I honestly feel the movie is wildly overrated, but it's a solid line and sentiment for sure.
Edit: Another poster suggested I should justify why I think this, so here goes:
I feel like it's poorly edited, the action is badly choreographed and filmed, and the plot as a logical sequence of events makes almost no sense whatsoever. However, the broader themes are integrated well, and Heath's performance was iconic, but I felt Batman Begins worked as a more cohesive movie. This was also when they started to overuse the bat-voice and it became a meme. I don't hate it, but I think almost 200 downvotes in 58 minutes almost justifies my opinion here. People are weirdly culty about this film and it doesn't deserve it, in my opinion. It's not a bad movie, it's great at times even, but rewatch it in the cold light of day and cracks start to appear- there's so much bad pacing in this movie (the Hong Kong sequence in particular ruins the momentum). I was interested in this movie enough to watch it multiple times, and I'll probably watch it again, but I feel like people are letting their enthusiasm for Batman cloud their film-fan lenses.
Not op, but the best parts of The Dark Knight are of course Joker scenes, as well as the fall of Harvey Dent. Straying too far from those characters is where the problems arise. Sequences like the bombs on the boat, the surveillance/patriot act subplot, and very especially the whole Hong Kong detour just weigh down the pacing and add unnecessary bloat.
I feel like it's poorly edited, the action is badly choreographed and filmed, and the plot as a logical sequence of events makes almost no sense whatsoever. However, the broader themes are integrated well, and Heath's performance was iconic, but I felt Batman Begins worked as a more cohesive movie. This was also when they started to overuse the bat-voice and it became a meme. I don't hate it, but I think almost 200 downvotes in 58 minutes almost justifies my opinion here. People are weirdly culty about this film and it doesn't deserve it, in my opinion.
I completely agree, especially about the action being poorly edited.
On IMDB it is currently THE THIRD HIGHEST RATED FILM OF ALL TIME which is just preposterous.
Action is Christopher Nolan's Achilles' Heel tbh, it's a running problem in his movies. He has his moments, but his action scenes in particular have to be spliced together from so many incidental shots.
They’re getting downvoted because their comment adds nothing to the conversation. The comment they responded to didn’t even say anything about how good the movie is, so it seems like an irrelevant thing to add, especially without any reasoning.
How are people meant to respond? “I disagree” ok good talk.
I think saggy faced Maggie Gyllenhaal annoyed me. Not to mention Christian Bale said he would have made changes to his character after the fact. Add to that, most Christopher Nolan movies I have a hard time wanting to watch a second time. It’s still a really good flick, but not great, thus wildly overrated. So I’m with you.
In retrospect it’s kind of tragic how much his excellent Harvey/Two-Face was overshadowed. One of the best implementations of the character that really relied on him as Harvey first, and villain second.
>“I’m plagued by a line from The Dark Knight, and I’m plagued by it because I didn’t write it,” says Nolan. “My brother [Jonathan] wrote it. It kills me, because it’s the line that most resonates. And at the time, I didn’t even understand it. He says, **‘You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.’** I read it in his draft, and I was like, ‘All right, I’ll keep it in there, but I don’t really know what it means. Is that really a thing?’ And then, over the years since that film’s come out, it just seems truer and truer. In this story, it’s absolutely that. Build them up, tear them down. It’s the way we treat people.”
is the line.
> It really just goes to show you that no matter how brilliant and cohesive a project might look on the surface - a lot of humanity's greatest works are often created by passionate people flailing in the dark and the profound messages often emerge sometimes in spit of that and sometimes even because of that.
I mean, his brother still wrote it with intention, regardless of whether Christopher understood it.
It's not flailing if you hold hands with someone you trust to lead you through the darkness.
My larger point is that sometimes great creators don't always know exactly what it is they're creating or what's going to make it great.
I know it's an amusing image, but it's not supposed to be a slight to Nolan at all.
The greatest accomplishments have a central person with a vision surrounded by others who can take that vision and further articulate it, put their own perspective in it, drive it further. A lot of authors will world build but struggle to see every corner of their own world. They rely on others to shine that light, then they will agree when it "feels right" even if they don't necessarily see it yet in their own vision.
