The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

[Early Memphis]

Originally Posted by MisterXDTV

The reason why the 35mm scenes don't look as good as other new movies is that they come from an IP and not the negative (Digital Intermediate). You should think about it as it were a catalog title not a 2012 movie.
Nolan shoots his movies thinking about film print projections, not digital formats....

If true, that's pretty lame considering the reality of the world as it is - a world where most people see films via digital media (HD TV, Blu-ray & even most movie houses now).

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by Early Memphis

If true, that's pretty lame considering the reality of the world as it is - a world where most people see films via digital media (HD TV, Blu-ray & even most movie houses now).

Not lame if it's something you feel strongly about and believe in.

[42041]

Originally Posted by bootsy

Not lame if it's something you feel strongly about and believe in.

eh, it's pretty dumb regardless. I think Nolan must be really out of touch with the state of cinema projection outside his screening room... or maybe it's some kind of ego thing, as he is one of the few filmmakers with the clout to do this kind of thing on a major movie. I live in a major metropolitan area and I found one theater running TDKR in 35mm. Even the smaller arthouse theaters are mostly digital these days. A photochemical finish makes no sense at this point, and a good DI can look essentially like a great analog print anyway.

[Early Memphis]

Originally Posted by 42041

eh, it's pretty dumb regardless. I think Nolan must be really out of touch with the state of cinema projection outside his screening room... or maybe it's some kind of ego thing, as he is one of the few filmmakers with the clout to do this kind of thing on a major movie. I live in a major metropolitan area and I found one theater running TDKR in 35mm. Even the smaller arthouse theaters are mostly digital these days. A photochemical finish makes no sense at this point, and a good DI can look essentially like a great analog print anyway.

Exactly. It might be a nice idea, but the world just doesn't work that way anymore.

[batfan08]

Originally Posted by Donl1282

When do you think they will announce the ultimate editions for the Dark Knight Trilogy?

They recently announced the UCE for Enter the Dragon about 3 months in advance, and they seem to have been doing that for the past few years, so, assuming that this was released in August or September, we should be seeing a press release within the next two months (if not this month).

[Bukax42]

Originally Posted by 42041

eh, it's pretty dumb regardless. I think Nolan must be really out of touch with the state of cinema projection outside his screening room... or maybe it's some kind of ego thing

Have you seen what's at the very end of TDKR end credits?

This movie was shot and finished on film.

And it (35 mm scenes) looks horrible. Thank you, Chris!

[Sherlock_Jr]

Originally Posted by s2mikey

Yep - me too. I liked the AR changes. I didnt care for the multitude of lame things in this film. It felt so slapped together and under-developed. Bane was awful. Catwoman was useless. That Marion CollardGreenTard chick was also useless. Ugh.

What the hell is it with the third film in a three film series? Why are they almost always the worst when they should be the best Heck, even the much-maligned Star Wars prequels got the third film the most "right" of the three.

I knew very few franchises where the 3rd film is the best. There' no reason to think it "should" be the best, when in fact the third time around the same wheel has already grown tiring.

[GuruAskew]

In a trilogy the third should undoubtedly be the best. It's the climactic resolution of all 3 films and it should go out with a bigger bang than anything that came previously.

That's a tall order and that's why filmmakers frequently mess it up. It's not that hard making a movie a lot of people like. With the sequel you can make it dark and put a lot of resolution off for the next film and basically fool people by making a lot of promises that you won't have to fulfill until the next one.

By the time the third one rolls around you have to live up to years of anticipation and resolve the whole thing to everyone's satisfaction. Rather than making sense of the last 2-3 hours you're now tasked with resolving a story that people have been obsessively watching multiple times for YEARS.

In Nolan's case it was a 7-year commitment on the audience's part from beginning to end, and the last movie especially had a rabid popularity that was pretty much impossible to live up to. He basically made Nerd Titanic.

And months later? We all have to be honest: he failed. His third trilogy entry is generally seen to be the weakest one. It has the worst villains in the series, then main character is barely on-screen and it has an ending that is extremely out-of-character in the eyes of most Batman fans.

[diL]

In my eyes The Dark Knight Rises is better than Iron Man 3, so when it comes to superhero trilogies it at least has IM beat.

[GuruAskew]

Iron Man 3 isn't a trilogy-ender. It's the 4th film to feature the character with at least one more on the way.

If anything TDKR proves that the trilogy format isn't appropriate for every character. Why should the cinematic Batman have a beginning, middle and an end when these are characters that appear regularly for years without ever ending? That's part of why the TDKR ending was so widely-hated: Batman has done fine without having an ending for 74 years.

A lot of other superhero franchises have continued on past #3 and most of the other trilogies have had spinoff a or serious talk of fourth entries. But Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is actually a trilogy by design.

