Don't get me wrong. I fucking loved TDK in the moment. It is still the greatest spectacle of the three. And the Joker was an all time character portrayal. But getting past the feels, it's not even close which movie was tighter and more cohesive from beginning to end.

The first two acts are nearly flawless. The last act nearly lets the movie down. But, that being said, I don't know how you edit the movie down into a structure that sticks the landing. The consensus is that the back third of the movie weighs the movie down and it ends 30 minutes too late.

But you'd have to cut down some of The Joker's plot points earlier in the movie to do that, and that couldn't happen because the performance is too good. And if you cut down Two Face's origin at the end, you then have this significant plot point that never gets addressed or resolved.

I think The Dark Knight gets flak because the ending is anti-climactic despite the first 3/4 of the movie being one of the best comic book movies ever. Then again, I could be acting as an anti-contrarian.

But realistically, I don't know how they would have gotten a better ending unless they finished the original production, edited a couple of takes, and then called back everyone for reshoots. But Heath died right after production, right? So, that couldn't have happened.

Begins has a smaller scale but executes its intent more effectively than The Dark Knight, even if its highs are much higher. It's like the difference between good kid, m.A.A.d. City and To Pimp a Butterfly. Both projects are amazing. One is more coherent but the other has higher highs. If someone can tolerate some messiness with their ambition, they'll like TDR, if they like a clever but well-made genre film, they'd like Begins.

<--- Me when my head hits the pillow

>
>Begins has a smaller scale but executes its intent more
>effectively than The Dark Knight, even if its highs are much
>higher. It's like the difference between good kid, m.A.A.d.
>City and To Pimp a Butterfly. Both projects are amazing. One
>is more coherent but the other has higher highs. If someone
>can tolerate some messiness with their ambition, they'll like
>TDR, if they like a clever but well-made genre film, they'd
>like Begins.

Begins is tighter, but which one am I more likely to rewatch? Easily TDK. The spectacle is unmatched, and frankly, I think it earns it’s messier parts because everything else is so tight. Everything you need to remember for the last act gets set up as tight as possible at the beginning, so it’s easy to give it some leeway.

>
>>
>>Begins has a smaller scale but executes its intent more
>>effectively than The Dark Knight, even if its highs are much
>>higher. It's like the difference between good kid, m.A.A.d.
>>City and To Pimp a Butterfly. Both projects are amazing. One
>>is more coherent but the other has higher highs. If someone
>>can tolerate some messiness with their ambition, they'll
>like
>>TDR, if they like a clever but well-made genre film, they'd
>>like Begins.
>
>Begins is tighter, but which one am I more likely to rewatch?
>Easily TDK. The spectacle is unmatched, and frankly, I think
>it earns it’s messier parts because everything else is so
>tight. Everything you need to remember for the last act gets
>set up as tight as possible at the beginning, so it’s easy
>to give it some leeway.

The length wasn't actually the issue for me (pause), it was part abandonment of premise, part shoehorned plot:

1) This series was always billed as a Batman more rooted in reality, abandoning some of the cartoonish/science-fictionish elements of many Batman stories. If that's the case, how does jumping out of a 50 floor building to catch Rachel result in a "shattered" windshield, not even smashed through, and nary a scratch, with a lighter batsuit for more fluid motion, no less? even if it was his regular suit and not the upgraded one Fox made for him, the nature of the fall defies belief. Doesn't make sense that he didn't deploy a bat grappling hook.
Only made more absurd by a fall from two stories at the end of the movie resulting in a permanent limp, when it only shows him on his back. And Two-Face dies from the fall, not just injured?

2) Killing off Two-Face so early AND getting folks to buy in to the notion that the person who stopped Joker is all of a sudden going to kill people, when he had NEVER killed people up to that point, though he apparently killed Dent...Read the sentimental "greatest ending to a superhero movie ever" in the youtube comments, and that's all it is, sentimentality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEBCT-Lsh-A

this ending sets up a weaker plot-hole ridden story for Dark Knight Rises. Ledger's death impacted the ability to tell more Joker stories, but there was still plenty to work with. Two-Face could have just escaped and gone missing but he gets done in by a simple fall. So is he cunning enough to exact revenge in multiple settings or an unhinged emotional basketcase?

a critical eye picks these things up. sentimental ones do not. not saying you two above are the latter, just explaining my points out more fully. the precision in execution did not have to be sacrificed by the ambition.

. how does
>jumping out of a 50 floor building to catch Rachel result in a
>"shattered" windshield, not even smashed through, and nary a
>scratch, with a lighter batsuit for more fluid motion, no
>less? even if it was his regular suit and not the upgraded
>one Fox made for him, the nature of the fall defies belief.
>Doesn't make sense that he didn't deploy a bat grappling hook.

Every time I watch I’m waiting for the cape to become more of a parachute, but they just fall basically full speed lol. Doesn’t bother me that much because I’m always focused on wtf happened to the Joker? He couldn’t find Dent and Batman goes to save Rachel, so he just bounces??? He doesn’t kill some random rich people at the fundraiser or take someone hostage? It’s the only big plot hole in the story that I’m aware of and could be solved with like 5-10 seconds of footage.

