The TDKR General Discussion Thread - - - - - - - Part 156

Well, cinematography and soundtrack are pretty subjective. But I'll say I think the IMAX photography goes so perfectly with the huge scale of the film which takes it to another level as far as a visual experience. I feel like it takes the best of both worlds from BB and TDK's visual approach.

As far as score, I think the war-driven nature of the TDKR score with heavy percussion, chanting, etc. really emphasizes Zimmer's strengths as a composer. His collaboration with JNH on Begins is fantastic, but just in terms of preference I lean towards Rises because Zimmer was able to fully unleash the epic. And his Catwoman theme is fantastic too.

One day I'll rewatch the MCU films. Speaking of cinematography and soundtracks though, I think those are two areas where those movies are lacking overall. I'd agree that quality doesn't necessarily equate to rewatchability, but at the same time for me memorability-- whether a movie stays with me or not-- usually factors into how I rate it.

 

Yeah I agree with the last thing you said. I have an hard time finding an mcu film with great cinematography and soundtrack at the same time. I liked Rises in those things but I feel it recycled some stuff from the other films. What’s your favorite mcu film btw?

 

Probably the first Guardians. It's between that, Iron Man, Winter Soldier and Ragnarok.

 

I will rewatch Rises again soon, I just rewatched Civil War after a month and it's amazing. A top 5 CBM.

I agree on Iron Man and TWS.

Anyways, do you think that the middle works well in Rises when Bruce is in the pit?

 

Updated

1. The Dark Knight 10/10

2. The Winter Soldier 9/10

3. Batman Begins 9/10

4. Civil War 9/10

5. Joker 9/10

6. Avengers: Infinity War 8.5/10

7. Iron Man 8.5/10

8. Wonder Woman 8.5/10

9. The Dark Knight Rises 8/10

10. Watchmen / Spider-Man 8/10

 

Rises is so much more thematically rich than Begins, more even than Knight because it incorporates the themes and ideas in both films and brings them to a logical conclusion. I love Begins dearly, but in comparison it feels more basic and "studio". By no means are those bad things necessarily, but you can see Nolan evolving and pushing the storytelling forward as the trilogy goes on. There is a true charm to the simplicity and focus of Begins (not to mention the badass Batman moments and imagery), but there's just a lot more to chew on in Rises so-to-speak.

 

Logan’s villains banality is what makes them perfect for the story. They’re underwhelming, real world style scumbags.

 

That’s why I don’t really think it hurts the story. The villains aren’t important it’s all about Logan but it still wouldn’t hurt to have a maybe more quotable villain or something

 

I disagree on basically everything you said. Begins is tighter and far better written, I mean you don't have questionable plot-stuff like cops in sewers, the broken bone, Talia's twist and the blood stuff. I really like Rises and some of these things can be explained but BB's themes and Ra's were much easier to digest than Rises stuff.

TDK had much better themes, and a much better plot with better characters aswell.

Like, there's a lot of characters which are kinda important to the story but not much here like Foley, Dagget and Talia.

 

Foley and Dagget exist in the story as mouth pieces for their respective areas of Gotham's ecosystem. Foley represents the ill-prepared and anti-Batman police force and he gets his own little redemption arc as a demonstration of Batman's ability to inspire people to act. Dagget represents the white collar crime that was still proliferate in the city even in the apparent post-Dent Act peace time. He's a direct foil to Selina and he's used by Bane as the means by which he infiltrates Gotham's infrastructure. Talia, while underdeveloped as a character, is Bane's mole on the inside of Wayne Enterprises and his ace in the hole as the true, hidden triggerman for the fusion reactor. And as the legendary child of Ra's al Ghul and co-leader of the resurgent League of Shadows 2.0 she is the embodiment of the theme of legacy that runs throughout the film. All of these characters are important and necessary.

 

Well, I still believe that BB is better but I think these characters are fine now. Not the biggest fan of Talia's character tho.

 

I'm happy to see the uptake in Rises popularity here. I think what makes me appreciate it even more is that a lot of fan speculation of what the sequel to The Dark Knight would be before Rises came out was pretty underwhelming to me, They were mostly "Riddler is a corrupt detective helping the police chase Batman" or "Black Mask is trying to take over and unite the mobs"

I just don't see how those scenarios are better than what we have.

 

I’ve seen almost every MCU movie twice. I always like them less the second time around.

