• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Rewatching The Dark Knight Trilogy

Turtletrekker said:
Batman Begins was a strong, solid Batman movie. Extremely enjoyable and highly rewatchable. The Dark Knight is arguably one of the best, some would say the best, superhero movie in its respective genre. The Dark Knight Rises was sadly the weakest of the three. In that, I rank them very similar to the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies and the first X-Men trilogy. The first being solid and watchable, the second being the best of the bunch and the third being a disappointment.
Click to expand...

X-Men 3 (2006) was overall certainly mediocre and unfocused, but on hindsight was better than X-Men: Apocalypse (and less discordant, less crammed, less uneven in tone than SpiderMan 3). SpiderMan 3 did have amazing CGI at the time (that still looks good all these years later) and I loved Sandman's writing/acting. SpiderMan 2 is certainly by far the strongest Rami instalment that compares very favourably to The Dark Knight (Spider Man 1 and the first two X-Men films are still pretty decent but have visually aged worse than Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and SpiderMan 2 from the 2000s, IMO).

Rises is the weakest Nolan Bat film, but still blows the 3rd Rami and X-Men instalments out of the water and, in actuality, has far more in common with Tim Burton's Batman: Returns - both came out in the early 10s and early 90s respectively (seperated by 20 years), both featured Catwoman as an ambigious, erratic love interest, both are very visually polished spectacles, both were rousing critical and commercial successes at the time, and both showed Gotham having snowfall, but then both cultivated their detractors in passing years, both had scripts that were internally a bit messy, both featured Batman sparingly, and had their directors inject too many of their visual tropes into them almost to the point of parody, etc.
 
Last edited:
Marc said:
Could it have been better if Risers had been just been based only Knightfall? (I''ve only read the novel version of No Man's Land so don't know how much more was in the comics but it might have been a bit too Batman lite to work as a movie).
Click to expand...

It was way too much for one movie.

Knightfall *alone* is a trilogy. The Breaking of the Bat, the reign of the Dark Bat, the Return of the Bat. (Knightfall, KnightQuest, KnightsEnd.) Cramming No Man's Land into it (without establishing an extended Bat Family) was a waste. Its the same thing Batman Vs Superman suffered from; No way did that need to be the Death of Superman as well.

(The animated series did a perfect Batman V Superman in my opinion, anyways...)

To really develop any of these big storylines properly, there really needs to be a proper Batman TV show..... none of them are small stories, and all require a ton of buildup.

I would love a movie based on Vengeance of Bane. Sword of Azrael could be a whole mini-arc of a tv show. Both are necessary to give Knightfall any depth. Too many pieces and history are involved to ever adapt most 90s/early 2000s DC storylines properly. (I don't read comics anymore, so I can't speak on anything currently going on.)
 
TedShatner10 said:
Rises is the weakest Nolan Bat film, but still blows the 3rd Rami and X-Men installments out of the water and, in actuality, has far more in common with Tim Burton's Batman: Returns - both came out in the early 10s and early 90s respectively (separated by 20 years), both featured Catwoman as an ambiguous, erratic love interest, both are very visually polished spectacles, both were rousing critical and commercial successes at the time, and both showed Gotham having snowfall, but then both cultivated their detractors in passing years, both had scripts that were internally a bit messy, both featured Batman sparingly, and had their directors inject too many of their visual tropes into them almost to the point of parody, etc.
Click to expand...

What are some of Nolan's visual tropes? Some other directors I can at least pick out a few of their typical visual tics--George Lucas (wipes), John Woo (doves, dual wielding guns)--but I can't immediately think of what Nolan's would be. I know about some of his common storytelling tropes, like the non-linear storytelling or the BS philosophy, but I don't have a super specific sense of Nolan's visual style.

But, yes, Batman Returns is VERY Tim Burton-y. In fact, how much you enjoy it is almost completely dependent on how much you enjoy Burton's movies. It's all about snow and Christmas and moody outcasts. The color palette is so desaturated that it might as well be in black & white most of the time. It's the first of 3 movies that Burton made where Danny DeVito is associated with the circus. (He played a circus ringmaster in both Big Fish and Dumbo.)

I'm not sure that either of those movies followed the kind of critical arc that you're describing though. I remember the critical reaction to The Dark Knight Rises being somewhat negative right off the bat (no pun intended). Maybe not the worst ever (Batman & Robin helps to keep things in perspective that way) but certainly nowhere near the heights of The Dark Knight. If anything, I think that the reputation of The Dark Knight Rises has improved over the years, if only because no one really cares that much any more. We're too busy arguing over Snyder's movies now. Meanwhile, while Batman Returns was certainly profitable, it's box office was a 35% drop from what Batman (1989) made. And while there was no internet at the time to gauge critical & fan reception that way, apparently the merchandise sales were pretty poor. And I remember other movies at the time like Life with Mikey taking swipes at Batman Returns being inferior to its predecessor. Rather than develop detractors over time, I think that Batman Returns picked up more supporters over time, particularly once they realized how dire the Schumacher movies were.
 
I suppose, as a Batman movie, it leaves something to be desired. But as an urban gothic revenge fairy tale about Catwoman, it's one of the most exquisite films I've ever seen.

