Podcasts about Batman Begins

What is Batman's biggest fear? Why does this movie recycle evil plans? Could this movie be anymore Chicago? All these questions (and more) are answered in our review of Batman Begins! Listen on Spotify for interactive features: https://open.spotify.com/show/17vdhjcBk8Y9arH43079qT Follow the boys on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/letstalkaboutflix Twitter: https://twitter.com/talkaboutflix Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letstalkaboutflix/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCubeWTDulScwrk1mjV1WOQ Website: https://anchor.fm/letstalkaboutflix Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/talkaboutflix

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Alex Towers and Phil Bagnall, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT. So this week, Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. Following the death of his parents, billionaire Bruce Wayne finds himself struggling for a way to make sense of the world. Studying under the mysterious Ra's Al Ghul, Wayne vows to devote his life to a war on crime itself. However, on returning home to Gotham, Bruce very quickly discovers that something very sinister has taken root in his home city. At time of recording, it was ranked 126th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Batman (1989) ​   Tim Burton's take on the Batman pathos would be a ground-breaking and box office winner which would take the world by storm.  The film would divert from the Red Hood storyline as an origin story for the Joker but would give him a different story as Jack Napier, local gangster, falling into chemical acid to become the psychotic Joker.  The film would be shot in England at Pinewood Studios with an inflated budget of $48million and would earn $400million at the box office.  The film would take its inspiration between Alan Moore's and Ryan Bolland's The Killing Joke and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. ​     Batman Begins (2005)   Batman Begins is a reimaging of the Batman with Christopher Nolan giving the film a darker and more realistic tone.  The campiness would be laid to rest, and we would have a more serious tone.  The film would give a retelling of the origin story with more complex themes.  It would use three sources which includes The Man Who Falls, Batman: Year One and Batman: The Long Halloween.  The film would be a box office success and would be the start of the trilogy now known as The Dark Knight Trilogy.   Opening Credits; Introduction (.38); Amazing Design Ad (11.18); Introduction Part 2 (12.30); Background History (34.54); Batman (1989) Film Trailer (36.15); The Original (38.04); Introducing a Remake (1:34.42); Batman Begins Film Trailer (1:36.25); The Remake (1:38.44); Preference Original or Remake (2:29.18); End Credits (2:38.09); Closing Credits (2:40.25)   Opening Credits– Epidemic Sound – copyright 2021. All rights reserved   Closing Credits:  The Man Inside by David Fionix (single) Copyright 2020 EO Records.  https://davidfionix.com/about-me/ ​ Original Music copyrighted 2020 Dan Hughes Music and the Literary License Podcast.    All rights reserved.  Used with Kind Permission.   All songs available through Amazon Music.

小額贊助支持本節目： https://open.firstory.me/user/ck2ymcbpa2cpi0869qq23bkji 留言告訴我你對這一集的想法： https://open.firstory.me/user/ck2ymcbpa2cpi0869qq23bkji/comments 【Apple App 補給站】

Luke Owen and Dan Layton show you what's in store with Cineworld's 4DX and ScreenX special offer, where 4DX and ScreenX screenings won't cost you anything extra!Watch special 4DX screenings of Intersteller, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Fast And The Furious, Minions: The Rise Of Gru and Spider-Man: No Way Home: cineworld.co.uk/4dx#/Watch special ScreenX screenings of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Bullet Train and Top Gun: Maverick: cineworld.co.uk/screenx#/OUT NOW - New this week:See How They Run - cineworld.co.uk/films/see-how-they-runTad The Lost Explorer And The Curse Of The Mummy - cineworld.co.uk/films/tad-the-lost-explorer-and-the-curse-of-the-mummyBodies Bodies Bodies - cineworld.co.uk/films/bodies-bodies-bodiesJaws (Re: 2022) - cineworld.co.uk/films/imax-jaws-re-2022OUT NOW - Don't miss:Fall - cineworld.co.uk/films/fall-2022E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (40th Anniversary) - cineworld.co.uk/films/et-the-extra-terrestrial-40th-anniversaryThree Thousand Years of Longing - cineworld.co.uk/films/three-thousand-years-of-longingBullet Train - cineworld.co.uk/films/bullet-trainDC League of Super-Pets - cineworld.co.uk/films/dc-league-of-super-petsMinions: The Rise of Gru - cineworld.co.uk/films/minions-the-rise-of-gruTop Gun: Maverick - cineworld.co.uk/films/top-gun-maverickUNLIMITED SCREENINGS:The Woman King (Sept. 20) - cineworld.co.uk/films/the-woman-king-unlimited-screeningSmile (Sept. 26) - cineworld.co.uk/films/smile-unlimited-screeningDon't be anti-social!TwitterFacebookInstagramWeb Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to another episode of Movies that Make Us. We're leaving behind the feel-good feelings of the last few weeks and are embracing the shadows with our discussion of The Dark Knight.This 2008 film is arguably one of the greatest sequels ever made and expands on the Gotham Christopher Nolan created in Batman Begins. You can't discuss the film without talking about the genius take that Heath Ledger brings to the Joker, but there is so much more to discuss. From the brilliant score by Hans Zimmer, to the deep, rich cinematography by Wally Pfister. What are your thoughts on the film? As always, you can reach us at podcast@moviesthatmakeus.com. Did you miss the video premier of this episode? Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and then click the little bell to receive notifications when we add a new video or go live.You can also follow our Facebook page so you can receive notifications for new audio or video of our episodes. Sometimes we are even live on Facebook, so you can give us feedback right then and there. It's pretty sweet.As always, thank you for listening, and for now, we won't see you at the movies… Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've come to the end of our analysis of the Dark Knight Trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises. Can this one live up to the awesomeness that the previous two movies were? Where does this movie work and where does it not? Let's dig in and talk about how this trilogy ends. ----more---- Transcript Welcome to Nerd Heaven. I'm Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars. And I am a nerd.   This is episode 94 of the podcast.   Today we're talking about the movie The Dark Knight Rises.   The description on IMDB reads Eight years after the Joker's reign of anarchy, Batman, with the help of the enigmatic Catwoman, is forced from his exile to save Gotham City from the brutal guerrilla terrorist Bane.   The screenplay was written by Jonathan Nolan and Christpher Nolan The story was by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer. It was directed by Christopher Nolan And it first released on the 16th of July 2012.   Once again, I hired this on DVD when it came out, and only saw it once. But I own the complete trilogy on Blu-ray now.   The movie starts with Commissioner Gordon praising Harvey Dent at his funeral. Doing just what Batman told him to do. As hard as that is for him.    That ties us into the end of the previous movie. Then we're straight to the new plot.   It's a hostage situation. Bane is introduced as a mercenary. A masked man. It's a terrifying interrogation, the way they're threatening these people, but not actually killing them.   He wants to know, who is Bane? This guy is looking for him.   It turns out one of them IS Bane. Now my first introduction to Bane was the game Batman Arkham Asylum. In that game, he's this big monstrous creature powered by the venom serum. Basically DC's answer to the Hulk.   When I heard Bane was going to be the primary villain of this movie I was surprised. How can a big mutated monster fit in with this serious realistic Batman?  I was surprised to see when he appeared, that he was just some bloke, but he's got this weird metal mask around his mouth.   No explanation is given for this odd facial decoration when he's introduced. But he does say that nobody cared about him until he put on the mask. And I have to say, his voice doesn't at all match what I would expect to hear coming out of someone who looks like this.   He's got this happy-go-lucky English accent. Sounds like it could be quite high-pitched but it's distorted by the mask.   Without any explanation, this mask is just really distracting and odd.   Bane crashes the plane. He's stealing blood from one of their bodies. This is all a pretty impressive sequence to look at, but it's very disorienting. Who are all these people? What do they mean to each other?  None of it is clear.   Bane Leaves one of his own behind, so a body can be found in the wreckage. And the guy doesn't even object. What hold does he have over them they'd so readily die for him? Spoiler alert - we'll never find out.   Even after seeing the whole movie, looking back it still wasn't entirely clear what this scene was all about? They abduct Doctor Pavel and fake his death. That'll be important later. But what's with the blood?   Back in Gotham, we learn about Harvey Dent day. A new public holiday.  The city has undergone a historic turnaround. Gotham is without organised crime. For the first time in forever. A real difference has been made. It's nice to know that Bruce was right. Gotham has been rehabilitated. He's proven Ra's Al Ghul wrong.   There's some talking about repealing the dent act, which gave police the power to act, but no real details on what they meant. And some talking about how Batman murdered Dent.   Gordon hates playing along with all of this. But what can he do? When he says he has a speech, telling the truth about Dent, but now is not the time, I think he means the real truth. Maybe one day he can tell the real truth and clear Batman's name. But not today. The peace is too fragile. Too new.   Things are not going well for Gordon. His wife and kids left him. The mayor wants to get rid of him. He was a war hero, but this is peacetime. I feel really sorry for him. The last movie destroyed his marriage. Between faking his own death - letting his wife think he'd died, and their son nearly dying, I can see how it ended. It really sucks.   So we're seeing a very different world than that of the first two movies. But let's not assume it's all gonna stay happy and nice. There'd be no movie then.   Batman might be on the run, but Bruce Wayne isn't. He doesn't have to be. Nobody knows Bruce is Batman. But Bruce is living as a recluse. His new beard speaks volumes. He needs a cane to walk. It's not entirely clear why this is. But he's not faking this. He really does have trouble walking.   The maid is stealing his mother's pearls.   And the maid is, of course, not a maid, but a cat burglar. Selina Kyle. And here's yet another example of Hollywood star casting  I would never have thought of, but I like Anne Hathaway in this role. She does a decent job of it. I think at this point, she was still stepping out of the shadow cast by The Princess Diaries. Although she had already played Agent 99 in the remake of Get Smart, which I found surprisingly good.   Wayne Manor has been rebuilt. Bruce can now operate back in the original bat cave. But it's a lot more developed.    Selina likes the pearls. She won't sell them, but what she wanted was Bruce's fingerprints.    Alfred is worried about Bruce. He hung up the cape but he never began a new life. He's not living. He's just waiting. But he's still grieving the loss of Rachel.   Alfred tells his cafe story, which is important and will be paid off wonderfully later on. When Bruce was away, travelling the world, learning how to fight criminals, Alfred hoped he'd never come back. Why? Because he wanted Bruce to find his happy ending, and live a life free of the wounds of his childhood. Alfred would go on holiday to Florence every year. He'd go to a particular cafe. Every time he'd fantasise that he'd look across and see Bruce with a wife, maybe a couple of kids. Neither would speak to each other, but they'd both know that he'd made it. That he was happy. He never wanted Bruce to come back to Gotham. There was nothing here for him but pain and tragedy. Alfred wanted something more for him than that. And he still does.   Next, we meet an idealistic young cop named Blake. He'll be a pretty important character in this movie, but it won't be clear why for some time. He's played by Joseph Gordon Levitt, who is most famous for the teenage-bodied alien in the sci-fi sitcom Third Rock from the sun. But he really sells his performance as an adult cop in a serious drama.   Selina meets a guy named Stryver.  Selina got the prints for THIS guy. Stryver is gonna kill Selina, but she's well prepared. In a lot of ways, like Batman. She puts on a good act to appear an innocent bystander to cops.   But Blake is on the case.   Thugs capture Gordon and bring him to Bane. There is a connection between Bane and Stryver.   Blake comes to see Bruce. In relation to Harvey's murder. But starts telling him the story of Bane.  He needs Batman's help. Does Blake know Bruce is Batman? Blake tells the story of his own tragic childhood. He's an orphan too. Bruce Wayne Billionaire orphan was a hero to those kids.   It was never really clear to me how or when Blake discovered that Bruce is Batman, but it also seems pretty clear that at this point, he DOES know. And he believes Batman was innocent of Harvey's crimes.   I guess Bruce's injuries are from his time as Batman. That would seem logical. But Batman didn't seem this banged up at the end of Dark Knight.   Bruce meets with Gordon in a ski mask as Batman. Gordon says Batman needs to return. He is still needed. Bruce is not convinced Batman exists anymore.   Bruce finds Selina at a charity party. This is a masquerade and Selina has chosen a black mask and cat ears. This is the closest to a cat costume we'll get to see her in. It's a realistic take that works in the context of this trilogy. Although she'll kinda continue to wear it again later in the movie for some reason, which doesn't seem to fit. Honestly, I'd probably have been okay if this was the only scene where we saw her wear it.   This party is also where we meet Miranda Tate, a bright young woman who has business dealings with Bruce, and is very interested in his clean energy reactor, which he's never put into production.   Selina ended up a thief because she did what she had to. But once you start there,  they'll never let you do what you want to. You get stuck in a life of crime. Does that excuse her actions? It certainly gives us a little more sympathy for her as a character. I suspect this is a common story in the real world. Nobody grows up thinking “I really wanna be a criminal”. She says “There's no fresh start in today's world.” And it's starting to look like a fresh start might just be something she'd be interested in, if it were possible.   In the meantime, she sees herself as a robin hood figure   Selina threatens a coming storm that may bring down the rich in Gotham. And then she steals Bruce's sports car.   Wayne Enterprises not doing well financially. Bruce put all his money into the clean energy project, but won't turn it on for some reason. But you can bet he does have a reason. Miranda supports the project and doesn't understand why he won't follow through.   Lucious has some gadgets to show Bruce, even though he says he's retired. It's some kind of aircraft. Bruce is using a device to help him walk and even kick.   We learn a little about Bane. There's a prison pit where prisoners are sent to suffer and die,  in another part of the world. Bane came from that prison. He was born and raised in hell on earth. He was trained by Ra's al Ghul. But excommunicated from the league of shadows. Apparently he was too extreme for Ra's. And that's gotta be a bad thing.   Alfred thinks Gotham needs Bruce, not Batman. He's not afraid Batman will fail. He's afraid that he WANTS to fail. He's a shadow of who he was. Physically and mentally.   So Bayne and his goons break into the stock exchange. There's no cash here. So what's his plan? It's an online theft. They don't stay long. And they leave with hostages   Bruce wears the batman suit for the first time in ages. He arrives on the bike that was once part of the tumbler.   This is more dangerous for him than ever because the police think he is a murderer. They won't hesitate to take him down.   This proves to be a real problem - because the cops are more interested in catching Batman than they are dealing with Bane and Co. Good for Bane.   Putting aside the question of whether the bike was originally part of the bridging vehicle, it continues to do some pretty cool stuff in this movie. The way the wheels rotate and allow quick direction changes is a lot of fun to watch.   But then all reality goes out the window when we see this movie's version of the batwing, which is basically a full-on spaceship. I mean, I like it, but it doesn't fit this series very well. And they don't even try to explain it. The batmobile was introduced in a way that made sense in this world, in Batman Begins. No attempt was made to do likewise with the Batwing in this movie. I found that pretty disappointing.   Selina is after a program that will clear her name. A clean slate. It erases your identity from every database on earth. It literally makes you disappear. So her desire to escape her life of crime and have a fresh start is quite genuine. But the guy claims it doesn't exist.   Batman rescues Selina from Bane's people.   Selina sold Bruce's fingerprints to Daggart, who Stryver works for, for that program. She hasn't been paid, so you can imagine how she's feeling.   Alfred is really not keen on Bruce trying to be Batman again. He's gonna get himself killed. He used to want a life beyond Batman, but with Rachael's death, that's not possible. He can't move on. And that's when Alfred decides to finally tell Bruce about Rachael's letter. It's a very powerful character scene. And this choice hurts both of them very deeply. Alfred has just sacrificed his relationship with Bruce in an attempt to keep Bruce alive. A painful representation of what love is all about. Brilliant scene. Sadly, that means we won't see any more of Alfred until near the end of the movie.   Now we find out what Bane and Daggart were up to. They've effectively bankrupted Bruce and acquired Wayne Industries. Bruce's main concern is applied sciences, but Lucious has done a good job of keeping that off the books and safe. As he should have.   But they do have his energy project.   Bruce shows the reactor to Miranda. The reason he never put the reactor into active use is because some Russians found a way to weaponise similar technology. In particular, Doctor Pavel from the plane at the beginning. The risk was too great for Bruce.   He's putting Miranda in charge of the company, in charge of the reactor. “Keep it safe and hidden. If it becomes too dangerous, she's to flood it.” Bruce has been officially kicked out of his own company. His father's legacy.   Bane kills Daggett and takes over, calling himself a necessary evil. That's kind of how the League of Shadows see themselves, right?   Bruce wants to recruit Selina to help find Bane. He offers her the fresh start. Claims it does exist. Bruce acquired it to keep it out of the wrong hands. He may be willing to let Selina use it, but he needs to trust her first. When he tells her that they're letting him keep the house, Selina makes a very interesting point. “You don't even go broke like the rest of us.” And that's very interesting. When super rich people go broke, they tend to still have resources behind them. A former billionaire is not going to find himself living on the street begging for food, like a normal person might when they lose everything. It's all relative. And I find that fascinating.   It reminds me of Alastair in the British comedy show As Time Goes By. When he said he was broke, what he really meant was he was down to his last million.   Bruce and Miranda get intimate. That seems to have come out of nowhere.   It turns out Batman couldn't trust Selina. She's done a deal with Bane, delivering Batman to him. Bane knows who Batman is as well. Selina overhears so she knows too   Now in some ways, Bane is a very similar character to Doomsday.  Doomsday is good for one thing. Killing Superman. So if you're gonna put Doomsday in your movie, you'd better be willing to have him Kill Superman.   In a similar way, Bane is famous for breaking Batman's back. That's his purpose. It doesn't mean you can't do other things with the character, of course, but Bane's inclusion is something of a promise.   I'm not as familiar with this incident from the comics as I'd like to be. I am in the process of binging the important Batman comics from the 80s and 90s, but I'm not up to Knightfall yet. Looking forward to it, though. Bane says something I find fascinating. “Peace has cost you strength. Victory has defeated you.” By winning peace in this city, Batman has not kept up his training. His physical conditioning. That has made him weak. His great victory has become his defeat.   Bane claims to BE the league of shadows. Fulfilling Ra's Al Ghul's destiny.   “You merely adopted the dark, '' he says. “I was born in it, moulded by it. I didn't see the sun until I was a man.”   Bane has found applied sciences. He has all of batman's tech And then he does it.  He brake's Batman's back.  In a shot that looks very reminiscent of the comic.   I think Selina is already realising that she made a mistake. She's on the run, not from the police, but from bane. When Blake says he can offer her protection, she just gives him this look, and Blake kinda shrugs, as if to say, okay, maybe we can't protect you from someone like that.   Selina honestly tells him she's not sure if Bruce is dead or alive.   He is alive, but barely. Bruce doesn't fear death - he longs for it. Bane has taken Bruce to the prison where he grew up. Underground and dark. The tunnel is open. You can see the sky. But climbing is impossible. That impossible hope is what tortures people's minds.   Bruce has to watch on a TV screen as Bane destroys Gotham.   Bane seems to be the only one to ever have escaped from this hole. He was born in there, and he escaped as a child.   And he's found the reactor. The board are coerced into turning it on for him.   Bane's first move is to detonate explosives he's buried in concrete all over the city. The visuals of the football field slowly collapsing looked amazing.   There are some similarities between Bane's plan and Ra's al Ghul's. Isolate the island in the middle of Gotham and then use some advanced technology to destroy people.   Most of the city's cops are in the tunnels under the city. Except for Blake.   At this point, most first-time viewers are probably surprised by how big a role Blake has in this movie, and wondering why he's in here.   It seems Doctor Pavel is the only person in the world capable of disarming the reactor bomb. After confirming this, Bane murders Pavel in front of the entire stadium.   Now we see a little of The Joker's theatricality come into play. This is going to be a game. One of the people in the crowd has the detonator.  It's not clear at this point, whether this is somebody working for Bane, or if the person doesn't actually know they're the one. Perhaps something innocuous they'll do will set off the bomb. This could have been explained better.   I feel like the writing in this movie isn't up to the same level as the previous two. Ra's al Ghul had a clear goal and motive. The Joker was completely insane, but even he had a clear motive and goal - as crazy as it was. But I can't get a reading on Bane. He says he's giving Gotham back to the people. What exactly does that mean? Gotham is finally at peace, better than it's been in decades. What does he think he's liberating them from? But does he actually care? Of course not. He sees himself as carrying the torch of the League of Shadows. He wants to destroy Gotham. But why? Batman has succeeded in proving that Al Ghul's extreme measures were not necessary. Gotham has been rehabilitated. So ….. What's it all about?   Interesting to see a bunch of tumblers, in their original cammo colours driving through the city streets.   Bane tells the city the truth about Harvey Dent, reading from the stolen speech Gordon planned to one day deliver. He's raging against the corruption of the Gotham police. Now in fairness, much of their current peace has been built on a lie. But the criminals locked in that prison are still criminals. Justice HAS been served. So what is to be gained by letting chaos reign and releasing all those dangerous criminals back out into the street? Maybe Bane wants to watch the city tear itself apart, but he can just set off the bomb.   It seems to me that Bane is his own brand of crazy, but a much less interesting version of crazy than we saw last time with The Joker.   The people of the city seem to be taking up Bane's cause and rioting. I find that extraordinary.  So Blake points out some of the criminals have been denied parole due to the Dent Act. Well….that's a potential moral issue. But it's not a well-defined one. We just don't have enough information to make a fully informed opinion. The justice system is supposed to punish the guilty, but also preserve certain rights and freedoms that they still have as human beings. But this was an act of legislation. It was a law. We don't understand the subtleties and details of that law, but the police had the legal right to keep those criminals locked up, regardless of whether Harvey Dent was a nice bloke or not. Whether what the law allowed them to do was morally right is a completely different question.   And now for the people of Gotham to want to let all those dangerous criminals out to roam the streets, and string up the cops. I'm losing all sympathy for them. The thing is, I'd be quite interested in a story that genuinely looked at the moral issues of a police force doing something a little dubious to protect the city from the special class of criminal we see in Gotham. Get some real interesting shades of grey going on so you have something to discuss. Except I don't think this movie does it at all well. It doesn't delve in and explore any of that. It's all brushed over so briefly that it becomes meaningless and there's nothing to talk about.   We cut back to Bruce and we get a little more backstory about Bane. How he came to be born down there in that pit. I don't know what country this is supposed to be, but you want to talk about corrupt justice systems mistreating the freedoms of its prisoners. This is where you look. Apparently, young Bane was attacked by other prisoners during a plague. One of the prisoners was a doctor. He tried to fix Bane's face, but his fumbling efforts left Bane in perpetual agony, and the mask on his face holds back the pain somehow. Um……..okay.   So they're trying to fix Bruce's back. A broken back doesn't necessarily mean death. My wife suffered a broken vertebra in her back from a roller-skating injury as a teenager. It's something she's lived with all of her life. The muscles learn to adapt. But Bruce is in a pretty bad way. He's got vertebrae sticking out. It's believable that Bruce could get back into physical shape again someday, but it's gonna be a very long and slow recovery.   Bruce hallucinates that Ra's Al Ghul is there with him. He surmises that Ra's was the mercenary whose wife was thrown into the pit. Ra's is Bane's father. This is reasonable speculation, but Ra's isn't really there alive to confirm it. This is all in Bruce's head. So maybe Bruce is right, and maybe Bruce is wrong. But we're expected to believe that it's true - at least that Ra's al Ghul was the mercenary, and the child's mother was his lover. But the only reason Batman, or the audience, knows this, is because Bruce learned it in a dream.   At this point I'm left wondering how long exactly is this siege taking? For Bruce to recover and build himself up to the physical strength to climb out of the pit, realistically, I'd think he'd need a year. He was in much worse shape than my wife, and she lost the better part of a school year to her injury. But it feels like the stuff in Gotham is just taking place over a few hours, or maybe a few days.   Blake actually gives us a number. It's been 3 months. 3 months those cops have been trapped underground. So much about this movie just isn't ringing true. Wouldn't the federal government have done something about this after all that time? An entire city under siege?   Lucious gives us some more bad news. The fuel cell in the reactor is deteriorating over time. In 23 days it'll go off, regardless of whether the trigger man pushes the button. If he could get his hands on the core he could put it back in the reactor and stabilise it.   After a few failed escape attempts, the prison doctor gives Bruce some psychological advice. Not being afraid of death doesn't make you strong. It makes you weak. Fear of death is necessary. It's what makes you go that extra mile and do what should be impossible. Because if you don't you die. So he advises Bruce to do the climb the way the child did. Without the rope. I don't know if this is good advice or not, but in a way it kind of makes sense. Bruce is not fully committing. Because somewhere deep down, he knows if he misses, the rope will save him. Without that safety net, he simply HAS to make the jump. So his body and mind will be more willing to do what is needed. It's all mental. Makes some form of sense. But if he fails - he can't try again. It's a gamble I wouldn't make. But Bruce would.   It's a genuinely triumphant moment when he climbs out to freedom.   We get another cameo from Doctor Crane, also known as the scarecrow. He's trying people in Bane's dodgy court.   When Gordon goes to recruit one of his cops to help, we learn a little more about the situation. The government has apparently done a deal with Bane. The details of which, we don't know. Seems unlikely.   This is a weird setting. It's almost post-apocalyptic. The cop says Gordon doesn't know whether the bomb will go off tomorrow, except … he does. Why doesn't he tell him about the time decay?   So Wayne has arrived and recruited Selina to help him. He still sees something good in her. Is that naive? Maybe. But part of being a literary hero is looking for the good in people. Gordon has been captured by the goons and is being forced out on the ice, even though he would prefer to be shot than play along with the charade.   Bruce lights his symbol in flames on the side of a building, because he knows the power of a symbol to give people hope is an important weapon in this fight. Batman can't save the city alone. That will take good people to stand up.   Blake and Selina are gonna lead people out of the city to safety while Batman leads an army against Bane.   Selina is still ultimately selfish, but she wants Bruce to come with her. There's an inkling of something between them, at least from her side. She makes the point that he doesn't owe these people anything more. He's given them everything. And she may be right. Maybe they don't even deserve him anymore. But true heroism gives what is undeserved. And as he ominously points out, he hasn't given them everything. Not yet.   It really does look like a war. The cops all lined up in their uniforms, facing off against the crowd of Bane's thugs.   A big battle like this is a pretty epic way to finish off the trilogy, I'll grant them that.   So big surprise, Miranda is the child of Ra's al Ghul, not Bane. She's working with him and she has the trigger. Bane was her protector. I'm not sure this really works.  Did she really know about the reactor before Bruce told her? Because Bane seemed to. I dunno.   Also, this calls into question a lot of the backstory we thought we knew about Bane. So…has he actually been in that pit since childhood? Did he grow up there? Was the whole story about the doctor messing up his facial surgery so he needed the mask to keep the pain at bay true or not? We're just left feeling a little bewildered.   Fortunately, Gordon has managed to block the detonator, so it doesn't explode at once. Selina has finally decided to have a change of heart and help Bruce.   Miranda has flooded the reactor so there's no way to prevent the bomb from exploding anymore.   The only thing that can be done now is to fly it away from the city. A suicide mission. Batman is quick to sign up for that with his batwing. Now he really will have given everything.   Gordon wants to know Batman's identity, not because he ever cared, but because people should know who gave his life for them. Bruce subtly tells him who he is by relating an experience from his childhood.   When this movie was soon to come out, I remember saying to a workmate of mine that I suspected Batman would die in the third movie, sacrificing himself for others. My reasoning was that it had been confirmed the series would be a trilogy. This would be the end. And Batman dying just seemed a fitting end that would fit the tone of the series.   So I felt kind of gratified when I saw exactly that play out. Of course, it's not over yet.   It's fitting that Bruce's funeral is attended by Gordon, Lucious, Blake, and Alfred. The people who knew who he was. I'm curious what kind of cover story they came up with for Bruce's death. I don't think Gordon revealed Batman's identity publicly, because when asked about who saved the city, he simply says “The batman.” But with all the death and destruction, it shouldn't be too hard for Gordon and Blake to explain it.   Poor Alfred. He's so heartbroken. He blames himself. He feels he let down Thomas and Martha Wayne.   Blake has thrown in his badge. I think the inability to adapt of the officers that wouldn't let him escape with the kids has hardened him to the rigid structure of the force.   I got pretty emotional at the reading of Bruce's will. He's left everything to Alfred, the man who raised him, who was as much a father to him as Thomas was. And Wayne manor is to be used to care for the city's orphans.   So we learn that Blake's real name is Robin. Bruce has left him information to find the batcave, in case he wants to continue Batman's work.   So that's why Blake's story was so important to this movie. He is…this universe's equivalent of Robin. In the comics, Robin was just a code name given to a number of people. Dick Grayson, Json Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damien Wayne. In this version, Robin was the guy's real name. It's little more than a nod to the concept, but it kinda fits this interpretation.   And that brings us to that last scene. We learn with Lucious that the Batwing's autopilot was fixed after all. So Bruce Might have survived.   Then we see Alfred taking a trip to that cafe. The one where he used to fantasise about seeing Bruce happy and okay. He looks up, and there he is. Bruce is sitting at a table with Selina. They nod to each other and Alfred leaves. All is okay now. It seems that the clean slate program has given both Bruce and Selina a fresh start.   This is a powerful scene. It pays off the earlier scene so beautifully. It shows that Bruce and  Selina have made a happy new life together, but most importantly, it provides reconciliation between Bruce and Alfred. Forgiveness. A promise that they are still family.   It's a wonderful way to end the movie.   As for Bruce and Selina, I love that they end up together. There is always an aspect of attraction and tension between Batman and Catwoman. But this movie didn't do enough to establish that. They kiss shortly before he dies, for no real reason. And that's it. I think It would have worked better if they'd established a little more between them earlier in the movie, maybe instead of with Miranda. The sex with Miranda did nothing other than to make her betrayal sting a little worse, but honestly, I don't that was needed. Miranda's betrayal would have been just as powerful whether they'd had sex together or not.   So … how can I sum up this movie? I derive some enjoyment from watching it, and I'll probably watch it again some day. But in terms of quality, it's not even in the same league as Batman Begins or The Dark Knight. This one has a reputation for not being as good, and I do think they dropped the ball. I can't help but wonder if it was rushed. It seemed like they needed a little more time to revise the script. I was going to say that a longer runtime might have helped it as well, but I was surprised to look up and learn that this movie was actually the longest in the trilogy.   I found myself really having to concentrate to fully get my head around this one. I had a similar experience with The Dark Knight, but that was because there was so much going on. But all those pieces fit together beautifully like a jigsaw puzzle. It was meticulously put together. There was a lot less going on with this one, but the pieces didn't seem to fit together quite as well, and some of the pieces were missing.   So what do I like about it? It's got some really cool visuals. The effects and the camera work are beautiful to look at. I liked Blake's character. I liked Batman's sacrifice and his new secret life. That whole last scene is beautiful. I liked Anne Hathaway's portrayal of Selina Kyle, though as I said I felt they could have done more with her and Batman. I liked that they tried to tie this in a lot to Batman Begins, to round off the trilogy and make it feel whole and complete. But I don't think they really succeeded in doing that effectively. And I like the whole Bane breaking Batman's back thing, and I liked Bruce's journey of getting himself back on his feet and out of that prison - although the timing doesn't really work.   So that's a decent list of positives.   This was as good as the average superhero movie, but a bit of a disappointment when compared to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.   Ultimately, though, this trilogy has held up really well for me. The awesomeness of the first two more than makes up for the shortcomings of the third. This trilogy changed the way Superhero movies were made. At least for a time. It showed that Superheroes really could be taken seriously as dramatic characters. And it laid the foundations for the Snyder universe that I love and adore so much.   I've enjoyed covering these movies. I hope you've enjoyed my thoughts on them. Next time, we start a whole new adventure. We're going to be covering all ten episodes of Star Trek Continues. It's gonna be a lot of fun, so I hope you'll join me for that.   Until then, have a great two weeks Live long and prosper. Make it so.

