Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / The Dark Knight Trilogy - Christopher Nolan | Houselights #288: Wing of Batman

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The Dark Knight Trilogy - Christopher Nolan | Houselights #288: Wing of Batman · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the ned Palty.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Tonight on House Lights, we continue our wing of Batman
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: with the Christopher Nolan trilogy, in which a man best
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: known for making people question the nature of time and
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: memory looked at Batman and decided the real fix was
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: less gothic Gotham and more tax fraud riddled Chicago. Christian
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Bale growls his way through an origin story, Heath Ledger
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: redefines an already iconic role, and then it closes out
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: with prison grade spinal surgery. Somehow it works, somehow, it
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: works so well that every studio in Hollywood spent the
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: next decade trying to make their own version of Gritty
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: with me who has already whispered, disappeared and is technically
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: still in the room, Darren Moser and bringing full anarchy energy,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: the proof that insanity is just one bad day away,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: John Mills. This wing means Bruce Wayne can afford a hotel,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: but not a second row of seats. He Sleder rewrote
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: what a comic book villain could be and then never
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: got to see it happen, and Bain's mask muffled dialogue
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: so badly they had to remix it after test audiences complained,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: let's train in a mountain fortress, blow up a football stadium,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: and ask whether a flaming bat signal on a bridge
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: was time well spent.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: This is houselights, I as should I give the podcast
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: back to you, the people.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: You think because you hit record, you just gives you
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: power over my vote and rating.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: I think about that moment a lot when he just
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: puts his hand on his shoulder. He doesn't even clasp
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: it now, he doesn't like he just rests it to
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: the side.
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: That was such a genius move.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: It was it.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, I can't really articulate why it's so good. Okay,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: So obviously we're doing Wing of Batman, and we're all
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: big Batman fans, and we've reached the Dark Knight trilogy,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: which is probably the highest of profile of Batman films
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: to be made to this point and since and Batman
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: begins two thousand and five.
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: I was a youngster. I was.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: I was a wee lad who just graduated high school.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: And I remember downloading this trailer online and it took
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: for freaking ever, and then once I downloaded it, I
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: had to install quick Time. That was a quick That
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: was a kick in the pants.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Those were great days to be alive, weren't they. They
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: were just the best, the best. And slash trailers, yes, yes,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: like Apple dot com slash trailers, yep. Yes, that's where
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: you got the best quality, the best visual quality. You
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: could either get it in four eighty seven to twenty
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: or god forbid ten eighty if you had at the time.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Ten eighty just took too long. Let's be honest with
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: ourselves here, Yes, my good.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: And I just I remember I think the opening shot
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: was Bruce and his rags walking through the mountains. It
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: just just immediately I was like, well, this is different,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: like this is this is different.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: I remember being very intrigued by the trailer, having been
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: old enough to have been duly traumatized by Batman and
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: Robin when they announced it. Because the thing is, it's
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: not like there were no comic movies between Batman and Robin,
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: and Batman begins like, you know, we'd had Spider Man
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: show up on the scene, and have you know a
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: couple of good goes on screen.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: We'd seen I think Fantastic four, right.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we had uh like yeah, Fantastic four was in there. Yeah,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: you're right.
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: You always forget about that one I think from Blade.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Blade was in there as well, and so coming
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: into this, but.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the bids X men, x men X say
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: x Men really opened the door to mo I think.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Had happened by them as X two X two was
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: definitely the Yeah, that was the door kicking in moment.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: But my point is like there wasn't a reason to
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: get necessarily excited about a Christopher Nolan Batman movie. It
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: was oh, well, okay, that's a different choice, because remember
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: by this point in his career, it was like, oh yeah,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I mean he did Memento, he did Insomnia, Okay, Batman,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: all right, they're given the guy a go. Sure, they're
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: given him a try, Like we didn't have enough Nol
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: Like if these movies had never happened. And then he's
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: done like Inception and Interstellar, and then like he's doing
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: the next Batman movie. That's a whole different level of
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: hype for fans, completely different, and I think that, I
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: mean I went into it just with healthy skepticism that
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: it could be pulled off. You know, we were all
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: sure that the franchise was dead, dead and gone. Clooney
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: had told us, so it must be so.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly right, exactly right I was. I went in
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: hole hog like I was. There was no skepticism, there
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: was no guarding of my heart. There was I was like, no, No,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: this is it. This is going to be the one,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: This is like this, this is the one that's going
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: to blow people's minds. And because I at that time
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: I was a gigantic Memento fan, and even though I
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: didn't really dig on Insomnia too terribly much, I thought
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: it was well directed and just the idea of the
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: director who was able to pull off Memento and then
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: go to Batman.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: I was all for it. I was like, this, this
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: is what we need.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: We need this kind of auteur to to take it
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: on like this, this kind of person who can wrap
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: psychological issues and and and and put it together and
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: like really have a misson zine, you know, just like
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: all all these things. It's just like I I was
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: so storked for it. But I was a little worried
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: about the action. I was like, Okay, I don't know
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: how this is going to happen. I don't know how
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: he's going to do action. Hopefully it gets a lot
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: of help. But apparently he refused who's to second unit director?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: That was just for the action scenes. He said he
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: wanted to do it himself. I want to jump. I
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: want to jump a little bit and go to Batman
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Begins action scenes. Like, obviously Christopher Nolan is a great director,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: but what did you think about the action in Batman
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Begins compared to Dark Knight, Dark Knight Rises? You know, like,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: is it amateurish? Is it sophomorish? Do you see the
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: seeds of something better later on? You know, like, how
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: do you see that evolution of action from from Nolan?
