Top 10 Things Christopher Nolan Got Right with His Batman Trilogy
How the franchise nailed the mythos
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10. Harvey Dent
The White Knight of the trilogy's second film was well-played by Aaron Eckhart, but it was the character's implementation in the script that was really distinguishing. I'm less enthused by how Nolan chose to represent Two-Face in the film, even if it's understandable in some way, but Eckhart's do-good, forthright passion for justice in the role of Gotham's District Attorney was crucial to the themes being mined in "The Dark Knight." He wasn't some throwaway Billy Dee Williams element, and obviously, he had a little more going on below the surface than did Tommy Lee Jones in "Batman Forever." But that's damning with faint praise. He was perfectly utilized as a character.
Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupKlarkKent
July 24, 2012 at 7:41PM EST Reply to CommentAs many small missteps as I think the third film made (still a very fine film, just not as good as the first two) Nolan got a lot of things right over the course of the trilogy and I'll always thank him for washing the taste of those awful Burton/Schumaker films out of our collective mouths. I'm absolutely ready for the next series to be more comic-booky and fantastical, but these are films that should stand the test of time.
The Bandsaw Vigilante To be sure, the Tim Burton films were actually quite good (especially, IMO, the second one), but agreed 100% about the gratitude towards Nolan for eradicating the puke-taste of the Joel Schumacher era from our collective palate.
August 3, 2012 at 1:28PM ESTWhoever comes after Nolan is gonna have one helluva steep mountain to climb, as far as rebooting the Batman franchise is concerned.
Chris Fawkes Agreed, Burton typically just did not get it. His movies had been inspired by Frank Millers interpretation but whereas Miller had attempted to ground batman in the real work Burton just saw the dark aspect then built it into a surreal world. That and casting Keaton his films were really just a dark version of the 60's tv series. At least Schumacher realized that.
November 18, 2012 at 6:39AM ESTIan Was the one with Penguin Burton's second? Because that is the worst of them by far in my opinion.
February 9, 2013 at 9:37PM ESTanon Lol it was the best.
April 13, 2013 at 11:29PM ESTThe thick, surreal atmosphere, the sharp sexual dialogue and scenery chewing, the permeating melancholy.
No annoying "villain wants the girl so she becomes the damsel after Batman got creepy with her" plot, no "Nicole Kidman wants to bang Batmna, but then Bruce Wayne, I'M BOTH BATMAN AND BRUCE WAYNE" bullshit, no "niece comes to visit, prepare for scenes of horrible melodrama".
How can anyone look at the four movies, with BATMAN AND ROBIN as one among them, and conclude that the one with the Pegnuin is the worst?? Unacceptable is what it is.
Brian
July 31, 2012 at 2:00PM EST Reply to CommentNolan's trilogy will be remembered forever as not only the first truly great comic-book/superhero trilogy, but also for being one of the best trilogies of all-time. Also, as much as I love Heath Ledger's performance, I prefer Mark Hamill's interpretation of The Joker. He IS The Joker. I would also say Nolan got Bane right. Sure, he's not the Venom-filled Bane from the comics, although Bane has sort of vowed to not use, but Nolan (and Tom Hardy) got the essence of the characters absolutely right. Obviously, a lot of people were underwhelmed by Bane because he wasn't as "memorable" or as "electrifying" as The Joker, but Bane and The Joker are polar opposite characters. They're not supposed to be similar. Tom Hardy had the unfortunate task of following Heath Ledger's legendary performance and he succeded in creating a brutal, terrifyng yet sympathetic monster of a man that was memorable in his own right.
alfred dude-
August 16, 2012 at 2:15AM ESTNolan didn't even want to make TDKR.
in interviews he said TDK was the last one he wanted to make but was contractually obligated to make one more.
also-LOOK AT THE ONE SHEET.
IT'S LITERALLY THE SAME PICTURE AS TDK
Adam @ Alfred: Whatever you were reading was mistaken. Nolan wasn't under contract to make anything. Also, he had nothing to do with the one sheet.
