Having recently seen the first trilogy among Nolan’s works, I wonder what opinions you hold about the movies in general. Seeing that I’m quite late to the party, I expect some strong and mature takes in the comments, but you are still free to voice any opinion you may have.
They’re great.
Dark Knight was the best and I think that’s a pretty common opinion. It wasn’t just Ledger’s performance. That installment went for a more “real” angle than the other two. It was much more grounded. The pacing was also really good. I saw all 3 in theaters and Dark Knight was the only one that got applause from the audience at the end, which is something I’ve only seen happen a few times in theaters.
It was so good that it wasnt until zack snyder’s justice league that i realised how much i missed that style of storytelling. and i understand these are different directors but they had the same goal. They are so strongly set apart from the rest of the cannon and so well told. everything else feels so rushed. and it is sad because when i sit down to listen to a story, i am dedicating my attention to it. and i want to see that kind of attention and appreciation reflected back to me. That it is like a gift. That is how i felt with the Nolan batmans.
I relly like them. He took Batman to a complete different direction and showed that comic book addaptation can be more than just goofy fan servicy kind of movies.
The first 2 movies were really good, the thrid kinda meh.
What I wanted to add is, that watching the movies today with the abundance of hereo movies, will make them feel worse than they were when they came out. Because quite a few of the movies today took inspiration and expanded on what made this movies great.
TLDR what I like about the movies is how they made movies for all instead of juat comic fans like we were used to up until them. Specially for DC heroes.
I felt that they were the most definitive Batman movies we’ll get for a while. I don’t think it was fair for people to uphold Dark Knight Rises against the Dark Knight, because the bar was already set high. It was all a nice breath of fresh air to have a series of movies that didn’t play up to a lot of fan service like the MCU did.
To this day though, I really don’t like how growling Batman got when he spoke. What was up with that? Give him a freaking cough drop.
Christian Bale apparently once said that, when you put on the Batman suit, the growl just happens automatically.
If only he could ask Morgan Freeman for learning to speak with a deep voice
I laughed out loud in the theater when I heard the Batman voice for the first time.
The Dark Knight Rises would have been shit even if it hadn’t come after TDK.
It’s a bad movie.
First movie was OK, It laid a good foundation.
The second one was great.
The third one was absolutely terrible.
It’s pretty impressive how good the second one is considering what it’s between.
I have an unpopular opinion in that I did not like Batman Begins. The direction is great. There’s a great vibe to it all. The concept is there. But imo, the really high quality of Nolan’s visual directing does so much work distracting people from how lacking the movie is in actual substance.
I don’t know how he hit such gold with the second. It wasn’t just the great performance from Ledger: the overall writing and story are just way, way better than the other two. Good for him, though.
The second is so good on so many levels.
What I appreciated about the first one, is that it washed away the campy shit that was rhe Burton era Batman. It returned the character to seriousness the Frank Miller had established.
But imo, the really high quality of Nolan’s visual directing does so much work distracting people from how lacking the movie is in actual substance.
Kind of describes most of Nolan’s movies really. As a technical director, he’s almost unparalleled, but his movies have often struggled to find a meaningful emotional core. They’re all polish, but often lacking in substance. Tenet was especially bad for this. An absolute masterpiece of directorial craftsmanship, but almost entirely devoid of basic elements like characters.
He’s made some absolute gems - The Dark Knight still holds up, Memento deserves its reputation, and The Prestige is a masterpiece - but I find that for the most part he seems more interested in technical flexes than in the actual story he’s telling. I’ve enjoyed every single one of his movies, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t stick with me the way that something like Prisoners or Only God Forgives does.
Heath Ledger’s Joker is awesome. Other than that I think they’re over-hyped.
Too serious, too dark (literally hard to see, which is bad in a movie). So I didn’t bother with more than the first.
I’m not a specific superhero movie fan, but have seen all of the marvel ones and like some of the DC ones too, like the latest superman. Since it’s a silly and unrealistic thing to begin with, I like superhero movie approaches that don’t take themselves fully seriously.
Absolutely loved the Arkham Asylum game!
Specially when it’s about a psycho nepo baby…
As batman movies go they’re pretty boring. It’s a dark and gritty hero, fighting dark and gritty villains, in a boring gritty city, with boring citizens. Their not bad movies. They were clearly made by clever talented people, good at what they do. But the result lacks any real contrast, just black on black on black on black. I’ll rewatch any other batman movie at the drop of a hat, no questions asked. I know I’ll be entertained. But I’m totally uninterested in rewatching the Nolan Batman movies.
My hot take is 3 feels like a movie about occupy wallstreet, but Nolan wasn’t allowed to show those parties having any kind of validity, and the script got rewritten. The last half is just so wildly lower in quality than the first half.