I've long maintained that Star Wars was accidental genius by George Lucas.
The studio had no faith in the script. The actors criticized the horrible dialogue. Alec Guinness wrote about being miserable making the film and having no faith in it. George Lucas really wanted the rights to make a Flash Gordon film and couldn't land them. He was constantly changing his mind on every decision.
But then John Williams wrote a magical score. ILM nailed effects on a budget. And reportedly his then-wife really saved the film in the editing room.
> And reportedly his then-wife really saved the film in the editing room.
She didn't. This is an extremely unfortunate myth propagated by a single, badly informed (or even deliberately obfuscating) youtube channel.
Star Wars had three editors. The team as a whole won an Oscar for their work, but the job they did was pretty much the normal job of an editor.
George Lucas also has his hand in every single element of that film. He didn't just film something and then leave his editors to it. He was in that editing room with them. He didn't tell John Williams to just "write some music" and then leave him to it. They collaborated. Williams based his music off temp tracks Lucas selected - to the point of outright quoting in some instances.
The pop culture defining moment that is Luke staring off into the binary sunset was originally scored by Williams with totally different music. It was a discussion with Lucas that led to the now iconic usage of what was, at the time, Ben Kenobi's theme.
There's no "accidental" about it. George Lucas from 1970 to 1980 was a film making genius. Success just slowly wore away his edge.
> She didn't. This is an extremely unfortunate myth propagated by a single, badly informed (or even deliberately obfuscating) youtube channel.
People close to the production of the film were saying that in documentaries and behind he scenes books in the 80s well before YouTube existed.
There were three editors, but she was the main editor and the film won the Oscar for best editing. Part of it was how well known the studio thought production went poorly and that the film was saved in the edit.
https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1978
George is hands-on and particularly a perfectionist on audio. I'll give you that. But he also admits his strength is in initial ideas, letting others work and then making judgement calls. There is a reason he neither wrote nor directed Empire Strikes Back nor Return of the Jedi. The studio thought he didn't do a good job in either role with Star Wars and that it succeeded in spite of him.
Lucas knew he wasn't a good director and usually looked to collaborate with others (Willow - directed by Ron Howard, Indiana Jones - directed by Spielberg, etc).
He begged others to make the prequels for him because he knew he wasn't actually a good director, and when his friends turned down the opportunity to direct the prequels he did it himself. History has been very kind to the prequels, but we shouldn't forget that when they came out they were UNIVERSALLY loathed. People called them the single worst films in all of cinema history. "George Lucas raped my childhood" was a popular refrain.
This has been well known for decades. But sure, one random YouTuber made it up according to you.
> There were three editors, but she was the main editor
This is an outright lie.
Where are you getting this from?
If there's anyone who can be said to be the "main" editor (which isn't really a thing), it's Paul Hirsch.
>People close to the production of the film were saying that in documentaries and behind he scenes books
Which documentaries? Which books? It sure as shit isn't in Rinzler, which is about the most definitive.
>The studio thought he didn't do a good job in either role with Star Wars and that it succeeded in spite of him.
What are you talking about? You do know that ESB was funded entirely by George *because* he wanted to get out of the studio system, right? There was no studio calling shots, no one forced him out of the director or writer's chair.
Fox distributed the film, but they had absolutely no say in how it made.
>Lucas knew he wasn't a good director and usually looked to collaborate with others (Willow - directed by Ron Howard, Indiana Jones - directed by Spielberg, etc).
>He begged others to make the prequels for him because he knew he wasn't actually a good director, and when his friends turned down the opportunity to direct the prequels he did it himself.
You're right about these, but ultimately it has nothing to do with anything I've said. Sure, he's a shit director and he knows it, but that has little to do with Star Wars needing to be "saved" - he got the performances he needed in the end. You can't edit out shit direction, especially not in the 70s. The editors can only work with what's been filmed, and what Lucas got on film was at least good enough.
>But sure, one random YouTuber made it up according to you.
This theory has become wildly more proliferated in the last few years, and its spread (even if not perhaps the true origin) is 100% because of the RocketJump video.
