I haven’t seen Batman Begins…
I’m one of those weird people who still haven’t seen this movie. I know, right? We have it on DVD though.
Honestly Batman Begins wasn’t that big of a deal to me. It was better than your average superhero movie to me but nothing stellar (I mean, when superhero movie do go badly… they go SO badly- it’s too easy to do so, because after all these are grown men and women parading in costumes and fighting crime in them- it’s an incredibly silly premise before even throwing in superpowers! It can be serious hurdle to get over in order to make a movie good- and if you can’t overcome that… well, you just generally accept the campiness with open arms like Megamind did I suppose. Batman Begins is a more serious story. It isn’t like Tim Burton’s but it works even if it isn’t perfect IMO and Dark K night was a step up.
It’s probably a good idea to watch it before the Dark Knight if only to ‘get’ the relationship with the female lead and her character in general in the Dark Knight- even if it is a different actress.
Overall Batman Begins gets a soft B+/B from me.(OTOH, it’s actually been a LONG time since I saw Batman Begins, and I probably should watch it before this final installment since I’ve watched Dark Knight and been infected by memes enough times to probably never forget it. I could be missing some of Batman Begins finer points/flaws.)
I saw the trailer while watching Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in IMAX while in Singapore. It was mad awesome, I bet my brother would love that bit where [spoil]the quarterback outruns the stadium cave-in[/spoil].
Did I mention I’m a huge Anne Hathaway fan? I loved her from Princess Diaries and Prada, and my fanboyishness for her only recently resurged cos’ of the fantastic movies Rio and One Day last year. I’m so excited to see her as Catwoman this year!
I have a geek friend who’s a little skeptical. He reckons Catwoman won’t have much to do and Bane will be a disappointing villain. I have half a mind to borrow the comic book ‘Nightfall’, which the movie was based on, to see what’s the plot. Apparently [spoil]Bane breaks Batman’s back and paralyses him[/spoil]. Haha, alliteration.
Anyway, yeah. Bane as a mad terrorist bent on the full-scale destruction of Gotham? It’ll be a fight to the end for the masked crusader and friends! 
End fan gush
While Knigthfall (not Nightfall) is the most famous Bane appearance, the filmmakers have
said it has served as an influence (probably the villains origins), but the film isn’t actually based on it.
They also got their influential comics in previous installments of the franchise (Year One for BB and Long Halloween and Killing Joke for TDK, for instance), but if you read those you’ll see the actual plots aren’t alike, just character motivations, and things like that.
So, while I expect Bane will actually do his signature move on Batman, I think it won’t be as literal as in the comics, and I have a theory about it from the trailers.
Which leads me to this: Have you guys seen The Lion King Rises? It’s too funny!
PS: I also like Hathaway, and while she wouldn’t be my first choice for Selina Kyle, she got me at her first purr in the trailer.
PS2: Singapore’s IMAX didn’t feature the prologue with M:I:4, did they?
My bad, SoA. I forgot the title of the comic was a pun, heheh. Anyway, yeah, I read The Killing Joke a few weeks back and like you said, it doesn’t have the same plot as TDK, but kinda the same motivations, characterisations, etc. I also flipped through The Long Halloween but didn’t have the patience to sit it through.
Hathaway is an interesting choice because she’s not exactly the first actress to come to mind for the role. I have a friend who’s adamant that she will not be convincing as Catwoman; he feels Jolie would be a better choice.
My opinion? Too obvious and mainstream. I’d be more curious and excited to see if Annie can pull it off, than if it were Mrs Pitt.
Do you have a link to The Lion King Rises? I’m kinda lazy to Google it, and I’m not sure which version you watched.
Re PS2: I’m not sure what the prologue was, but I think what I saw was just the trailer.
Jolie? With all due respect to your friend, I think that’s a horrible choice.
This is the original Lion King Rises: youtube.com/watch?v=1NRsPDhyHrc
Pity, that’s one of my favorite Batmans.
The prologue is the opening of the film. Six minutes long. Playing in IMAX theaters with M:I:4, but I suppose only in USA and UK. Kinda like the bank heist in TDK.
Has anyone else seen this? [url]THE DARK KING RISES - Official Trailer 1 (HD) - YouTube
I call it: “The Burger King Rises”
That’s hilarious.