Sure, some people may not be on board with that. But, "Still, could be worse. My nose could be gushing blood.":evil:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
:bolian:
 
It started the unfortunate trend of multiple villains in a film, sometimes teaming up for nonsensical reasons.

Thankfully, Catwoman was better written and somewhat better integrated into the film than most later cases.
 
I think, as with the X-Men films, the first was the best, the second good, very ambitious but not quite living up to it, the third pretty flawed, OK but especially after the first two also disappointing.

dupersuper said:
It was fun, but Batman was both too murderous and too much of a supporting character in his own movie for me to ever call it the best Batman movie.
Click to expand...

Batman is often overshadowed, I think he is only the protagonist or focus in Batman Begins, probably The Dark Knight Rises and maybe Batman Forever. In BR he is pretty not-very-included but when he does appear he's very well done, amazing fighter although yes brutal.
 
Batman Begins is the only one that is definitely about Batman.
I would say that he's also the lead character in Batman Forever but only because the Riddler is a bit under-exposed compared to some of the other villains in the series. Plus, important characters like Chase Meridian and Dick Grayson very much pivot around Bruce Wayne throughout the story. Combine that with Bruce's ongoing grief over his parents' death and you have a thin character arc for Batman that's just enough to center a movie on.
IMO, The Dark Knight Rises belongs to John Blake more than anyone else, really.

As for Batman being murderous in the Tim Burton movies, I think that's softened somewhat by how cartoonish the violence often is. I mean, at one point, he literally shoves dynamite down a henchman's pants while the guy does a comedic double-take. It's certainly a far cry from constantly beating a man while he's down like in the new trailer for The Batman.
 
The Borgified Corpse said:
What are some of Nolan's visual tropes? Some other directors I can at least pick out a few of their typical visual tics--George Lucas (wipes), John Woo (doves, dual wielding guns)--but I can't immediately think of what Nolan's would be. I know about some of his common storytelling tropes, like the non-linear storytelling or the BS philosophy, but I don't have a super specific sense of Nolan's visual style.
Click to expand...

Less obvious than Tim Burton's ornate, gothic storybook looking visual aesthetic (shared between violent horror fantasties like Sleepy Hollow and Sweeny Todd to his family films like Charlie And The Chocolate Factory) but Nolan films still got that "look" to them (smooth concrete/stone landscapes, bright overcast skies, etc) and even though Tenet is its own IP, its locations and action scenes in the trailer trailer shared a lot of similarities to Nolan's Bat trilogy.
 
TedShatner10 said:
Nolan films still got that "look" to them (smooth concrete/stone landscapes, bright overcast skies, etc) and even though Tenet is its own IP, its locations and action scenes in the trailer trailer shared a lot of similarities to Nolan's Bat trilogy.
Click to expand...

Makes sense. And I suppose that's why Batman Begins tends to stand out, since I tend to associate it with warm colors and a more grimy texture to Gotham City, particularly in the Narrows. It's kinda hard to believe that something as ugly & irregular as the Narrows could even exist in the Gotham of The Dark Knight. Then you've got Inception & Interstellar, which totally fit in with the visual style of The Dark Knight & Tenet. If Batman Begins reminds me of any other Nolan film, it would be the earthy wood tones of Ra's al-Ghul's fortress looking like something from The Prestige.
 
Batman Begins will always been my favorite Batman film, behind Adam West Batman.

I don't care if the movies present themselves as pretentious. The whole idea is to engage audiences and get them interest in the material, not to preach truth. Batman Begins was more interesting to me because it actually did something I liked-made Bruce Wayne interesting.

The Dark Knight is excellent, if overly complex. Haven't seen Rises because Bane.
 
fireproof78 said:
He is not an interesting character.
Click to expand...

XqAw9mf.gif
 
I was just thinking that maybe part of the reason why The Dark Knight did so well is because it's a tragedy. Among other things, it's a story about the fall of Harvey Dent. Stories about great men who suffer a self-inflicted tragic end used to be a major part of Western storytelling. When you think of Shakespeare or the Greeks, you think "tragedy." But we don't have too many tragedies in our modern entertainment. Perhaps there's something in the primal collective unconscious that needs that kind of catharsis every now & again. That's why we sometimes eschew happy endings in favor of something like The Dark Knight or Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. That's why we elevate irredeemable anti-heroes on shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Sopranos.

Although, the hole in that theory is that The Dark Knight and Revenge of the Sith do both have happy or at least hopeful endings. Batman takes the blame for Harvey Dent's crimes so that they can turn him into the martyr that they need; achieving in death what he failed to do in life. Darth Vader may succeed in wiping out most of the Jedi but we know from the original trilogy that his own children will eventually rise to overthrow him. Perhaps that's just those movies making a concession to modern expectations that a popcorn movie will end happily?
 
Eh, I found Dent's character arc a bit rushed really. And how Gordon and Batman are so ripped up by it. I mean, what was stopping Gordon from covering up the deaths and blaming them on other cops or them from saying that Harvey had brain damage from his injuries and traumas? The Courts and the people would easily buy that and his reputation would be intact.

If Nolan had gone ahead with his original plan of making Two-Face the vigilante villain of the 3rd movie, then I would've bought it better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top