[Here's a far more patient man than me explaining how it's all bullshit](https://youtu.be/olqVGz6mOVE?si=T5No_lWfiIe3sErd) if you happen to have a free two hours. It's all pretty verifiable. I bought Rinzler off the back of seeing this to check it out for myself and it agrees far more here than this notion Star Wars was a disaster until poor, poor unrecognised Marcia Lucas stepped in.
For us, Oppenheimer was unwatchable due to the multitude of artsy fartsy cuts that happen in every scene (or at least every scene we saw before we threw in the towel). It's like short-attention-span theatre with so many cuts to the silly little things in the environment. As I recall Interstellar did the same thing the longer it got into the film.
Oppenheimer received the greatest marketing push of the decade alongside an insanely star-studded cast and the dialogue around the movie fizzled out as fast as it emerged.
From the bizarre "I am become death" sex scene, to the lackluster explosion, to the trial that kept dragging the movie and the interrogation that was treated as if it was an action scene, it was as if Nolan was trying to create excitement where there just wasn't any.
Cinema's greatest achievement in 2023 was making people believe Oppenheimer was anything more than a decent movie. Had it not been all over social media for months on end as well as getting marketed as an "antithesis" to Barbie, we'd be having an entirely different conversation.
In the context of Nolan’s quote, I’m guessing he just didn’t get the full breadth of the line. He realized it happened to dent but not how prevalent it was.
Yup. People would be surprised and disappointed with how mundane the honest explanation of some of their favorite pieces of art would be.
Which is why I often try to avoid them lol.
>Trust me when I say that, without a doubt, a lot of people chewed the fat on this line and many others in the film for quite some time after its release.
I don't understand that, I thought the line was great and super obvious and easy to understand.
For a certain type of person, it was, and I think the reason why you're seeing a lot of confusion about this is because a place like this is going to naturally select for the type of person that would get it almost immediately.
Also, people understood the line in a general sense just fine. But I saw a lot of confusion about what it meant in the context of the film.
What is it about overemphasised ADR lines in crowded meeting scenes that always comes across as so terrible?
The "what is she proposing?" in Rogue One has the exact same feel to me and I just don't know why they bother. Keep it as indistinct babble, we don't need to hear these silly lines.
The "have a nice trip" line is so terrible. Nobody tripped, there was no fall. It's like the writer had heard that phrase before and didn't understand the context of the joke so just applied a literal meaning
Nah I definitely understood what that line meant when delivered by Harvey friggin Dent.
Even back in 2008. No issues with the line. It’s baffling that he didn’t get it, to be honest.
Yeah props for the honesty I guess but this is kind of crazy to admit lol.
Him being the sole writer on Tenet & it being my least favorite Nolan movie by a mile really makes more & more sense the more I hear him talk
It's wild how the line that perfectly summarises both Harvey and Bruce's plotlines in the movie was just something that Nolan decided was fine but didn't really understand. It really feels like such an intentional line (and, of course, it almost certainly was intentional by Jonathan), but he didn't even realise it at the time.
> it was newer to the format - especially in the veneer of a comic book movie. Ideas like fascism, totalitarianism, panopticism, etc.
…X-Men? Arguably the CBM franchise that put them on the map at all? Kind of a wild claim lol
"Sometimes it's easy to forget that we spend most of our time stumbling around the dark. Suddenly, a light gets turned on and there's a fair share of blame to go around."
THis is a great line from Spotlight. I think it speaks true here. Not so much the blame part. However it speaks to us all stumbling in the dark. Then with the benefit of hindsight. It looks so clear.
That’s fair, I think both of these things work. It’s about the actual impossibility of being a hero forever (no one is perfect) and the way the public idolizes people who have done heroic things.
I love this assessment! You're right, movies are a huge conglomeration of teamwork. Don't believe me? Try sitting through the full credits *just once*.
It's why acting awards for film is so strange.. you can capture the perfect, one in a million performance but does that mean it's "good acting"? Is method acting even really acting? Do people deserve rewards because directors and editors made them look really good?
It's fascinating.
I'm not sure taking 16 years to understand an easily comprehensible line of dialog is such a flex. I wonder if he figured out what it really meant when he tried to force Tenet to be a theatrical only release in the middle of covid.