On this episode Travis is flying solo as he talks about the news that Harley Quinn is getting a 4th season! He also talks about what this may mean for Young Justice Season 5.After that Travis gets into Episode 3x08 Batman Begins Forever, where he discusses Harley & Ivy's plan, the return of an old gang member, reverse repressed memory syndrome, and what is Bruce's plan with Frank?

J Scotty and Zuhair celebrate the 100th episode of the podcast by discussing one of the best episodes of Harley Quinn to date! Harley Quinn Season 3 Episode 8 now streaming on HBO Max!

Steve & Izzy continue their watch party of the incredible 1987 children's show "Captain Power & the Soldiers of the Future" starring friend of the podcast Sven-Ole Thorsen, Jessica Steen, Tim Dunigan, Peter MacNeill, Maurice Dean Wint & David Hemblen!!! This watch party includes Michael Bagford from Rock Solid Podcast!!! Who is Judge the Otter? Is Christopher Nolan a HACK or a fan because of "Batman Begins"? Oscar Meyer had two albums? How much fringe is too much fringe?!? Let's find out!!! So kick back, grab a few brews, beware strange canteens, and enjoy!!! Join us every other Saturday at 5 PM Pacific time by contacting us at @EILFMovies on Twitter or Facebook and we can add you to the Watch Party for the next episodes!!! This episode is proudly sponsored by Untidy Venus, your one-stop shop for incredible art & gift ideas at UntidyVenus.Etsy.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & Patreon at @UntidyVenus for all of her awesomeness!!! Try it today!!! Twitter - www.twitter.com/eilfmovies Facebook - www.facebook.com/eilfmovies Etsy - www.untidyvenus.etsy.com TeePublic - www.teepublic.com/user/untidyvenus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the first of our Dark Knight Trilogy episodes, we look at arguably the definitive superhero origin story, how it uses fear across its 3 acts, its villains, and why, against all odds, Jelani really likes it. Upcoming episodes: The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises Check out our YouTube channel with our new video essay on Spiderman. Support us on Patreon and listen to our bonus episodes on the Raimi Spiderman Trilogy, Kingsman, and our early writing experiences. You can get merch with our logo on Zazzle. Our logo is by Kelsey Hendry. A kids version of Descended Awakening is available on Amazon. Follow the show on Twitter @intanalysis18 Follow Evan on Twitter @ev_wess Follow Jelani on Twitter @jelanitkelly and on Instagram Jelani Kelly (@jelanitkelly) • Instagram photos and videos --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

DAVID S. GOYER has earned a reputation for telling character-driven stories adapted from the otherworldly realms of superheroes, fantasy and the supernatural. His breakout came in 1998 when he wrote the action hit BLADE starring Wesley Snipes, based on the Marvel Comics vampire hunter. Since then, he's solidified himself as writer and producer who elevates genre driven stories to the next level.Most recently, Goyer Executive Produced and served as Showrunner for one of the year's most epic series, FOUNDATION, which premiered on Apple TV+. Based on Isaac Asimov's iconic novels, Goyer's sensibilities brought this world to life with his unique tone.On the film side, Goyer produced the Sundance hit THE NIGHT HOUSE, starring Rebecca Hall, as well as the Scott Derrickson film ANTLERS. Both films are being released by Searchlight this fall. Goyer also produced THE TOMORROW WAR, starring Chris Pratt for Skydance and Amazon.Previously, Goyer scripted and collaborated with Christopher Nolan on the story for the Superman feature MAN OF STEEL. Goyer also worked with Nolan on the mega-hit DARK KNIGHT trilogy, starting with the screenplay for BATMAN BEGINS. Goyer went on to team with Nolan on the story for the billion-dollar blockbuster THE DARK KNIGHT for which they received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, followed by the story's conclusion in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Additionally, Goyer co-wrote and produced BATMAN V. SUPERMAN, which broke the record for biggest March opening weekend in box office history.In 2002, Goyer made his feature film directorial debut with the drama ZIGZAG for which he also wrote the screenplay, based on the acclaimed novel by Landon Napoleon.  His other directing credits include THE INVISIBLE starring Justin Chatwin and Marcia Gay Harden, and the hit supernatural thriller THE UNBORN, based on his own original screenplay and starring Odette Annable and Gary Oldman. In the same year wrote 2002's BLADE II on which he also served as an executive producer. In 2004, he directed, wrote and produced the last of the trilogy, BLADE: TRINITY.In addition to screenwriting, Goyer made his debut in video games with the story for the smash hit “Call of Duty: Black Ops,” and penned the story for its blockbuster follow up, “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” as well as Black Ops: Cold War. Goyer also wrote and executive-produced the groundbreaking VR series VADER IMMORTAL for Lucasfilm and Oculus.In Television, Goyer's work includes the series DA VINCI'S DEMONS, for which he served as Creator, Director, and Executive Producer, focusing on the life of Leonardo da Vinci; CONSTANTINE, KRYPTON; and the cult classic FLASHFORWARD. Goyer also co-wrote the pilot and serves as executive producer for Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN, which is currently filming in London.The Dialogue: Learning From the Masters is a groundbreaking interview series that goes behind the scenes of the fascinating craft of screenwriting. In these 70-90 minute in-depth discussions, more than two-dozen of today's most successful screenwriters share their work habits, methods and inspirations, secrets of the trade, business advice, and eye-opening stories from life in the trenches of the film industry. Each screenwriter discusses his or her filmography in great detail and breaks down the mechanics of one favorite scene from their produced work.Your Host: Producer Mike De Luca is responsible for some of the most groundbreaking films of the last 15 years. After enrolling in New York University's film studies program at 17, De Luca dropped out four credits shy of graduation to take an unpaid internship at New Line Cinema. He advanced quickly there under the tutelage of founder Robert Shaye and eventually became president of production.To watch the rest of this amazing series go to The Dialog Series on IFHTV.Enjoy this conversation with David S. Goyer.

