Batman Begins Batman Begins Best Origin Movie ever ?

[Ryan]

Superman: The Movie, with Batman Begins as a close second. I mean, Superman is the origin movie that inspired all the other origin movies, and it was made long before it became this obligatory thing.

Begins deserves a lot of credit for being the first live action Batman origin and also being the movie to inspire pretty much every other realistic and gritty reboot that followed. It drives me nuts when "Dark Knight trilogy" fans act like only the movies with "Dark Knight" in the title matter. There wouldn't be a Dark Knight without Begins setting the style and tone for it.

I feel the same way that Begins is often overlooked (how is that possible?) in terms of its influence and the favour it curried from many a critic. Directors later pointed to Batman Begins as the template to follow. Here's a great article on how influential Batman Begins was and continues to be.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottm...e-comic-book-movie-10-years-ago/#8af28cf556c6

I would say that both Batman Begins and the Dark Knight were very influential films of their time in different ways.

 

[Mandon Knight]

No, Superman (1978) is IMO. Begins, a close tied second with Raimi's Spider-man for me.

 

[Brutikus]

Batman Begins

 

[Matleo]

Weird that they didn't used that Bat calling device in next movies.
That really could be used in future... imagine battman hiding and flying in a hord of bats when atacking or coming near a oponent?

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

Weird that they didn't used that Bat calling device in next movies.
That really could be used in future... imagine battman hiding and flying in a hord of bats when atacking or coming near a oponent?

I thought that, but then Nolan went a bit more grounded with TDK/TDKR (relatively speaking!) so maybe he thought the 'Bat-summoner' was just a bit too 'out there' for those stories. It was one of my favourite parts of BB though.

 

[Boom]

Still wish the third act was a bit tighter and less on-the-nose, but otherwise I find myself enjoying this movie more and more in recent years.

 

[wampa1]

It's not my favourite Batman film but it's the best Nolan bat-flick. I think they did a great job with the origin and it's definitely up there but I think they went a bit overboard. There's literally a scene of Bruce and Alfred ordering cowls over the internet. Never in a million years have I ever wondered or even wanted to know where he gets cowls from. He's Batman; he just has them.

I also don't like some of the deviations from the comic book origin. I always felt it was important that Bruce was watching Zorro (a masked hero) on the night his parents were murdered. Some random opera kinda misses the point.

Also also I think it's easier to present an origin movie for Batman that is palatable for the GA than it is for some of the wackier heroes out there. Convincing audiences to swallow an Ant-Man or Guardians of the Galaxy movie is a much tougher sell than a guy in a suit punching people.

 

[redfirebird2008]

It's not my favourite Batman film but it's the best Nolan bat-flick. I think they did a great job with the origin and it's definitely up there but I think they went a bit overboard. There's literally a scene of Bruce and Alfred ordering cowls over the internet. Never in a million years have I ever wondered or even wanted to know where he gets cowls from. He's Batman; he just has them.

I also don't like some of the deviations from the comic book origin. I always felt it was important that Bruce was watching Zorro (a masked hero) on the night his parents were murdered. Some random opera kinda misses the point.

The ordering cowls on the Internet scene seemed more about humor than anything. I enjoyed it, lol

I wouldn't call it a random opera since the characters in the opera cause him to have visions of the bats that attacked him at home...which then leads directly to the parents' death as he demands that they leave the building. All of that ties into his decision to choose bats as the theme for his vigilante character.

 

[Brother Jack]

Yeah, the use of "Mefistofele" was a very deliberate choice.

 

[Travesty]

So I just rewatched the entire trilogy for the first time since TDKR was in theaters, and I still think BB is the best, by far. It's not even close for me.

But one thing that still bugs me, is how much influence Rachel Dawes has over Bruce's development into being a vigilante/Batman(and then in TDK, it's the opposite. She has so much influence on Bruce wanting to retire). Bruce was ready to kill Joe Chill with a gun until Rachel literally smacked some sense into him. Hell, he was even ashamed of his family's name. She was the one who had to teach Bruce that justice is more about revenge. To me, it's such an odd change, when we had to witness his parents being killed. They just keep telling us how much more important Rachel is to Bruce's development than his parents murder. And that's not to say his parents didn't have an impact on him, but they clearly show us that without Rachel, he wouldn't have even become Batman. It's just odd.

