Rate The Dark Knight Trilogy.

I really like TDK, BB was pretty good, saw TDR once, haven't felt compelled to watch it again

I recently saw The Dark Knight again and liked it far more than I ever had before, but if you’d asked me a few months ago I would have agreed with you completely. Ledger really is as good as everyone says, but the most underrated players, both in this entry and in the trilogy, have to be Oldman and Eckhart. Unfortunately, Nolan et al. move through the Two-Face tragedy far too quickly, so Eckhart is only decent as Two-Face, but his Harvey Dent is excellent. And Oldman—what can one say? He’s always fantastic, but here he makes one of the most supporting of all supporting characters, Commissioner Gordon, one of the strongest characters in these movies.

Batman Begins is the one of these I’ve seen the most, and I still think it’s the best of them. It’s Batman’s film, not the Joker’s (as The Dark Knight is), and it really brings the character alive and invests him with a noble, quiet dignity. Excellent.

I’ll have to see The Dark Knight Rises again. I saw it in theaters and liked it, but I think it’s the weakest of the three for me.

For you.

moviebuffbrad, I’ve been thinking over some choices for fitting this trilogy-paradigm, and I was wondering what you think of them. I’ve noticed the pattern for a while—though I’m sure someone else has already analyzed this at length. After I saw the Star Wars prequels (which don’t fit the paradigm, exactly; The Phantom Menace is indeed the lightest and most fun of the three, but Revenge of the Sith is the darkest and highest-rated, while Attack of the Clones is the less successful entry), coldenhaulfield drew my attention to this website (I haven’t finished reading it yet, Colden! ), and the author of that quoted a Prof. Anne Lancashire at the University of Toronto. 

Prof. Lancashire states that Star Wars represents a single story that goes “…from youth (A New Hope) through adolescence (The Empire Strikes Back) to maturity (Return of the Jedi).” She also analyzes it through a Campbellian, monomythical lens: the hero’s departure on his quest, his initiation, and his return. I wonder if that is why the middle entry in trilogies so often seems so disconnected; childhood and adulthood almost mirror each other, in that the adult has learnt his lessons from childhood, while the adolescent is trying desperately to escape childhood in his quest to be more grown-up. As Lucas was very intentionally trying to provide an example of the monomyth, it doesn’t seem irrational that other trilogies unintentionally hit on the same themes and plot-points.

Anyway, I think Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy would probably fit the paradigm. Spider-Man 2 is definitely the darkest and most successful—while Spider-Man 3, the weakest of the three, returns us to the Green Goblin and Uncle Ben’s death. One that may not appear to be a trilogy at first but that seems to share many points in common are the three James Bond films Terence Young directed (with Guy Hamilton’s Goldfinger an interloper for the paradigm bit). Whether Young it intended or not, Doctor No (lightest, introduction to character), From Russia with Love (darkest, most successful), and Thunderball (weakest, return to Doctor No’s basic plot and setting) fit.

I’ve also been considering James Bond. Certainly, The Last Crusade did better and is still higher-rated than Temple of Doom, and it’s lighter than Raiders, but in every other way they fit.

I have no idea what this all means, if it means anything. But I find it interesting.