Nolan's series is alone among superhero franchises in that it says "this is it, this is the whole story of Batman." And as such it's actually pretty disappointing. 2/3rds of it is devoted to the obscure Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows. The story spans over a decade and Wayne's career as Batman is implied to be little more than the brief in-costume action we see on screen: a handful of instances as opposed to the lifelong commitment to crimefighting that is the character's defining trait.

Worst of all, you have a terrible ending that exists to resolve one of the worst romantic subplots in the history of movies. Dawes was a disaster in the first film, as a major motivation for Batman/Bruce's ideology she was an unnecessary and ineffective failure and Nolan attempted to justify her existence by salvaging the character as a key component in the Two-Face origin, unsuccessfully again as the audience was happy to see her die and Dent simply turned into a single-minded crazed baddie anyway. And cut to the third film where he doesn't have to properly develop the Bats/Cats love story because he can wheel out old Rachel's bones again as a catalyst for a paper-thin "I was sad over her but you make me happy so lets go hang around in an Italian cafe" ending.

On top of that it presents an 8-hour cinematic work in which the most beloved rogue's gallery in popular fiction is all but ignored. To see Batman's complete career reduced to an annoyance for the al Ghul family without ever having him encounter characters like the Penguin and the Riddler is just plain wrong. This is a character that dresses up in a rubber bat suit. You can make those villains work, Nolan was just to scared to try.

So yeah, I hope the powers-that-be behind the next incarnation of Batman realize that the character is suited for a never-ending series of episodic adventures.

[Steve Lilley]

I'll never understand why he couldn't just end it all on that statement. "I can never stop and I will never stop" is a completely valid place to go out, especially for a character who can never and will never stop doing what he does.


Instead, Nolan seemed to have opted for the closing point of "No, seriously, I don't want to make any more of these."

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by GuruAskew

In a trilogy the third should undoubtedly be the best. It's the climactic resolution of all 3 films and it should go out with a bigger bang than anything that came previously.

That's a tall order and that's why filmmakers frequently mess it up. It's not that hard making a movie a lot of people like. With the sequel you can make it dark and put a lot of resolution off for the next film and basically fool people by making a lot of promises that you won't have to fulfill until the next one.

By the time the third one rolls around you have to live up to years of anticipation and resolve the whole thing to everyone's satisfaction. Rather than making sense of the last 2-3 hours you're now tasked with resolving a story that people have been obsessively watching multiple times for YEARS.

In Nolan's case it was a 7-year commitment on the audience's part from beginning to end, and the last movie especially had a rabid popularity that was pretty much impossible to live up to. He basically made Nerd Titanic.

And months later? We all have to be honest: he failed. His third trilogy entry is generally seen to be the weakest one. It has the worst villains in the series, then main character is barely on-screen and it has an ending that is extremely out-of-character in the eyes of most Batman fans.

LOL, no he didn't fail. The movie was overwhelmingly positively accepted by fans and critics. The villains weren't the worst ever. Bane is one of the better, more iconic villains in recent history at least comic book movie wise. So I don't see where he failed with this movie.

[Steve Lilley]

I mean, everything that you're saying is a matter of personal opinion. That's fine. I'm inclined to agree with GuruAskew. But you can think what you want. Nobody is saying otherwise.

It wasn't "overwhelmingly positively accepted" by either critics or fans. It has its detractors.

My opinion:

Bane is, for all intents and purposes, the closest thing that DC Comics has to a Venom. He's a character that looks cool and that is where most of his appeal comes from. He has very little by way of actual depth.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is a fairly good movie, I guess, but an awful Batman movie. But the more I think about it, I don't think Christopher Nolan had any real desire to make a Batman movie. He was making a Christopher Nolan movie about a costumed vigilante that just happens to be called Batman.

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by GuruAskew

Iron Man 3 isn't a trilogy-ender. It's the 4th film to feature the character with at least one more on the way.

If anything TDKR proves that the trilogy format isn't appropriate for every character. Why should the cinematic Batman have a beginning, middle and an end when these are characters that appear regularly for years without ever ending? That's part of why the TDKR ending was so widely-hated: Batman has done fine without having an ending for 74 years.

A lot of other superhero franchises have continued on past #3 and most of the other trilogies have had spinoff a or serious talk of fourth entries. But Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is actually a trilogy by design.

Nolan's series is alone among superhero franchises in that it says "this is it, this is the whole story of Batman." And as such it's actually pretty disappointing. 2/3rds of it is devoted to the obscure Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows. The story spans over a decade and Wayne's career as Batman is implied to be little more than the brief in-costume action we see on screen: a handful of instances as opposed to the lifelong commitment to crimefighting that is the character's defining trait.