>2) Killing off Two-Face so early AND getting folks to buy in
>to the notion that the person who stopped Joker is all of a
>sudden going to kill people, when he had NEVER killed people
>up to that point, though he apparently killed Dent...Read the
>sentimental "greatest ending to a superhero movie ever" in the
>youtube comments, and that's all it is, sentimentality.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEBCT-Lsh-A

Only the cops and hostages know Batman stopped Joker. Presumably Gordon withholds that info from the press and frames it as the cops stopping Joker. I think it’s easy enough to frame a controversial masked vigilante who has been working for only half a year. And in TDKR you see that not everyone buys the official story anyway.

I’ve never really been bothered by Two-Face being squeezed into this film, but I get why other people are. Would have been nice if he got his own film, but I think he gets a fair amount of time as Two-Face and they set up enough hints of him having a ruthless side throughout where the turn doesn’t really come out of nowhere. Plus it makes sense that Joker would weave him into his evil plot.

yikes.

--

"You can't beat white people. You can only knock them out."

unless you yourself are actually gay. if that's the case, i got it wrong.

--

"You can't beat white people. You can only knock them out."

and someone to tell him no a few times

and his movies suffer for that

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I love how audacious it is, how grand in scale. I think it has the best action of the three (inarguable, tbh), is the best looking of the three, has the best Batman story of the three... and I think Tom Hardy's Bane is fantastic. (Put him up there with Thanos and Killmonger in the "villains who did nothing wrong" pantheon.) It's certainly not the tightest, but I think it's the most fun. Like, that plane stunt is the coolest thing in all three movies combined imo.

Of course the end stuff with Bane and Talia doesn't really work, but I don't really think the ending works terribly well in any of them (BB probably has the best ending, fwiw). And it's also politically dubious, but certainly so is TDK--I feel like political dubiousness is baked into the entire essence of Batman anyway, so you may as well go all the way, lol.

So I'm honestly less interested in "which is the best" since they all have their pros and cons (and "best" is such a subjective term anyway, lol). For me, personally, give me a weird, gorgeous, earnest, sprawling, messy epic over the others any day. I rewatched it over the pandemic and was rather smitten-- wrote a few more thoughts on it here: https://letterboxd.com/russellhfilm/film/the-dark-knight-rises/1/

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I hated DKR in theaters, thought I might've missed something seeing it again at home, thought I might've not hated it ENOUGH the third time I saw it...but the couple times I've been convinced to watch it since I've set aside my grievances and just had a really good time with it.

The easiest change was letting go of all received pretenses that the movie was supposed to be "smart" - novel for a Nolan film, I know - and immediately realizing how much the dialogue isn't just crap, it's hypnotically fun crap in the vein of so many of my favorite 90s action disasters.

Likewise, after Inception I figured Nolan would finally let Bats get up to some at worst decent action. I'm not really sure what "best" means in the context of this franchise, but similar to the script once I lost hope for the non-vehicle action the movie suddenly felt like it was kinda making fun of the perception/reality that the biggest action franchise in the world was at its best when people were talking.

But then as now, I agree, Bane is actually the franchise's high water mark as a villain. Here's my opportunity to rehash how I never found Bane unintelligible and similarly had few problems with Tenet, but even if I had inscrutability felt like a bit of the point...plus seeing that highway chase and hallway fight during the most dubious period of 2020 lockdowns means you can't ever really tell me shit about that movie...scrambled into a tangent there, but yea, Bane rips.

In terms of plot he's a wild card from jump (same as Joker), and eventually what I'm about to say is aggressively nullified, but for most of the movie he's not that interested in Batman at all which is perfect for so many of that trilogy's themes.

Obviously, peak Bane resides in all the meme-worthy one-liners amplified by Hardy's bonkers delivery but what I've come to feel makes Bane slightly more interesting in a direct sense is that he never feels like he needs Batman to do his thing. In most movies but especially hero blockbusters villains almost always exist because the hero needs a foil, but Bane to my memory seems like he couldn't care less about any aspect of Bruce.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
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>The easiest change was letting go of all received pretenses
>that the movie was supposed to be "smart" - novel for a Nolan
>film, I know - and immediately realizing how much the dialogue
>isn't just crap, it's hypnotically fun crap in the vein of so
>many of my favorite 90s action disasters.

I definitely think it's more in the vein of big 80s/90s action-- I'd disagree with the word "crap" because I think nailing that tone is *really* hard, and it mostly works here, but I get what you're saying, lol-- but I do think there's a "look how smart I'm being" aspect to some of Nolan's work (including some of the ones I really love, admittedly), whereas a Batman movie benefits from him cutting loose and leaning into the genre.

And some of the big emotional beats work so well in TDKR-- the climb out of The Pit is one of the highlights of the trilogy imo-- specifically because it's not afraid to get big and sweeping and a little hokey. One of the scourges of modern blockbuster cinema is a fear of being "corny." In my opinion, people use "corny" when they mean "sincere and open-hearted"-- and the latter is one of the best things a blockbuster can strive to be.

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>I love how audacious it is, how grand in scale. I think it
>has the best action of the three (inarguable, tbh), is the
>best looking of the three, has the best Batman story of the
>three...
elaborate, kind sir.