Join Andrew, Bruce and Chris, coming to you live from Gotham City for the fifth episode of Season 6 of the Ten Point Podcast, this week they're discussing Batman Begins chosen by the listeners! Tune in to the only Podcast you'll find which covers deep and meaningful questions such as "Does Batman Begins make you realise just how much you needed Katie Holmes in The Dark Knight?", "Qui-Gon Jinn is that you?", and "Where are the fighting action sequences we all want?" Lend us your ear as we chat shit about the movie with top bants including Ken Watanabe's made-up language, the return of fun Chris, the thrill of the batmobile chase, someone wanks over the Hans Zimmer soundtrack, the story of how Andrew may or may not have broken a vehicle from the movie... and more! www.tenpointpodcast.com #Movie, #Film, #TenPointPodcast, #Action, #SciFi, #Comic, #Batman, #ChristianBale, #MichaelCaine, #CillianMurphy, #Scarecrow, #KatieHolmes, #GaryOldman, #JimGordon,

The Dark Knight has a reputation for being one of the great superhero movies, and it is completely deserved. Revisiting this movie for the first time after my initial viewing I was blown away by the writing. This is a masterpiece of thematic story-telling. With fantastic performances, especially from Heath Ledger as The Joker. So let's see what Batman is up to this time as we discuss The Dark Knight. ----more---- Transcript Welcome to Nerd Heaven. I'm Adam David Collings The author of Jewel of The Stars. And I am a nerd. This is episode 93 of the podcast.   Today, we're talking about the movie  The Dark Knight   The description on IMDB reads When the menace known as the Joker wreaks havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham, Batman must accept one of the greatest psychological and physical tests of his ability to fight injustice.   The screenplay was written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan (who are brothers) With story by Christopher Nolan and David S Goyer It was directed by Christopher Nolan And it was first released on the 14th of July 2008   In 2008 I was raising a very young family. I had just bought my first house or was shortly about to. I wasn't made of money. Consequently, instead of buying this movie on DVD as I did with Batman Begins, I hired it from the local video rental place because that was cheaper. And forget the cinema. I didn't go to the cinema for years when my kids were little. So I've only ever seen this movie once.   I remember continuing to enjoy the serious tone, but it didn't have that origin backstory element that I loved so much in the first movie. So I was really interested to see how I'd react to a rewatch after all these years.   The movie has a very silent beginning. So much so I had to keep checking that the sound was working on my computer.   We know from the ending scene of Batman Begins that this movie would introduce The Joker as its villain. The Joker is well known as the most famous, most iconic Batman villain. And this in large part thanks to the Adam West TV show, I believe.   I think it was smart to use lesser-known villains in the first movie, like Falcone, Scarecrow, Ra's Al Ghul and Even Victor Zzazz. It expanded the world for those not familiar with the comics and gave Batman room to really shine as he came into his own.   But this was the time to introduce his famous arch-nemesis.   When we first see a criminal wearing a clown mask our natural inclination is to think, this has got to be the joker, or someone who works for him, right? Turns out these guys are working for him, but it's not a close association. He planned this heist, and he wants a cut.   He calls himself The Joker because he wears makeup to scare people, like war paint. We'll come back to this. It's a shock when one robber is killed by another as soon as he's finished his work on the security system. And it would seem to make sense at first. One less person to split the money with, and these are hardly moral people. Unless something goes wrong and you need that guy again, or if you get a bad reputation for killing your team members and nobody wants to join your crew for future endeavours.   Turns out, this is a mob bank. One of the workers has a shotgun. I have to admit, the idea of the mob owning a bank is a concept I'm struggling to get my head around.   Looks like none of these crooks really know the full plan. Half of them are instructed to kill the other half.   The mob guy makes a good point. If you work for someone like the joker, who orders his own people dead, he'll only do the same to you.   Except the guy he's talking to ends up being the joker. In the end, he doesn't have to share the money with anyone. But who's gonna want to work with him? So taking a more active role than it appeared. He definitely has a flair for the dramatic in the way he kills people.   Using the school bus as a getaway vehicle to blend in with all the other school buses is clever, but it would require expert timing, and wouldn't the back of his bus be banged up from crashing through the wall?   I was surprised to see someone wearing the scarecrow mask from the last movie.   It's not surprising, however, that there would be a copycat batman or two. But this guy doesn't compare to the real thing.   And It seems it's actually Doctor Crane himself. Has he escaped from jail? And why would he now be playing vigilante? That's a bit weird. There's a story-telling reason to do this. The idea is you show the villain who was such a threat last time as being ineffectual compared to the new villain, thus emphasising how powerful and threatening the new villain is. Except, Doctor Crane was never much of a threat to Batman. Ra's al Ghul was the main threat. The big difference, of course, between Batman and these fakes, is competence. He's got the skills, the experience, and the equipment. They don't.   Bruce has obviously affected some upgrades to the tumbler. It has some auto-drive features, which are not so unbelievable in 2022, but were still science fiction 2008.   Batman doesn't always come when Gordon turns on the signal, because he's busy. But Gordon likes to do it anyway, to remind people that Batman is out there.   That one scene when Alfred brings breakfast into an empty bedroom speaks volumes without a line of dialogue. Of course, the next scene has the dialogue which is almost redundant. Bruce has set himself up with a temporary batcave under a Wayne Enterprises facility while the mansion is being rebuilt. It's a massive empty area with white ceiling. It looks somewhat unreal. Alfred warns Bruce that he needs to know his limits. Bruce says Batman doesn't have any, and Alfred points out that Bruce does. What's going to happen on the day when he realises them.   And that's a clear ominous warning about a coming theme in this movie. And while Bruce likes to think that Batman has no limits, he clearly does, because even as a symbol, he's portrayed by a human being. Batman is built on the flaws of that human.   We meet the exciting new DA. Harvey Dent. And for those who haven't picked up on it, we see him making decisions by flipping a coin. Rachel is not only working for Dent, she is apparently dating him. She gave Bruce a little sliver of hope that maybe they could be together someday when Gotham no longer needs Batman, but at the same time, it doesn't seem that she's willing to wait for him. I'm not saying that she should, but by dating someone else it makes her offer kinda hollow.  So now we have to talk about Katie Holmes. Because Rachel has mysteriously changed her face like a timelord.   Katie Holmes didn't return for this movie. And we don't know exactly why. We probably never will. We know that Christopher Nolan wanted her to return and was reportedly a bit upset that she didn't. She was quite busy at the time and has said publicly that it was a decision that was right for her at that moment but would love to work with Nolan again someday.   I was disappointed when I learned that the character had been recast. I quite liked Katie Holmes in Batman Begins. The role went to Maggie Gyllenhaal. And I have to say, having just re-watched this movie, she did a fantastic job. It can't be easy to come in and portray a character previously played by someone else, especially if you're supposed to be in the same continuity as the previous. But Maggie made me believe. And while I really liked Holmes in Batman Begins, I think I can say that Maggie Gyllenhaal gave a better performance in The Dark Night. She plays Rachel as a little older, a little wiser. And I really enjoyed what she did.   The new head of Falcone's crime organisation, Maroni, who's played by Eric Roberts, an actor I quite like, has apparently got a fall guy to admit to being in charge, much to the amusement of everyone in the audience. I'm sure that's not what they're called in a court case, but you know what I'm talking about.   This guy has smuggled a gun right into the courtroom, even up to the witness stand, which is a little hard to swallow, but at least this movie gives an explanation. It's made of carbon fibre, which I'm guessing doesn't set off metal detectors? Last movie, both Bruce and one of Falcone's men got guns into the courtroom and that was never explained.   Dent comes across as very cocky, but also very capable. He disarms the witness without a single hint of anxiety.   Gordon and Batman are trying to cripple the mob by depriving them of their money. They plan to raid the mob banks before the Joker and rob them. The Joker is a side-problem at present.    Bruce is falling asleep in board meetings because he's out all night being Batman, but that doesn't mean he's neglecting the company. He's keeping a tight eye on things, more so than appears. I like that.  This is his father's legacy, after all.   The rivalry between Bruce and Harvey over Rachel is kind of embarrassing to observe. I guess I can't blame him. Bruce and Rachel are not together, but not by Bruce's choice. Often in Superhero stories, you'll have the hero tell his love interest that they can't be together but then get all moody and belligerent when the woman pursues something with someone else. I believe Smallville did this once or twice. But you can't have it both ways. Anyway, nothing quite so angsty is going on here. Bruce would have Rachel in a second if she'd have him, and Harvey is in the way of that. This is a point we'll connect back to later when we talk about character goals.   As far as we know, Harvey has no beef with Bruce, but when another guy puffs out his chest at you in a passive-aggressive kinda way, you're gonna puff back. That's just how it works, right. So there's this mutual ribbing that's going on during the conversation. I mean, it was quite rude of Bruce to intrude on their date the way he does. But he doesn't really care.   They begin debating the merits of Batman. Ironically, Harvey is in defence, and Bruce against. I like how Bruce's date isn't just portrayed as a bimbo. She has considered opinions and she's the one who brings up the topic.   Rachel points out the example of Cesar, who was appointed by the people to defend them but then never gave up his power. Could the same end up being true of Batman? Harvey's answer is important. This is his thematic sentence. “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”   Let's see how this particular theory plays out with our main characters throughout the story.   But Harvey thinks Batman doesn't want to do this forever. He's looking for someone to take up his mantle. Maybe even somebody like him.   And he'd be shocked to learn just how right he is about this. Bruce is sold. He wants to throw his financial support behind Dent. But he has his own ulterior motives.  What if Harvey Dent is the hero that can solve Gotham's problems in a more ‘by the book' kind of way? What if he could take over the mantle from Batman? That would then leave Bruce free to pursue a relationship with Rachel - one she claims she'd be interested in once Batman is a thing of the past.   Ultimately, Batman is thinking more about his own personal wants and needs here than about what's best for the city. It's hard to blame him. He's an imperfect person who does have wants of his own. But we'll have to see what he ultimately puts priority on when the time comes. That will determine what kind of man he is.   So surprise, Lau, the guy that Wayne Enterprises was thinking of doing business with, the guy that Bruce decided not to work with, is involved with the Gotham Mob. The Joker has stolen a few million dollars from them. But Maroni isn't convinced that the Joker is the real problem. The cops are the bigger issue. They're trying to seize the rest of their cash. Lau hides the money for them so when Gordon gets in there, there's nothing to find.   And that's when the Joker barges into their little meeting. This scene is the first introduction we really get to Heath Ledger's Joker. His first act is to kill one of the mob guys who tries to throw him out, using a pencil. Now, this whole pencil in the eye stunt really disturbed me the first time I saw it, and it really stuck in my memory. I remember cringing in revulsion. That wasn't something I needed to see. This time around, it didn't affect me as much, possibly because I knew it was coming. That first time, when it happened, I really thought through the implications. Really disturbing.   It's clear to the Joker that the mob are afraid of Batman. Despite what they say, they're not having their meetings in broad daylight because of Harvey Dent.   The Joker makes an offer. I'll kill the Batman, but not for free. That's why he's here.   But can they take him seriously? He's shown he's clever. He's shown he can pull off a heist. He's demonstrated his competence and his boldness by stealing some of their money.   But does that mean he's capable of killing Batman? That's quite a different task than stealing money from a mob bank. The outspoken gangster, Gambol, isn't impressed and says he's putting a price on the Joker's head, but I think their new leader is seriously thinking about it all.   So let's talk about this version of The Joker. I see Heath Ledger as the definitive on-screen version of The Joker. I know a lot of people will point to Mark Hamill, but I'm just not really into a lot of animated stuff. So to me, Ledger was the ultimate portrayal of what I traditionally thought of as The Joker. His personality is creepy. He comes across as somewhat unhinged, but at the same time capable, and a worthy adversary for Batman. The make-up is dishevelled and badly done, and he has big scars on his cheeks, extending into a sickening smile, covered crudely with lipstick. It gives a wonderfully creepy vibe that works wonderfully for me. If the makeup was applied better, it would lose all its power. Incidentally, that's why I didn't like Joaquim Phoenix's look for the Joker in the trailers, although when I watched the movie and understood the character's backstory, I realised that it worked for that version of the character.   But some people took issue with the whole make-up idea. I know a friend of mine has talked at length about how he didn't want a joker wearing makeup. He wanted a joke with chemical-bleached skin.   Now because I don't have much of a comics history in my youth, I was simply unaware of this aspect of the character. I'm bingeing on DC comics now, but that didn't help me in the past. You see, I always thought The Joker wore makeup. My main previous exposures to the character were Ceasar Romero, who wore makeup right over his moustache, and Jack Nicholson.   As I explained last time, I completely misinterpreted what was going on in the 1989 Batman movie. I thought that Nicholson's Joker wore makeup to cover his disfigurement from landing in the chemicals. It was only very recently that I learned that the natural skin tone was in fact the makeup, and the clown face was his real skin. And I'm sorry, but I just find that kind of silly. Especially the hair. I can buy the idea of bleached skin from chemicals, but not if it just looks like white makeup. And green hair from landing in chemicals. No. That doesn't work for me at all.   So to me, The Joker has always been, and probably always will be, a creepy guy who wears clown makeup. I'm sorry, but I didn't know any different before, and now that idea is solidified in me.   Anyway, it goes without saying that Heath Ledger's performance in this movie is outstanding. He won an oscar for it. It's just such a tragedy that he died before even receiving it.   So Dent and Gordon meet Batman on the rooftop. There's a lot of blame going around for what happened, but what really matters is they need to get Lau back. He's fled to Hong Kong. Harvey can get him to talk if Batman can get him back somehow.   Is it just me or are all the actors in this movie really young?   When Bruce goes to Lucious for help. The scene always plays like a Bond film, where 007 gets his latest gadgets from Q. But somehow, that works.   The Joker comes to see Gambol, but his method of arrival is suitably theatrical. He arrives in a body bag, pretending to have been killed. And that's when we hear his question for the first time. “Do you want to know how I got these scars?” It's not the last time he'll ask somebody that question, and each time, he'll give a completely different story, each as dark and twisted as the last. Of course, at this point in the movie, we don't realise that, so we take the story about his wife-beating mother at face value. Ah, so that's why The Joker is so messed up. But that's too easy. Too trite. Does a tragic childhood justify the person The Joker is? It certainly doesn't excuse it. Does it explain it? Plenty of people have had horrible childhoods like the story he tells, but they don't grow up to be psychotic serial killers. Ultimately, I think the reason the writers had him give all these conflicting stories is that they're showing that no one incident really truly explains or justifies what he is. He's just insane.   Normally, I don't like it when explanations are not fully given, when stuff like this is left hanging as a mystery that's never resolved. Often, it's done badly so it leaves me feeling unsatisfied. But here, it works wonderfully. So I'm with it.   The Joker is slowly taking over the criminal underworld in Gotham. But he's doing it in such a Joker way. He has Gambol and some other goons fight it out, to the death, for the privilege of joining his team.   This guy really is sick.   Fox has a clever way of getting into the interior of Lau's building and planting another jamming device in there. I quite like seeing these two working in the field together.   This part of the movie really does feel like a spy thriller. Batman usually confines himself to Gotham. I think this is the first time I've seen him operating in another country on screen.   The method of extracting Bruce and Lau from the building into the plane looks awesome, but man it would be terrifying.   It seems strange to me that Rachel - a lawyer for the DA's office, is interrogating Lau, not a police officer. Is that normal in America? Because here, it's the police who interview people. Then, when they think they have sufficient evidence, they charge the suspect. Then they appear in court. Although, interestingly, we don't have District Attorneys, like in America. As far as I understand, it's actually the police themselves that prosecute criminal cases. You hear the term police prosecutor.   Gordon makes mass arrests. Rachael and Dent have worked out some legal options where if you get a conviction on one, you can get a conviction on a bunch of their accomplices. I don't fully understand, but it's looking pretty nice for the good guys at the moment.   Until the Judge finds a playing card, a joker, amongst her papers. The Joker makes a direct challenge to Batman by dumping the dead body, in Joker makeup, of one of the copycat batmen into the Mayor's window.   The Joker wants Batman to step up and take off the mask. Every night he doesn't, people will die.   Despite the jokes and ribbing, Bruce is genuine when he says he believes in Harvey Dent. Yeah, he's got his ulterior motives, but he genuinely believes Harvey is what the city needs, maybe even more than it news Batman. Gotham needs a hero with a face. Bruce opens up to Rachel. He believes that day is coming very soon when Batman won't be needed. And when that day comes, he's asking her to be there for him.   The people The Joker plans to kill tonight are quite important. The judge and Commissioner Loeb are among them. Harvey Dent may be another. The Joker crashes Bruce's fundraiser for Dent.   Rachel stands up to him and that's when he tells his second scar story. This one is about a wife who was disfigured. He disfigured himself to be like her, and she left him.   When Batman shows up, The Joker throws Rachel out the window. Batman has to jump out, catch her, and reach the ground safely. His cape barely opens as he's seconds from crashing into a car uncountable stories below. This is even more unbelievable than the fall out the window in Batman Begins. It's laughable to expect us to believe that Batman and Rachel are still alive. That's a real problem for me.   Alfred seems to have a greater understanding of The Joker. This is not a man with a rational goal. He's not after the things that most criminals are after. Some men just want to watch the world burn.   So how do you understand a man like that? How do you defeat him? Batman has been called the world's greatest detective. We get to see him doing a little detective work. Specifically, some forensic work, analysing gunshots into brick.   I really like how the movie acknowledges that somebody in Wayne Enterprises is going to notice their own tech from applied sciences being used out there by Batman. That's only logical. But Lucious is quite capable of dealing with that.   What's harder for me to swallow is that Bruce gets a fingerprint of the shooter off the hundreds of shards that were once a bullet.   The Joker's next target is the mayor, who is giving a speech at Loeb's funeral. It's interesting to see the Joker out of makeup as he pretends to be one of the cops giving a rifle salute.   Gordon has been shot, but we know he can't die because he hasn't become commissioner yet. Still, they play it for real. And they portray the emotion of it very well.   Rachel is the next target. Harvey needs someone he can trust, and Rachel suggests Bruce Wayne.   So, you know the trope, where the vigilante holds the crook out a window, threatening to drop them. We know they won't. The crook knows they won't. In this case, Batman has specifically chosen a height that won't kill Maroni, so that he can make good on his threat when Maroni calls his bluff.   Maroni makes a good point. Batman has rules. The joker has no rules. Nobody is gonna cross The Joker for Batman. The only way to find him is to take off his mask and let the Joker come to him. Or he could just let more people die while he makes up his mind. Harsh truth.   Dent is trying a different tactic. Putting a gun to the mobster's head. But Maroni was right. This guy won't talk. Dent offers a toss of the coin. But is he really gonna kill the guy? I know he's worried about Rachel being the next target, but is the DA really ready to take a life in cold blood? Turns out, this guy is a paranoid schizophrenic. There's not a lot Dent is gonna learn from him. Batman has some words for Harvey. He is a legitimate voice standing against the crime in Gotham. Doing it by the book. That's the first ray of light this city has seen in decades. What would happen if people saw their white knight holding a gun to a man's head? Bruce is convinced that the people need someone better than a vigilante in a bat mask. They need somebody working on the correct side of the law with his face uncovered. That's something Batman can never be.   I love how all of this is building toward the conclusion of this movie. It's like a tapestry where all the threads are coming together to make something greater. There really is some great writing in this one. It's all very thematic.   Bruce is ready to pass on the torch. Right now. He's going to unmask himself so nobody else dies on his behalf.   Dent considers giving up. Even Rachel isn't convinced that this will keep The Joker from killing people. But it may flush him out and allow somebody to stop him. I understand Bruce's perspective. What choice does he have? He can't just keep watching while people die. Is protecting his secret identity really more important than all those lives? I think he's making the only call he can under the circumstances.   Rachel admits she meant what she said to him at the end of Batman Begins. If he ends Batman, she'll be with him. But she believes that if Bruce turns himself in, they won't let them be together. “They” could refer to a lot of people. The Joker, any criminal with a grudge against Batman. The police.   Bruce is destroying any evidence that could lead back to Lucious or Rachel. Today, Bruce has found out what Batman can't do, but as predicted, Alfred doesn't want to say “I told you so.”   At a press conference, Dent debates whether Batman should be turned in with the crowd. They all want his head, so he gives in. As Bruce begins to step forward, Dent falls on his sword. “I am the Batman,” he says.   Bruce hesitates. He doesn't turn himself in. What should he do?   Rachel isn't impressed. Dent reveals how he makes his own luck - both sides of his coin are heads.   The Joker makes his move to capture Dent from the prison transport. But Batman makes his move as well, essentially proving that Dent is not Batman by appearing in the tumbler.   Action scenes with The Tumbler are always fun. But sadly, it's been damaged beyond immediate repair. So…..Bruce ejects in a motorbike.   This is a problem. I can't believe that the bridging vehicle was designed to come apart and partially transform into a motorbike. Clearly, Bruce and Lucious have made a lot of alterations. But I just can't buy that. I mean, the bike with the massive wheels looks cool and all, but this breaks the believability a bit too much for me. This is no ordinary bike, though. It can do some really cool things. Despite all he has done, Bruce still holds to his rule. He doesn't kill The Joker.   Just when all hope looks gone, who should show up but Jim Gordon. Alive and well. Now they have The Joker in custody. Gordon says he couldn't risk his family's safety, which is why he went through this ruse. But he still put them through the heartbreak of thinking he was dead. And that's pretty bad. And they haven't even found out the truth yet. Gordon is on his way home to tell his wife he's alive now. She gives him the slap that I think he deserves. But in all the commission, one thing that I missed in my first watching all those years ago. The mayor names Gordon Commissioner. So he's finally reached the position he's known for.   They've found no Id on him. No idea what The Joker's true identity is. His name.   How do you charge someone without knowing their name? It's not like they can just call him “The Joker.”   But there's some bad news. Dent didn't make it home. So who has him? Gordon lets Batman do the interrogation. This is where we see the beginning of the nemesis relationship. The Joker doesn't want Batman dead. What would he do without Batman? Go back to knocking off mob bosses? The Joker needs a worthy adversary. Batman completes him.   The Joker tells Batman he's going to have to break his one rule tonight - his rule against killing. And he's already been considering it. But it seems the Joker knows who Batman is, or at least, he knows there is a connection between Batman and Rachel. Batman is going to have to choose between Dent and Rachel. One life or another. The Joker tells Batman where each of them are. Batman's decision is made without even thinking. He's going after Rachel. The police will go for Dent.   It's a sick setup. They're both wired to bombs, but there's a speakerphone between them, so they can talk to each other. Hear each other's screams.   The Joker's method of escaping is clever, but disturbing.   Rachel doesn't want to live with Harvey, so he finally gives him the answer he's been waiting for. The question is obvious. Her answer - yes.   So…seems she's not willing to wait for Bruce after all. She'd already decided that, as we'll learn from her letter. She's convinced a day will never come when Bruce doesn't need Batman.   And now comes the real tragedy of this whole thing. Batman bursts into the location where he was told Rachel would be. But it's Harvey. The Joker gave him the wrong addresses. He switched them. So that by thinking he saved the one he chose, he'd actually be killing them.   Harvey is not happy that Batman came for him instead of Rachel - which of course he didn't mean to do.   And Rachel has to calmly accept it. It's that moment when you realise you're about to die and there's nothing you can do to stop it, so there's no use struggling. But at least the one you love is safe.   And then it happens. The buildings explode. Harvey is saved, but Rachel is not.   Rachel is dead. And Batman unknowingly killed her. This is a heart-breaking tragic moment. It was a gutsy move. It was not normal, especially at the time, for a superhero to actually kill off the love interest like this. That was dark.   Of course, I'm not against tragedy or darkness in stories. But ouch. This hurts. But sometimes stories are supposed to hurt. That's what makes them powerful.   Before she died, Rachel gave Alred a letter for Bruce, telling him she'd decided not to wait for him. She was gonna marry Harvey Dent. Alfred ultimately decides to destroy this letter rather than give it to Bruce. I think he reasons that the rejection on top of the death is just another level of grief he doesn't need. He'll at least let Bruce keep the hope that Rachel was going to be with him. It's hard to say which would be more painful, knowing that you could have been with her if only she'd survived, or knowing that no matter what, you'd never have been able to be with her.   Harvey's face is half-burned in the explosion. We know what that means. When I first saw this movie, I was embarrassingly unfamiliar with Harvey Dent, and who he was destined to become. I think the coin gave me some hints but I remember being surprised when I realised where this was going.   So…..Two Face is born. The makeup effects are very well done. But….it looks really gross. Not something I actually want to look at. Harvey is not accepting skin grafts. I'm no doctor, but I don't think he's going to be able to just walk around with a big hold in his cheek, with his eyeball all exposed like that, without getting some serious infection.   Maroni claims he can tell Gordon where the Joker will be tonight.   The Joker proves he's a different kind of criminal when he burns all the money. He's an agent of chaos. Then he calls the talkback show that's about to reveal Batman's identity and threatens more chaos unless someone called “Coleman Reese” isn't dead within the hour. It wasn't entirely clear to me at the time, but Coleman Reese is the guy who has figured out Batman's identity.   Rese is not dead, so true to his word, The Joker sets off a bomb destroying the entire hospital.   They managed to clear it, fortunately.   Bruce has developed a system where he can use every mobile phone in the city to listen in and pinpoint people of interest. As Lucious points out, it's a clear violation of privacy and potentially gives too much power to one person, even though the only person Bruce trusts to use it, over even himself, is Lucious.   It's an interesting dilemma. It may help Bruce find The Joker, and Lucious is willing to help him this one time, after which, he'll resign.   Batman is a vigilante. He operates outside the law. It's interesting that this is the line that Lucious feels so strongly about.   What do you think? Has Bruce crossed a line here? And if it helps him stop The Joker, is it worth it?   Havey is after the people that took Rachel. Moles within the police department. The Joker has threatened more chaos and death in the city, and half the population are evacuating Gotham via ferry.   The joker is running a sick social experiment. Two boats. One full of criminals. Another full of evacuating civilians. Each rigged with a bomb. Each with a detonator to destroy the other boat. At midnight he blows both boats up, unless someone on one of the boats pushes their button - destroying the other. The Joker will let that boat live. So by sacrificing (murdering) the people on the other boat, they'll save themselves. The civilian boat is taking a vote. The guards on the criminal boat are desperately trying to stop the prisoners from rioting and pushing the button.  This kind of sick game is exactly the kind of thing that The Joker delights in.    Meanwhile, Harvey has taken Gordon's family. It's all happening.   There's lots of fantastic drama as the crews of the boat try to make their decisions. It's really interesting how it all develops.   Thanks to his invention, Batman has found The Joker. And so begins their epic showdown. In the end, neither crew destroys the other. Likewise, Batman and the Joker won't kill each other, Batman because of his morals, and the Joker because fighting Batman is too much fun.   The joker is fighting for the soul of Gotham. That's not gonna be won with a fistfight. Much  like Lex in Batman V Superman, he's trying to make a philosophical point about morality. But the people in those barges have just proven that the city is full of people willing to do good.   But for how long? The Joker has taken the white knight - Harvey Dent, and transformed him into something ugly. I'm not talking about his face. He's turned Dent into a killer. The beacon of hope that Bruce so believed in. When people see that, their idealism, their hope in good, will evaporate.   THAT is the joker's victory.   But the Gotham police arrive and arrest him. He'll spend the rest of his life in a cell, and that's the last we see of him in this movie. But there's still a good 20 minutes left of the film. How can you have a climax without your primary villain? Isn't that The Joker? Well, he may in fact be the primary villain, but putting aside that word, he's not the primary antagonist. Harvey Dent is the primary antagonist. The antagonist is the one who stands opposed to the protagonist's goal in the story. Our protagonist is Bruce Wayne. And what does he want? Ultimately his goal in this movie is to stop being Batman, so he can be with Rachel. He wants to raise up Harvey Dent as a different kind of hero, a better hero, a white knight who can do the things Batman can't.   Harvey opposes Bruce's goals the whole way through. First, simply by being with Rachel, keeping her from a relationship with Bruce. But ultimately, by becoming bad. By failing to be the hero Bruce wanted him to be. By constantly making bad choices, proving that he's not the good person Bruce so desperately wants him to be. And that's what we're about to see play out in this final sequence as Harvey threatens Gordon's family.   So if the Joker isn't the antagonist, what role does he place in this movie? I learned this from an old episode of the Writing Excuses podcast about the Hollywood Formula with a guy named Lou Anders. The Joker is what is referred to as the relationship character. The relationship character is the embodiment of the story's theme. The Joker is constantly trying to convince Batman that he's more like The Joker than he is like the idealised hero he wants Dent to be. “You're a freak - just like me.” In the end, Batman fulfils this by accepting his role as The Dark Knight. This is fascinating stuff to me.   It's interesting to me that Harvey has chosen Gordon as the target of all his rage. I understand he failed to save Rachel, but there are bigger targets. The Joker is the most obvious, of course, but he has his reasons why he wants to go for someone more directly connected to the failure.   Batman is a more logical target. Batman was the one who went to the wrong place and saved Harvey instead of Rachel.   I could totally understand Harvey targeting Batman, but Gordon? I guess the difference is, Gordon is tangible. Gordon is a real person with an identity and a family. What is Batman? A persona. How do you hurt Batman? Who are his loved ones? You can't know that without knowing who is behind the mask.   And Harvey's approach is very Joker-like. He's playing games. He's gonna pick one of Gordon's family, the one he decides Gordon loves the most. That's the life he's going to take. One for one. He doesn't even want to escape from this, and that makes him especially dangerous.   Batman shows up, mercifully. Harvey feels betrayed not just on a personal level because of Rachel but on a larger leve., “You lied to me. You said we could be decent men, in an indecent time. You were wrong. The world is cruel. And the only morality in a cruel world is change.” In his mind, that's fair.   The Joker chose Harvey because he was the best of them. Joker wanted to prove that even a man like Harvey Dent could fall. Sadly, Harvey has proven him right. That's the tragedy of this whole story.   The heavy drama here is powerful. Doubly so because I'm a parent.   So Batman rescues the boy, and Harvey dies in the struggle, leaving Gordon and Batman with a dilemma. The Joker has won. Any hope for saving Gotham dies with Harvey's reputation.   So Bruce does the only thing he can. There is only one way left to defeat the Joker, and he can't let the Joker win. Batman claims responsibility for Harvey's crimes. “Tell them I did it,” he says to Gordon. Batman takes the fall for Harvey so that Harvey's reputation can remain untarnished, thus preserving hope for the people of Gotham.   Batman calls back to something Harvey Dent said early in the movie. He has now grown old enough to see himself become the villain. But not in the way anyone expected.   As Bruce rides off on his bike, Gordon's son says “But he didn't do anything wrong.”   I can't help but see strong Christ parallels here. An innocent man taking on the crimes of the guilty, for the good of others. And Christ parallels always hit me right in the heart, because of my own personal beliefs.   This is a tragic but beautiful ending.   So Bruce has now become The Dark Knight. The hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs. The name takes on so much new significance at the end. It wasn't just a case of “well, we can't call it Batman, so what's another name for Batman?” No. The Dark Knight has deep meaning, especially when contrasted with Harvey Dent as the White Knight. Love it.   Critics of DC films, particularly the ones that get a reputation for being dark, tend to say that the movies are without hope, without optimism. Nothing could be further from the truth. This movie is dripping with hope. It's all about hope. I feel the same way about Man of Steel and Batman V Superman. I love this movie. It's so well written. It all fits together so nicely. Events are foreshadowed. Themes are set up and then paid off satisfactorily. It's almost poetic.   So, having now re-watched both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, I might still say that Batman Begins is my favourite because I really like the origin story aspect, but I think I might have to say that The Dark Knight is actually the better film. But we're talking about the difference between two awesome movies, so what does it really matter? The point is, they're both fantastic.   Next time, we'll conclude our look at this trilogy by watching The Dark Knight Rises, which I've also only seen once.   And then after that, we launch into our new series on Star Trek Continues.   Have a great two weeks Live long and prosper   Make it so  