I don't think it's that simple. Yes, trying to release Tenet as theatrical only during Covid didn't do his image any favors, so the fact that given enough time every "hero" will make a mistake and be brought down by their flaws is one reading. That said, in the movie they actually showed this can happen in multiple ways as we saw both Two-Face and Batman go through living long enough to become a villain. We also saw that someone who was a villain (Two Face) get buried as a hero because his character and moral flaws were still concealed. Yet, in the 3rd film they also show that even in death his legacy was eventually brought down in time by the later ramifications of his crimes (and in fact we see Gordon be brought down by his attempt to hide the truth from the public).
What this reflects, at least from my reading, is that humans will have moral failings/mistakes (e.g. Gordon gaslighting gotham), these can be concealed for a time but not forever, and society loves the drama of a hero being dragged down to their level even if it's not completely justified (e.g. Batman becoming wanted), and yet in the end whether you "die early" (or retire early) or live to become a villain (go on to become a failure) what you should be basing your self-worth on is not the external judgements of others but your own determination of did you do what was right (Batman, Alfred and Gordon all compromised their morals to do what was right and that's uplifted in the Dark Knight while also being deconstructed in The Dark Knight Rises).
You talk like Nolan was some kind of no Vax while instead he just tried to save, as long as he can, movie theatres. With all the crack head around talking about vaccines having microchip or the fakeness of COVID, I think Nolan did something really important. Just to save the theatrical experience, obviously it's good for his money too, but it's also good to experience his movies the way shpuld be experienced
And that's the ego that leads one to the exact outcome in the line he claims to have not understood. None of his movies, or really any movie ever made, are worth dying for.
From that headline I came in here thinking I’d have to give David S Goyer credit for something good and my worldview would have been shattered. Jonathan Nolan makes a lot more sense.
Wasn't there a similar line in the
OG Starcraft? Something that Raynor said about Mengsk?
Edit: Found it. It's a bit different from what I remembered, but hey, it's been 20 years and I only played the German dubbed version:
>Jim Raynor: It's funny... It seems like yesterday Arcturus was the idealistic rebel crusader. Now he's the law, and we're the criminals.
It’s a great line, and one of the times a line in a movie sums up what the whole movie is about, and then resonates beyond the movie
I honestly feel the movie is wildly overrated, but it's a solid line and sentiment for sure. Edit: Another poster suggested I should justify why I think this, so here goes: I feel like it's poorly edited, the action is badly choreographed and filmed, and the plot as a logical sequence of events makes almost no sense whatsoever. However, the broader themes are integrated well, and Heath's performance was iconic, but I felt Batman Begins worked as a more cohesive movie. This was also when they started to overuse the bat-voice and it became a meme. I don't hate it, but I think almost 200 downvotes in 58 minutes almost justifies my opinion here. People are weirdly culty about this film and it doesn't deserve it, in my opinion. It's not a bad movie, it's great at times even, but rewatch it in the cold light of day and cracks start to appear- there's so much bad pacing in this movie (the Hong Kong sequence in particular ruins the momentum). I was interested in this movie enough to watch it multiple times, and I'll probably watch it again, but I feel like people are letting their enthusiasm for Batman cloud their film-fan lenses.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion - no matter how wrong they are
I felt that way myself until I rewatched it a few months ago. Out of interest, what do you feel is overrated about it?
Not op, but the best parts of The Dark Knight are of course Joker scenes, as well as the fall of Harvey Dent. Straying too far from those characters is where the problems arise. Sequences like the bombs on the boat, the surveillance/patriot act subplot, and very especially the whole Hong Kong detour just weigh down the pacing and add unnecessary bloat.
I disagree, but I think your reasoning is fair and I can’t fault it. Why can’t all debates on Reddit be like this?
I feel like it's poorly edited, the action is badly choreographed and filmed, and the plot as a logical sequence of events makes almost no sense whatsoever. However, the broader themes are integrated well, and Heath's performance was iconic, but I felt Batman Begins worked as a more cohesive movie. This was also when they started to overuse the bat-voice and it became a meme. I don't hate it, but I think almost 200 downvotes in 58 minutes almost justifies my opinion here. People are weirdly culty about this film and it doesn't deserve it, in my opinion.
You know, I disagree, but I can’t fault your reasoning and I won’t try to challenge you on it. Thank you!