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think Batman Begins definitely you see somebody
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: handling that type of action scene for the first time.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: I think that they are definitely like even today, I
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: can watch those things and I'm like, oh, I bet
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: he wishes he had that back because I can't really
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: tell who's hitting who, Like where's the camera? He's moving
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: it too much while they're spinning in a circle. He's
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: trying to be a little too stylized with it, so
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: he's still trying to get his hands around it. I
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: don't think a second unit director would have helped him,
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: because I think it would not have felt like Chris
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: for Nolan behind the camera. He has a very very
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: specific way. I think that when you look at Dark
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Knight and Dark Knight Rises, you see a guy who
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: figured out, oh, this is how I make this work,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: for the way I do things, instead of trying to
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: make the way, instead of trying to change the way
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: he does things to match the action, to match an
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: expectation of action.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: I would say, yeah, Now, I think it works though,
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: because I think defining it as kind of a sophomore
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: try like getting into it fits in a strange way
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: because it is also the Batman origin, so in a
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: way like because Bruce is getting better at fighting and
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: just becoming this creature. Like I kind of like the
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: messiness and the tear that we don't go past in
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: as far as action goes. I mean, you compare it
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: to Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises, which are ratcheted up.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: Like I almost it's a weird kind of hindsight, But
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: if you had had like the semi truck flip scene
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: and Batman begins, it would have almost felt like too much,
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: Like why is this giant set piece in the middle
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: of this movie? This is not that movie, this is
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: the intro, but we're smart enough to not have I'm
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: looking at you, Robin Hood, you know, the last shot
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: him being Batman. Obviously he is Batman through a lot
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: of this. But so all that to say, you know,
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: I love the the All Men in Black, you know
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: fight in the beginning where he's with razah Ghul and
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: he's moving. I mean, that's a very simple, single location
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: fight that we've never really seen something like that, but
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: it fit really well with where Bruce was on his journey.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Well, like you look at a smaller moment like that
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: where Roz is fighting him when he first gets in there,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: and I think that's where no one has the best
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: handle on it because he has built in breaks for
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: dialogue so you can sort of like reset and get
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: used to the rhythm of everything. But I still think
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: that in the larger fight scenes, for instance, in the
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: container in the shipyard, you know, when he's going around
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: through the containers and everything, there is a little bit
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: of visual confusion that happens. So it's like those are
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: really the scenes I'm looking at. I think that it's
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: just inconsistent because that scene where he's fighting Roz or
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: when the you know, when the dojo is burning and stuff,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: like that, those work really well. The shipyard is a
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: little soupy, even though I love the scene where he's
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: fighting in the prison courtyard, it's still a little first timery.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: But like you know, no one's first time doing something
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: is better than most people's tenth time doing something, so
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: you don't really notice it sort of thing. But then
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: you can trast that with the way he approaches the
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: action in the Dark Night. Honestly, I would say, pound
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: for pound, the fist fight scenes of the trilogy in
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: the Dark Knight out do the other too, because there's
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: a very clear, like linear dominance to Batman's movements through
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: crowds when it comes to, you know, him taking on
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: more than one person. But uh, you know, although obviously
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: like the one to one stuff when he's fighting Baine
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: is just ridiculous. Like that is so because no one
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: really leans into not making Baine fast. Bain is just
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: you know, he's the Hulk basically, and it's like, so
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: no one is able to approach that one a lot more,
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: you know, strategically, as it were.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Let's jump ahead, and because I kind of mentioned this
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: at the beginning, let's talk about Gotham. So one thing
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: that We've really talked about in the wing of Batman
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: is the presence of Gotham and how directors portray the
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: city and how they want the viewers to really witness
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: it and feel it. Batman Begins Gotham is very different
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: than Dark Knight Gotham and Dark Night Rises Gotham is
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: very different from Dark Knight Gotham. There's there's a wild
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: inconsistency that I really didn't dig on that I wish,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: like a real, real, small, infinitesimal part of me wishes
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: that he would go a little Lucas and just and
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: make them consistent in re releases. But I'm just joking, folks.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: So like in fact it begins, mean begins, you have
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: a little bit more of a Gothic feel because you
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: have the narrows, you have a little bit more CGI
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: built into the city and to kind of like obscure
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: the skyline of Chicago in the dark night. It's Chicago.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: If Chicago was an island, like that's that's pretty much
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: what it like. If Chicago was an island, that's what
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Like.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: I was just there this morning, you know, like I
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: work in Chicago, and there's so many times like I
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: take Lower Whacker every single day, and I admit I
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: geek out a little bit because that's where the tumbler
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: chase was. And but then when you get to the
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: dark Knight Rises, it's freaking Pittsburgh, and.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Which is a town that has no character. Chicago has
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: beautiful architecture. So even when I can recognize that it's Chicago,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: the buildings are gorgeous. I'm sorry people from Pittsburgh. Your
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: city kind of sucks. And I think that the thing
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: that bothers me if we're talking about city inconsistency is
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: when they said it was, oh, well, it's going to
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: be in Pittsburgh. Like my reaction to the news when
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: that broke was why why No? Like I was, I
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: was shaken by it because I don't want I didn't
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: want that and maybe that's not fair, But like, what
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: it made me start thinking about, because we've had so
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: long to have the sit in our brains, is if
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: there's one thing where I would fault if you're judging
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: it as an arc of an entire series, I think
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: that if you're going to wrap everything up, not to
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: bring the narrows back at some point. The narrows is
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: where you know it's the slums of Gotham. It's where
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: all of the big action at the end originates. It's
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: got all of this stuff. That's where Arkham is, and
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: then they just never pay attention to it again. Yeah,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: and I feel like that's wrong. It's not good, Like
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: especially because when Bain breaks people out of Blackgate Prison,
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: I think there's more storytelling symmetry to say, oh, well,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: we what we did was we took over Arkham and
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: we expanded it, and we made that a prison instead
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: of having the prison be in the literal center of
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: the city, which is insane city plant like the city
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: planning in the dark Knight Rises is like christianer Noland.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Are you familiar why they don't put prisons in the
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: center of the city. I'm just asking, you know, like
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: it's that's I know, I know, oh well they made
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: black Cake because I know the story points. But it's
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: just nobody would be insane enough to do that, Like
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: that's that is literally insane to do that. So like that,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: That's the one thing is the city stuff does rankle
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: me to this day.