 

[Dr.]

...one thing that still bugs me, is how much influence Rachel Dawes has over Bruce's development into being a vigilante/Batman... Bruce was ready to kill Joe Chill with a gun until Rachel literally smacked some sense into him.

Obviously, there was an attempt to make Rachel a bit more than the standard damsel-in-distress. So among other things, she provides a certain degree of guiding influence towards Bruce’s development. But I wouldn’t say she was particularly crucial to the origin of Batman. To my mind, that distinction belongs to Carmine Falcone. Prior to the meeting with Falcone, Bruce - ostensibly - already had the “classic” ingredients to be Batman: vengeance for his murdered parents, the wealth to attain world-class training and high-tech gadgets, etc. However, Falcone provided vital wisdom, explaining to Bruce - “…don't come down here with your anger, trying to prove something to yourself. This is a world you'll never understand. And you always fear what you don't understand." Whereupon, Bruce goes into exile for seven years.

BTW, it was Fate - not Rachel - that prevented Bruce from killing Joe Chill. Rachel merely rebuked him after the fact.

 

[Brother Jack]

Obviously, there was an attempt to make Rachel a bit more than the standard damsel-in-distress. So among other things, she provides a certain degree of guiding influence towards Bruce’s development. But I wouldn’t say she was particularly crucial to the origin of Batman. To my mind, that distinction belongs to Carmine Falcone. Prior to the meeting with Falcone, Bruce - ostensibly - already had the “classic” ingredients to be Batman: vengeance for his murdered parents, the wealth to attain world-class training and high-tech gadgets, etc. However, Falcone provided vital wisdom, explaining to Bruce - “…don't come down here with your anger, trying to prove something to yourself. This is a world you'll never understand. And you always fear what you don't understand." Whereupon, Bruce goes into exile for seven years.

The first act of Begins is Bruce meeting a series of characters, almost all of them father-figures, that push him further and further to becoming Batman. Rachel is just one voice among the others, and she's not really given more weight disproportionately to any other, certainly not more than Thomas Wayne or Ra's or even Falcone. What interesting about Falcone is that he inadvertently engineers his own downfall by inspiring Bruce and teaching him that valuable lesson about fear (as Ra's also does).

 

[BaelaTargaryen]

LA Times Nolan Interview Part III - "Batman doesn't play well with others"

Nolan: Yes, completely different. It would have given a very, very different meaning to what Bruce Wayne was leaving home to do and coming back home to do and putting on the costume for and all the rest. We dealt with on its own terms: What does Batman mean to Bruce Wayne, what is he trying to achieve? He has not been influenced by other superheroes. Of course, you see what we're able to do with Joker in this film is that he is able to be quite theatrical because we set up Batman as an example of intense theatricality in Gotham. It starts to grow outward from Batman. But the premise we began with is that Batman was creating a wholly original thing. To be honest, we went even further than the comics on this point. I can't remember at what point in the comics history the idea came about that he was a fan of Zorro as a kid. I haven't researched that, but I don't believe it goes back terribly far.

GB: I remember the movie-theater marquee with a Zorro film in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns in 1986. ...

Nolan: It definitely goes back before that. I'm pretty sure. I'll have to ask [DC Comics President] Paul Levitz about it, but my sense is that it does go back further ... but either way, we changed it. We didn't have young Bruce going to see Zorro because a character in a movie watching a movie is very different than a character in a comic book watching a movie. A comic-book character reading a comic book is more analogous to a character in a movie watching a movie. It creates a deconstructionist thing that we were trying to avoid. That was one reason. But another reason was to remove Zorro as a role model. We wanted nothing that would undermine the idea that Bruce came up with this crazy plan of putting on a mask all by himself. That allowed us to treat it on our own terms. So we replaced the Zorro idea with the bats to cement that idea of fear and symbolism associated with bats.

GB: Which you did by putting Bruce and his parents in the opera house watching "Die Fledermaus," which also gave you an opportunity to enhance the operatic feel of the film.

