So anyone that knows me well can pretty much come to the conclusion that I love me some Batman and Christopher Nolan pretty much on their own. Memento was and is one of my favorite movies of all time, so when I heard that he was going to be trying his hand at bringing the Dark Knight to the big screen I was ecstatic. I loved the way he filmed scenes, from the way the flashback scenes in Memento looked to the dark and shady black and white "current" conversation scenes. What a great movie. I knew he would do it justice.
I should get this out of the way right at the beginning I suppose. I was never a humongous fan of the Tim Burton films. Go ahead and hate me now, that's fine. Looking back, I did enjoy them as a kid but as I got older they just seemed so...trapped in the 80's. No one, least of all I, can take away the great performance's of Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton but it was so cartoony, yet for the time it was a great representation of Batman. Soon after came the Animated Series, but that's a whole other blog.
The first two movies were at least enjoyable. But then things went down after Batman Forever. I swear, the only thing I enjoyed from that one was Jim Carrey as The Riddler. Everything else was just so...blah. Then boom. The abomination that nearly killed all hope for me as a child for a good Batman movie. Batman & Robin. I don't have words for my feelings on this movie so here's a sample.
Trust me Nerd, I know.
So it was a couple of years before another movie was going to come out. In the meantime I watched a crap load of Batman Beyond and The Animated Series. Meanwhile, I watched Spiderman come out. I watched X-Men come out. I didn't watch Superman come out, but alas no Batman! During this time, I wasn't that into the internet and reading into things, so the first time I ever really heard of this movie was when I was at the theater watching some random movie when the trailers started up. This played:
I STILL remember watching the first half of this trailer and thinking. Hmm, Christian Bale is awesome I loved American Psycho but a Ninja movie? Ugh wasn't a fan of The Last Samurai. But then boom. 30 seconds in. "If you make yourself more than a man. If you dedicate yourself to an ideal. You'll make yourself something more entirely." Cut to the dresser opening and you see the cowl. I remember vividly being in a packed theater and just yelling HOLY SHIT at the top of my lungs. I didn't care what anyone else though, I was a 16 year old punk kid who loved Batman and just about wet himself at the thought of a Year One influenced movie.
So from then on I had to sit on my fingers, getting into online movie rumors along with the already wrestling news and rumor related mindset I had already been in for years. I read everything. The EW magazine they released, I swear I must have read it 100 times. I lurked forums, I joined Myspace groups. Anything and everything for just one shot, just one picture to see what the plot was about. Then I started hearing inklings that the Villain would be Scarecrow, and that the movie would involve Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows. Awesome idea's for villains that hadn't been done before.
So it's June 15th, 2005. I have my Batman T-Shirt on and the biggest Dr Pepper I could buy. I'm with my best friend James and we are both pretty stoked for this to start. No idea what to expect.
Alright, that's it for this time. Expect a new Batman related Blog entry once or twice a week.
Alright, that's it for this time. Expect a new Batman related Blog entry once or twice a week.
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