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: Really, it really does. Apparently.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Emma Thomas christ Rowlands wife and producing partner, huge creative
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: force behind the Dark Knight trilogy, she said in an interview,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: She's like, well, we filmed literally every inch of Chicago
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: in the Dark Night, and which.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Is complete nonsense.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Absolute nonsense, And she said, but we wanted got them
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: to feel expansive, like you could never get enough of it,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: like there was it always was growing and going beyond.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: And so we went to Pittsburgh and I was like,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: first of all, both are lies. Man of Steel was filmed,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: wanted to film in Chicago, and so you gave them
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: priority to film in Chicago and Pittsburgh gave you better
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: text credits. Yes, that's the reason why. And it really shows,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: and I think I think it's a it's a huge
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: knock to the visual language in consistency aree of of
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: the of the trilogy. And now does that ruin a movie,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: of course it doesn't. But because Gotham, how it's portrayed
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: as such a big part of this discussion, we had
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: to touch on it. Now, Darren, were you do you
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: remember how Big Batman begins? Was that like the presence
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the word of mouth? Do you remember that at all?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Or do you really only remember the surge that was
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: the Dark Knight.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's hard to break them apart in my
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: mind because I do remember, you know, I do remember there,
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: you know, like you said, the trailer download and getting
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: into Batman Begins. But the Dark Knight marketing was on
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: such another level and just like this was definitely not
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: the first, but one of the better just marketing campaigns,
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: like you don't actually think about marketing campaigns. But the
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: way they control I mean, he's not all these buzzwords
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: control the narrative of you know, releasing the images of
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: the Joker and educating people about who Harvey Dent is
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: really like in this world?
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Who is he? Why should we care?
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: Because he's going to be a major player, And you know,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: they you know, did a lot of fan interaction and
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: you know, marked up dollar bills and but I but
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: back to Batman begins. I just remember it. It really
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: was that trailer. It was trailer time. It was that
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: was not that there wasn't other marketing and posters and
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: things like that, but you lived and died on the trailer,
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: especially now that it was downloadable, because you know, kids,
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: that was newly a thing that you could actually you know,
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: handle downloading that onto your computer or your iPod video
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: or whatever it was. Uh, but so you could watch
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: it over and over and nitpick and and and delve
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: into every frame versus, oh, I got to go to
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: the movies again to see that. You know, we all
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: think of you know, how many times did we book
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: a ticket to something else to watch the episode one
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: trailer or something like that.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: I the reception of Batman Begins, I remember was more like, ah,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: it was. It was a definitely a reintroduction party sort
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: of thing. Everybody was skeptical. The movie was pretty well received,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: and I think I said this, I've said this before,
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: but when I came out of it, I wasn't sure,
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: like it was weird because I remember the feeling of
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: like I think I loved it, like, but I wasn't
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: ready to. I was like, is this you know, it's
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: almost like a dream like state where you're like, I
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: think I need to see that again to confirm how
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: I felt because it was so different and it was
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: so much better than expected. But that's not enough to
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: get you know, the general public in as it were,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: to the billion dollar box office level. Like, but it
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: was a great breakthrough movie because comic book fans were
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: finally able to see something and say no, no, it's
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: just it's just a good movie on its own terms.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: You don't need to be a Batman fan or you know,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: a comic book fan to like this. This treats Batman
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: as if the story is just naturally a real person
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: story and not about a guy in a batsuit, you know,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Like it talks about bigger things than he's mad that
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: his parents got killed. Like that, I think is the
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: truly most most effective thing that Batman Begins does, is
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: it elevates the character well beyond his personal tragedy because
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: of ros al ghul you know, telling him you can
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: be something more, something you know and telling him you know,
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: very difficult truths. Yeah, Roz is the he's the ultimate
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: bad guy at the end and betrayer, but he still
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: says things that spur the character forward, and we see
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Bruce come to terms with the fact that, you know,
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: life is bigger than his own pain. It's about bigger
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: things going on. He's he's going to serve a bigger
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: purpose than just grinding his own grudge out against the world. Yeah.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: The use of rasah ghul In as like this narrative pivot.
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: Point to push.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, because Rasah Gul is really way more connected
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: with Bruce Wayne than Batman, like he is, he is
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: not a Batman foil. He is the foil against Bruce
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: Wayne and Bruce Wayne's way of saving his city. It's interesting, though,
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: to look at Batman begins comparatively to mask of the phantasm,
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: which we covered already, which is also kind of in
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: that it's it's inner cutting.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: But that first year of Batman.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Getting the cape, becoming the symbol, you know, wanting people
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: to be afraid of me, but this did it in
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: such a real way. I love the parts of like, well,
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: this is how we're going to order the electronics for
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: your cape.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: You know, we're gonna get this units and we're gonna
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: put it because it's like.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's someone someone with the brain sat down with
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: the script soup and was like, how would you actually
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: do this if money was no option but you still
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: have to do it in secret?
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: How would you become Batman? And this Welvie basically does that.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: It's still nonsense, but it's believable nonsense. They give you
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: enough of an explanation that you're like, well, yeah, I
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: mean if he jumped off and the wind was just
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: right in his cape caught. Sure, you know he could
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: land softly.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's you have to have some suspension of disbelief,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: and they give you just enough most of the time.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: But then there's a few times, more than a few
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: times throughout the trilogy where instead of bending it, it's broken,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: like when he catches Rachel. Yeah, on the way down,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: it slams onto the taxi.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that that one's that one's a tough one, and
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: then you fire your grap you fire kept Yes. I
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: remember seeing it for the first time. I was like,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: I kept waiting for the grabb.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: Like you literally fell off a skyscraper, Bruce, Like, I'm sorry,
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: you're both dead.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: The body trauma of.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Into that, Like we have we have yet to talk
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: about Christian Bale as bats So when it was announced
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: that Christian Bale was going to be Batman, did either
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: of you have any kind of hesitation?