Thank you for being patient with me as I took a couple of weeks off from podcasting due to a new job and COVID plus other health issues. Batman Begins ushered in a new era of superhero movies - where now they're grounded in reality. I speak with Daniel Cobin, a manager at a call center and a board game enthusiast. We discuss the best Batman/Bruce Wayne portrayed on screen. And we hold up Michael Caine as the best Alfred, hands down. Daniel shares a little bit of his knowledge from Batman lore from the comics, and I verify some myths that I've heard, not being a comic book reader. I confess that Ra's Al Ghul is not my favorite Batman villain, and how much I prefer Joker like most everyone else. Is Batman Begins scary enough? Should it have been scarier? Especially considering Scarecrow (sort of) the main villain?? And what about the villains in the Batman movies? They seem to just want fairness in a corrupt city. That, or their view of the world has been tainted by all the corruption, so is overturning the establishment so wrong? Is it worth starting from scratch? I like Daniel's answers to these questions. We also talk about how much our lives have been shaped by key things our fathers said to us as kids - like Thomas Wayne passing on advice to his son that shaped him into the Bat we now know. I mention the Truth Over Tribe podcast and their discussion about Christians and violence. Here's the link for that: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/truth-over-tribe-christian-takes-on-culture-news-politics/id1580807177?i=1000558010766Drop me an email at author.andrewtoy@gmail.com or leave a comment down below. You can follow Life Through the Big Screen on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, all that stuff is in the show notes below. Here's the video talking more about the history of the MPAA: The History of Hollywood Censorship & the Rating SystemFollow Life Through the Big Screen on these following pages:InstagramFacebookTwitterThis episode was sponsored by Spur Creative

Kyle, Drue, and guest host Will discuss Christopher Nolan & Christian Bale's batman trilogy. Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises changed not only superhero movies forever, but quite possibly Hollywood as we know it. Which one is the best? Was Heath Ledger really that great? How do we feel about the final chapter 10 years later? All these questions and more answered here on Not The Podcast You Deserve. twitter/instagram: @NTPYDpodcast email: NTPYDpodcast@gmail.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ntpyd/support