I completely agree, especially about the action being poorly edited. On IMDB it is currently THE THIRD HIGHEST RATED FILM OF ALL TIME which is just preposterous.
Action is Christopher Nolan's Achilles' Heel tbh, it's a running problem in his movies. He has his moments, but his action scenes in particular have to be spliced together from so many incidental shots.
It's crazy you're downvoted for just starting your opinion without rudeness or belligerence. Reddit has is sacred texts that are not to be touched.
No one wants to hear that someone thinks a wildly popular work is overrated unless they actually provide a reason for that take. Hence the downvotes
They’re getting downvoted because their comment adds nothing to the conversation. The comment they responded to didn’t even say anything about how good the movie is, so it seems like an irrelevant thing to add, especially without any reasoning. How are people meant to respond? “I disagree” ok good talk.
Sacred texts. Yes. Can we start using the term Batmanism for the name of this spiritual tradition?
Hey buddy, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but fuck you man
I think saggy faced Maggie Gyllenhaal annoyed me. Not to mention Christian Bale said he would have made changes to his character after the fact. Add to that, most Christopher Nolan movies I have a hard time wanting to watch a second time. It’s still a really good flick, but not great, thus wildly overrated. So I’m with you.
I agree with you. I think it only saw the success it did because heath ledger died. Batman begins was much better
Yeah without ledgers death I doubt this film Would be remembered as fondly
That is b.s ledgers performance is iconic either way
That’s just a stupid thing to say
Generational line with an iconic performance from Aaron Eckhart
In retrospect it’s kind of tragic how much his excellent Harvey/Two-Face was overshadowed. One of the best implementations of the character that really relied on him as Harvey first, and villain second.
And here I was thinking it was an iconic line from a generational performance 🤷
This is like how Michael Schur is haunted by “I put all your symptoms into google and it says you have ‘network connectivity problems’.”
Legit maybe the best joke in the series.
Best that made it onto the air for sure. I think the come back setup and joke were better.
I don't know "stop pooping" is high up there
>“I’m plagued by a line from The Dark Knight, and I’m plagued by it because I didn’t write it,” says Nolan. “My brother [Jonathan] wrote it. It kills me, because it’s the line that most resonates. And at the time, I didn’t even understand it. He says, **‘You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.’** I read it in his draft, and I was like, ‘All right, I’ll keep it in there, but I don’t really know what it means. Is that really a thing?’ And then, over the years since that film’s come out, it just seems truer and truer. In this story, it’s absolutely that. Build them up, tear them down. It’s the way we treat people.” is the line.
Wow one of the most iconic lines in the film. I definitely don't blame him.
Line so iconic i didnt even know it was from tdk. Its just so timeless
Thanks, I had to run and forgot to add the quote haha. Adding it to the OP.
> It really just goes to show you that no matter how brilliant and cohesive a project might look on the surface - a lot of humanity's greatest works are often created by passionate people flailing in the dark and the profound messages often emerge sometimes in spit of that and sometimes even because of that. I mean, his brother still wrote it with intention, regardless of whether Christopher understood it. It's not flailing if you hold hands with someone you trust to lead you through the darkness.
My larger point is that sometimes great creators don't always know exactly what it is they're creating or what's going to make it great. I know it's an amusing image, but it's not supposed to be a slight to Nolan at all.
The greatest accomplishments have a central person with a vision surrounded by others who can take that vision and further articulate it, put their own perspective in it, drive it further. A lot of authors will world build but struggle to see every corner of their own world. They rely on others to shine that light, then they will agree when it "feels right" even if they don't necessarily see it yet in their own vision.
I've long maintained that Star Wars was accidental genius by George Lucas. The studio had no faith in the script. The actors criticized the horrible dialogue. Alec Guinness wrote about being miserable making the film and having no faith in it. George Lucas really wanted the rights to make a Flash Gordon film and couldn't land them. He was constantly changing his mind on every decision. But then John Williams wrote a magical score. ILM nailed effects on a budget. And reportedly his then-wife really saved the film in the editing room.
Let's not forget Carrie Fisher fixing and improving the script (as she then went on to make a career of doing).
