For those unaware, the 20th of July 2012 marks the end of a four year wait since The Dark Knight (2008); the end of the trilogy.
When the journey began in 2005 with Batman Begins there were many concerns floating around. The first had to do with the franchise. Batman had been buried and dug up before, was it worth bringing him back? He first hit the cinematic screens in 1966 in possibly the campest incarnation we have seen. Strange dances, shark-repellent bat-spray and days when you just can’t lose a bomb filled the screen time. Adam West’s Batman was a children’s film, which is fine, but as comics have developed and graphic novels have taken over, Batman’s dark surroundings and sub-plots made him the best suited to marketing at a mainstream adult audience. Tim Burton took the mantle, and despite not being a fan of comics, he made two dark and violent Batman films in 1989 and 1992. They weren’t by any means perfect, but they were good films heralding the new dawn of comic book film adaptations entering the mainstream. This new dawn had many teething problems and many adaptations failed, remained in the cult sidelines for years or simply tried to detract from the adult themes of graphic novels. Joel Schumacher made two films that fit in that third group. To mention the Bat-suit would be too obvious, but his films Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997) were too camp and basic and essentially buried Batman from cinema for the foreseeable future.
This brief history of Batman’s history was one concern; it had been less than a decade since the film we’d tried to forget (although you may be willing to forgive the entire film once you’ve seen the youtube video of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lines from Batman & Robin collated), why remind us? The other concern was the new director, Christopher Nolan. To some, he was a fairly unknown but brilliant director. To those fans, was he selling out? To everyone else, who was he? Could you trust the rebirth of the Batman in his hands?
These concerns were immediately proved to be unfounded with Batman Begins’ release. There was nothing childish or camp about it; it didn’t have Burton’s deliberately dark sheen all over it; it was new, fresh, and stood alone amongst the unfathomable amount of comic book adaptations.
The biggest and most important change was the setting. Nolan’s Chicago-esque Gotham, reinvented, was explained and became instantly relatable and understood. Gotham was no longer just another fictional city. Gotham was, arguably, every city. We saw how Gotham was, how it wanted to be, and how it ultimately, became what it was.
Batman was given the same treatment. Previously we had been given snippets, like the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents and left to come up with the rest of the story ourselves. Nolan understood that if he were to reinvent Batman, he couldn’t let prior portrayals cloud the judgement of the audience. So Batman Begins opens, with how Batman began. Nolan has complete control over this story, the origin, and thankfully, the future.
If a film does well these days, the studio will push for an immediate sequel. The studio fears that if too much time passes interest will subside and the sequel, whether a good film or not, will not make as much money. This is the studio’s number one concern. We have seen the perfect example of this earlier this year. The Hunger Games (2012) hit the screens and surprised everyone with how much it was able to take at the box office, making more than any film of the Twilight saga. Surely the makers of this critically acclaimed adaptation and clear money maker would be trusted to continue, but the studio saw the financial potential and put a deadline on the second film; a deadline that director Gary Ross felt that keeping to would ultimately mean a lesser product. His opinion wouldn’t sway the decision of the studio and he left.
Thankfully, Nolan was trusted, this trilogy has taken the better part of a decade from development to conclusion, and absence has only made the heart grow fonder.
Three years after Batman Begins thrilled audiences, Christian Bale’s Batman returned to the screens, but Nolan took a new approach with it. He had already rebuilt Gotham; the setting didn’t need as much explanation. Batman’s creation had been explained; he didn’t need as much explanation. So where could he go? The duality of man becomes a new focus. We see more about Bruce Wayne than we do Batman and we see how even the most idealistic of men can be swayed. This duality, although key, had never really been explored before; we’d seen it briefly in Begins, but not thoroughly. This is how franchises should be used. Iron Man 2 (2010) essentially follows the same formula as Iron Man (2008). The Dark Knight finds new avenues to explore; more depth to investigate. One of these avenues is villainy. Rather than retread the same path and focus on Batman/Wayne, the focus sways towards the Joker, brilliantly played by Heath Ledger, and Harvey Dent.
(I’m going to take this opportunity to note, that if you want more depth on the Joker and how he has developed on our cinema screens, drop Jamie Reid a note on twitter @JamieReid52 and ask kindly for a copy of his brilliantly written dissertation on the topic. It’s well worth reading.)
By the end of The Dark Knight Batman has reached new depths of sacrifice and despair and we as an audience have had to wait 4 years to find out if both he, and Gotham, are going to be able to rise from it.
At the date of writing, Batman Begins is the best Batman film to have been made. This is always open for debate, and many would argue vehemently for The Dark Knight to hold this title. So an outline of why Batman Begins is better than The Dark Knight is needed. The first point has already been stated; it resuscitated Batman from his Schumacher induced coma. The second is because while The Dark Knight was brilliant, it would not have been able to have reached the depths or the sub-plots without its predecessor. The third point has little to do with either film, and more to do with Heath Ledger. His performance was undeniably brilliant, but his death surrounded his performance and the film with a cloud of respect that was given rather than earned. Both the film and the performance deserve all the critical acclaim and awards granted, but people’s respect will now forever cloud their judgement, which is not fair to the first film of the trilogy and not fair to Ledger, who deserves this respect regardless of how he died.
The four year wait since The Dark Knight has reached an end. Nolan’s proven track record has allowed him a certain aspect of control and he has decided to end the series as a trilogy. Depending on how The Dark Knight Rises (2012) does, he will either kill his series while it remains a hero, or it will have lived long enough to see itself become the villain.
Written by Edward L. Corrigan on 11/07/2012
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