Our most anticipated episode (to date) has arrived! Join us in celebrating the 10th year anniversary of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises with:A super detailed final scene break down (was it all a dream or not?)Your most controversial trilogy hot takes Some epic debates: Joker or Bane? Christian Bale or Robert Pattinson? and much moreAlso listen in to hear about Sophie's latest experiment (quitting most streaming services), Ben's hate-watching habits and Simon's latest hangover film fave.If you liked this episode, take a second to share it on your social channels, along with YOUR favorite hot take from the episode ;)Films overheard in this episode: Executive Decision, Predator, Risky Business, The Scanner Darkly, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, American PsychoShoot your thoughts and suggestions over a voice note:Head to https://thatfinalscene.com/voicemessage & record your voice note on the websiteOr text us your voice note to (+44)7514969453 on WhatsAppSign up to our newsletter to get updates first: https://www.thatfinalscene.com/newsletter/Follow THAT FINAL SCENE on social:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatfinalsceneTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@thatfinalsceneYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ThatFinalSceneFacebook: www.facebook.com/thatfinalscene See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Batman Begins is my favourite standalone Batman movie. It set a precedent for the kind of grounded serious superhero movie that I would love going forward. So let's dig in an talk about it. Over the next three episodes, I'll be covering the Dark Knight Trilogy, but it all begins here with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. ----more---- (Player control to listen to this podcast at bottom of page) Transcript Welcome to Nerd Heaven. I'm Adam David Collings The author of Jewel of The Stars. And I am a nerd. This is episode 92 of the podcast.   Today, we're talking about the movie Batman Begins.   The description on IMDB reads After training with his mentor, Batman begins his fight to free crime-ridden Gotham City from corruption.   The story for this movie was written by David S. Goyer The screenplay was written by Christopher Nolan. It was directed by Christopher Nolan And it first released in June 2005  In order to share my thoughts and reactions to Batman Begins, I need to very briefly talk about my past experience with Batman. Much like Superman, Batman has always been a part of my consciousness. I can't remember a time in my life before I knew about Batman. He was just always there.   The first version of the character that I actively remember engaging with was the 60s TV series, although I'm sure there was awareness before that. I wasn't alive in the 60s, of course, but I saw the show on repeats. Remember Saturday morning cartoons in the 80s? Our local TV station did their own Saturday morning show, and amongst all the cartoons, they always showed one live action show. At one point they showed the Beverly Hillbillies. At another point, it was Adam West Batman.   I enjoyed the show, but I think even at the time, I was aware that it was incredibly cheesy and silly. But to me, Superheroes were not silly. I took them very seriously.   When news of the 1989 Tim Burton movie came out, my ears pricked up. I didn't see the movie at the cinema. We just didn't really go to the cinema much when I was a kid. We watched everything on Video. And that's how I eventually saw this movie. But I remember seeing the marketing. And I had a hardcover book about the making of the movie. I remember looking at the darker aesthetic and thinking, wow. This is a gritter, more serious take on Batman. I was VERY interested. Would this movie take the character as seriously as I did?   When I finally saw the movie, I enjoyed it. It was more grounded. I liked how they explained the Joker's smile. He had to have his skin stretched after his accident, so he used makeup to make it less weird. At least, that's how I interpreted it. It wasn't until a few years ago that I realised that the normal skin tone was actually the makeup, and the white skin was real.   This movie was much closer to the kind of Batman I wanted, but it still had more campiness than I expected. Most of that came from the Joker. Seeing him prance about with his goons spray painting the museum, it felt like I was right back in Adam West land. But it was more than that. There was a thick veneer of un-realness over them, especially the second. It was the architecture, the people, the 1930s cameras, Penguin's father's monocle.   And the movies in that series got progressively more and more silly. I don't want to speak too disparagingly about that series, because there's lots of good stuff to like.   But when they announced that the Batman movies were getting rebooted, I was very interested once again.   And this time, they really were taking it seriously. Batman Begins was a more serious grounded Batman. This was a movie that took the character as seriously as I did. It treated him like a person and really fleshed out Bruce Wayne as much as it did Batman. This was EXACTLY what I'd been looking for. And to this day, Batman Begins is still my favourite stand-alone Batman movie. It'll be interesting to see if that still holds after I re-watch The Dark Knight, which I've only ever seen once. I say standalone because Batman V Superman was a multi-hero movie. But Batman Begins primed me for Zack Snyder's work. Batman Begins made me fall in love with the grounded serious Superhero movie. And I've never looked back.   So let's dig in and talk about it.   So the movie begins with a shot of the sky with bats flying everywhere, and Batman's logo revealed in the background. That logo is so recognisable that you really don't need any text. That's something the marketers knew even back in 1989.   Bruce is running around his garden as a child. Most Batman stories begin with Bruce walking through the alley with his parents at night, but this is a different take. This is Bruce before the tragedy. It's all bright colours and sunny. Bruce has a big smile on his face as he plays with his childhood friend Rachel. But he's a bit of a little ratbag. Rachel has found something cool, it's an old arrowhead, and he snatches it from her. It seems that child Bruce has developed a sense of, I can have what I want, because I'm rich. Not exactly the lesson his parents would want him to pick up, we'll see later that they're really good people. But this is an attitude that could easily develop in a child raised in an environment like this, unless much care was taken to help him unlearn that kind of stuff.   As Rachel chases him, Bruce falls through a hole into an old boarded up well. rachel runs to get help from her Mum, who is in Wayne Manor, which looks really cool. I'm surprised they didn't take more care to fence it off or something. This well connects to a cave system underground, and it is filled with bats. Young Bruce freaks out as they flap around his face, giving him a life-time fear of bats. This is an important element that will come back later in a way that I thought was really cool.   That's when we cut to Bruce waking up as an adult.   Now I've heard from some sources, some criticisms of this movie and it's realistic take. Pointing out that there are things in it that are far from realistic. Bruce's fall without apparent injury could be classed as one. Although we'll later learn that he did break his leg, but a bit more visible pain on his face would have helped.   For me, when I say I love this movie for its realistic take, it's not about every little moment being perfectly realistic. It's about the realistic take on the characters. It's about the world feeling like ours, rather than having that thick veneer of fakeness plastered over it like the previous movie series. As I said before, it's about this movie taking itself seriously.   This is a Bruce Wayne we've never seen. He's got a beard. He's lying in a foreign prison. Okay, What is going on here?   Most Batman stories do the parents' death and then cut straight to Batman fully costumed and operating in Gotham. But there's a big jump between those. How do you get from one to the other? That was the big promise of this movie. They were going to delve more deeply into Batman's origin story, a story that had never really been told on screen before. We see how Bruce as a young man goes off in search of his destiny, and finally finds it. Finds a way to deal with the pain of his parent's death, and ultimately, becomes the Batman we know. This was a story that was completely new to me, and I loved it.   We don't yet know what Bruce is in here for, but another of the prisoners has it out for him. Is bullying him. I quite like it when the bully refers to himself as the devil, and Bruce says, “you're not the devil. You're practice.”  That tells you so much about Bruce's mindset here. He's using everything around him, every experience, to learn and develop. To become what he wants to become. And that's very Batman.   We get to see a nicely done fight scene. It's fierce and brutal. When the guards drag Bruce away “for protection” and then reveal it's not for him, it's for all the thugs he beat up, I audibly laughed. A little humour, but not the kind of humour that pulls you out of the seriousness of the scene.   Somebody is waiting for him in his cell. A well-dressed Liam Neeson calling himself Ducard. He says something very interesting. “Are you so desperate to fight criminals that you get yourself locked up so you can take them on one at a time.” This gives us a lot of insight into who Bruce is at the moment, and what's going on in his head. Did he deliberately get himself locked up in here? I wouldn't put it past this version of Bruce Wayne.   Of course, Ducard has figured out exactly who Bruce is. And he says he works for Ra's al Ghul, a name I hadn't heard before I watched this movie the first time.   Bruce has been exploring the criminal underworld, but in the process, he's become lost. Rotting in a foreign prison. He may be learning about criminals here, but he's certainly not going to do anybody any good.   Ra's al Ghul can offer him a path. Something he needs but isn't yet convinced about. The path of the League of Shadows.   Ra's al Ghul shared Bruce's hatred of evil. He can provide a way to serve true justice. So a vigilante. Bruce isn't sure that's what he wants to be.   But Ducard sees al Ghul differently. A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed or locked up. Kinda like Bruce right now. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely. A legend. There's some good dialog in this film.   And now he's got Bruce's attention. Because he's offering a concrete way to become what Bruce really wants. A way to truly make a difference against the kind of evil, so rampant in his home city, that destroyed his life.   This is as good a time as any to talk about a theory I have. You see, the whole idea of a man dressing up as a bat to fight crime is absurd. It's ridiculous. You might even say, it's pretty stupid. So why does it work? How do you make it work?   When you're adapting a comic book to a movie, and you come across something in the comics that's silly, there's two main ways you can deal with it.   The first is to basically hang a lantern on it. This has become quite popular in recent time, but has been for a long while. The MCU did this when Hawkeye says “I'm fighting robots with a bow and arrow. None of this makes any sense.” I really don't like this approach. It's the acknowledgement, of, this is silly, we know it's silly, but let's just go with it, yeah?   Even Zack Snyder's Justice League does this a little bit, when Aquaman derides Bruce for “dressing up like a bat” and later says “I dig it.”   At the other extreme, you've got the approach that Batman Begins takes. When you find something that's silly, you either find a way to make it work, to make it less silly, or you eject it.   An example of this is the penguin. I believe Christopher Nolan has been quited as saying that The Penguin would never have worked in his trilogy because the character just wouldn't fit with the more realistic take he'd developed.   But right here, in this scene, we're seeing that Batman Begins is going to try to explain why an orphaned boy grows into a man who eventually wears a bat costume, in a way that doesn't feel silly. And for me, personally, it works really well.   Ducard has arranged for Bruce to be released from prison tomorrow. He's instructed to find a rare flower that grows on the mountain. If he can pick one, and bring it to the top of the mountain, he may find what he's been looking for all this time.   I'm liking the character development they're already doing with Bruce. He knows he's looking for something, and he's been stumbling around the world trying to find it, but so far he's failed. This is exactly the kind of person that Ra'as al Ghul would try to recruit. And yes, Bruce may have finally found what he's been searching for.   The scenery in this next sequence is quite beautiful. The grassy plains and the snowy mountains.   He makes his way up the mountain, past villages. They warn him to turn back. I guess there are stories about the questionable people who live up at the top.   Bruce is being put through a physical challenge to reach his destination. It's one thing to want to fight injustice, but it's another to have the strength of body and will to do so. Bruce first has to prove himself capable. Which he does.   Bruce finds an old asian man sitting in a chair when he finally reaches his destination. “Ra'as al Ghul?” he asks. And you'll notice the man doesn't answer. He speaks in another language, and Duard translates. I'm not sure exactly what country this is. I get the impression it's somewhere like Tibet or maybe Nepal.   Bruce is asked “What are you seeking?” “A means to fight injustice. To turn fear against those who prey on the fearful.” Bruce sounds like somebody who has already given a great deal of thought to the answer to that question. We know he's been seeking this for some time.   He presents the flower to Ducard.   “To manipulate fears in others, you must first learn to control your own.” Which seems to make sense.   Bruce can barely stand after his climb, but is still expected to defend himself. Ducard is testing him. He learns that Bruce is afraid, but not of him. Bruce has been in fights with thugs so many times before. He used to that. When Ducard asks him what he fears, we cut back to that childhood memory. Being rescued from that cave full of bats.   We learn here but Bruce did indeed break a bone, so points back for the realism thing. We also see that Rachel's mother works for Wayne as a maid. Importantly, we see Bruce hand the rock back to Rachel as they go past. It seems he's learned a lesson of sorts through this experience. Maybe life isn't all about having everything you want, and taking the things you desire from others.   His father is trying to impart an important lesson to Bruce. “Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up.” That's a lesson that adult Bruce has really taken to heart, which is how he's survived so long in this lifestyle. But he'll have to re-learn it later.   In this scene, we get our first glimpse of Michael Caine as Alfred. Superhero movies are usually cast with unknowns. That makes a lot of sense, especially for the titular heroes. But Christopher Nolan deliberately cast a lot of big name stars in this movie. Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes.  Nolan's thinking was, why shouldn't a superhero movie deserve to have the very best actors available. Of ourse, star power isn't always directly equal to acting ability, but these actors all do amazing jobs in their roles in this movie.   I was a little sceptical about someone as famous as Michael Cain playing Alfred. Would I really be able to see the character through the famous face? But it absolutely worked for me. All these actors sold me on their characters, and after this, I couldn't imagine anybody else ever playing Alfred. Who could possibly top Michael Cain? Of course, then Jeremy Irons blew me away in Batman V Superman, but that's another story.   Bruce is having recurring nightmares about the bats. They've really scared him. His father explains that they attacked him because they were afraid of him. All creatures feel fear - especially the scary ones. This conversation will really shape who and what Bruce will become.   And then his father shows him a pearl necklace he plans to give Bruce's mother. That's ominous. We know what those pearls mean. Right?   The next scnene gives us some great insight into who Thomas Wayne is. He's not only a good father, he's a good man. The people of Gotham have been going through hard times. He's used his money to provide cheap transport for the city, and he's not above using it himself, by the way. He owns Wayne Enterprises, a big successfully company, but he doesn't take an active role in running it. Instead, he chooses to spend his time working in a hospital as a doctor. In his own way, Thomas Wayne is a hero. He instilled a lot of values into his son.   There's been one or two interpretations of Thomas Wayne where he's a corrupt businessman. Not a nice guy at all. And while I appreciate the grittiness of that approach, I prefer this version of Thomas. The idealistic nice guy who established a legacy for Bruce to follow.   And notice that Thomas is wearing a tuxedo, and Martha is wearing the pearls. We know what's coming.   The actors in the opera seem to be dressed as bats. It's freaking poor Bruce out. There's a little exchange between father and son. First of all, he says “Can we go?” And that just comes across as any restless child who is bored and wants to leave. My response to that would be a quiet firm “No.” But his face shifts and he says “please” in a pleading kind of way. And Thomas sees what's really going on inside Bruce. And being the good father he is, Thomas leaves the show, something he probably spent good money on, something he was probably enjoying himself. But for the sake of his child, there's no question.   Martha hasn't picked up on it the way Thomas did. She asks what is wrong, and Thomas covers for him. I'm not sure exactly why he felt the need to do that. Maybe so as not to embarrass Bruce over his fears. I got another chuckle when Thomas said “A little opera goes a long way, right Bruce.”   So they've left early and are walking through the alley, and that's when it happens. The inevitable moment that defines Bruce's life.   When the mugger appears, Thomas is calm. He's willing to hand over whatever this guy wants. Again this shows the man's values. He cares about his family far more than money. And he's trying to calm the mugger.   But when the wallet drops, the mugger gets jumpy. The mugger wants the jewelly as well. He raises his gun toward Martha. And suddenly it all happens so fast. The previously calm Thomas reacts on instinct. It's not about the pearls. Somebody is pointing a gun at my wife. I must protect her. He stands in front of her. The sudden movement spooks the mugger and he fires. It's all so tragic. They were so close to getting out of this without anybody getting hurt.   Somewhere along the way Martha is shot as well.   And the poor kid is left there in an ally all alone, next to the dead bodies of his parents.   And it's all because they left early. It's all because Bruce was afraid of the bats. That's got to hurt. This is a good addition to the mythology because it drives that knife even deeper into Bruce's heart. And it's that pain that pushes him to become Batman.    The death scene is done pretty well here, but I have to say, after seeing the version Zack Snyder did in Batman V Superman, well, this just can't compare to that. That haunting music! And the lack of blood seems to detract from the realism somewhat.   We get our first look at Commissioner Gordon, although he won't be a commissioner at all during this movie. Right now, he's just a uniform cop. Probably a constable. I don't know exactly how police ranks work in America. You can tell right away he's a good cop. He shows a lot of compassion and empathy for Bruce.   The detective delivers the good news. They got the guy who did this. But that's got to be very little comfort to a child who has just lost his parents.   One of the Wayne Enterprise executives promises they'll be watching over the empire until he's ready. Again, that's the last thing that Bruce cares about.   Bruce breaks down and admits the guilt he's feeling to Alfred. And we see the beginnings of the father figure that Alfred will be from now on. That's a dynamic that I really like.   Back in the present, Ducard asks Bruce if he still blames himself for his parent's death. He says that his anger outweighs his guilt. Honestly, I'm not sure which is healthier.   Bruce has buried his guilt with that anger, but Ducard is going to help him confront it and face the truth.   Next we get something of a training montage. Not quite a montage because there's snippets of dialogue through it.   Bruce has come a long way with his own training, but Ducard will take what he can do and take it to new levels. There are a lot of similarities between Batman, the way he operates, and a ninja. Both use stealth. This movie digs into that and outright makes ninja training a part of Batman's background. I imagine a lot of this is drawn from comics, but I'm not familiar enough to know exactly what. I'm still pretty early the comics-reading journey I recently started.   But it's all good stuff.   One little detail that I love is that during their sword fight, Ducard is wearing armoured spikes on his arms, these are a famous part of Batman's costume.    There is an emphasis on theatricality and deception. These also lead very naturally into what Batman will be and lend believability to the whole thing that I really appreciate.   When Bruce is shown a criminal in a cage, we get some insight into the zero-tolerance that the league of shadows have for crime. Ducard says “criminals thrive in the indulgence of society's understanding.” We'll see shortly the kind of justice that they believe in.   The next conversation explores this idea of guilt and blame.   Ducards says “Your parents' death was not your fault. It was your father's. He failed to act.” Bruce defends his father. “The man had a gun.” “Would that stop you?” “I've had training.” “The training is nothing. Will is everything. The will to act.”   So Ducard is placing the blame firmly on Thomas, for not having the strength of body and will to stop the mugger. This is a very interesting perspective.   The truth is, there are a thousand different things that contributed to them being there at that moment. Bruce's desire to leave early, their decision to go to the opera, Thomas's gift of jewellery to his wife, probably many factors that lead the mugger to choose that particular night, that particular alley.   But ultimately, the blame for his crime, in my opinion, has to fall on the mugger. He made the moral choice to steal from these people, and he made the moral choice to kill them. The responsibility for that crime rests on him.   There's another nice quiet character scene with Bruce and Ducard around a campfire. Ducard displays a keen insight into the kind of pain Bruce has at the centre of his life. The anger he has wrapped around the guilt. The way it has affected him. He shares a little of his own story. He knows Bruce's pain because he shares it, because of the death of his wife.   Then he says something important. “Your anger gives you power, but if you let it, it will destroy you.” And isn't that the truth!   When Bruce asks what helped Ducard, he says vengeance. And I'm going to have to dispute that one. From what I've observed, Vengeance rarely makes people feel better. It doesn't take away the pain. We talked about this in Stargate Universe when Rush took revenge on Simeon for killing Amanda Perry and Ginn.   Bruce says vengeance is no help to him. He asks why Bruce never took revence for his parents.   And that leads us to another flashback. Bruce is now a young man, probably just out of his teens. He's been attending Princeton, which I believe is a pretty high profile university, but he's back home with Alfred for a hearing. Related to the man who killed his parents. Justice works very slowly. But that's probably a good thing. If there's one thing where you don't want to risk making a mistake, it's the justice system. Sadly, of course, no matter how slow and careful they are, there are still mistakes made.    Bruce is not returning to Princeton. Apparently, he hasn't ingratiated himself to the staff there. But he can't see Wayne Manor as his home either. This is his father's house. A mausoleum. Alfred doesn't see it that way. This house has been home to six generations of the Wayne family. Many times, it has passed from parent to child. The child becoming the new master of the home. Moving into the master bedroom is symbolic of that. The only difference is, Thomas's death happened so young, and so tragically.   Bruce doesn't understand why Alfred cares so much. But Alfred cares very much about this family, and thinks of it as his own. We see the same thing with Jeremy Irons' Alfred too. Thomas made Alfred responsible for that which was most precious to him. Bruce. Alfred takes that responsibility very seriously.   And then we find out why Bruce has little regard for his future. We see what Bruce plans to do. He has a hand gun.   But there's a lot more to it than just wanting revenge for killing his parents. We learn that Rachel works for the DA, and the DA is letting the mugger, Chill, go free. He shared a cell with Carmine Falcone. He's testifying against that crime boss in exchange for early parole. So this isn't the sentencing after all. I Guess justice doesn't move THAT slowly.   This is hard one. I understand why the justice system needs to make deals like this. You reward the small fish for helping you catch the big fish. The truth is, Carmine Falcone is a much greater threat to the safety of the people of Gotham than Chill is. If they can bring down Falcone, then a lot of lives can be saved. A lot of crime can be prevented.   But what about Bruce? What about his parents? Where is the justice for them? That's why Bruce feels somebody should be there to represent his parents at this hearing. To remind the world that Chill's crime had consequences. That his crime broke Bruce's life in a way that can never be repaired.   And this is also why he's planning to take justice into his own hands with that gun.   I'm not sure I noticed this when the movie first came out, but watching it now, as a 44 year old, Rachel almost looks too young to be a lawyer. Katie Holmes was famous as a teenage actor in the TV show Dawson's Creek. I didn't watch that show at the time, but I saw a little of it with my wife some time later. I'm still very much seeing that teenager in her face here in this movie. Of course, this movie came out in 2005. It feels like it was just yesterday, but that's actually 17 years ago. My first child was born in 2005. Anyway, I guess the moral of that, which I'm trying to say is that Katie Holmes retained her youthful look, so good on her, and … well….I'm getting kind of old.   As the DA, makes his case, he mentions a depression. To my knoweldge, the only depression that has occured in the last few centuries, was the great depression between the two world wars. We've had a number of recessions, but that's a lesser thing, right? And depression isn't something that just affects one city. A depression affects nations. Multiple nations. So that's a departure from real-world history.   Chill speaks of his regret for his crime. Yes, he was desperate, but that doesn't change what he did. I believe his remorse. It comes across as genuine. After 14 years of paying for the crime, how could you not come to regret it?   We all know regret right. I've been torn up by regret over all sorts of things. But none of them close to the severity of what Chill did.   When the judge announces that a member of the Wayne family is present, and invites Bruce to speak, the actor playing Chill does some great stuff with his face, showing the emotion that the character is feeling in that moment. The shame and guilt. The regret. How do you face the living victim of your murder?   But Bruce doesn't speak. He stands and walks out. And gets his gun ready. Bruce walks toward Chill, gun hidden in his sleeve, but he never gets the chance. Somebody else shoots Chill dead. No doubt somebody working for Falcone.   Bruce and Rachel talk about the difference between justice and revenge. Bruce posits that sometimes they are the same thing. Rachel says that justice is about harmony. Revenge is about making you feel better. But Bruce points out her impartial system is broken, which, it is. We talked about that, the imperfection of humans.   So Rachel decides to give him a real lesson. She takes him into the slums. She shows him the people living in poverty. Falcone floods the streets with violence and drugs. He makes these people desperate. The real villain in Bruce's story may not be the man who pulled the trigger. It's Falcone, who made Chill desperate enough to want to steal. (Which obviously doesn't exonerate Chill for his terrible crime). Rachel knows exactly where Falcone hangs out. He's there in that bar every night. But through corruption and threats, he keeps the police at bay. Nobody will touch him. They're all too afraid.   This scene is foundational to Bruce becoming Batman. This movie shows there's so much more to it than just the death of his parents and training to be a ninja. There's some real depth to the story in Batman Begins, and I love it.   Bruce admits to Rachel that he's not one of her good people. Shows her the gun. She gives him the slap he deserves. And she's right. His father would be ashamed of him right now.    So Bruce storms right into Falcone's bar and walks up to the crime boss. I like how the first half of this movie uses Falcone as its primary antagonist. In the grand scheme of things, he turns out to be a minor foe for Batman, but at this point in his life, Falcone is an untouchable, insurmountable foe to Bruce.   The conversation between Falcone and Bruce is fantastic. More great dialog. Falcone has the kind of power where he wouldn't hesitate to shoot Bruce in the head, right here, in front of cops and judges. That's power. The power of fear.   In a few quick sentences, he reminds Bruce how much he actually does have to lose. Rachel, his butler. He thinks he knows pain, but he knows nothing of desperation. It's ironic that Falcone is the cause of so much desperation in this city, but he understands it. He lives amongst it. Bruce doesn't yet comprehend that type of desperation.   But as we've seen earlier in the movie - he will.  This encounter with Falcone is the impetus he needs to go and start learning about desperation and fear. To begin his long training toward becoming Batman. So he can be one of Rachel's good people. A good person who won't just do nothing.   I don't know if Bruce will ever think of himself as good. He's too morally gray. But he's going to stand against the evil that has infested his city. Like his father did before him, in a very different way.   As soon as he's thrown out of the bar, Bruce begins to shed the trappings of his privileged life. His wallet, his cards. His fancy clothes. He sells his nice coat to a homeless man, exchanging it for a ratty old one. His journey has begun.   During this training, he lost a lot of assumptions about the simple nature of right and wrong. But he never fully gave in to it all. He didn't become one of them. He stole, but technically, the things he stole belonged to his company anyway. He still had a moral line.   So back in the present, Ducard is using drugs to teach Bruce a lesson. He must become more than a man. He must become an idea. He must use fear against his enemies. The drug is from that purple flower that grows on the mountain. It has hallucinogenic properties.   Ra's Al Ghul is satisfied that Bruce has overcome his fear. He's ready to join the league of Shadows and lead these men. But first, he has to prove his commitment to justice.   He has to behead a criminal in front of them all. But this is one of those lines Bruce has set. He's not an executioner. He won't kill this man. That's not justice. That's what Rachel tried to teach him.   This is where he differs from the League of Shadows. He'll fight men like this in Gotham. But he won't kill them. Ducard brings up a classic objection. “You compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.” And Bruce has a good comeback. “That's why it's so important. It separates us from them.”   Ducard makes a point that Bruce knows well. Legal systems are corrupt. They are often not fit to dispense true justice. Bruce has seen this first hand in Gotham. The League has turned their sights on Gotham. That city has become so corrupt, it's time for it to die. And Bruce, as their “Prince” as Falcone called him, “is the perfect one to deliver that justice.” They plan to destroy the entire city. As they believe, this is necessary.   And so is born this Batman's no-kill rule.    I have no problem with this Batman having a no-kill rule. I quite like it. This Bruce still has some idealism left. I like idealism. I also have no issue with Ben Affleck's Batman having no such rule. That's Bruce at a very different time of his life, in a very different situation. Batman has certainly killed before, in comics, and in other movies. Remember that time when Michael Keaton's Batman casually murdered a minor goon and then cracked a joke over his corpse?   Bruce attacks the league to make his escape, burning the temple, and saving Ducard's life. Because he's still a good person.   Now Bruce is ready to be Batman. It's time to go home. Alfred is very happy to see him as he arrives in a private jet. People need a powerful symbol to shake them up. He can't do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man, he can be ignored and destroyed, but as a symbol, he can be indestructible.   We get a nice little moment of humour as Alfred expresses some concern over his safety with Bruce's new endeavour. We also learn that Bruce was declared legally dead by the Wayne Enterprise shareholders. They wanted his majority share, but luckily, he left everything to Alfred, who is now a wealthy man in his own right. The overhead view of the Gotham skyline shows us a very realistic looking city. A place we can well believe exists. A far cry from the gothic cartoonish Gotham we've seen in previous Batman movies. This was a breath of fresh air to me. I could never really connect with the setting of the previous movies. The city just felt so overwhelmingly fake and non-real.   Now, before we see the birth of Batman, we need to meet a new character, One who will be an important villain in this movie going forward. Doctor Crane. The psychologist that gets all of Falcone's thugs declared insane, and transferred to his care, rather than facing criminal justice.   Rachel is onto him, of course, as probably everyone else is. But she's the only one with the courage to do something about it. Interestingly, Rachel seems to be taking on something of the role that Jim Gordon generally fills in the comics. The one brave good person who is willing to stand up when everyone else just looks away, either for money, or out of fear.   Of course, we see Jim Gordon doing that as well in this movie, but so far, he's been largely absent.   Rachel is warned to back off by one of her colleagues. You can't take on somebody like that. You just have to pretend it's not happening.   Bruce's first step is research. And that's a very Batman quality. Preparation. He needs to know if he'll have any allies out there. He finds some newspaper clippings about Gordon.   And that's when he sees the bat. And after all that Ducard taught him, he has an idea. He goes down the well that he fell into as a child, and finds the cave.   The cave is very rustic. It's not a habitable place, as caves generally aren't. I love the waterfall. As Bruce stands up, allowing the bats to flap all around him, he finds that he has overcome his fear of them. Now that he has it under control, it's time to share that fear with his enemies.   Despite his bravado, Rachel actually has Crane a little spooked. He has a deal with Falcone. He gets his thugs off the hook, and Falcone brings in a shipment of something for Crane. Falcone is more interested in favours than money, and for somebody like him, that makes a lot of sense. Falcone has plenty of money, but it's the favours, the connections, that make him who he is. That's the basis of his power. Other people doing what he wants so he remains untouchable. Anyway, Falcone is gonna take care of Rachel for him.   We see in the board meeting, that they are wrestling with the idea of going against the kinds of business practices that Thomas Wayne believed in. One of them argues that after 20 years they should be able to stop thinking about what Thomas Wayne would have done. And …. In part….. I think he does have a point. Thomas is no longer alive and hasn't been involved in this company for two decades.  They're the ones running this business. They need the freedom to take it in their own direction.   But, in terms of values, that's a little different. Thomas Wayne clearly set precedent for the kinds of moral and ethical values that Wayne Enterprises stands for. And those values are something that perhaps should endure. Especially when you're carrying on the legacy of your founder.   Bruce says he's not here to interfere with the company. He just wants a job to get to know the company his father built. He's interested in the applied science division. Of course, he has something of an ulterior motive here.   And this is where we get to meet Lucias Fox. Now as I understand it, this character was created for the movie, and he became so beloved, that they actually added him into the comics. This kind of thing has happened before. Batgirl was first created by the Adam West TV show, and later became part of the comics. Harley Quinn, as well. I think it was an animated series for her.   Anyway, I like Lucias Fox, and it's hard not to when he's played so warmly by the one and only Morgan Freeman.    Fox is surprised Bruce would want to be here. This division is a dead end, to keep Fox from causing any trouble for the board. A whole bunch of prototype technologies, not in production. Exactly what a young Billionaire needs when he wants to come a superhero vigilante.   This scene is great because it legitimises all of Batman gadgets. His suit is an advanced body armour, not used in active duty by the military because it's too expensive. But perfect for a vigilante who only needs one or two.   I've often heard the criticism that Batman can't have body armour any more advanced than what the US Military use in real life because they always have the best that has been invented. I think this scene goes some way to help address that.   This is what I was talking about earlier. You find something that's kind of silly in a superhero's story. In a movie like this, you either make it feel believable, or you dump it.   And that's the key. Making it feel believable, even if it's not strictly 100% realistic. That's not the point. It needs to feel sensible, not silly. It needs to give you enough to help you suspend your disbelief.   And for me, Batman Begins does that perfectly.   I love how Fox sees completely through Bruce's excuse. But all this stuff belongs to him. If he wants to use it, why not?   Alfred gives us another nice little bit of texture. Back in the civil war, Bruce's great-great-grandfather was involved in the secret railroad, helping free slaves. The caves under the mansion came in handy. There is already a passage down into them. Another nice touch that adds an extra veneer of believability to this whole thing.   Bruce is now making his suit. Painting the body armour and adding the arm spikes he learned about with Ducard. Alfred helps him figure out the logistics of ordering the materials he needs to assemble everything without raising suspicion.   We check back in with Jim Gordon. He's in an interesting situation. He's not that courageous good man standing against corruption yet. He refuses to take bribes himself, but he does sit idly by while his partner Flass collects his money. He even assures Flass that he's no rat. He won't tell anyone about the bribes. He's resigned to the fact that there's nobody to rat to.   Gordon is in a small way still part of the problem. He's definitely not yet a part of the solution.   But Bruce pays him a little visit.   I like how on Bruce's first time out, he doesn't have the full cowl. He's just wearing a balaclava. I kind of like it when origin stories do that. The slow build-up to the real suit.   Jim needs a little push. It's not until Bruce tells him about Rachel that he really considers taking a stand himself. Bruce wants to take Falcone down for the drug shipments he brings in each week. The shipments that nobody does anything about.   Bruce definitely lacks the elegance we'll come to expect from Batman as he clumsily falls and crashes around the city. He's gonna need more stuff from Fox.   The memory cloth that will form the basis for Batman's cape is pure science fiction. But couching it in science fiction terms once again gives it that sensible believability to me.   I like the exchange between Bruce and Fox. Fox is happy with the plausible deniability of it all. He knows Bruce is up to something. Bruce knows he knows. They don't have to keep pretending otherwise.   And that's when Bruce notices the tumbler.   I love the tumbler.   Designed as a bridging vehicle. They could never get the bridge to work, but the vehicle itself is fine. Perfect for Bruce's needs. I love how they introduce the batmobile in this way. I love how you first see it in Army cammo colours, but Bruce asks if it comes in black. I love everything about the tumbler. The batmobile is one of the silliest things about batman. That name especially. Thank goodness that term is never spoken aloud in this movie, or in the Synder movies. You don't need to call it that on screen, it just needs to be present. I always thought the idea of Batman driving around in a car was pretty silly. But this thing? Now you're talking!   Now, there are some issues with the tumbler in the second movie, which we'll get to. But just looking at Batman Begins in isolation, this is absolutely perfect.   You can see a defined difference between the way Bruce is approaching Falcone now, as opposed to how he did it as a young man. Back then, he was hot-headed. He burst into Falcone's bar armed with nothing but anger and emotion. And he was humiliated. Now, he's taking his time. Doing surveillance. No longer a child, Bruce has become a man. There's still a lot of emotion driving him, of course, but that emotion is no longer in the driver's seat. Bruce has learned to control it.   In reality, this isn't just a drug shipment. There are drugs, but there's also something special for Crane. Flass is actively helping Falcone protect the shipment. And he's all but offered to kill Rachel. And this is where we first see Batman in action. I love this scene. It takes all the tropes of a horror movie and inverts them. It's the bad guys that are being terrorised, and Batman is the monster. In a lot of ways, this scene defined for me, who and what Batman is. I remember playing the Arkham Asylum game. This scene was in my mind as I played that. It impacted how I played the game.   The crooks are vanishing one by one. Being taken by something in the shadows. It's creepy and it's cool. Possibly the best scene in the movie. I love when the crook screams “where are you you?” And then we hear that gravelling voice behind him, as an upside-down Batman says “here.”   They actually use the “hide the monster” trope here, but in the way I like, not in the way I hate. Because the crooks don't get a good glimpse of Batman. Not until right at the end, we finally see Batman in all his glory, as he pulls Falcone out of the car.   Bruce saves Rachel's life, and gives her the leverage she needs to get the judge to do the right thing.   It seems everything is all wrapped up. In one night, Batman has taken down Carmine Falcone, something the police in Gotham haven't been able to do in 20 years.   So Falcone is strapped to a massive floodlight. Making the image of a bat on the clouds. It's this movie's take on the bat signal.   This is a moment that gets criticism. Those floodlights get extremely hot. In reality, Falcone would be burned to a very dead crisp. And I can't argue against that. First of all, I'll point out that this light is hardly at full strength. You can tell just by looking at it that the light is pretty dim. But then, there's no way it'd be able to project that image up into the sky to be visible like that. This scene is a cheat. I'll admit that.   I always found the bat signal pretty silly. I never liked the idea that Gotham police had Batman on speed dial. Gordon, sure. But he needs a much more subtle way of getting in touch with him.   I'll admit this moment doesn't quite work, but given the overall tone of the rest of this movie, I kinda don't care.   The point is, we've established just how powerful Bruce has become, in his new persona. Up until this point, Falcone has been the big bad of the movie. He was the primary villain. And he seemed a very powerful, very intimidating villain. How can one man bring down somebody like that?   But Batman has done what that young Bruce could never have conceived of. He's brought down Falcone, and it feels kind of effortless.   Bruce Wayne has come of age.  But they've already laid the seeds of a greater challenge that Batman will face. This movie actually has an escalating scale of villains, three different levels. Bruce has just cleared level 1.   And the way the movie has done it, taking all of this time to establish Bruce's journey, it convinces me. The idea of a man dressing up as a bat and running around with a cape at night no longer feels ridiculous and preposterous. The journey has sold it. That's really important to me.   I've always been primarily a Superman fan, but looking back, while I'd always liked Batman, I think it was this movie that really made me love Batman. This movie gave me a version I could believe in. This movie finally delivered on the promise that I first saw when they started advertising the 1989 movie on TV.   Rachel has a rock-solid case. Batman has given her everything she needs.   But the police chief wants Batman off the streets. This is the tension I like. Batman is doing the right thing, he's getting the job done, and Gordon sees the value in that, but officially speaking, Batman is a criminal, pursued by the police just as much as any of his rogues are. That's what Batman was designed to be.   Alfred has some good advice for Bruce. If he's going to live this double life, he's going to have to put some effort into his Bruce Wayne persona as well. Just as Supermam cultivates an akward nerdy Clark Kent, Batman needs to cultivate a frivolous playboy Bruce Wayne to throw people off his scent. Now we introduce a new but important element. A microwave generator has been stolen from Wayne Enterprises. Designed for desert warfare, it vaporises an enemy's water supply. This is more science fiction. But again, I'm okay with science fiction. This is still a superhero movie, after all. And that's what this movie does so right. You establish the silly elements of the story in a believable sensible way, and then you have room to suspect disbelief over things like this. I don't mind a little science fiction, in fact, I welcome it. What I don't want is silliness and cheese. That's why when people criticise the realism of elements like this, I think they're missing the point.   Bruce's appearance at the hotel, with the weird skinny-dipping ladies goes a good way to establishing Bruce as a frivolous playboy, the last person you'd expect to be Batman. Why those women decided to get naked and hop in the water feature I'll never comprehend. Maybe Bruce paid them to do so.   Bruce is willing to be seen in this light in order to protect his true self. But there's one person whose good opinion he doesn't want to lose. Rachel. He tries to tell her, without telling her. “Inside, I am more.” But she's not buying it. “It's not what you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you.” And this is a very thematic statement for the whole movie. I partially agree with what Rachel says here. While, I think we are defined by more than just what we do, What she's getting at is the whole idea of putting your money where your mouth is. You can have the best of intentions inside, but if your actions don't match your intentions, then those intentions aren't worth much, are they? It actually reminds me of James chapter 2 in the Bible. Faith without actions is dead.   Falcone wants Crane to get him off on the insanity plea, just as he has with his goons. But more than that. He wants in one whatever Crane and his mysterious boss are up to.   But this is the moment that Crane replaces Falcone as the primary villain. Crane gases Falcone and Falcone goes genuinely insane from whatever is in that gas.   It's obvious at this point, that Crane is the Batman villain Scarecrow.   And this is the moment it really becomes a comic book movie. Weird gas that makes people go crazy? But because everything has been established in such a grounded sensible way up until now, I'm willing to buy it, I mean fully buy into it.   We won't be seeing Falcone again. He's done with. But we've learned how sinister Crane is. He's doing experiments with his patients, using whatever was in that shipment Falcone brought him.   Bruce already knows some of the shipments went elsewhere. He wants to know where. He'll get it out of Flass. Which he does. Batman is a pretty effective interrogator. And Flass is a coward.   So he tracks the shipment to Crane. The shipment is what he uses to make that gas, not to mention the microwave generator. We see that the gas amplifies people's fears. Makes them see what they're afraid of.   Bruce jumps out of a window many stories up, while on fire. And miraculously survives the fall without even a broken bone. That's not realistic. I call valid criticisms on this moment. But the funny thing is, they have their explanation for that. The memory cloth can turn his cape into a glider. Why didn't this scene use that device?   Under the influence of the gas, Bruce becomes that scared helpless little boy again. He cries out to Alfred for help. And of course, Alfred is there for him.   Bruce recognises the hallucinogen. He's felt it before, but this is more concentrated. Weaponised.   Fox has invented an antidote.   Bruce is supposed to have a birthday party tonight, but Rachel is heading to Arkham Asylum to figure out what's going on with Falcone. And she's gonna need backup from Batman to keep her safe.   Why does Crane show Rachel the truth of his whole operation? I know he drugs her afterwards, but why show her what he's doing? He's pouring that hallucinogen into the city water supply.   Batman crashes the party and uses Crane's own gas on him. I love how he sees Batman as a weird human/bat hybrid creature. The gas allows this movie to do some crazy sci-fi/fantasy looking stuff that would otherwise not fit in a movie like this at all. And we learn that Crane's mysterious boss is none other than Ra's Al Ghul. But isn't he dead? Didn't he die when that temple turned?   Bruce calls in the bats presumably using pheremons to attract them, so he can get away wtih Racel, to give her the antidote. Not sure the bats would smell the pheromones from that distance, though.   This is when we first get to see the Tumbler in action. Bruce uses the bridging vehicle's ability to jump to his advantage.   There are a couple of moments of humour that work for me in the chase. It's a pretty cool action scene. Anyway, he gets Rachel to the cave in time to the cave, where Fox has left the antidote waiting.   Crane has dumped his entire supply of this stuff into the water supply. Been doing it for weeks. But it hasn't affected anyone because it needs to be absorbed through the lungs. So why dump it in the water?   Crane is in custody. Bruce uses Rachel to get the antidote to Gordon so he can protect himself and mass produce it.   Level 2 cleared. The final ultimate villain will soon be fully revealed.   Alfred is concerned that Bruce is losing himself in this monster. Bruce argues he's using the monster to help others. But this can't be personal or else he's just a vigilante.   The mansion is full of guests. Bruce wants to get rid of them. There's too much going on right now. Alfred doesn't want Bruce to destroy his father's name. It's all that's left of him. The playboy persona is one thing. But Thomas's legacy is important and shouldn't be tarnished. And, Bruce agrees, for now.   Fox figures it out. The microwave emitter would allow somebody to disperse the toxin into the air supply. He's just been fired for asking too many questions about it.   And now we meet the final boss. The true villain of this entire movie. Bruce is introduced to a Mr. Ra's Al Ghul. It's Ducard. He was Ra's all along. The man Bruce watched die was just a decoy.   Bruce wants Ra's to let the guests go. They're innocent. His only reply “You can explain the situation to them.” And so, in order to save their lives, he must offend them. Dragging his father's name through the mud. They'll never know what he sacrificed to save their lives.   Crane's toxin was derived from the blue flowers on the mountain. He wasn't a member of the league of shadows, just a pawn. Ra's plans to vaporise the toxin and watch Gotham tear itself apart. He said near the start of the movie that he planned to destroy Gotham. He was serious. The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. They sacked rome, released plague rats, and burned London to the ground. When a civilisation reaches the peak of decadence, they come in to return the balance.   But you can't fight evil with evil. They may think they're the good guys, but they've murdered billions of innocent people along the way. Bruce believes Gotham isn't worth saving. He wants more time. Ra's rgues the very fact they've been able to do what they're doing is proof of its corruption.   We're seeing here that everything from the start of the movie is coming full circle. It's almost poetic. I love it.   As his goons burn the mansion to the ground, Ra's drops another bombshell. They tried to destroy Gotham in the past, through economics. Create so much hunger that everyone becomes a criminal. See them rip themselves apart.   But Bruce's parents got in the way of that plan, by helping alleviate the poverty where they could. It was Ra's al Ghul who created the circumstances that lead to his parent's death. Falcone was only a piece of that.   We see here how alike Bruce and his father are. Both, in Ra's opinion, are misguided idealists trying to save the city that deserves to be destroyed. There's a lot of symmetry in this movie, and I love it.   Alfred saves Bruce from the burning house. Bruce feels he's destroyed everything his father left behind, but Alred reminds us what we've just learned. The Wayne legacy isn't bricks and mortar. It's that idealism that tries to save Gotham. Ultimately, Thomas failed, and now so has Bruce. And then that line from his childhood returns. “Why do we fall?”  “So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”   I think Thomas would be proud to see what a fine father figure Alfred has become.   Ra's activates the microwave generator and the gas bursts out of the ground. Right under the narrows - the worst part of Gotham.   Fortunately, Gordon has the antidote.   Everything has gone to hell. All the riot cops are on the island already, and they've been affected by the gas. There's nobody left to send. And just as Commissioner Loeb says that, the tumbler bursts through the air behind him. That's a very effective shot. Love it.   The monorail follows the path of the water mains. They're gonna load the generator on the train and infect the entire city.   Batman is going into battle. He may die. Rachel at least wants to know his name. He replies with that same line “It's not what I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” And this, of course, has a double meaning. In one sense, it means, it doesn't matter what my identity is under this suit. It only matters that I'm trying to help. But, of course, by using that phrase, he's letting her know exactly who he is.   The shot of Batman gliding in like a giant bat and landing is awesome.   A lot of people are getting infected while Bruce struggles to catch the train. More with every metre. This brings us to the climactic fight scene. It's suitably tense. I like it. Gordon uses the tumbler to take out part of the monorail. It's interesting that ultimately he's the one that saves the day. Bruce is there to make sure Ra's doesn't go on to cause havoc another day.   And now we reach that controversial moment. Has Bruce finally learned to let go of his compassion? Ra's asks. “I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you.” Many people feel this is a betrayal of the “no-kill” rule that Bruce established for himself early in the movie. And strictly speaking, it is. Bruce is cutting that moral hair mighty thin.   But I don't see this as a negative to the movie. Bruce is a morally gray character. This is when he really steps into that. This is why he and Superman never get on, because they are different. Yes, Batman may be an idealist compared to the likes of Ra's al ghul, but he's not as cut and dry as Superman. And even Superman is forced into some of those gray areas, which I'm also fine with.   The train is stopped, and Ra's al ghul is finally dead. But there's still a lot of people out there who will need that antidote. A lot are gonna get hurt and killed before they get it. It's Batman. It's messy.   The next scene is very satisfying. The company went public, but Bruce bought up most of the shares through various charities and trusts. He's placed Lucious Fox in charge as the new CEO, the previous one, who fired Fox, is out.   Rachel comes to see Bruce, who she has newfound respect for. Bruce thanks her for giving him that first lesson that started him on his journey of transformation.   Now that she knows the type of man Bruce truly is, she's started to hope. They grew up as childhood friends, but there's a lot more between them than just friendship. They've loved each other for years, in some form. The movie probably could have done a better job of portraying that romantic undercurrent of their relationship, though. But there's a problem. Bruce has changed. He's a good man, but the real Bruce that she remembered is gone. Maybe he'll come back someday when Gotham no longer needs the Batman. And that line perfectly sets up the primary conflict of the next movie.   Bruce is going to rebuild his father's house, but it might be a good opportunity to do some work on the foundations.   The bat signal re-appears at the end. Gordon is going to use it when he wants to summon Batman. There's a lot of trouble still out there.  Gordon teases the villain of the next movie by mentioning a thief and murdurer who leaves a calling card - a joker.   And the credits roll.   This movie changed everything. It created a new era for DC comics movies, and started the journey that would eventually lead us to the Snyder Cut.   Without Batman Begins, there would be no Man of Steel. No Batman V Superman.   This movie presented a new way of portraying superheroes. They were no longer something to laugh at or make fun of. They were something to take seriously.   This movie made realistic, those things it could, which made the speculative elements all the more easy to accept. It was a perfect balance.   It's like Christpher Nolan reached into my soul and said “Let's create the perfect Batman movie for Adam Collings.”   There was a lot in this movie. Heaps to talk about. And there'll be plenty more to talk about next time, in a movie I've actually only ever seen once. The Dark Knight.   Have a great two weeks, Live long and prosper, Make it so.  