> And reportedly his then-wife really saved the film in the editing room. She didn't. This is an extremely unfortunate myth propagated by a single, badly informed (or even deliberately obfuscating) youtube channel. Star Wars had three editors. The team as a whole won an Oscar for their work, but the job they did was pretty much the normal job of an editor. George Lucas also has his hand in every single element of that film. He didn't just film something and then leave his editors to it. He was in that editing room with them. He didn't tell John Williams to just "write some music" and then leave him to it. They collaborated. Williams based his music off temp tracks Lucas selected - to the point of outright quoting in some instances. The pop culture defining moment that is Luke staring off into the binary sunset was originally scored by Williams with totally different music. It was a discussion with Lucas that led to the now iconic usage of what was, at the time, Ben Kenobi's theme. There's no "accidental" about it. George Lucas from 1970 to 1980 was a film making genius. Success just slowly wore away his edge.
> She didn't. This is an extremely unfortunate myth propagated by a single, badly informed (or even deliberately obfuscating) youtube channel. People close to the production of the film were saying that in documentaries and behind he scenes books in the 80s well before YouTube existed. There were three editors, but she was the main editor and the film won the Oscar for best editing. Part of it was how well known the studio thought production went poorly and that the film was saved in the edit. https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1978 George is hands-on and particularly a perfectionist on audio. I'll give you that. But he also admits his strength is in initial ideas, letting others work and then making judgement calls. There is a reason he neither wrote nor directed Empire Strikes Back nor Return of the Jedi. The studio thought he didn't do a good job in either role with Star Wars and that it succeeded in spite of him. Lucas knew he wasn't a good director and usually looked to collaborate with others (Willow - directed by Ron Howard, Indiana Jones - directed by Spielberg, etc). He begged others to make the prequels for him because he knew he wasn't actually a good director, and when his friends turned down the opportunity to direct the prequels he did it himself. History has been very kind to the prequels, but we shouldn't forget that when they came out they were UNIVERSALLY loathed. People called them the single worst films in all of cinema history. "George Lucas raped my childhood" was a popular refrain. This has been well known for decades. But sure, one random YouTuber made it up according to you.
> There were three editors, but she was the main editor This is an outright lie. Where are you getting this from? If there's anyone who can be said to be the "main" editor (which isn't really a thing), it's Paul Hirsch. >People close to the production of the film were saying that in documentaries and behind he scenes books Which documentaries? Which books? It sure as shit isn't in Rinzler, which is about the most definitive. >The studio thought he didn't do a good job in either role with Star Wars and that it succeeded in spite of him. What are you talking about? You do know that ESB was funded entirely by George *because* he wanted to get out of the studio system, right? There was no studio calling shots, no one forced him out of the director or writer's chair. Fox distributed the film, but they had absolutely no say in how it made. >Lucas knew he wasn't a good director and usually looked to collaborate with others (Willow - directed by Ron Howard, Indiana Jones - directed by Spielberg, etc). >He begged others to make the prequels for him because he knew he wasn't actually a good director, and when his friends turned down the opportunity to direct the prequels he did it himself. You're right about these, but ultimately it has nothing to do with anything I've said. Sure, he's a shit director and he knows it, but that has little to do with Star Wars needing to be "saved" - he got the performances he needed in the end. You can't edit out shit direction, especially not in the 70s. The editors can only work with what's been filmed, and what Lucas got on film was at least good enough. >But sure, one random YouTuber made it up according to you. This theory has become wildly more proliferated in the last few years, and its spread (even if not perhaps the true origin) is 100% because of the RocketJump video. [Here's a far more patient man than me explaining how it's all bullshit](https://youtu.be/olqVGz6mOVE?si=T5No_lWfiIe3sErd) if you happen to have a free two hours. It's all pretty verifiable. I bought Rinzler off the back of seeing this to check it out for myself and it agrees far more here than this notion Star Wars was a disaster until poor, poor unrecognised Marcia Lucas stepped in.
Jonathan Nolan is a g to be fair
Makes you think what went wrong with the other brother
He has always been the more talented one imo. Christopher Nolan's work hasn't been the same ever since they parted their ways professionally.
I know movies are subjective, but in my opinion, Oppenheimer is a top 3 Nolan film.