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: I was.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: I knew about Christian Bale a lot before this, you know,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: I knew he was a kid actor, and I kind
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: of I think the biggest touchstone for me was Newsy's
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: the Disney musical No joke same for me. Yeah, and
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I was like, hey, yeah, cool, Yeah, let's do it.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I didn't really have any hesitation.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: This goes sound terrible. I didn't care. Like I'd been
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: through Clooney and Kilmer and Keaton, I was like, sure,
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: bring somebody. I'm like, at least there's no baggage with
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: this guy.
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: Like, no, man, you weren't there, Okay. I was there
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: when Clooney was cast.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Keaton got ripped apart because you know, quote unquote Batman
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: was going to have hair plugs. And then there was
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: you know, when Kilmer got cast, it's like, oh okay,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: but he doesn't look right, you know, like there's a
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: whole ton of stuff. There was always baggage with the
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: other ones, and with this one it was like I
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: was glad that I didn't know too much about Christian
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Bale by this point, like to the point where somebody
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, he was in you know, a movie,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, okay, cool, cool. I mean
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: it was he'd been an American psycho by this point,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: so it's.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Kind of like everyone thought that like Bruce Wayne was
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: going to be American psycho.
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: Well that's just silly.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: Well, but see the two that stood up for me
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: in his filmography at that point was actually like Little
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: Women because he plays Lauri in that, and also you
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: have him in what was it not Poke, honest, it was.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: The Rain of Fire.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: He's also in Rain of Fire, which is ye is
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: a decent you know, not not the best film, but
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: a decent dread track in movie. So I like it,
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: you know, I think I'm with you, guys. I was
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: very much I just like Batman, let's see where this goes.
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: Like I think enough time had passed where we were
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: all kind of ready to give it another shake and
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: see what happened.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: But the real, the real star player, Let's be honest,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: because this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship between
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: a director and an actor. This is the beginning of
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Michael Kain being in everything until he retired. And I
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: can tell you that that was like a comfort where
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: it's like, and Michael Kain to play Alfred, and it
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, well, Alfred'll be pretty solid at the
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: very least, you know, Like I was like, yeah, I
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: could see Michaelkain. I said, sure, absolutely, and I think
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: that his through line is terrific. And if I have
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: again one thing, I'll ping the Dark Knight Rises for
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: it's not enough Alfred.
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: Taking him out of the third act.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Taking him out was like it made sense, But there's
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: almost a part of me that would love to ask,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: could we see him talk? Could we have seen him
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: talking with Lucius and like sort of like Lucia saying,
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: we're still friends Alfred, you know, he'll come around, give
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: him time, that sort of thing, because Alfred just disappears.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: He literally just disappears. And we've spent enough time with
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: this character, especially in the context of Bruce Wayne by
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: this point, it's like, was Alfred still in the city.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: Did he leave before the bridges were blown? If he didn't,
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: how did Alfred you know? Was was he hiding Rubies
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: from Bain? I don't know, maybe he was, but like,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: you know, especially because he's super key in The Dark Knight.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: He is so key. He has some of the best
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: lines in The Dark Knight, Like when he's giving Bruce
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: a pep talk, he's like, you know, you know, take
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: it endure, you know, like where he's he's telling him,
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: it's like, you're gonna get through. You gotta do. You
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: gotta make the choice that nobody wants to make, and
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: you gotta you gotta just power through. Like there's this
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: beautiful sort of symmetry between Batman begins in The Dark
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Knight where you see ros al ghoul as this overly
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: macho type of influence on Bruce, like, Oh, the world
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: is bad and you have to beat it into submission.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: You have to be stronger than everybody and you have
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: to have But then in the Dark Night you see
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: how Alfred shaped Bruce and rained him in by being
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: the one that was like, you gotta take it. You
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: just gotta you gotta endure. People need you to do this.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: You gotta stand in there. I faced a guy like
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: this too. Some people are just crazy and he's just
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: giving him insight into things and testing him about Rachel too.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: It's like, oh, you're spying on Rachel now, you know,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: like this sort of thing, like Alfred is very much
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: a voice of reason and compassion in the Dark Knight,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: And I think that's why it is shocking and it
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: pays off in a sense because to have Bruce and
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Alfred have a split in The Dark Knight rises it
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: really affected me. I was like wow, And it's not
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: a shouting match. It's the way that people really end
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: their relationship, which is very calmly, where it's like we're yeah,
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: we're done. It's not a big shouting match, it's not
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: throwing things. It's they both play it, Chris and Bale
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: and you know, Michael Kane play it so perfectly because
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: it's so sad. They both know they can't even fight,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: that this is the end. Alfred knows this is it.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: And I think that I still struggle with that in
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: the dark Knight Rises, because it feels like Alfred was
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: taken out in such a way because they didn't know
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: what to do with him and they didn't want to
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: kill him. You know, like I don't know, am I
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: off base, but it really feels like they just were struggling.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: It was I don't know if it was a situation
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: of they don't know what to do with him. I
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: think it was Nolan's obsession with stripping Batman away, stripping
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Bruce Wayne, like he took his he took his wealth,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: he took his friends, he took his job, he took
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: his health, and it's just and he had to take
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: away his mentor and his father figure. He would not
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: have been able to hit rock bottom without the absence
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: of Alfred, And I think that is where it comes from.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: I'm with you. I would have loved to have seen
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: him do something with Lucius or something behind the scenes,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: something to that effect, just to get more Michael Kaine
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: on the screen. But from a character stand point, from
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: a thematic standpoint, I think it's definitely what Nolan was
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: trying to achieve. Yes, totally fair, totally fair now looking
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: at now, looking at the trilogy as a whole, in
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: the realm of Christian Bale and with him amongst everybody else. Actually,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: let's not look to the future from from twenty twelve
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: to before? Where Where does he? Where does he lay?