DAVID S. GOYER has earned a reputation for telling character-driven stories adapted from the otherworldly realms of superheroes, fantasy and the supernatural. His breakout came in 1998 when he wrote the action hit BLADE starring Wesley Snipes, based on the Marvel Comics vampire hunter. Since then, he's solidified himself as writer and producer who elevates genre driven stories to the next level.Most recently, Goyer Executive Produced and served as Showrunner for one of the year's most epic series, FOUNDATION, which premiered on Apple TV+. Based on Isaac Asimov's iconic novels, Goyer's sensibilities brought this world to life with his unique tone.On the film side, Goyer produced the Sundance hit THE NIGHT HOUSE, starring Rebecca Hall, as well as the Scott Derrickson film ANTLERS. Both films are being released by Searchlight this fall. Goyer also produced THE TOMORROW WAR, starring Chris Pratt for Skydance and Amazon.Previously, Goyer scripted and collaborated with Christopher Nolan on the story for the Superman feature MAN OF STEEL. Goyer also worked with Nolan on the mega-hit DARK KNIGHT trilogy, starting with the screenplay for BATMAN BEGINS. Goyer went on to team with Nolan on the story for the billion-dollar blockbuster THE DARK KNIGHT for which they received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, followed by the story's conclusion in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Additionally, Goyer co-wrote and produced BATMAN V. SUPERMAN, which broke the record for biggest March opening weekend in box office history.In 2002, Goyer made his feature film directorial debut with the drama ZIGZAG for which he also wrote the screenplay, based on the acclaimed novel by Landon Napoleon.  His other directing credits include THE INVISIBLE starring Justin Chatwin and Marcia Gay Harden, and the hit supernatural thriller THE UNBORN, based on his own original screenplay and starring Odette Annable and Gary Oldman. In the same year wrote 2002's BLADE II on which he also served as an executive producer. In 2004, he directed, wrote and produced the last of the trilogy, BLADE: TRINITY.In addition to screenwriting, Goyer made his debut in video games with the story for the smash hit “Call of Duty: Black Ops,” and penned the story for its blockbuster follow up, “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” as well as Black Ops: Cold War. Goyer also wrote and executive-produced the groundbreaking VR series VADER IMMORTAL for Lucasfilm and Oculus.In Television, Goyer's work includes the series DA VINCI'S DEMONS, for which he served as Creator, Director, and Executive Producer, focusing on the life of Leonardo da Vinci; CONSTANTINE, KRYPTON; and the cult classic FLASHFORWARD. Goyer also co-wrote the pilot and serves as executive producer for Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN, which is currently filming in London.The Dialogue: Learning From the Masters is a groundbreaking interview series that goes behind the scenes of the fascinating craft of screenwriting. In these 70-90 minute in-depth discussions, more than two-dozen of today's most successful screenwriters share their work habits, methods and inspirations, secrets of the trade, business advice, and eye-opening stories from life in the trenches of the film industry. Each screenwriter discusses his or her filmography in great detail and breaks down the mechanics of one favorite scene from their produced work.Your Host: Producer Mike De Luca is responsible for some of the most groundbreaking films of the last 15 years. After enrolling in New York University's film studies program at 17, De Luca dropped out four credits shy of graduation to take an unpaid internship at New Line Cinema. He advanced quickly there under the tutelage of founder Robert Shaye and eventually became president of production.

