The Dark Knight Appreciation Thread

Tremendous crime thriller, terrible Batman movie.

Fantastic movie. So many great quotes, but my favorite will always be

"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"

So many great scenes, I can't pick just one.

As a huge Batman fan, I can get into anything within that universe. Even the 90's movies.

I love how much people bitch about it. Everyone hates B&R because it was comical. Then they hate these because they're serious.

Regardless TDK is the goat. It's hard to watch these days just because of the enormous hype around it. But everytime I do, I remember it's brilliance.

Probably the best Batman film made IMO. Bale played a perfect Bruce Wayne to me which is essential to the role of Batman. Anyone can put on a suit with fake muscles but if you cant play the role o a billionaire playboy it defeats the purpose for me. Ledger's version of Joker was fantastic. It finally gave us a true loose cannon of the Joker. I know the 89 Batman gets a lot of love but other then Nicholson version of The Joker, I found both Batman & Batman Returns to be kinda silly. I wont even get into the other 2 Batman films, everyone pretty much agrees on those.

I don't know if I could pick my all time favourite movie, but this is up there. Bale was a great Bruce Wayne. Ledger's Joker was just.....wow. Dammit, now I gotta watch the movie again.

Good movie but the hype sort of killed it for me. It's a shame that the sequel was so difficult to watch.

I enjoyed it. But it's still overrated.

Love the movie. Love Ledger's portrayal of the Joker. Love the relationship between Bruce and Alfred portrayed by Bale and Caine. Really enjoyed the Harvey Dent character; wished we saw more of him. It's definitely the gem of the Nolan trilogy for me. Still stop and watch whenever I run across it while surfing. Not saying there are no problems with it, but the entertainment value trumps any of those.

And for the record, no I'm not a reader of the comics, nor am I very familiar with the history of Batman.

Nolan used Morrison, Loeb and Miller as direct references for his films. Not sure what you "not a Batman movie" people are on about but if you actually read Batman comics you'd know you're totally off base. I mean I'm an Animated Series fan too but that's hardly the definitive Batman for book readers. Awesome show. Awesome in the same way the Arkham games are awesome. Not sure how liking either of those mediums makes what Nolan did any less significant to the Batman U.

The problem with Batman is that everyone has a different interpretation of what the character is to them, or what he should be. I'm sure there are people out there who think the Batman Forever or Batman & Robin Batman is the best Batman ever. No disrespect to Val Kilmer either because I think he was a pretty awesome Bruce Wayne, but those films are widely regarded as lesser installments for most fans. So it's completely subjective. Although I think most of the debate sits steadily between Nolan and Burton fans, understandably so. I wish Burton would have gotten his third movie off and that whole deal makes me sad in retrospect.

That being said, The Dark Knight is the best Batman movie to-date imo. I don't particularly care for the other two as much anymore and neither even remotely compares to TDK for me. Begins has always had super sluggish pacing and Rises just isn't a very good movie from a storytelling perspective. I truly wish Nolan would have cast JGL as "Eddie" and gone with a Riddler story, potentially a When In Rome/Long Halloween type of deal with Catwoman being heavily involved, but that's spilt milk at this point. I think TDK is not only the best Batman film ever, but one of the absolute best films ever made. It's easily top five for me, and it's just icing on the cake that it also happens to be a Bat flick.

Affleck's Batman seems to be influenced more from the Arkham games universe from what I'm seeing. However, there is still tons of gritty realism, which is the world Nolan created for the character. I'm not sure how you can love what you've seen so far of BvS and hate what Nolan did with his trilogy. Nolan helped create the Man of Steel Universe and BvS is an extension of both his creations.

Whatever, fanboying works both ways. I'm extremely pumped for Affleck as Batman and have been since day one. He looks just like the Batman/Bruce that Paul Dini created, which is the type of Batman fans have been familiar with in some capacity for 20 years between TAS, his comic runs, and of course the most recent video games. It's definitely something to be excited about but I've said multiple times that I'd much rather see another stand alone Batman film before we get this BvS and JLA mashup stuff.

Regardless, The Dark Knight is a magnificent film. The acting and cinematography are as good as a film has ever demonstrated and I'm incredibly proud, as both a Batman/comic book and film fan in general, to be able to point to that film as a true pinnacle of how comic book films can be more than just fun big budget popcorn flicks. I think Daredevil is doing a similar deal for Netflix. You don't have to specify that it's a great comic book movie or show because it's just great, under any circumstances.

My Bat favorites in relative order:

The Dark Knight
Batman Returns
Mask of the Phantasm
Batman 89
Begins