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: You know, like, obviously he's he's better than Clooney. But
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: if we're if we're ranking Batman's or we don't even
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: have to rank Batman's, like, oh he's the best or
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: he's the worst. Pretty much just like you know, where
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: does he fit in your brain?
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: Are we all?
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Are we all Keaton men? Are we bail men? Are
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: we do we try to juggle the both?
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: Darren?
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Where are we?
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Hard to say because it, I mean, we've made comparisons
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: with you know, the Bond franchise, and oh it's just
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: a different actor playing Batman in a different but each
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: actor got a very different and taste and screen time
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: and focus on this character. I say, it's more like
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: each has their strongest points. And for me, the strongest
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: point in Christian Bale's performance is he, you know, up
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: to twenty twelve gets the most Bruce Wayne characterization. Like
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: we get a lot of time with Bruce.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: Who is Bruce?
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: How does he become and psychologically and emotionally and you know,
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: socially become Batman? And then how does he balance that?
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, I look back and I love Michael Keaton.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: I love his performance, but we don't get a tenth
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: of the narrative story of that. And that's just not
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: the movie. And that's okay, that's not the reason we
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: love Keaton. But Christian Bale, you know, because of the
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: origin of Batman begins because of the navigating of real
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: politics and crime lords and all of that of the
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: Dark Knight, Rachel, the Rachel stuff, the you know, the
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: domestic terrorism of the Dark Knight rises, like all of that,
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: Like we actually see this man, you know, be navigating
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: in a very real worldish setting, I mean five through
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: twelve for really interesting years in the real world so
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: so I look at it as what is the the
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: where did they really shine? And and Christian Bale, I
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: think shine the brightest in his portrayal of Bruce Wayne
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: because he was given that, not to say another actor
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: couldn't have, but the story we're given in the Dark
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Knight trilogy, I think shines because it doesn't shy away
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: from well, this is a Batman movie. We just want
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: to see him in the cape, and he's going to
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: be in the cape all the time and and talk
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: in the voice that he.
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: Can't understand the Rachel.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: Where's Rachel? You know?
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: No, No, we're gonna get some I love the Bruce
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: Waye but would he buys hotels when he does crazy
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: Bruce Wayne stuff? It's so fun.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is the only time in the history
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: of Batman since like a before and since that we've
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: gotten a beginning, middle, and end of his story.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Darren, you're absolutely right, Bail's given more
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: to work with. Bail though, is this is going to
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: sound terrible? Keaton, Kilmer and Clooney. I mean they could
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: have cast other people at those times for that, other
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: people could have done what they did. Keaton's great. We
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: all know, I love Michael Keaton as Batman, but he's
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: They could have had somebody else in that circumstance and
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: it would have worked fine. Let's be honest with ourselves.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: It would have worked fine, Kilmer, it would have worked
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: fine with somebody else, Clooney, that wouldn't work for anybody.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: But Bail, I think has the actual He has very
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: much the capability to inhabit the character enough to justify
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: how robust they made him throughout these three films. I
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: think that what I what I find very interesting. The
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: question I would have is, we see, we've seen Bruce
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: Wayne in love with Vicky Baal Sleiena, Kyle Chase, Meridian
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Elle McPherson where the hell her name was? And Batman
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: and Robin and two different actresses playing Rachel. Who did
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: Bail have more chemistry with? Do you think? Do you
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: think he had more chemistry with Rachel number one or
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Rachel number two? Alfred stop No, but the number one.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: Of two makes me think they're fish and one died
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: and we just changed them out, So you didn't know, I.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Mean I didn't. I think that was probably pretty lacking.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: I think the idea of Rachel, Yeah, yeah, I think the.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Idea of Rachel willis as Rachel. I've been on record
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: saying this before. I really really like Maggie.
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: I'd say Maggie for me, I don't care.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: So when we it's I want to talk a little
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: bit more about The Dark Knight, because with Batman begins,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: you know, it made money, it doubled his budget. Everybody's
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: just like, hey, cool, hey, that was better than expected. Okay,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: this is going to be uh, you know, hey, maybe
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: this could go somewhere. And then like they're clearly thinking
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: about a sequel with that ending note, with you know,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Gordon handing Batman the Joker card, even though no one
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: denies that he had the idea of a trilogy or
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: a sequel, which is.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: Such a bs. No one's believing. No one believes that,
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: no one, you know, no one.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: We can all smell the marijuana underneath the door in
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: the dorm room, no one believes that it's stage. Okay,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: So that I thought that was a brilliant setup because
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: it got people excited. It is like you ended a
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: great movie, but then it wasn't. You didn't end on
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: a cliffhanger, you teased the next one. I think that's
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: the thing that people really need to learn from. You
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: don't end on a cliffhanger. You tease the next one.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: And that's what happened with the Dark Knight. And so
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: even though Batman Begins wasn't this runaway hit, and Darren
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: you talked about this earlier.
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: The marketing, the beautiful, perfect marketing of the Dark Knight
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: got people so freaking jazzed, like it.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Got people saying people who thought Batman Begins was just okay,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: just the marketing alone of Dark Knight got people thinking
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: it lying saying, oh, I knew Batman Begins was was.