Jake from Pop Culture Leftovers joins Kova and Spoiler Steve to discuss DC's League of Super-Pets, Hulu's Good Luck to You, Leo Grande & The Contractor! Also in this episode; Box Office Slumps, Reality Shows, Book Reviews and More!  00:01:20 - Intro 00:19:42 - The Contractor 00:43:14 - DC's League of Super-Pets 01:17:34 - The Banter Corner | The Box Office, The Public Education System, Batman Begins, The Rehearsal, Rap Sh!t, The Orville, The Shining, Ms. Marvel, The Resort, Letterkenny, Vengeance 02:06:28 - Good Luck to You, Leo Grande 02:32:47 - Last Month in Hollywood #013  Support us on Patreon HERE **NEW SHOWS ARE COMING TO OUR PATREON** Read Stephanie's review of Top Gun: Maverick HERE Listen to Stephanie on the StarkCast here Listen to Spoiler Steve on the StarkCast here Listen to Kova on the StarkCast here Listen to our seventeenth episode of The Blindspot reviewing Donnie Brasco here Listen to our twenty-third episode of Back to the Movies covering the second and third acts of Catch Me If You Can here Listen to the sixth episode of Back to the Shire covering the third act of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – Extended Edition here Send us emails and feedback to info@sceneitcast.com Check out our website sceneitcast.com Check out Michael H. Cannon's work at @artildawn  

Wake up from your Scarecrow-spookygas-induced-nightmare where there wasn't a new #IHAGFAT this week! There is! This week our dynamic duo asks the important questions: What are you afraid of? Does it come in black? Is this an homage to Batman 66? That's right, it's part 1 of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy: Batman Begins! Also this episode: Craig sobers up! Tyler hits his head in a cave! Bono! Also be sure to check out Craig's guest spot over on OUR guest Brian's podcast: The Electric Monster Podcast on the episode about True Romance (WARNING: there is some bluer-material) and be sure to check out Brian's episode about Batman Begins here: bit.ly/EMPBEGINS

This week's Episode we celebrate the victor of #ACTIONAPRIL BATMAN The Dark Knight, the worlds greatest detective, the boy billionaire, that weird reclusive rich guy, the vigilante, vengeance, etc etc etc We celebrate by watching BATMAN BEGINS (2005) Directed by: Christopher Nolan. Starring: Christian Bale, Katie Holmes, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Rutger Hauer, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe, Mark Boone Junior, Tom Wilkinson and many other talented people! 00:45- Essential 26 check-in 03:30- How ya Been? 09:05- Whatcha been Watchin'? (Will- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, The Ultimate Spider-Man, I Know What You Did Last Summer. Ian- The Dark Knight, Batman Beyond, Batman (1989), Buster Keaton Shorts, Better Call Saul) 20:30- #ACTIONAPRIL reflections 27:50- BATMAN BEGINS (2005) 55:35- Ray Review 56:35- Next week with a Guest! 56:55- A Sketch from out Past 58:15-... Bye A Sketch from you past... What does THAT mean!?! Only one way to find out...... (or look at next week's movie....) Enjoy! Instagram: @TheLastActionCritics Twitter: @THE_Lastcritics email: Thelastactioncritics@gmail.com Next Week: NOPE pitch/fix: Bigfoot (2012) (available on Peacock)

The Dark Legend Go back to the beginning, when Bruce Wayne is a young man struggling to find a way to avenge his parents' murder. Through extreme effort, Bruce gains the skills and determination not only to defeat the creepy villains who plague Gotham City, but to overcome his own fear and use it to his advantage. He must become more than a man. He must become one with the night. He must become Batman. Featuring the voice talents of Brett Solferino, Tejinder Singh Saund, Erin Rementer, Ken Ormiston, Ian Grimley, Tim Maxwell, Simon Mitchell, & Uriah Roots. Music by Fesliyan Studios. Produced by Neuverse Creative.