I’m always a sucker for scenes that show people are better than people give them credit for. The scene in Spiderman 2 when the subway car passengers refuse to give up a fainted Peter to Doc Ock is a good example; another is in The Dark Knight, when Joker tries to get two ferries to detonate the other one’s bombs, and neither does.
They are all great in my opinion. I get a hankering to rewatch them from time to time, but the second two more than the first one.
It’s mighty fantastic. I love the soundtrack - by Hans Zimmer, naturally - and I love the grittier take on an “action hero” story. Not quite as dark as the later The Batman, but that one sucked. I fell asleep.
I strongly recommend watching them with high quality speakers! Volume UP!!!
An acquaintance of mine who was a movie/filmography major said to me some years ago, regarding Nolan’s trilogy, “I’m sorry [my real name] but this is a piece of shit.” I still don’t know what he meant.
I actually enjoyed the Pattinson Batman movie. It was a callback to the Detective Comics origins. Hollywood tends to focus on the action, but Batman in the comics is first and foremost a detective. So the Battinson movie was focused on that. And for most of the movie, he was basically just a dude in a hoodie with a bike, riding around town looking for clues. The Riddler was a great villain for that kind of movie, and doing it any other way would have reduced Riddler’s entire character to just another punching bag.
Thanks for explaining that! Maybe I just wasn’t well enough informed before watching the movie. 😊
It’s sooo good
Interesting. I did find the soundtracks to be cinematic while watching the movies, but there was nothing iconic about it, not even a simple hum I could remember afterwards. I could always recall parts of the music for other Nolan’s films I’ve watched, but the entire trilogy seems to be an exception for some reason.
I think I know what you mean. And it’s funny you say “hum”, because that kind of describes the soundtrack. It’s mostly quietly, slowly moving deep string harmonies, sort of like a hum, so it’s totally understandable that nothing of it really stands out. I think it’s mostly for creating atmosphere.
Pretty good movies.
But I think that also understates how influential they were to superhero popular culture. It bears remembering that prior to the BatTrilogy, for a decade-ish superhero films had been either the squeezed-dry sequels of B-list characters, comedies, aimed largely at kids, and/or barely resembled their source material. While 90s and early 00s Superhero comics were moving through their edgy antihero phases, films struggling to define themselves.
The Nolan Trilogy brought the idea of Batman as a tortured loner, alienated from his family and allies, into the broader popular culture. Batman allows villains to die, spies on innocents, and eschews sidekicks. There is no Justice League. “You either die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain” is not the sentiment that pervaded superhero screen media in the years prior to the Nolan trilogy.
Even if you don’t like superhero stuff, they’re worth watching just as an artifact of mid-late 00’s culture, in my opinion.
i wouldn’t say bale is a bad actor, but he was vastly overshadowed by the rest of the cast, at least in part 1–morgan freeman, michael caine, cillian murphy, gary oldman, and whoever else was in there
part 2 was ok but way over hyped and overrated
part 3 was the worst, felt like nolan phoned in the whole movie
You just forgot my mans, Liam Neeson, from Straight Tooken?!
oh yea, and the last samurai dude
Morgan Freeman was in the cast as well???!!! Somehow I assumed he was only destined to narrate throughout his entire career that I failed to acknowledge his existence as an actor even when he was in front of the screen countless times.
I was equally fascinated by the performance of each actor in the trilogy and hold no particular actor above the other, though I prefer Michael Caine in particular simply due to his role as a British, good-willed and supportive butler according to the plot.
I agree that the 2nd movie was overrated. I assumed by the plethora of Joker memes that the movie would be an all-time cinematic masterpiece. The Joker’s character was certainly entertaining and unique, but it was not magnificent enough to rate it above all other antagonists in the movie industry.
I have mixed feelings about the 3rd movie. Some scenes had poor executions or just felt frustrating. However the first and last quarters if the movie kind of redeemed the movie for its imperfections and ultimately I was completely satisfied with its ending.
I give it a 5/7
doesn’t get more perfect than that!
Could you explain the reference behind this particular selection of numbers? Is it something like 6-7?
It’s an old meme, based on a series of Facebook screenshots:
Once the screenshots went viral, people started memeing about it, like so:
As for why the 5/7 was posted here? Probably because OP was asking about the Nolan trilogy, which is mentioned in the original 5/7 meme.
Lol it’s been years since I’ve seen the original comments. “Nistopher Colon” made me lol
I am somewhat able to get the idea of the meme, but I still fail to understand what got it popular to this extent.
On a separate note, the third comment in the first screenshot genuinely gave me a good chuckle.
It took off on reddit at a time in reddit’s history where it was the source of a lot of internet memery and in-jokes, without everyone on the fucking planet knowing about it.
it’s hilariously unfunny stuff and blatantly staged, just peak reddit humor.
Reddit thing: https://rblind.com/post/19721073