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: Was perfect and it was going to bring something forward,
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: and uh like that.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: There was posters, there was websites, There was you know,
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: like this was like the type of website a.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: Phone number where you could call that guerrilla.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: Marketing when it was brand new for this era and
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: how it utilized the Internet, and you know, like there
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: was places in Chicago you could go and like you know,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: find little tokens to put things together, like they had
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: little treasure hunts and and uh and things like that.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: And in the teaser trailer, which was just this the
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Batman symbol with some with Christian Bale speaking, Michael Kaine speak,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: and then Heath Ledger is Joker speaking, and then it
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: ends on the Joker laugh and you hear that Hans
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Zimmer underneath. You're just like okay in the marketing, like
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: we're done, Like everyone's going to go see this. I remember,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: and I don't want to spend a lot of time
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: on this, but I remember when people were freaking out
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: that Heath Ledger was cast to this Joker. They're just like, ah,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: what a horrible casting decision. I'm going on record, and
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: I know everyone says this, but I was the first
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: one to say, Nope, he can do it. This is amazing.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: I know what he can do. I've seen every movie
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: of his He's a fantastic actor. He's going to do
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: an amazing job as the Joker. We went through this
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: with Keaton come on, and I remember losing Ledger and
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: like I had, like I had the Joker standing in
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: the middle of the street as my wallpaper on my computer.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: When I heard the news, I got into a fight
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: with my then girlfriend now wife because I was so
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: emotionally rot.
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: From the news.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: You want to know something terrible, my brother. I remember
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: I was at work and I was leaving work and
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: my brother called on my flip phone and I'm like, hey, brother,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: what's up? And he's like, oh, did you here? Heath
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Ledger died. You know what my first reaction was, because
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: of the marketing being so good, I thought it was
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: a marketing thing. I thought it was a lie to
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: get people to talk about them. Like my how I
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: feel heartless saying that now. But that's the thing.
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: You're just jaded, yeah.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: I guess. But like my first reaction was no, that
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: can't be true. All the way back then, I was
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: like what did you read it on the internet? Please?
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Like I was already at that point where I was
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: like whatever, man, And he's like, no, I swear to god,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: it's on the news right now. I was like what.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: And I remember doing like searching and I was like
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: what what happened? Like, because I too was really excited
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: about his joker like I was like, Oh, this is
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: gonna be good guys, Like I remember seeing a shot
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: of him in the makeup and I was like, oh,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: this is different, this is really different and getting excited
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: for it then. And it's so disorienting to think, I mean,
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: people are more than their career, they're their family there,
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: you know, he had you know, kids, right, and like
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: like just thinking of it in those terms, and but
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: you know, it was so difficult, especially after the movie
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: came out, not to be like man. He he would
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: have been blank check actor, like no matter what he
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: did for the rest of time, like he had he
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: would have had like a an Alan Rickman sort of
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: ara about him. For those of us who saw Diehard
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: in the theater, it was like Alan Rickman and it's like, Okay, fine,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: I'll go see it. I love that guy. Or sam
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Jackson right, it's like, oh, Samuel L. Jackson said, Okay,
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: I'm at least considering seeing this movie. And I again,
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: a human being is more than their career. God forgive
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: me if anybody's taking it as me saying, you know,
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: it's that's the sum of their their life or whatever.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: But Ledger like completely redefined what you could do with
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: a villain, Like there was a definition of a comic
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: book villain when you came into the Dark Knight that
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: he completely shattered. Like you compare his Joker with Nicholson's Joker.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: Nicholson's Joker is much closer to the Caesar Romero Joker
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Ledger's Joker is much more. I remember getting actually into
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: arguments with people because they were saying things like, oh,
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: it's dangerous for kids to see this movie because they're
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: going to want to be the Joker. And I'm like,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know who's going to watch this movie and
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: be like, you know, that's the guy this movie is
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: telling me to aspire to be. I'm like that, did
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: you watch the movie? Like, yeah, well I.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Think that's the thing is is that I mean? And
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: you know, of course we all remember the shooting that happened, Yeah,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: because of that. And the thing is is that we've
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: gone through this, you know, every once every five years,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: we go through this news cycle of if a crazy
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: person hears voices and tells them to do something crazy.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: They were crazy to begin with. It's not like they
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: would have found an outlet, whether a movie told them,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: or a come book told them, a video game told them,
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: or the voices in their head told them.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: Or the Beatles told Charles Manson.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, like, it's gonna happen no matter what. The like,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: people who are this off kilter are going to find
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: an excuse to be violent, and you cannot. It's i
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: don't want to talk about it, but it's it's one
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: of those things where like I'm so glad that, Like
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: there was when he won the Oscar, there was some
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: back and forth where they're like, should we give something posthumously?
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: You know, awards are for the living. Should he even
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: be nominated? And do you guys believe that you know
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: it was the right move to posthumously?
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, award him the Oscar?
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's silly, not like that. That's that's
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: not he gets struck by lightning, you know, his plane
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: goes down or something like that, You're not gonna recognize
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: his work. That's ridiculous, like the best, Like you know,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: that would be like not eulogizing somebody. No, of course
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: you talk about how great they were and how you
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: love them, and it's like, you know, uh, I I
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: didn't know there was a debate about that really, and
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: there was. Yeah, I think that's completely Like i'd been
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: I w'd have been the guy in the room. They'd
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: been like, why we even why are we even talking
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: about this? This is dumb, Like it doesn't even make sense.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: What if you nominate him and then he dies, do
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: you rescind the nomination and give it to somebody else,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: Like there's a cutoff if you don't die before this day. Yeah,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: what if somebody dies the day before the Oscars and
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: they've already won, do we posthumously take it away from
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: them and rehold the.
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: Fifty die between taping and airing, Like yeah, no, it's
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: it's not No, that's such a nonsense discussion.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm yeah, I think you guys are spot on
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: about that, because I feel like it really helped legitimize uh,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: comic book movies and genre movies and away at the
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Oscars that they haven't really done before were kind of sense,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: and it's it's a shame, you know, Like everybody who's
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: listening to this podcast understands understands that, like the legitimacy
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: of genre films at the Oscars is never really going
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: to be mainstream now. And Heath Ledger's performance was so
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: transcendent that it won because of it. And where X
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Men opened the door, the Dark Knight legitimized it and
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: what was it?