Nolan: Precisely. That took us into that very realm that seemed to work on screen.

 

[Gothamsknight]

It absolutely is the best origin movie for a comic book character if you ask me. The film following bruces journey from a boy until he's batman, which doesn't happen unil almost an hour in, is something i've always found so unique. it laid the groundwork for some brilliant character development that'll span over 2 more movies! Nolan paid great attention to who Bruce Wayne and Batman is as a character in the source material, while adapting it in his own way. Then you have a great supporting cast with Michael caine as aflred, Morgan freeman as lucious fox and i even think Katie Holmes did a good job, although I'd say Maggie Gyllenhall did a better job. Liam Neeson was brillian as Ras al Guhl as was Cillian Murphy, which is something i thought was fantastic for nolan to pick 2 villains we haven't see yet. I often found Ras Al Guhl to be in the top 3 big baddies for bats and it was great to finally see him utilized. a lot has already been said about how this film brough the gritty and real tone to comic book films, so i won't go in depth on that too much, which was elevated upon in the masterpiece sequel that followed this film. But yes, for me, Batman Begins is the greatest origin comic book film of all time with Spider-Man (2002) right below that (in my opinion),

 

[redfirebird2008]

So I just rewatched the entire trilogy for the first time since TDKR was in theaters, and I still think BB is the best, by far. It's not even close for me.

But one thing that still bugs me, is how much influence Rachel Dawes has over Bruce's development into being a vigilante/Batman(and then in TDK, it's the opposite. She has so much influence on Bruce wanting to retire). Bruce was ready to kill Joe Chill with a gun until Rachel literally smacked some sense into him. Hell, he was even ashamed of his family's name. She was the one who had to teach Bruce that justice is more about revenge. To me, it's such an odd change, when we had to witness his parents being killed. They just keep telling us how much more important Rachel is to Bruce's development than his parents murder. And that's not to say his parents didn't have an impact on him, but they clearly show us that without Rachel, he wouldn't have even become Batman. It's just odd.

The strangest thing to me with Rachel is the very end when she rejects Bruce and seems to wish he was still the same spoiled brat. She says "the man I loved is gone." I'm going wait, you smacked him back in those days and told him he should be ashamed of himself for his thoughts of killing Joe Chill.

Granted, I understand why she would not want to be involved with a vigilante guy. But her logic in that scene doesn't make sense. Just say you don't want to be with him because it's too dangerous. Don't tell him that you miss the old version of him when he was a jerk.

 

[Travesty]

BTW, it was Fate - not Rachel - that prevented Bruce from killing Joe Chill. Rachel merely rebuked him after the fact.

Yeah, but Bruce was still walking around with the gun wanting to seek out revenge. Rachel is the one who had to teach him that justice is more than just revenge. This was explained to us in the scene where she smacks him, and then explicitly reiterated at the end of the movie where Bruce even says it bluntly.

I'm not denying that Falcone had some kind of influence on him, but Rachel was the primary component to Bruce seeking out true justice. The movie even tells us this. He was ashamed of his name until Rachel smacked some sense into him. He was seeking revenge/death for his parent's murder until Rachel told him otherwise. He wasn't even living in Gotham, and didn't even know about Falcone, until Rachel explained the entire situation to Bruce. He threw his gun away before he even talked to Falcone, not after: "what, no gun....I'm insulted", to which Bruce replies, "I'm not here to thank you, I'm here to show you that not everyone in Gotham is afraid of you". Hell, before all that, he even thanked Falcone for killing Joe Chill, and then Rachel had to explain to him what was really going on in Gotham: " you wanna thank him for that, there ya go".

Which was my point, it was an odd change. In the comics, Bruce begins training the second his parents were shot. In this, he mopes around for many years, is ashamed of his parents name, tries to kill Joe Chill with a gun, has no idea about the problems within Gotham because he doesn't even live there, etc. It wasn't until Rachel came about, that made him change his mind. Again, I understand Falcone was a part of that, but he wouldn't of even known about Falcone if it wasn't for Rachel. He started to prepare and change his mind about ways to seek out justice before he confronted Falcone. That was all due to Rachel.