September 3, 2012 at 12:59AM ESTJames N smith Bane could have been every bit as electrifying as The Joker, but that was not the Bane that Nolan decided to go with. Unfortunately Bane is still basically a henchman. He was not the character that should have been used to end the trilogy. The Dark Knight Falls series from which the third movie was primarily borrowed worked because the Batman series had history and a long back story which the films didn't have. That Bane had motivation, Hardy's Bane didn't. Batman's recovery took over a year (much more realistic that 5 months), and more relevant, someone took the cowl while he was out of commission, and we knew all the candidates who could possibly do it. The idea that a successor to Bat's might be more ruthless was a fun idea for a series, but wouldn't work in a film. Might make a great season of a television series though. I really love the first two Nolan tries, but the third kind of dropped the ball for me. There good films, but not the definitive super hero adaptations Batman fans are waiting for.
September 21, 2012 at 4:29PM ESTArran
August 8, 2012 at 1:28PM EST Reply to CommentA few points in this list makes no sense. Why would Batman not have a sleek, well-designed and engineered ride? And Gotham city was far more of a character in Burton's Batman films than the generic city we see in Nolan's.
Reed Well he actually did (his lambo) and it was totally inappropriate for fighting crime, thus the need for the "sleek hummer" he drives in the movie.
February 9, 2013 at 4:18AM ESTalfred
August 16, 2012 at 2:12AM EST Reply to Commentwrong on Gordon
-Chris Cooper was the better choice.
alfred
August 16, 2012 at 2:13AM EST Reply to Comment@Brian- the reason you prefer the joker-because it reminds you of the goofiness of the nature of comics itself?
it you know your batman history and respect it as a story, then you would think otherwise.
Gary Coleman Well if you read what the author said about the Joker - that he can't be defined - than you'd know what bullshit that comment is, but on top of that you seem to be under the impression that the golden age and silver age and pretty much every pre-Nolan Joker was clownish to some extent.
December 13, 2012 at 8:35PM ESTKellic
August 29, 2012 at 5:00PM EST Reply to CommentUmm there is no right, there is no wrong. There is simply a director\ producer's interpretation of how Batman should be. Its like saying something is bad art. No such thing since its all personal opinion.
J Of course there's such a thing. I know bad art when I see it. And when I defend that statement, it's not an opinion, it's a position.
March 5, 2013 at 2:29AM ESTbob
August 29, 2012 at 7:24PM EST Reply to Commenti prefer the burton movies. nolan sux
Robert
September 3, 2012 at 11:14AM EST Reply to CommentDefinetly agree about Gordon, Selina and the Bruce/ Alfred relationship...agree to an extent about Dent (but preferred the animated series version of back-story where he and Bruce were friends as it makes his turn to Two-Face a personal failure for Bruce)
Disagree about Gotham Police, they were good in Begins but less so in the following two
Will You are wrong about the Dent arc in TDK, Bruce did befriended Harvey, he admired him, Bruce saw in Dent the "First legitimate ray of light in Gotham, in decades..." he wanted Dent to be the hero Gotham deserved and needed, he put all of his cards in Dent's favor, just to see that "murdering psycopath blow him half to hell..." so Bruce did see the Dent tragedy as his great failure, and that's one of the reasons the Wayne Foundation sponsored Harvey Dent Day from that they forward, that's one of the reasons he stopped being Batman, even though he was his romantic rival he respected him and admired him greatly "Dent doesn't know.."
December 21, 2012 at 6:20PM ESTJames Nelson
September 21, 2012 at 3:38PM EST Reply to CommentNolan got a lot right with his Batman trilogy, but he didn't leave the bar so high that it can't be reached. There's plenty of room for improvement with further installments of the series. I for one can't wait for someone to design a Bat suit that would actually allow for an athlete with fighting skills the ability to move around so that we could get some A-level fight choreography for once. Six Batman films, and I can get a bigger thrill watching the POW BAM BONG fights from the old Batman series is pretty sad. Still Nolan is to be commended on realizing the Batman should be the center of a film entitled Batman. (Yeah Burton, I'm lookin' at you.)