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: Okay?
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: So like a so Baman Begins had a budget of
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: one fifty took home three seventy five. Dark Knight had
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: a budget of one to eighty five took home over
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: a billion.
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: That was when it was a big deal.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, like that was super big kids insanity back then, kids,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: it was crazy, but.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: Let let's not under sell that it was Also it
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: really made use of IMAX, so there we was. There
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: was that you know, aspect ratio thing. And I still
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: ump I tell, but I tell the story all the time.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: The first viewing I ever had was on a Thursday
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: preview on an afternoon where I snuck out of work
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: and I watched it at an iMac theater at the
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum at Dullest Airport in
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: Northern Virginia. And I'll never forget that first shot, that
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: helicopter shot pushing in on the building that they're going
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: to swing out of, and it was the sixth story
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: tall Imax and that first shot boom with that little
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: little musical hit right there, straight cut boom comes in
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: and the entire theater gasped, just went, you know, like
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: it was audible, like everybody took in their breath. And
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: I remember, like that was so insane, and that was
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: such a selling point to be like I got to
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: be one of those hipsters to be like, well, did
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: you go to the Science Center to go see it?
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: Because I did exactly right, exactly Okay.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: So we're moving along in time, and I feel like
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: we haven't really talked about Dark Knight Rises that much.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: And I do want to say that when I first
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: saw Dark Knight Rises, it was at midnight, showing it
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: for a bachelor's bachelor party. I was the best man
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: I threw the bachelor party. We're gonna We're gonna end
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: the night with the Dark Knight Rises, and I was
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: so stoked, obviously because I freaking loved the Dark Knight
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: I walked out disappointed. I walked out disappointed, and I
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: was just like, oh man. And I went to lunch
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: with my with my wife and her family the next day,
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: or I guess I should say later that morning, and
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: she's like, how was it? And I was like, she's like,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: oh no. And so I kind of compared it to
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: the Godfather trilogy where oh no, now yeah many finished,
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: where you know, like Godfather won fantastic movie, fan freaking
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: tastic movie is the same as Batman begins Godfather to
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: good Lord? How is that better than the original? This
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: is insane? And then you have part three, where I
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: was just like, what a downgrade from the second one.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: But it's been what ten so fourteen years. It's been
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: fourteen year as of this record in fourteen years. The
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: more I watch it, the more I like it, like
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: the it. I had to watch it multiple times in
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: order to truly appreciate it. I think the third one
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: is the most flawed from a story standpoint. I think
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: the organization, the flow, the rhythm is is all off.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: But there are so many great scenes in it that
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: it makes me forgive it. And I love spending time
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: in this world, even though it's Pittsburgh and it's It's
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: one of those things where even though you have the
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: ridiculousness of the of the of the machine in the
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: first one that turns all water like dehydrates, you know,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: like the water supply.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: Which are point out we have as an actual weapon
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: now but whatever.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but we're all made of water, and yes, it's
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: a good thing.
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: Batman had that rehydrator dehydrator machine on his.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Belt, like there's there's there's ridiculousness in each one of these,
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: you know, like it's they're Batman films. It's a guy
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: flying around in a cape like you can dress it
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: up as much as you want. It's a guy flying
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: around in a cape. But I think the Dark Knight
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Rises pushes it a little bit too far too often.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: But now that I've spent time with it, I do
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: appreciate it, and there's I think there's great things in
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: all three of them. How do you guys see the
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: trilogy as a whole?
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: Real quick? As we round third here.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: With Dark Knight Rises, that's one where I started out
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: way higher, I fell down. I've come back up, and
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: I think that, yes, it is the most flawed, there's
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: no question. But I think that I'm predisposed to loving
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: it because of the fact that I loved it the
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: first time, the ending. The first time I watched it,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: I did I cried because I thought it was so
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: beautiful what they did, and I loved what Nolan was
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: saying with it, so his message sort of transcended the
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: shortcomings of some of them. It's but I think that
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: and this is this is where I'll draw fire, okay,
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: is I would compare it to Rogue one, where the
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: first reel of the movie is a gosh diddly, arn
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: darn mess. Okay, But I love the ending and so
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: it makes up for a lot of the what you're
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: talking about, the choppiness. Like I could literally sit down.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: I've never been a professional editor, but I like to
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: think I know enough about you know what I would
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: communicate as a producer as it were, and Tristan, you
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: can attest to this. I could sit down with an
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: editor or a director and I'd be like, look, take
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: this move it here, take this moveent here. That's going
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: to flow better, and the rest of your movie is
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: going to be better as a result of it. I
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: think that there are certain moments where if he reordered
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: some of the stuff that happens in the beginning, it's
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: a much better start to the film, and I think
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: that it flows a lot better. The time logic makes
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: more sense because there are certain things that happen in
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: that that that first third where it's like, well, this
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: scene would have made more sense over here, and that
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: scene would have made more sense over there, or intercutting
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: between the two of them would have made more sense,
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: and the time would have made more sense. Like there's
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: almost there's almost this idea at the beginning of The
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: Dark Knight Rises that no one has been screwing around
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: with time, so much with inception and the prestige and
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: certain things that he did with The Dark Knight, that
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: he's losing linear storytelling a little bit. And then it
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: comes back to him at the end of the film
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: or from like the the from the second third forward.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: But that's you know, that's my largest thing. And yeah,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: I'll jump on the train. Mary and Cotyard's death scene.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: I can't believe that's the best take. But I guess
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: there's no way that's the best take. There's no conceivable
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: way an actress as stellar as her that gave the
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: best take.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: No, that's that's terrible editing. It's terrible direction, it's terrible producing.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: It is a they failed her miserably. She is a
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: fantastic actress and they just ruined that moment.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: And there is one edit that gets under my skin,
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: a micro edit, as you would call it Tristan, where
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: you know, Matthew Modine is firing and then it cuts
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: to her and she's like shoot them, and then all
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: of a sudden he's dead on the ground. And then
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: I was like that that was always kind of messy.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: And then you find out there is a shot that
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: was cut of the car hitting him and I'm like,
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: what why would you cut that? That just doesn't even
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: make sense. And you can't even argue cutting for time
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: because there's no way that took long with like three
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: seconds the hell man, you know, because like it literally
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: is him firing her going shoot them, and you hear
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: the gun go off and then he's dead on the
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: ground and it's like, huh what So anyway.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like that's the thing is just like
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of fun moments, but we could like
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: once you pull that thread and they're just like, send
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: every cop into the sewers, every single one, Okay, good lord, well.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: And then they survive for five and a long time.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: One other thing I would offer is that the ending
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: would be so amazing if it simply was Alfred looking
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: up toward the audience, smiling and nodding, and then the
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: screen going black, so that the audience could be like,
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: wait a minute, did Alfred see him? Did Alfred believe
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: he saw him? Was it a nod to the audience
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: instead of actually showing Bruce Wayne watching Alfred spend all
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: of his money in Italy and Fernie Bronco sucks.
