the normal safety / warning stickers in place.

MrWonderful
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  • An interesting theory. You'll forgive me if I hold fire on upvoting this answer until I see the official trailer footage. – Valorum May 01 '15 at 07:26
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    Completely agree.

    Just like the orange label visible at 9 seconds (and again at 17, and 26); the electric shock hazard label visible at 20 seconds; and what might be something on the roof at 22 and 27 seconds... these are decals for visual interest. They are not stuff put on a prop just to be removed in post. That just doesn't happen. Not ever.

     – Dewi Morgan May 05 '15 at 06:08
  • I am inclined to agree. This chimes with the utilitarian military/industrial aesthetic and military aircraft often have no step markings even though you would hope that flight and ground crew would know this anyway (at least as well as batman). – Chris Johns Jun 01 '17 at 20:28
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I think (as does Jason Hutchinson who mentioned this first) that it's a label for the film crew since it will obviously be some vulnerable part which cannot support the full weight of a person (or some similar reason).

Judging by the unaltered footage and no music + the fact it says B-roll in the title this is some stock footage which got leaked or released to some network in order to create some anticipation for the upcoming movie.

I don't like this footage, if it got leaked shame on the person who did it, we've seen the batmobile in pictures and will see it in future 'REAL' teasers/trailers/clips just wait till it comes out properly.

If it was intentionally released shame on the film studio, this shows they are not putting any effort into creating a hype for the movie and does not read well for the movie (i'm going with the first option).

But yes the lable is purely for crew, it has nothing to do with things "in-universe".

Sorry to spoil it for ya but there's probably nothing more to it.

Vincent
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  • I'm would expect that any/all props that require handling by the crew have handles, or other well-known areas to apply force, just for such handling. It is highly unlikely that anyone would need to step on that surface for the normal shooting setup. – MrWonderful Jan 26 '16 at 01:23
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Why wouldn't it? If there's danger, there's danger.

You could argue that ground crew at airports and on military bases must be extremely well trained and would never think of stepping on the dangerous parts of aircraft, but manufacturers still plaster "NO STEP" all over them. It's a safety measure. It's a precaution.

I see no reason at all for this not to apply to the Batmobile.

Lightness Races in Orbit
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Because stepping could cause damage to panel.

enter image description here

Seriously though, I see two possibilities: it is not meant to be seen by the audience, only the cast and crew (as others have pointed out); or it is meant to be seen by the audience and convey the impression that this is a piece of military hardware of some kind, although obviously repurposed for Batman's use.

But we won't know until the movie comes out.

Wad Cheber
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