>and I think Tom Hardy's Bane is fantastic. (Put him
>up there with Thanos and Killmonger in the "villains who did
>nothing wrong" pantheon.)
do you mean just owned the role or had a plausibly justifiable purpose? because if the former, not sure how Ledger's Joker isn't here, unless it's too obvious to mention.

BTW, I can't unsee or ever come back to life after I read, maybe on here, that Bane sounded like Sean Connery ordering at a drive thru *back in coma*

It's certainly not the tightest, but
>I think it's the most fun. Like, that plane stunt is the
>coolest thing in all three movies combined imo.
it was definitely an elaborate air dance. I'm still partial to Lau's kidnapping in TDK but it was cool.

>Of course the end stuff with Bane and Talia doesn't really
>work, but I don't really think the ending works terribly well
>in any of them (BB probably has the best ending, fwiw). And
>it's also politically dubious, but certainly so is TDK--I feel
>like political dubiousness is baked into the entire essence of
>Batman anyway, so you may as well go all the way, lol.
which became the issue i have with treatment of the franchise. it is so inconsistent in that realm. if it wants to be over the top, BE OVER THE TOP. but don't dabble in seriousness then throw it to the wind randomly.

>
>So I'm honestly less interested in "which is the best" since
>they all have their pros and cons (and "best" is such a
>subjective term anyway, lol). For me, personally, give me a
>weird, gorgeous, earnest, sprawling, messy epic over the
>others any day. I rewatched it over the pandemic and was
>rather smitten-- wrote a few more thoughts on it here:
>https://letterboxd.com/russellhfilm/film/the-dark-knight-rises/1/

pros: the vehicles
cons: the bat voice, the leading lady castings, the fight choreography


mind you, the gaping plot holes in TDK makes TDKR much easier to go down, but i remember TDKR exhausting me the most. it also followed the Avengers, which was an impossible act to follow in 2012, and laid bare all its warts.

all this talk makes me think i'm about to do a trilogy rewatch. despite my critiques they're all pretty enjoyable rewatches.

For Nolan to use that take seems like such a huge unforced error. Seems like it would have been so easy to avoid by just shooting another take.

I can not watch that scene without breaking out laughing, and with her as the big bad that death scene ends up taking away from Bane as a villain for me.

But I'd rather watch something so big and audacious that fumbles some at the end than anything else, personally.

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When it came out, I had lots and lots of issues with it, chief among them how it painted leftist movements. Nolan swears it's not a rightwing movie, but... i don't know if he saw what he actually put out there.

But, maybe within the next few weeks I'll sit down with it (or even the entire trilogy) again.

--

"You can't beat white people. You can only knock them out."

The prison ruins it for me. It just seemed stupid that they built this imposing prison with no guards that only ones who ever figure out how to climb out are a little girl and a guy who just fixed his broken back with a rope.

They have clown terrorists and guys in scarecrow masks with fear powder and all sorts of wacky shit. Shit, the most famous billionaire in the city has the exact same mouth, chin, and height as the most famous hero in the city, but nobody can solve that riddle, y'know? So I'm happy to let reality bend in the construction of a prison in order to create the perfect allegory for what Bruce needs to go through from a character perspective.

Ultimately, I care way more about character and theme than about plot machinations, end of the day-- especially in a superhero franchise, where reality is already bent just to allow these characters to exist in the first place.

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Everything from Batman being betrayed by Talia and that insipid "The slow knife" speech kills it for me. It requires Batman to be one thing that he never is: absolutely fucking stupid. And Batman not getting the "pay-off" with Bane is equally dumb.

And sure, I'll be that comic book fan here, some of the earlier decisions were dumb and completely out-of-character. Alfred would never abandon Bruce, under any circumstances. Especially not for refusing to retire.

And you mentioned its dubious political message, which really isn't a part of the Batman mythos, despite the latest revisionist history.

-----------------

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the ending. flying like 5 miles away from the city with a nuke... which then explodes and somehow... everyone's fine.

--

"You can't beat white people. You can only knock them out."

>the ending. flying like 5 miles away from the city with a
>nuke... which then explodes and somehow... everyone's fine.
>
TDK began the absurd slide into whateverthefuck Nolan wanted to have happen, so that TDKR didn't even upset me so.

The "realism" of a comic book franchise is usually irrelevant except that this series was SPECIFICALLY BILLED as a realistic treatment of Batman devoid of the fantastical elements. Joker wasn't created in a vat, Bane didn't have a steroid boost, etc etc. So why depart from any and all reason, and sloppily at that?


I mean most of the last two movies were the "prestige"....folks got taken in by the spectacle and forgot that too much math wasn't mathin....

I think especially for films. Meaning, the best way to judge TDK is not comparing it to a movie that came after it but to compare it to the playing field at the time and the movies that came before it.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

>I think especially for films. Meaning, the best way to judge
>TDK is not comparing it to a movie that came after it but to
>compare it to the playing field at the time and the movies
>that came before it.
>
>
>**********
>"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then
>they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson
>
>"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

the movie that came before TDK was clearly better IMO