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: It's a terrible drink.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Darren what about you. Yeah, no, it's it is.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: I think in its own way, the Dark Night became
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: its own worst enemy in the fact, in the nature
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: of the trilogy, because it just it peaked so much.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: The performance, the editing, the story, you know, just Heath Ledger.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: All of that. I mean Heath Ledger.
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: We joke about actress who disappear into roles, like, there's
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: not a frame of that movie that I look and
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: I see Heath Ledger. It is the joker every moment,
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: even when he's in his you know, person makeup over
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: white makeup or however they did that.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it I think.
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: I just need to watch Dark Knight Rises more to
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: get that same kind of review period, to just simmer
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: with it. Honestly, the biggest takeaway I took from The
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: Dark Knight Rises, which has nothing to do with Batman,
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: is I got mad that I got more mad about
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: Star Trek Nemesis because here is Tom Hardy acting is
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: heart out like giving an amazing character performance, so he
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: can do it. He knows how to do it if
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: you give him something to do. And contrasting that with
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: you know, what we were given in Nemesis is just
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: a crying shame. So yeah, even in a mask, even
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: with overdubbing, even with all of that. But I do
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: remember the hype. I do remember, you know, I think
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: I might be misremembering, but I feel like this was
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: one of the first movies to show an entire scene,
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: an entire sequence as a trailer and didn't didn't they
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: give us like the plane attack scene, Yeah, gives the prolog, Yeah,
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: the prologue.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: And I remember Nolan.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: I think that's where Nolan got his uh like solidified
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: his reputation of how everything needed to be real.
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: Right right, which is not you know, I've seen articles
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: about that's not actually the case. He just does really
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: well of hiding things a CD. But yes, but yeah,
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: I remember that. And we watched that whole Secrets that
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: we were like buckle up, here we go, Like that
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: was such a great way to draw you back into
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: this world than than any trailer would have. Just show
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: just show part of the movie. Just show this whole
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: secret self contained. You know, it's not even in it,
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: it's just all the villain and it was it was
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: so cool like that was that was like a mission
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: impossible level spectacle, like as the you know, the say
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: just in Batman Were Universe.
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: All right, John, give me your ratings.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: Well, the ratings overall are five five four point five,
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: and the rating for the entire trilogy is five because
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: I can pop any one of these on, but the
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: best of all three goes back and forth between Batman
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: Batman Begins.
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: In the Dark Night.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: It really is like what's my mood that day? And
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: so that's where I stand with it. So five five
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: four point five and that's what I'm sticking with.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: Darren Man, I almost didn't have time to type that out,
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: it was so fast.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: One last thought I want to say is I love
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: the use of Lucius Fox in this trilogy.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: I feel like that was just.
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: Such an unused character in any except for maybe the
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: animated series. But you needed that character to just add
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: to the plausibility of this world, like someone who actually
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: had the tech, someone who actually had the pieces. So
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: I'm going four, five and four. You know, I enjoy
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: Batman Begins. I think it starts it off well, I
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: just find myself watching it less often. There's a lot
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: of you know, setup, which is great, But if I
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: was going to pick one to pop in, it's got
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: to be The Dark Knight. Although back to your point
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: of Nolan not thinking that this was going to be
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: a trilogy from the beginning or some sort of linked saga,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: the only thing I feel that gives credits to that
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: is that he would have called the first movie like
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: the Dark Knight, and then it would have been like
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: the Dark Knight subtitle, the Dark Knight sub like everything
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: would have been called the Dark Knight, rather than the
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: first one being called Batman Begins, which is such a
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: strange title in comparison to the other two in my opinion.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: So four five and a four, all right, So for
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: me it's four point five five five four. These are
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: all great films. This trilogy is fantastic, I you know,
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: like John, like like you said, like I can pop
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: in any single one and have a fantastic time, you know,
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: like there's ups and downs and all of them. But
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: with The Dark Knight, it was the best Batman film
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: to come out at that time. It was the perfect
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: superhero film, and it has yet to be throned. No
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: film has, no superhero film, no Batman film has touched
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: it since two thousand and eight or before. Hard facts here, folks,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: I agree, I agree changed, everything changed everything, Darren, What
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: are we doing next week?
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: All right, the wing of Batman's not done yet. We're
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: moving on to Zack Snyder with Batman v. Superman, Down
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: of Justice and Zack Snyder's Justice League Connext on house Lights.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Join the Revolution, Join the Net Party.