James
September 21, 2012 at 4:19PM EST Reply to CommentFunny thing is, aspects like getting Gordon right, are really due to the fact that Gordon only really became fleshed out as a character when the Year One books came out. Before that it would have been a hit or miss proposition, the guy was a blank slate. While Nolan gets a lot right, a good deal of this article seems more like afterglow reflections. Gotham City for instance doesn't even look like the same city from the first movie to the last. If you were to take stills of it from each film, you'd think the cast had relocated to a different city. The entire corrupt Gotham city angle, also a recent addition to canon wasn't touched upon nearly as much as it could have been. We see it in Batman Begins, and the ramifications are seen in TDK, but it's totally dropped by the last film. All the problems of actually cleaning up a corrupt police force are never touched upon, but of course that wasn't the story Nolan was trying to tell, though to go from a corrupt force to a noble force and never show us how it happened is a gaping plot hole.
Andy Frogman Never read a lot of Batgirl I imagine...
February 11, 2013 at 4:30AM ESTRise
September 23, 2012 at 9:08PM EST Reply to CommentI like how Nolan changed the origins so much it made them exciting
bo
September 28, 2012 at 3:29AM EST Reply to Commentnolan did not do a better job on selina kyle. he may have gave a more grounded backstory than tim burton's ressurection idea. michelle's version felt more a part of and immediately affected by her world than hathaway's.
S.Liv
September 29, 2012 at 12:44AM EST Reply to CommentI'm sorry but I just don't like Anne Hathaway as Selina/Catwoman. Her performance as the character just rang a false note to me. I just don't see her as a strong enough presence to have played the character but it seems that I am alone in this as everyone else loved her :) I guess I just really saw her as a little girl playing a grown up role more than anything...
Anoh
November 22, 2012 at 3:23PM EST Reply to CommentWhen we decided not snobs and admit that Bale was a great Wayne / Batman?
JudeTheEvenMoreObscure
January 2, 2013 at 11:12PM EST Reply to CommentAnne Hathaway's butt in black leather, raised high as she lies prone on the Batpod. That is all ye need to know.
Andy Frogman
February 11, 2013 at 4:28AM EST Reply to Comment10. Harvey Dent is supposed to be black.
9. If they wanted to have a more realistic Batman that was still loyal to the comics, they could have made hime far more acrobatic, and actually having him running on roof tops, not using the car all the damn time.
8. Anne Hathaway was an aweful choice for Catwoman, and all the way through you could see that she didn't mesh well with the role.
5. It was great all the way up until the end, where Nolan stole the scene from Dark Knight Returns, where Alfred and Bruce have the fight about Rachel EIGHT YEARS LATER and Bruce kicks him out, which is completely out of character.
4. A lot of it was close ot canon, and a lot of Dark Knight Rises was just a finger to the fans. A lot of the fans of Frank Millar's Dark Knight series thought this movie was a joke, while those who were not fans of Frank Miller's work disliked that it relied far to heavily on that book. Also, hate Robin in this series.
Chuck Except for Burton's first movie, Dent has NEVER been black. A lot of the other stuff you said was stupid too. You're stupid.
February 25, 2013 at 7:37PM ESTDee You're a bitter, stupid person.
March 13, 2013 at 5:50AM ESTJ you look like a 8 year old boy who wants everything the way he wants and yes it seems like you have a single figure IQ....
May 13, 2013 at 2:56PM ESTmandy
April 15, 2013 at 3:02PM EST Reply to Commentive grown up in an age of bad batman movies that i thought were "good" until Nolan came and he blew me away everything i ever wanted and did not expect. Bale is a magnificent actor and heath ledger captivated me. Anne Hathaway in my point of view as a woman was so much better then michelle because she was more then some crazy cat lady who was beyond crazy with a million cats lol.
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April 21, 2013 at 10:12PM ESTandré morin
April 24, 2013 at 5:49PM EST Reply to Commenti write 6 beacuse the tanks ave no Batman bat simbole on, look expérimentale war text. Bat wing most better to see in fly...if you can rétract like a Falcon péligrine.why the tank cant catch the bat win for a new member in bord and edject the bat wing.