Rises has better dialogue than Begins. Better performances. Bale plays Batman better in Begins and he’s a fantastic young Bruce finding his way, but overall he gives a much deeper performance as Bruce Wayne in TDKR. Hathaway is better than Holmes, performance wise and as a character (and love interest). You can tell Katie was a studio choice (why they didn’t cast Amy Adams is beyond me). She’s believable as early 20’s Rachel in those college Bruce scenes but not so believable as a late 20’s assistant DA later in the film.

Bane is better than Scarecrow or Ras Al Ghul as a main villain.

Begins has the better Gotham, a more focused plot. It hides the bad choreography better with quick cuts and some shaky cam. But that’s also not a good thing. Begins and Rises both have major editing issues unlike TDK. The car or plane chases in both films are fire.

Begins’ ending makes me raise my fist in the air. Rises’ ending chokes me up every single time. Hard to compare.

Overall I think Rises is the more interesting movie. But both are on the same level. Two solid pillars that bookend a trilogy, with a superior movie in the middle.

 

Batman is better in Begins, did people forget that he almost only fight in TDKR?

TDKR has a lot of characters and feels longer, BB is focused on the league and Batman. Personally I enjoyed it much more and it's pacing is better aswell.

I think the action was good, due to having two great scenes but we all know that BB's voice, development and World Building is faaar better than Rises.

I still like Rises but BB is one of the best Nolan films, and the 3rd best CBM of all time.

 

Have rewatched Rises recently and also spent some time on Youtube watching some of the clips on there. It's aged very well; on my first cinema watch of the film I didn't rate it as much as TDK, but on subsequent watches it's grown on me a lot and I love the performances from both Hardy and Bale.

The film has some flaws for sure, notably the fight choreography which is shockingly bad in some places (watch the clip below and ignore Bane/Batman, just focus on the fights in the background, especially the one at 00:16) ....



...... but overall it's a perfect ending to the Nolan trilogy, and ties it up all in a very satisfying way.

 

The first teaser for this film gave me instant chills. I swear, the shot of Batman backing up with his fists up really hit home how much of a challenge Bane was gonna be for him.

 

It's all opinion, Neil! I totally get people saying Begins is the best "Batman" film of the three, but I definitely am not also not going to judge a movie based on how many fight scenes Batman has. It's all about my emotional investment.

For me, Rises is a bit better in that regard. Begins always lost me a bit in the third act. It's still good, but feels a bit by the numbers and the choppy Bourne-style action never quite sat right with me. In Rises, the stakes of the film for both Gotham and Bruce kept me 100% invested in every single punch Batman throws or takes.

People give the movie a hard time for sagging in the middle, but I actually really love the second act-- more than the first act actually. I like that the movie takes its time a bit here, really dives into the despair Bruce is going through and just really makes you really want to see him escape. I also love the flashbacks to young Ra's and getting the pieces of his story, the mother and the child. It adds a nice scope to the movie and really gives it some of that Lawrence of Arabia-type flavor. And the final climb out of the pit is my favorite scene in the whole movie.

Now, is it silly that Bruce gets his back fixed with a punch to the back and some rope? Yes.

Sillier than a man being able to go out on a revenge spree the day after half of his face blown off or many other things I could point to in the trilogy? Nah...

Oh man I remember this. The marketing for this movie was so clever. The ominous music during the title reveal, the chanting, even just the title itself...all of it immediately started planting seeds to make you think, "Oh my god, is Batman actually going to die in this film?"

 

I know that it’s all about opinions, in fact I like MoS and AoU quite a lot compared to others. Rewatched the former today, btw.

I agree that it's not about fight but TDK has a good part of the movie about Harvey and Gotham, so yeah BB is definitely the one that feels more about Batman, his origin, development, how he overcome his fears, the league of shadows and the most comic-booky probably. TDKR is the least grounded and I like how it was ambitious.

I prefer BB's third act, it's shorter and Ra's ends it better than Talia, and we don't have to ignore the twist or some stuff. I think that TDKR's opening is great, it introduces characters, the villain and Gotham's situation after Batman was out.

the middle works well, but we have the pit, stadium and blackgate and the pit escape scene which are all great. There is also some stuff with Jones, or Gotham's situation which is well paced but slow the movie a bit and then the third act is well done in everything except choreography.

I think that TDKR is definitely better than MoS but I don't think it can compete with tighter and more effective films like Civil War and Begins.