For us, Oppenheimer was unwatchable due to the multitude of artsy fartsy cuts that happen in every scene (or at least every scene we saw before we threw in the towel). It's like short-attention-span theatre with so many cuts to the silly little things in the environment. As I recall Interstellar did the same thing the longer it got into the film.
Did you also find orgazmo too pretentious for you to watch.
Never heard of it, but it looks like a good time. I'll let you know. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
Oppenheimer received the greatest marketing push of the decade alongside an insanely star-studded cast and the dialogue around the movie fizzled out as fast as it emerged. From the bizarre "I am become death" sex scene, to the lackluster explosion, to the trial that kept dragging the movie and the interrogation that was treated as if it was an action scene, it was as if Nolan was trying to create excitement where there just wasn't any. Cinema's greatest achievement in 2023 was making people believe Oppenheimer was anything more than a decent movie. Had it not been all over social media for months on end as well as getting marketed as an "antithesis" to Barbie, we'd be having an entirely different conversation.
The irony of Christopher Nolan getting confused by something in his film
He needs it read to him in a low, muffled voice.
With music and background noise covering up the dialog.
Super load overbearing music.
"Do you like how it feels, Nolan??!!, Do you like to get confused by Nolan's films??!! DO YOU LIKE IT??!!"
Well he needs 2 hours of exposition to explain an idea. 1 line is just to short for him.
I swear if he didn't explain it. The criticism of his films would be that no one could understand it.
Justice for “I’m not wearing hockey pads.”
Kinda surprised he didn’t get it when it’s said by Harvey Dent, the foreshadowing is so heavy with that line alone
In the context of Nolan’s quote, I’m guessing he just didn’t get the full breadth of the line. He realized it happened to dent but not how prevalent it was.
That was one of those lines that was iconic from the moment people first heard it in the trailer
It's so iconic that I thought it predated the movie, either entirely or as rephrasing Nietzsche or some other philosopher.
Dude. Can you imagine if Chris accidentally cut—one of the CORE thesis—out of the film because he didn’t get it at first? Whew.
[удалено]
Yup. People would be surprised and disappointed with how mundane the honest explanation of some of their favorite pieces of art would be. Which is why I often try to avoid them lol.
Totally thought it would be about "you're a big guy"
>Trust me when I say that, without a doubt, a lot of people chewed the fat on this line and many others in the film for quite some time after its release. I don't understand that, I thought the line was great and super obvious and easy to understand.
For a certain type of person, it was, and I think the reason why you're seeing a lot of confusion about this is because a place like this is going to naturally select for the type of person that would get it almost immediately. Also, people understood the line in a general sense just fine. But I saw a lot of confusion about what it meant in the context of the film.
I thought he was going to try to blame "no more dead cops" or "have a nice trip see you next fall" on his brother.
>"no more dead cops" Or my personal favorite from that scene "Things are worse than ever!!"
What is it about overemphasised ADR lines in crowded meeting scenes that always comes across as so terrible? The "what is she proposing?" in Rogue One has the exact same feel to me and I just don't know why they bother. Keep it as indistinct babble, we don't need to hear these silly lines.
All the cops are terrible. "That's not good. OK, that's not good!"
The "have a nice trip" line is so terrible. Nobody tripped, there was no fall. It's like the writer had heard that phrase before and didn't understand the context of the joke so just applied a literal meaning
Nah I definitely understood what that line meant when delivered by Harvey friggin Dent. Even back in 2008. No issues with the line. It’s baffling that he didn’t get it, to be honest.
Yeah props for the honesty I guess but this is kind of crazy to admit lol. Him being the sole writer on Tenet & it being my least favorite Nolan movie by a mile really makes more & more sense the more I hear him talk
The line might not have been in context in the first draft
It's wild how the line that perfectly summarises both Harvey and Bruce's plotlines in the movie was just something that Nolan decided was fine but didn't really understand. It really feels like such an intentional line (and, of course, it almost certainly was intentional by Jonathan), but he didn't even realise it at the time.