But it’s a parody of The Dark Knight trailer, not rises, as the video title says.
I saw that! 
I laughed at how much sense this particular mash-up made. And for one thing, they both have Hans Zimmer as the composer.
My dad and I aren’t always huge fans of the same things, but he loves this Batman trilogy, and so do I. One of the best examples of how to do a third movie. It was consistent with the first two films and brought new twists I didn’t expect. Anyway, the ending to this movie just made the whole series look awesome, and it deserved all the attention it gets. I even compared Batman to Beowulf in an essay for my English class because he’s just such a cool hero, and fair at that (NO GUNS!).
I just watched ‘The Lion King Rises’. Brilliant!
That’s actually pretty cool! What were some of the points that you made in your essay?
Break a leg! Or, in Catwoman’s case, a wrist.
Yeah, that’s what I told him! I’m sooo glad Hathaway pulled the role off (at least in my eyes).
One of my favourite scenes was when they were walking Catwoman past a line of leering prisoners and one of the wardens asks his colleague if Catwoman can take care of herself. Hathaway’s character could’ve just punched a mook or spit a wisecrack to demonstrate her pluckiness to the audience, but she not only taunts and breaks a poor prisoner’s wrist, she does a blooming somersault! That really took me by surprise, and the whole audaciousness of it (and how quickly she or her stunt double pulled it) gave me the biggest laugh for the entire film.
I’m curious to read that, too, LQstudiesPixar! You can upload it here if it’s not too long.
…
The Dark Knight Rises has ended up being one of my favourite movies of the year, probably among the Top Five. I had the opportunity to watch it in IMAX and the opening plane extraction sequence (along with many others) was spectacular. I seriously considered attending a marathon IMAX screening of the Nolan trilogy many months later, but when I showed up, the darn cinema did not open its hall due to technical difficulties. I and a lot of disgruntled customers had to leave our phone numbers and return when they fixed it, so I wandered over to another mall. When they finally fixed it an hour and a half later, I couldn’t be bothered to walk all the way back (and it would’ve cost me $50, which I spent on something else instead).
But all in all, this is a movie that truly lived up to my expectations, and a rousing finale to the Bat’s journey. I look forward to getting the Blu-Ray for it, since it’s out now. I’ll probably write a detailed review in the future too.
Also, that Lion King mash-up trailer is sweet! Some of the parts, like Zazu as Alfred and Nala as Catwoman, really fit well! I actually got a chill when Scar says the “You have my permission to die” quote, Tom Hardy would make a great replacement for Jeremy Irons (although Irons for most of us would be the Scar that we remember).
One of my close YouTube fans made an incredible one for Rio and dedicated it to me, have a watch (spoilers for Rio within):
The series is great for academic analysis.
Or final thesis at the university included extensive analysis of both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. In fact, it analysed all 7 feature films directed by Nolan to that date (which means it ended by Inception, as the Dark Knight Rises was far from completion at the time).
Specifically, it centred on Nolan’s use of the theme of guilt in all his film. A shame we couldn’t include his last effort.
So the movie is out, been out for a while, I got it on Blu-Ray. What did you all think of it? I thought it was pretty good, not as good as The Dark Knight but still pretty good. I’m not sure if I like The Dark Knight Rises or Batman Begins more.
I think Batmin Begins is definitely a better film than The Dark Night Rises. There was just so much that didn’t work for me in the third entry.
I like all three, and it’s a close call.
But I’d say it’s TDR for me (and today). Batman Begins was an incredibly innovative film for its genre, but even so, it’s much more conventional than its sequels.
I think the best way to appreciate either of them, though, is as a trilogy in conjunction with the other two.
That sounds absolutely facinating! What a great idea for a thesis.
Now that I have all three of the movies, I plan to soon watch all of them. I haven’t really seen Batman Begins recently, and I saw the midnight premier of TDKR, and I’m sad to say I feel asleep during it. (No fault to the film, it was mainly my tiredness).
So I’m excited to watch the whole series.
Essay removed
Honestly, to me, Bane just felt like a second movie villain. They should’ve used him in the second, and then saved The Joker for the grand finale.
The finale required for Batman [spoil]to be defeated physically[/spoil], so Bane fitted the bill perfectly.
Anyway, I would agree if Bane hadn’t been charismatic, but I think he was. A lot.