Worst of all, you have a terrible ending that exists to resolve one of the worst romantic subplots in the history of movies. Dawes was a disaster in the first film, as a major motivation for Batman/Bruce's ideology she was an unnecessary and ineffective failure and Nolan attempted to justify her existence by salvaging the character as a key component in the Two-Face origin, unsuccessfully again as the audience was happy to see her die and Dent simply turned into a single-minded crazed baddie anyway. And cut to the third film where he doesn't have to properly develop the Bats/Cats love story because he can wheel out old Rachel's bones again as a catalyst for a paper-thin "I was sad over her but you make me happy so lets go hang around in an Italian cafe" ending.

On top of that it presents an 8-hour cinematic work in which the most beloved rogue's gallery in popular fiction is all but ignored. To see Batman's complete career reduced to an annoyance for the al Ghul family without ever having him encounter characters like the Penguin and the Riddler is just plain wrong. This is a character that dresses up in a rubber bat suit. You can make those villains work, Nolan was just to scared to try.

So yeah, I hope the powers-that-be behind the next incarnation of Batman realize that the character is suited for a never-ending series of episodic adventures.

Iron Man 3 by itself is a trilogy ender and could arguably be the weakest of the 3.

As for why should Batman have a beginning, middle and end. Well it doesn't. This is Nolan's version of Batman. The story he wanted to tell which was done prior to him by another series of directors and will probably be done again.

A lot of superhero movies have gone past 3 and they haven't been very successful along the way and did too much. You are confusing what Nolan's vision was with what you think his vision should be. Nolan isn't saying 'this is it for Batman'. He's saying 'this is it for my version of Batman'.

Dawes was a weak link in Begins and in TDK for that matter but a disaster? I don't think so. I haven't seen many people describe that character as a disaster.

All in all you are missing the point of what Nolan set out to accomplish and that was his vision of Batman. He had a plan it worked very successfully contrary to what you believe.

[AintNoSin]

Originally Posted by Steve Lilley

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is a fairly good movie, I guess, but an awful Batman movie. But the more I think about it, I don't think Christopher Nolan had any real desire to make a Batman movie. He was making a Christopher Nolan movie about a costumed vigilante that just happens to be called Batman.

Nolan's Batman was heavily influenced by the late-80s comics of people like Frank Miller. The Dark Knight Rises even lifts a scene or two out of Miller's The Dark Knight Returns series. How you feel about his movies might have a connection to how you feel about liberties Miller took with the character, which inserted overtly modern, real-world politics into the comics.

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by diL

In my eyes The Dark Knight Rises is better than Iron Man 3, so when it comes to superhero trilogies it at least has IM beat.

I think you'll get a lot of people that agree with you on this. The only Iron Man on par with any of the TDK trilogy is the first Iron Man.

[Steve Lilley]

Originally Posted by AintNoSin

Nolan's Batman was heavily influenced by the late-80s comics of people like Frank Miller. The Dark Knight Rises even lifts a scene or two out of Miller's The Dark Knight Returns series. How you feel about his movies might have a connection to how you feel about liberties Miller took with the character, which inserted overtly modern, real-world politics into the comics.

It doesn't. For the record, as far as Miller goes, I even like ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN in as much as it's a fascinating look into the mind of a crazy person and may actually be a brilliant self parody. I choose to take it that way, anyway, ha.

But even Miller's Batman doesn't quit. That's like the one thing that everyone universally has agreed on in the last seventy years.

Like I said - I don't hate THE DARK KNIGHT RISES as spectacle, I just hate it as a Batman movie.

Originally Posted by bootsy

Nolan isn't saying 'this is it for Batman'. He's saying 'this is it for my version of Batman'.

Exactly. And I don't really think his version of Batman ultimately means anything/makes much sense/is very good.

Originally Posted by bootsy

He had a plan it worked very successfully contrary to what you believe.

The second part of your sentence is incredibly subjective, contrary to what you believe.

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by Steve Lilley

The second part of your sentence is incredibly subjective, contrary to what you believe.

Subjective how? Are you saying he didn't have a plan at all and did these films on the fly. That sounds pretty unrealistic. The only thing you can say that threw him off was Ledger's death. Other than that and unless Nolan said that he didn't have a plan while doing these movies then what I said isn't subjective.

[Steve Lilley]

Well, it's pretty clear that Ledger's unfortunate death through whatever THE DARK KNIGHT RISES would eventually become into a loop. But I can't fault him for that.

No, I'm saying the "he was successful" part is the part that's subjective.

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by Steve Lilley

Well, it's pretty clear that Ledger's unfortunate death through whatever THE DARK KNIGHT RISES would eventually become into a loop. But I can't fault him for that.

No, I'm saying the "he was successful" part is the part that's subjective.

That's not subjective either. The box office domestic and foreign, the reviews from fans and critics says it was very successful. I don't know what else to measure successfully besides that.