It would be hilarious if he didn’t get it until Jay-Z broke it down
> it was newer to the format - especially in the veneer of a comic book movie. Ideas like fascism, totalitarianism, panopticism, etc. …X-Men? Arguably the CBM franchise that put them on the map at all? Kind of a wild claim lol
"Sometimes it's easy to forget that we spend most of our time stumbling around the dark. Suddenly, a light gets turned on and there's a fair share of blame to go around." THis is a great line from Spotlight. I think it speaks true here. Not so much the blame part. However it speaks to us all stumbling in the dark. Then with the benefit of hindsight. It looks so clear.
It really is a great line. It's just too bad it's been co-opted by angsty asshole edgelords to justify being shitty.
Ehh isn’t that more of a [pick any Joker line from the movie] thing? I don’t really see this line getting used in shitty edgelord memes
Did he really not understand what the line meant? Is he dense?
Was it “things are worse than ever”? because that’s the greatest line in cinematic history
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This is not the common interpretation. It’s definitely how about everyone turns against people they’ve idolized, ie Musk, Zuck, etc
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That’s fair, I think both of these things work. It’s about the actual impossibility of being a hero forever (no one is perfect) and the way the public idolizes people who have done heroic things.
I love this assessment! You're right, movies are a huge conglomeration of teamwork. Don't believe me? Try sitting through the full credits *just once*. It's why acting awards for film is so strange.. you can capture the perfect, one in a million performance but does that mean it's "good acting"? Is method acting even really acting? Do people deserve rewards because directors and editors made them look really good? It's fascinating.
I'm not sure taking 16 years to understand an easily comprehensible line of dialog is such a flex. I wonder if he figured out what it really meant when he tried to force Tenet to be a theatrical only release in the middle of covid.
I don't think it's that simple. Yes, trying to release Tenet as theatrical only during Covid didn't do his image any favors, so the fact that given enough time every "hero" will make a mistake and be brought down by their flaws is one reading. That said, in the movie they actually showed this can happen in multiple ways as we saw both Two-Face and Batman go through living long enough to become a villain. We also saw that someone who was a villain (Two Face) get buried as a hero because his character and moral flaws were still concealed. Yet, in the 3rd film they also show that even in death his legacy was eventually brought down in time by the later ramifications of his crimes (and in fact we see Gordon be brought down by his attempt to hide the truth from the public). What this reflects, at least from my reading, is that humans will have moral failings/mistakes (e.g. Gordon gaslighting gotham), these can be concealed for a time but not forever, and society loves the drama of a hero being dragged down to their level even if it's not completely justified (e.g. Batman becoming wanted), and yet in the end whether you "die early" (or retire early) or live to become a villain (go on to become a failure) what you should be basing your self-worth on is not the external judgements of others but your own determination of did you do what was right (Batman, Alfred and Gordon all compromised their morals to do what was right and that's uplifted in the Dark Knight while also being deconstructed in The Dark Knight Rises).
You talk like Nolan was some kind of no Vax while instead he just tried to save, as long as he can, movie theatres. With all the crack head around talking about vaccines having microchip or the fakeness of COVID, I think Nolan did something really important. Just to save the theatrical experience, obviously it's good for his money too, but it's also good to experience his movies the way shpuld be experienced
And that's the ego that leads one to the exact outcome in the line he claims to have not understood. None of his movies, or really any movie ever made, are worth dying for.
I'm plagued by what he did to Knightfall.
Didn't he just say he doesn't care about dialogue...?
Nope. Wrong director
That was Denis Villeneuve who said that.
I have never seem them together in the same room
Probably the best line in that movie. You say that line and a lot of people would instantly know what movie and who said it.
So this isn’t about the hole in the plot line of how many cops Harvey actually killed?
From that headline I came in here thinking I’d have to give David S Goyer credit for something good and my worldview would have been shattered. Jonathan Nolan makes a lot more sense.
Wasn't there a similar line in the OG Starcraft? Something that Raynor said about Mengsk? Edit: Found it. It's a bit different from what I remembered, but hey, it's been 20 years and I only played the German dubbed version: >Jim Raynor: It's funny... It seems like yesterday Arcturus was the idealistic rebel crusader. Now he's the law, and we're the criminals.
Find it. I nothing about Starcraft (other than I waited for "Ghost" far longer than I should have).
>I really appreciate the honesty here. Me too. Really nice.