So here it is. My podcast on the final episode of Stargate Universe. Gauntlet. This was intended to be a season finale, but never a series finale. But with the tragic cancellation of the show after the end of season 2, there was nothing more to come. So how does this episode function as a series finale? Well, surprisingly well. At least, as a series pause. Grab a comfy chair and listen as I explain what I mean, as we delve one final time into Stargate Universe. ----more---- Transcript Welcome to Nerd Heaven I'm Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of the Stars And I am a nerd.   This is episode 91 of the podcast.  Today, we're talking about the final episode of Stargate Universe. “Gauntlet”   And if you'd like to check out my original science fiction books, head on over to AdamDavidCollings.com/books   The description on Gateworld reads Cut off from every star and every planet in their path, the crew takes a stand against the drone command ships. Meanwhile, Eli comes up with an extreme plan to escape drone space for good.   This episode was written by Joseph Mallozzi (whose name I've apparently been mispronouncing for the last two seasons, sorry about that) and Paul Mullie. It was directed by Andy Mikita And it first aired on the 14th of May 2012.   It's with something of a heavy heart that I share with you my thoughts on Stargate Universe for the last time. This, of course, was never meant to be the final episode, just a season finale.   I'll talk about the premature cancellation of this show at the end, but first, let's take a look at the episode itself.   TJ is removed Park's bandages from her eyes. She's in good humour, jokiig about not having had this much rest in weeks. Greer stands faithfully by her side.   Park is hoping she'll be able to see now. She's looking forward to getting bleary eyes looking at data. She's been seeing occasional flashes of bright light. The moment she TJ tells her to open her eyes is the moment of truth. That's when she's gonna finally find out if she can see or not. It would be a nerve-wraking moment. I'd be hesitant, knowing that the moment I open my eyelids, I might have to face the worst. Until I open them, there's still the possibility I might be able to see. Right?   Sadly, after she opens her eyes, it's still dark. She can't see anything. She can't see the light TJ shines in her eyes.   Eli has found a way to track the done command ships by isolating the subspace frequencies they use to comminicate and plugging them into the ship's long range sensors. This means they'll be able to avoid them and find safe star systems to refuel next time we have to.   But the news isn't good. The drones are waiting at every gate between Destiny's current position and the edge of the galaxy. Eli sums it up effectively when eh says “we're screwed.”   On earth, Rush explains to Telford that going off the grid won't work. The seed ships have already done the legwork and found the needles in the haystack, and plotted a course for Destiny accordingly. So with drones at every gate, they have no way to get supplies.   They've got a month's worth of food. They could really use a supply line from Earth but the Langarans are still refusing to help. Woolsey continues to push diplomacy but he's not having much luck.   TJ doesn't know if Park's condition will improve. She should have shown some improvement by now. If they don't heal by themselves there's nothing more TJ can do. But TJ isn't really thinking about Park. She's thinking about her own death sentance.   It sounds like a horrible way to die. Eventually, she'll become fully paralysed, but her mind will still be active. She will have no way to interact with others. No way to express herself. She'll be a prisoner in a body that no longer works. That sounds like hell to me. Like, I can't imagine hell being any worse than that. It's horrific.   Rush is discussing the possibility of going on the offensive when they need to resupply. They choose a target, go throug hte gate, and take out as many as needed to get what they require. They have the advantage of surprise now that they can track the drones. And they still can't track us. He's actually got a pretty good idea for boosting the effectiveness of the shields. Destiny's shields rotate through various frequencies, because different energy weapons will use different frequencies. The closer the shields are to the frequency of the weapons, the easier it is for them to absorb the energy. But since they know they'll be facing the drones, they don'r have to guess. They just tuine the shields to the narrow band of frequencies that the drones use. I really like this. It's nice to get some techy details on how the shields work. It makes sense. You can design something to protect you from a known quantity. But Destiny was made to go out where nobody had explored. The ancients didn't know what races they might encounter, let alone what kinds of weapons they might have. So they had to invent shields that would protect the ship from unknown weapons not yet encountered. Rush has a clever plan, and it should help the ship to withstand attack in a significantly improved way.   They've plotted a course for one of the command ships. They going to try to jump in, take it out, and jump away again. That'll be one less command ship, at least.   We get a nice exterior shot which makes it clear just where in the ship the bridge actually is. It's right up the top of the big high-rise pyramid thing at the back.   Chloe is so good at plotting these FTL exists that they drop out right on top of the command ship, so close, in fact, that they scrape along its hull. Given the unimaginable vastness fo space, that's amazing.   The plan seems to be working. The drone weapons are having almost no effect. The command ship is smart. It realises immediately that the weapons are not working, so it instructs the drones to make kamikaze attacks against Destiny. And because the shields are tuned to that specific frequency, it can't stop them. They manage to destroy the command ship pretty easily, but they've taken a lot of damage from the drone collisions.  They've bought time to get some supplies, not that there was much on the planet.   Eli has a plan that could get them out of all their troubles. This galaxy has turned out to be a pretty rubbish place, infested with all of these drones. As Eli puts it, a hostile environment. So why don't they just skip it. Fly one continuous FTL jump to the nearest edge of this galaxy, and then on through the void to the next in the seed ship's path. Just the drones behind and try the next galaxy for size.   It's not a bad idea, but they have power issues, the distance between galaxies is a lot longer this time, plus damage to the FTL drive. So it'll take three years. How will they survive three years without food and water? We use the stasis chambers that Rush, Eli, and Brody found a few episodes back. They spend the next three years in cryogenic suspension.   The big problem with this, of course, is if they miscalculate the amount of power needed by the slightest fraction, they'll have to drift at sunlight the last bit, and that could take thousands of years.   Rush is convinced it's too risky. But Young orders Eli to make preparations. It's at least an option. He gives Rush 24 hours to come up with a better idea.   Camille wants to give everyone one last trip to Earth to say goodbye. That makes good sense, and it's a nice idea, but they'll have to be really quick about it. Every minute they delay this plan means they're losing more power.   Rush's real problem isn't so much about the margin of error. It's about the mission. The ship wasn't launched to arrive at some final destination where all the questions will be answered. It's meant to gather information bit by bit by bit as it travels. If they skip this galaxy, they might miss a vital piece of the puzzle. And I share his concern about that. It's a real worry. It could make the entire journey all for nothing. That's something Rush couldn't live with. And I wish I had a solution for him.   Chloe has some wise words for him, though. It boils down to this. If they stay, and Destiny is destroyed by the drones, then it really is over, and all for nothing. If they get out of this galaxy, even if the crew die, Destiny will go on, still searching for the answers it was created to find.   And so, the plan goes ahead. They're starting to put people into stasis. The Lucian Alliance are among the first. Makes sense. They were never meant to be part of this expedition anyway.   Eli goes home, via the stones, to say a quick goodbye to his Mum. The way he starts, “I just wanted to come and say goodbye” was not the best way to go about this. His mother will obvious jump to the wrong conclusion. Is he dying? Is this the last I'll ever see of him. I guess at least the trust is not as bad as any of the scenarios she's be imagining at that moment.   But, he plains it all to her. Eli feels really guilty about this. He feels that he's abandoned his mother. He thinks if he'd made different choices, she wouldn't be alone right now. But his Mum won't have any of that. Which makes perfect sense.   Any parent will tell you that they want their children to live a fulfilling life. Eli is seeing amazon things. Living an incredible life.  That's what we all want for our kids. Of course, there's still the pain. If one of my kids was as far away from me as Eli is from his mum, it would hurt. I'd miss them terribly. But I'd also be glad they were living an amazing life. Proud of them. The thing is, now that she knows the amazing things that Eli is doing, his mum is a much happier puerson. Her deep depression is gone. And she has friends in a similar situation. Friends like Sharon, who understand.   So, his mum asks him the one question, the only question that matters. “Are you happy?” And despite everything, he is. That's all she needs to hear.   That's good enough for her. This is such a beautiful scene.   But, Brody and Volker have found a problem. Wouldn't you know it?   The last section of pods have taken damage. Possibly before they even came on board. They can't bring those pods online. They're not gonna have enough for everyone.   They're 8 short.   In order to repair them, they'd need metals, alloys, from a planet that's seen a lot of meteor activity. They've found one. It had a gate. But it's locked out, because it's not hospitable to humans. The drones don't know what kind of planet humans need  to survive. They just know that planet has a gate. So there's a command ship there.   Even if Destiny survived the fight, they'd use up too much power. They'd never be able to make it to the next galaxy, which defeats the whole purpose of going.   Those 8 people won't be able to survive on the ship. The power needed for life support for 8 people would make them fall short. So….they need 8 people to commit suicide for the good of the rest? That's impossibly dark. I couldn't enact a plan like that. I couldn't even ask for volunteers. I just couldn't do it. Could those 8 people try to find a planet to settle on? Maybe, but the drones would find them and kill them anyway. Either way, it's suicide.   Park is really worried that Greer is going to volunteer to be one of the 8. And he admits, he might do it, but he wouldn't ask 7 other people to do it with him, and he doesn't think Young would either.    It's funny how my opinion of Greer has changed so much over two seasons. He's becoming one of my favourite people on the ship.   But Park has an idea.   Use a shuttle as a decoy, to draw the command ship away from the planet. Make it simulate a gate dial. While the drones are away, slip in an get the minerals they need. They can even ram the shuttle into the command ship and blow it up.   It's risky, but it's a good plan that coudl very well work. It's certainly better than asking 8 people to kill themselves. Greer's right. Young was never going to do that.   The command ship takes the bait. So they have a go.  I have to admit that watching that command ship explode as the shuttle collided with it brought a big smile to my face.   They got the supplies they needed.   Scott has to go say goodbye to his son. And it's hard.What do you say to a kid when he doesn't even know that you're his father? You're just a guy who pops around every now and then. His mother is a good person, but Scott is worried that she's not a good parent. It's a hard situation.   When Camille went back to say her goodbye, she told Sharon it wasn't fair on her anymore, and she should move on.  And that's a hard thing.   I see Corporal Barnes in a new way, now that I know she and Eli got married on Novus. I can't help but wonder, could anything happen between them in this timeline? I know that to an extent, they got together because they were kind of among the last few left that hadn't found anyone. But, they made it work. Maybe this version of Eli and Barnes could make it work as well.   During the montage of people saying goodbye and getting in to the pods, we see a shot of Park, in well…a park. It's raining, and she's crying. It took me a moment before the true impact of that hit me.  She's in someone else's body. She can see. This might be the last time she ever gets to see anything in her life.   There's a positive to all this. All the food they've collected, other than the non-perishables, like the canned goods, it's all gonna go to waste. So they might as well have a feast before they go into stasis. And I really like that they get to do that. For the first time in a very long time, they're full. Really fully. Of course, Greer can fit just a bit more in.   This is a really nice scene. It's a god moment to round off the show with. Our main cast are sitting around a table having dinner. Young makes a speech, acknowledging that they have become a family. They were far from that at the beginning of season 1, but now, yes. They're a family.  I love how Rush doesn't object to Young calling him the slightly mad uncle who still manages to come through for you. I like that Young and Rush have reached this place. There's no real conflict between them at the moment. There's a real camaraderie in this scene. I know this was written as a season cliffhanger, not a series finale, but this scene really works for its place as a final episode. I can't help but wonder if this scene was added, or modified slightly, when they knew it would be the last. It's an emotional sendoff. And honestly, it works as well as the poker game at the end of Star Trek The Next Generation.   The last of them are going into pods now. Chloe, Scott, Greer. Camille. TJ.  As the pods close, only Young, Rush, and Eli are left awake.   While Eli and Rush finish the automated programming for the ship, Young checks in with Telford. It's a shame they couldn't get Richard Dean Anderson for one last O'Neill cameo here, but in a way, it is more poignant that it's Telford. He's the one Young has all the history with.   He's not going to go say goodbye to Emily. Their marriage is over. And Telford tries to apologise, even though it was the Lucian Alliance programmed personality that cheated with Young's wife. Young stops him. His marriage was broken a long time ago. He has nobody to blame but himself. And while I grieve the loss of his marriage, I like the way he takes responsibility for it like this. It's nice to see thes men, who have been such bitter enemies in the past, now parting as friends. Telford promises they're not going to give up on the people on board Destiny. Another beautiful scene.   But, wouldn't you know it. There's still one final problem. They repaired those 8 pods, but one of theme was more damaged than the others. It came online, but has just died.   They're gonna be one pod short.   They can't fix it. If two of them go into stais, they'll have about 3 weks for that one last person to try to find a solution. To get the last pod working. Rush has vontunteered, but Young can't trust him. What if Rush really can't get it working. Will Rush sacrifice himself at that time for the rest of the crew? Can Young trust Rush to do that? They've put most of their conflict behind them, but there's still that doubt. And when push comes to shove, I can't tell Young that he's wrong. Rush is not a martyr. He's not a self-sacrificing kind of guy. He's selfish and he has a strong sense of self-preservation. Ould he do it? Would he kill himself so the rest could live? I can't guarantee that he would. I don't think even Rush can guarantee that honestly. He doesn't try to argue it.   Young is going to stay. He can't fix the pod, of course, but he'll sacrifice himself.   But Eli has another idea. He'll stay. If Young stays, it's automatic suice. If Eli stays, he has a chance. He's sick of staying in Rush's shadow. Being the reager young protoge. He's not afraid to say it anymore, and all three of them know it. Eli is smarter than Rush.   And that may well be true.   It's not fair. One of the most good-hearted people on that ship has to be the one that will very probably die. Young doesn't want this, but he knows it's the only answer.   Rush and Eli have a nice last scene together. Rush doesn't want Eli to be the one to volunteer. He doesn't say it often enough, but Eli has amazing potential, and they're going to need him on the other side. But as Eli says, “what the point of having potential if you're not going to step up when you're really needed.” And I can't argue with that logic. I don't think Rush can either.   I did laugh when Rush said “You've come a long way from that video game slacker,” and Eli says “You've been pretty much consistent.”   So Eli puts both Rus hand Young to bed. And there he is. Alone. On a space ship full of sleeping people. He turns out all the lights where they're not needed.   He shuts down the stargate.   This is all very symbolic of the show ending. Kind of like how JMS turned off the lights on the station in the final episode of Babylon 5.   But even more than it, it mirrors the pilot episode, when we first see Destiny, and all the lights are coming on, as we pan through the ship. It rhymes like poetry.   And so there he is ion the observation deck, looking out at the wispy blue of FTL.   The last man standing.   Eli gives a little smile as Destiny sails off into the distance.   I've heard some speculation about that smile. Is he just appreciating the wonder of where he is? Or does he have an idea? And idea that will change everything?   We don't know.   Probably the only person in the world who knows the truth is Brad Wright. I just hope he gets the chance to tell us some day.   And so there ends Stargate Universe. It sounds like Brad had some really cool ideas for season 3.   As cliffhangers that ended up being finales, it's not a bad way to go. The whole device of everything going to sleep for 3 years gave us hope.   I remember thinking, well, if they can get themselves sorted out, they can always come back and do anothjer season, or a movie, in three year's time. That'll be a real-time look at when they all should be waking up again.   How cool would that have been?   Sadly, those three years went, and became ten years. We still don't know what happened to the brave crew of Destiny. To Eli.   But Brad Wright had plans. I remember him posting online that while the show was over, he was still fighting for something that would let him bring closure. Not a new series. It was going to be a TV movie. SG-1 had enjoyed some good success with TV movies that went to DVD. He wanted to make one that would combine the casts of SG1, Atlantis and Universe, one big grand crossover adventure to try to bring the crew of Destiny home. Sadly, even that could not be greenlit. And so the story was lost to history.   So what happened? Why did this show really end? Was it the case, as I've heard some say, that SGU was cancelled because it sucked? Obviously, I don't think it sucked. It's my favourite Stargate series. But did it have lower ratings that SG-1 and Atlantis? Given that a lot of fans of the previous shows didn't like it, I'd have to say it probably did. But there was so much more going on at the time.   MGM was going into bankruptcy at the time. Stargate Universe wasn't the only thing cancelled because of this. They were dropping like flies.   And while the DVD movies had worked well for SG-1, the industry was changing. Direct-To-DVD was no longer a popular thing. Streaming was coming, but wasn't quite here yet.   Stargate Universe was this show trying to survive in this weird void between times, where everything was in flux.   In the end, I think this show was a victim of timing. The world just wasn't quite ready for it, in terms of audience expectations, but also in terms of how the industry was changing.   I will always grieve the loss of this amazing and wonderful show, but despite technically ending on a cliffhanger, I would heartily recommend people watch it. These two seasons give you a satisfying experience. It ends on a bitter-sweet moment, filling with questions, and uncertain hope. And that is perhaps fitting for a show with the tone that SGU had.   I'd like to say a huge thank you to the cast and crew of Stargate Universe, for making my dreams come true. Stargate Universe remains to this day, my favourite Stargate show, and one my my favourite sci-fi shows of all time.   So is there still hope of knowing more? With MGM recently having been purchased by Amazon, it seems likely, if not certain, that Stargate will return some day soon on Amazon Prime.   Will it be the in-canon continuation that we all hope it will be? I have to have faith and say yes. Brad Wright has a pitch. A new show with a pilot script. Joseph Malozzi has read it and says of it “The verdict? Fantastic. A perfect series for first-tiome viewers who know nothing about Stargate, but also a richly rewarding experience for longtime fans. Action, adventure, friendship humour, cool sci-fi, terrific characters, a compelling story - and one ulluva antagonist.”   There is a huge fan movement to convince Amazon Studios that they should continue with the existing canon of the last 3 TV shows, and use Brad Wright's pitch. And honestly, I think Amazon would be utter idiots to go a different direction.   They've got to know that this is what the fans want. So…we'll see.   Brad Wright has been open about the fact that if his new show gets greenlit, he will address the fate of Destiny, which makes me very happy.   So now…..we wait.   That was Stargate Universe. I hope you enjoyed myt thoughts on this series. I certainly enjoyed watching through it again and recording them.   So one question remains. What's next for Nerd Heaven.   Well….I want to cover the Dark Knight trilogy. So next time, we're going to start that by looking at my favourite solo Batman film of all time - Batman Begins.   After we've done these movies, we're going to be launching into a new series.   Star Trek Continues.   You may have heard of it. It's actually a fan-produced series, but doin't let that put you off. It's fantastic, and highly regarded by many, including Rod Roddenberry, son of Star Trek creator Gene Rodennbery, who says he considers it canon to the original series.   Basically, Star Trek continues gives TOS one final season, and also provides a big epic send-off, which the original show never had. I can't wait to delve into this show with you.   So, until next time, Have a great two weeks   Live Long and Prosper Make it so.  

An in-depth review of the first Dark Knight trilogy film, Batman Begins. The 250th review! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tj-robinson8/support

On this edition of "Script to Screen" I talk about the script for the 2005 summer blockbuster, Batman Begins. Enjoy! #Batman #BatmanBegins Batman Begins Script • https://www.scriptslug.com/assets/scripts/batman-begins-2005.pdf Social Media and Other Links For The #MenInTightsPodcast • https://linktr.ee/themenintightspodcast #ForAutumn Autumn Snyder Tribute Fund • https://afsp.donordrive.com/campaign/Autumn-Snyder-Tribute-Fund #IStandWithRayFisher Julie Whiteley - “Legal fees for child rape victim” • https://gf.me/u/y2844k ALL IMAGES, VIDEO, MUSIC, AND OTHER AUDIO USED ARE OWNED BY THEIR RESPECTIVE PARTIES. Men In Tights logo created by Robert Waites • https://www.facebook.com/mysteriosupafan

Attack of the Franchise continues their miniseries about the Batman films with the first entry into Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. The gang discusses the failed attempts to reboot Batman before this movie happened, who else in the cast was considered for Batman (Hint: Not Morgan Freeman),  how bad is Katie Holmes in this movie, and more.Be sure to follow, subscribe, rate, and download.

We are talking about the results of the 104 Fan Voted Superhero Movie Tournament. The first round movies are: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) V for Vendetta (2005) Blade The Batman (2022) Watchmen Spawn Unbreakable Superman 3 Batman (1989) New Mutants Sky High Mystery Men Kick-Ass Super (2010) Birds of Prey Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995) Iron Man 3 (2013) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out Of The Shadows (2016) Captain Marvel (2019) Ultraviolet (2006) Hellboy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie (1990) The Crow Elektra (2005) Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) Power Rangers (2017) X-Men: First Class (2011) The Punisher (2004) Doctor Strange (2016) X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) Fantastic 4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer (2007) Logan (2017) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) The Dark Knight (2008) Daredevil (2003) The Incredibles (2004) Kick-Ass 2 (2013) Aquaman (2018) Green Lantern (2011) The Incredible Hulk (2008) Fantastic Four (2005) The Wolverine (2013) Venom (2018) Morbius (2022) X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) Thor (2011) Birdman (2014) Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022) Thor: The Dark World (2013) Ant-Man (2015) X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016) Deadpool (2016) The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) Spider-Man 3 (2007) Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) Captain America: Civil War (2016) Hancock (2008) Chronicle (2012) Man Of Steel (2013) Howard The Duck (1986) Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) Batman & Robin (1997) Iron Man 2 (2010) Black Panther (2018) The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) Iron Man (2008) Batman Returns (1992) Avengers: Endgame (2019) Superman Returns (2006) Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) Spider-Man 2 (2004) Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Wonder Woman (2017) Black Widow (2021) The Rocketeer (1991) X-Men (2000) The Avengers (2012) Meteor Man (1993) Superman: The Movie (1978) Batman Begins (2005) Shazam! (2019) Avengers: Infinity War (2018) Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014) Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) The Suicide Squad (2021) Deadpool 2 (2018) X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014) Superman II (1980) Blankman (1994) X2: X-Men United (2003) Big Hero 6 (2014) Ant-Man And The Wasp (2018) Batman Forever (1995) The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Spider-Man (2002) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mass-debaters/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/mass-debaters/support

They like the name "Gotham Knight," don't they? Chamar and Andrew are back with yet another iconic DC story being put on the animation table with the 2008 film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_Gotham_Knight (Batman: Gotham Knight). In this Sweet or Sour episode, we're discussing the story within Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy that was created and animated by several Japanese studios and supposedly bridged Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. As always, we are here to ask the big questions: Does the story make sense? How does it compare to the comic? And most importantly, has the film remained sweet, or has it soured over time? Also, follow Yet Another DC Animated Podcast on https://linktr.ee/yadcanimatedpod (social media) or check us out at https://www.forgottenentertainment.com/yet-another-dc-animated-podcast (Forgotten Entertainment).

Illustrious author Mitch Horowitz (Daydream Believer) rejoins the podcast to talk about the esoteric meanings and  behind Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises). For more, check out Magick.Me, my online school for magick, meditation, and mysticism—see more at www.magick.me...!

The one where Green Blooded Bastard watches Batman Begins. Bale whipped his dick out in this one and throat punched Taken.

We are talking about the results of the 104 Fan Voted Superhero Movie Tournament. The first round movies are: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) V for Vendetta (2005) Blade The Batman (2022) Watchmen Spawn Unbreakable Superman 3 Batman (1989) New Mutants Sky High Mystery Men Kick-Ass Super (2010) Birds of Prey Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995) Iron Man 3 (2013) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out Of The Shadows (2016) Captain Marvel (2019) Ultraviolet (2006) Hellboy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie (1990) The Crow Elektra (2005) Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) Power Rangers (2017) X-Men: First Class (2011) The Punisher (2004) Doctor Strange (2016) X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) Fantastic 4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer (2007) Logan (2017) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) The Dark Knight (2008) Daredevil (2003) The Incredibles (2004) Kick-Ass 2 (2013) Aquaman (2018) Green Lantern (2011) The Incredible Hulk (2008) Fantastic Four (2005) The Wolverine (2013) Venom (2018) Morbius (2022) X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) Thor (2011) Birdman (2014) Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022) Thor: The Dark World (2013) Ant-Man (2015) X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016) Deadpool (2016) The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) Spider-Man 3 (2007) Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) Captain America: Civil War (2016) Hancock (2008) Chronicle (2012) Man Of Steel (2013) Howard The Duck (1986) Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) Batman & Robin (1997) Iron Man 2 (2010) Black Panther (2018) The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) Iron Man (2008) Batman Returns (1992) Avengers: Endgame (2019) Superman Returns (2006) Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) Spider-Man 2 (2004) Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Wonder Woman (2017) Black Widow (2021) The Rocketeer (1991) X-Men (2000) The Avengers (2012) Meteor Man (1993) Superman: The Movie (1978) Batman Begins (2005) Shazam! (2019) Avengers: Infinity War (2018) Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014) Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) The Suicide Squad (2021) Deadpool 2 (2018) X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014) Superman II (1980) Blankman (1994) X2: X-Men United (2003) Big Hero 6 (2014) Ant-Man And The Wasp (2018) Batman Forever (1995) The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Spider-Man (2002) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mass-debaters/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/mass-debaters/support