I will rewatch it soon even if I am satisfied with it because I think there is some stuff that was better or something

 

The third act in Begins never feels like anything more than a Marvel “hero saves the day”. I never get the feeling that Batman might lose. It’s typical origin story genre stuff that you can see in every cbm. Even the dialogue starts to become silly in the third act. The Bruce/Rachel scene on the grounds of a burnt down Manor is pretty corny. And that scene has the worst editing in the movie.

If it wasn’t for the fantastic final scene with the Joker card, I would have dropped my rating no doubt about it. My favourite part about Begins is the pre Batman stuff. I almost wish it was treated like Joker, where he only really becomes Batman at the end.

I’ve seen it so many times and it never fails to make me cringe, once the Scarecrow “you want to see my mask?” comes into play. Or when Earle is told about the missing device and they cut to the ship etc. In both cases, it’s like a different film is introduced. Now it’s a goofy fantastical superhero movie? It’s like it went from Matt Reeves’ Batman to Raimi’s Spiderman in the span of an hour. I also don’t like the Falcone casting soo..

The peak of Batman Begins is Bruce discovering the cave and becoming one with his fear. After that, sure there’s a standout Tumbler chase scene (with amateur editing mistakes and dumb policeman who are treated like the three stooges). The whole Ras reveal inside Wayne Manor is strong (what’s the point of all those pushups if you can’t lift a bloody log!? ). Literal bats saving Batman inside Arkham is cool too but it’s not the **** that makes me go back to rewatch that movie. They’re not the highlights. They simply keep me from turning it off once Bruce is done being swarmed in his cave.

Everything else in the second half is not really my thing. I prefer Rises but I rate it the same overall.

 

Scarecrow was excellent and I kinda had no problem with any of these stuff, but you're allowed to have your own opinion.

BB > Iron Man > Spider-Man > MoS > Thor > Blade = TFA > TASM for origin story rankings for me.

 

The Narrows' design hasn't aged well IMO. BB looks far more inconsistent than either TDK or TDKR. Both movies get flak for being less gothic than Burton's and being too realistic (looking too much like Chicago or New York), but that's exactly why they are so beautiful in Nolan's context. Gotham is huge and vibrant. The city has an evolving look that compliments the story, not just for the sake of checking fan demands. BB is appropriately the dirtiest version of Gotham because it existed pre and early batman. TDK is cleaner but still has traces of BB. TDKR is the cleanest Gotham because organized crime has been severely reduced as to make Batman pointless.

BB is certainly more stylized and closer to the post-crisis Gotham, but taken as a whole and complementing the story TDK and TDKR's are better.

 

I agree with this as well. BB's 1st and 2nd halves are jarring. Almost feels like a different movie after the batman shot atop a building overlooking Gotham.

 

I will always love the fact that Nolan used Donners Superman world as inspiration Gotham. I love that Gotham sort of was a combination of all real cities. it wears it on it's sleeve, and that's just great to me because it made it feel like it could happen in my town.

 

Haha damn shauner you're a bit harsher on Begins than me and I thought I was tough on it. I still really enjoy the second act. The docks introduction, great Batman/Gordon stuff, Flass interrogation, Batman getting fear gassed and set on fire, and just generally like the whole detective-ish angle of Batman following leads and trying to get to the bottom of what's going on with the drugs. It's really only the microwave emitter third act that starts to feel a bit overly superhero-generic for me.

I should add, I still think that for the most part Begins is great. It's just that the whole origins portion of the film is handled so well, so grounded and so convincingly that when the movie finally has to do Batman stuff, it can't help but feel like a bit of a drop-off. At the same time though, Ra's is a James Bond terrorist who always has these grand scale, doomsday sort of plots, and the movie is clearly an action film (even the first act has big action beats)...so it kind of is what it is. It's not like the idea of Ra's and a LOS plot to destroy Gotham came out of nowhere, it's right there in the first act.

I just think if Nolan directed Batman Begins today, it'd probably be a better, more tense, more visually gripping third act. But part of what I enjoy about the trilogy is getting to see the growth in his direction, so it's all good. It gave the series room to grow.

 

I think that Nolan did his best and created the best CBM origin story and the one that has aged better. Spider-Man is great but it's a bit dated and Iron Man lacks a solid third act and it's mostly hold by RDJ's great performance. We don't need to talk about the others since they're far weaker (even MoS, which i really enjoyed).

His work was a bit better before, but his last two films are great and good so i am confident he will continue to direct good films. But Interstellar is the lastest Nolan film that was amazing, for me.