 

[Blade Hoarder]

For the longest time I maintained, perhaps stubbornly, that Batman Begins was superior to Iron Man. But the more time passes, the more it becomes clear that Iron Man is the best origin film ever.

I won't lie that everything that came after definitely recontextualizes both movies. Rises ended in a stale fart while the arc of Tony Stark carried through for over a decade culminating in Endgame is staggering and clearly a superior feat to anything in the Dark Knight saga.

Iron Man is just better in every way. I can't even conceive of a way Begins is better. Better lead performance (like, way better), direction, tone, structure, action, everything.

 

[Travesty]

They're pretty neck-and-neck for me, but I'll probably give it to BB. Both are great, though.

 

[BatLobster]

I don't think Iron Man's MCU arc was all that amazing tbh. After Iron Man 3 he basically just kept repeating the same redemption arc. He was prepared to sacrifice his life in the first Avengers, he just happened to survive. Then he finally goes through with it in Endgame. A bunch of things and mistakes happen in between, but he kind of hit his growth ceiling early in the franchise.

I think Bruce's arc in the trilogy culminating in him choosing to live is way more bold and inspiring, and I respect the fact that it was done in 3 films rather than dragged out way past the point of exhaustion.

The first Iron Man is definitely great, but I think Begins is more emotionally powerful and that might just come down to the nature of Batman as a character. Like there is just no moment in the first Iron Man that can rival the goosebumps-worthy moments like the bats swarming Bruce in the cave or "...and you'll never have to". It's just a matter of taste, but personally those moments are why I love the genre and Begins delivers those in spades. It's definitely got flaws, but I think it's got a bigger heart.

I also think Raimi's first Spider-Man gets slept on a lot in this conversation. It's definitely arguable that neither Begins or Iron Man would even exist without it being such a huge success.

 

[JimThompson]

Tie between Batman Begins and Superman The Movie.

 

[WhoMani]

Batman Begins is a more satisfying origin story. I thought Nolan did a great job with establishing what Bruce Wayne hopes to achieve and I like that this Bruce Wayne is fallible which makes him relatable to the audience. We also get to witness the character growth of Bruce Wayne as he starts out as someone who's selfishly seeking revenge but in the end he becomes a compassionate selfless hero.

Spider-Man is a decent origin movie but it hasn't aged well.

 

[Dr.]

Tie between Batman Begins and Superman The Movie.

There are any number of personal/subjective reasons why one might esteem Superman The Movie - and thus rank it high on any “greatest” list of genre movies. But in terms of narrative structure, STM has several obvious shortcomings. So at the “technical” level, it would be tricky to argue that it’s better than (or tied with) Batman Begins. In BB, the origin story and character arc are exceptionally well crafted.

 

[TheGuy]

I'm leaning towards Wonder Woman, though I haven't seen Batman Begins in a while.

Edit:
X-Men: First Class is.

 

[JimThompson]

There are any number of personal/subjective reasons why one might esteem Superman The Movie - and thus rank it high on any “greatest” list of genre movies. But in terms of narrative structure, STM has several obvious shortcomings. So at the “technical” level, it would be tricky to argue that it’s better than (or tied with) Batman Begins. In BB, the origin story and character arc are exceptionally well crafted.

Funny thing about that. Nolan has said he based a lot of what he did in Batman Begins on the approach used for Superman The Movie.

 

[Herofan]

But one thing that still bugs me, is how much influence Rachel Dawes has over Bruce's development into being a vigilante/Batman(and then in TDK, it's the opposite. She has so much influence on Bruce wanting to retire). Bruce was ready to kill Joe Chill with a gun until Rachel literally smacked some sense into him. Hell, he was even ashamed of his family's name. She was the one who had to teach Bruce that justice is more about revenge.

I think people were so used to Batman killing, expectations about that were so low, that him deciding to not kill after trying to do so was considered an amazing improvement, that he ultimately didn't kill (not saving aside) was considered the important thing.

It's arguable that revenge actually still is a big part of Batman's character, in both previous versions and the Nolan films, although after both failing to get it and being criticized by Rachel and he became more altruistic also.