Ziggy Stardust said:

I have a feeling TDKR will have the same fate as ROTJ and The Last Stand. Part three of anything is never any good.

*cough RotK cough*

There is this feeling of the people involved wanting to get it over with. The news that this third film will end this particular Batman incarnation before the Justice League film and a new Batman reboot is the clincher.

It is great to see that a giant production is still dedicated to film. However, the chances of seeing such film actually on film are increasingly slim. That would be my primary reason for seeing TDKR. These set photos while obviously not the intended image are seriously not promising. Guess we'll have another color corrected tone for this one, what greenish tint?

It's like the comics, every couple of years there is a new universe created and everything starts afresh with new writers. There's no truly definitive representation of Batman in any medium. (TAS is essentially that for me, but not everyone.) As much as I would like a great Batman adventure film, I'd love a dark adaptation of Knightfall or the big one-The Dark Knight Returns. For example, you can do the whole Batman never kills schtick-but originally Batman would even carry a gun! As long as the basic facets of the character are intact-it's still Batman.

I just don't think live action has been truly able to nail a superhero and universe yet. The DC Animated Universe proves it whether good, great or decent almost every time.

On the Burton films: Burton's wackiness usually turns me off, but I think Returns is the best thing he's ever done. And The Keaton really develops both sides of the character. His introduction to the movie is that great Batman moment of brooding in the darkness of Wayne Manor's study with the Bat-signal being reflected inside. Totally ridiculous, but fitting and a great little visual moment. It once again reiterates that HE HAS NO LIFE and that HE CEASED TO EXIST as a person. There are psychological complexities here that are skimmed over completely by the corporate drive of the first film and were submerged by in the re-cut of Forever.

Wait. Wait. They're just going to reboot it again, like that? After they do a fully-established and successful trilogy?

God damn it Hollywood.

Yep. It seems they never do.

Yay, more superhero origin reboot films that we don't want!

Way too much hate in this thread. 

Dark Knight was loads better than Begins.   How many times do I need the goddamn train engineer to remind me that he's "about to crash into the building any minute!"  I mean, I liked it, but nowhere near the level of Dark Knight - it doesn't even compare.

And I'm gonna go ahead and not give up on this movie just because of three or four on-set photos.  That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

I gave up on it because of the first two. :p

RedFive said:

 How many times do I need the goddamn train engineer to remind me that he's "about to crash into the building any minute!" 

My fave line is:

 

The pressure's moving along the mains,
blowing the pipes. If that pressure reaches us the water supply right across
the whole city is gonna blow!

RedFive said:

How many times do I need the goddamn train engineer to remind me that he's "about to crash into the building any minute!" 

As many times as I have to listen to Dark Knight gushers repeat the line  "some people just want to watch the world burn" and then proceed to tell me how profound that is.

ChainsawAsh said:

I'm not giving up.  I'm just starting to get nervous.

Which I don't think is a bad thing - I never had blind faith that Nolan could do no wrong.  Lots of pre-release Dark Knight stuff made me nervous, too.

Well put.  Being concerned with the characters, the story, and the costumes is not the same as giving up or hate. 

Since the Nolan MO is to viral pre-hype a film for a full year before it's release, we can expect a great deal of discussion about all of this because we're going to have so damn long to do so.

Which, by the way, went a long way toward my disappointment with Dark Knight.  By the time it was finally released, I was so worn out on it all that I didn't even go see it in the theater.  I hope that isn't the case again, but the multi-villain story alone may do that for me. 

RedFive said:

Way too much hate in this thread. 

Dark Knight was loads better than Begins.   How many times do I need the goddamn train engineer to remind me that he's "about to crash into the building any minute!"  I mean, I liked it, but nowhere near the level of Dark Knight - it doesn't even compare.

Hey, that's Shane Rimmer's bread and butter type of dialogue and scene! He's been doing that since the 60's! (Maybe it's yet another Bond connection to the Nolan-verse.)

And I'm gonna go ahead and not give up on this movie just because of three or four on-set photos.  That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

I'm not giving up on the film, not that I really care, but I will scrutinize what comes out of the publicity dept. etc. because I am invested in what happens to Batman. And I will still likely see the film as I have with all the others-even good ol' Batman and Robin-and you thought that was bad on DVD...at least you weren't in a packed theater full of 200-300 people wondering what the heck was going on.

I guess the thing that has gotten me most is the almost instantaneous reaction to TDK being some type of great statement. It took away from the film considerably. Before, Batman has never been as seriously discussed amongst the major public as a serious figure. Now the film is viewed as a great work of art and somehow meaningful. Sometimes I wonder if I saw the same movie. It  had problems. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad.

It's just not great in as either a film of Batman story. It wants to be.

 

Nice to finally have a Batman film discussion.

What ruined Batman Begins for me was the microwave weapon.

Somehow this was supposed to atomise the water supply in the pipes underground but not cook the people on the ground?

In a silly Batman film you can get away with that sort of thing (just look at the powdered ambassadors in the 60's Batman movie) but in the sort of film Nolan was supposedly making it stuck out like the collapsing Venetian palace in Casino Royale (2006).

The Dark Knight had very little of that (even if Dent's injuries seemed too extreme to be taken seriously in that universe).

I had forgotten about the microwave. At least it was kept to a minimum.

Anchorhead said:

TheBoost said:

"The Caped Crusader."

Well done.   Much better than The Dark Knight Rises.

I think some play on his titles including Detective would have been nice.  I enjoy seem Batman kick some trash, but I wish I could see more of his subtle side.  However, I doubt such would work in a film with Bane as the villain.

darth_ender said:

I enjoy seem Batman kick some trash, but I wish I could see more of his subtle side.

Another Batman aspect that most of the live-action films have failed to cover that I would love to see is the deductive side of Batman; he's as much a detective as he is a martial artist, after all. It'd be awesome to see him go undercover as Matches Malone, or even just look at some fibers from a murder scene under a microscope.

After seeing these pictures, my optimism level went up a bit.

More footage!

ferris209 said:

Video of "Catwoman" crashing the "Batpod" into a camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WidV5ypIcd8

That made my day. Hysterical. Someone's getting fired...