Christopher Nolan thinks Zack Snyder is some kind of powerfully influential artistic genius
If Christopher Nolan says it, then who are we to argue?
Aux News Snyder
Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy arguably changed the course of movie history, proving that superhero movies could be good if you at least took the making of it seriously and creating an appetite for good cape movies that was eventually fully sated by Marvel Studios with Avengers: Endgame (and yet they keep making the things), but if you were to ask Nolan, he’d say there’s someone else out there making more influential blockbusters than he is: Zack Snyder. Yes, the same Zack Snyder we all know from those Zack Snyder movies, not some arthouse Zack Snyder.
This came up in a profile of Snyder that The Atlantic published, with Nolan offering some… interestingly high praise for his Man Of Steel collaborator (Snyder directed it, Nolan was a producer and helped develop the story). “There’s no superhero science-fiction film coming out these days where I see some influence of Zack,” Nolan claimed, adding, “When you watch a Zack Snyder film, you see and feels his love for the potential of cinema. The potential of it to be fantastical, to be heightened in its reality, but to move you and to excite you.”
The Atlantic itself offers a similarly glowing (if barely convincing) argument, saying that “Snyder helped establish the template for comic book movies as they evolved from summertime popcorn fare into ubiquitous year-round spectacles.” Nobody really thinks of 300 as a comic book movie, but also there’s not much else like it, and Watchmen came out after both The Dark Knight and Iron Man (and Man Of Steel came out after The Avengers), so it’s weird to argue that any modern superhero movie is really following in his footsteps at all. That’s unless the point is that he makes big spectacle movies that are based on preexisting IP, but everyone does that now and none of it really looks like a Zack Snyder movie or has the cartoonish self-seriousness of a Zack Snyder movie.
But Christopher Nolan seems like a smart guy, so if that’s what he thinks, maybe he’s right? Or maybe Snyder is just a nice, cool guy and the people who know him have a lot of respect for him, and we should be less snarky about him and everything he does? Maybe that can be our resolution for 2024.
118 Comments
“Less snark” is absolutely a resolution that needs to be enforced for the AVC in 2024.
Snark *by people who are good at snark* can be a beautiful thing.
It can be. The problem is none of them work at the AV Club anymore.
See? Now that’s snark.
David Ehrlich’s review over at Indiewire to see it done sublimely in the Rebel Moon review: https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/rebel-moon-part-one-a-child-of-fire-review-zack-snyder-netflix-1234935678/To his critics, (Snyder’s) blockbuster cinema’s first example of the A.I. image generator as auteur: Plug in some nerd-ass variables — zombies, Batman, sexual violence as character motivation, etc. — and watch him churn out a hollow but hopelessly self-impressed digital rendering of a favorite story or familiar trope that’s been sucked dry of its most basic lifeforce.Delightfully subtle:Snyder has moved away from intellectual property since partnering with Netflix for 2021’s “Army of the Dead,”Beautiful postmodernist snark – a culturally well-rounded reviewer:Corey Stoll’s community leader Sindri — whose huge braided beard and tiny pork pie hat improbably split the difference between “God of War” and “Newsies”And damning with faint praise:Jena Malone’s one-scene appearance…is a first-ballot inductee to the Hall of Fame of Thankless Movie Performances (which is scheduled to open in the atrium of Netflix’s Los Angeles headquarters sometime in 2025).Finally, my favourite, brevity…soul…wit:It’s the cinematic equivalent of an NFT.
Seems to me if the commenters get to employ snark the writers should have the same freedom? Agree with you. Good sarcasm can be an effective stylistic feature.
Yeah, the discourse in the comments section should definitely be the bar that is set for the writers.Did you pay tuition to learn how to be this much of a fucking moron?
Ahh yes, I too remember the old days around here.
Yeah, but it’s gonna be 202-fucking-4.
Hopefully it ends well, but I think we can give up expecting the rest to be civil.
If there’s one thing I would enforce in the AV Club’s writing, it would be to stop this recent trend where they (jokingly?) insinuate someone is blatantly lying about a thing they’ve said for no reason, like that time they assumed Bradley Cooper couldn’t possibly want to do another ‘Hangover’ movie when he said that he’d like to do another ‘Hangover’ movie.
Erm, Mr. Barsanti? I think you need to retype the Nolan quote. Right now it says there’s no movie showing Snyder’s influence, which seems like the opposite of what Nolan said.I don’t really get the appeal of Zack Snyder’s film, but it does feel like his following. Some of that’s just the PR ramping up for the film, but I’ll be interested to look back in ten years.
Yeah he forgot the “don’t” from the quote in the original profile on the Atlantic. Kind of an important word, in context. Sometimes I read stuff like this and wonder, “Why the hell was this even written?” And then I realize that I’m reading it. I have met the enemy, and I am he.
It took me a couple reads before I noticed the article didn’t make sense, so I think I’m also the enemy. And then I forgot the phrase “is growing” in “his following is growing”, so at this point I’m practically a Newswire contributor.
Look, it’s really hard to use copy and paste, ok? You have to press two buttons at the same time, twice!
“Or maybe Snyder is just a nice, cool guy and the people who know him have a lot of respect for him, and we should be less snarky about him and everything he does? Maybe that can be our resolution for 2024.”Why do people have so much trouble accepting the fact that someone can be a) a decent person with whom people enjoy working and b) a hack?
Why do people have so much trouble accepting the fact that someone can be a) a decent person with whom people enjoy working and b) a hack? See: Tyler Perry.
Tyler Perry loves the sound of his voice way too much to merit a rating of ‘decent’.
Uhh… see someone else.
Tyler Perry. Hmm. Steven TylerJoe PerryIs Tyler Perry the lab-created offspring of Aerosmith?
I think this is something people genuinely struggle with. Just look at how people have a hard time believing an actor/artist they enjoy can be abusive (eg. Depp); or how when a celebrated creator falls from grace everyone falls over themselves to declare they were never that good in the first place (eg. Whedon).
Yeah, the concept of separating the art from the artist is one that people really struggle with and always have. I think it comes up more often now because the modern internet thrives on outrage, whether we’re talking Twitter, Facebook, or the comments section of clickbait-y news articles like, well… *gestures wildly around this site*. It’s impossible to say “you know, I think the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie is one of the best blockbusters in the last 20 years” without some asshole popping in to try to draw conclusions about you as a human/your personal beliefs because Depp sucks.Or hell, even separating art from one now-awkward scene. In a discussion on Christmas movies the other day someone told me they can no longer watch Home Alone 2 because of the Donald Trump appearance. Like dude, a 2 minute cameo is enough to ruin a 2 hour movie in your eyes? He’s not the star, dude, get over it.
Still, you can’t deny ‘Home Alone 2′ would be a better movie if Kevin went to town on Trump with some of his trap-making skills.
I don’t mean art vs artist (I do have thoughts on that but that’s another conversation); I’m talking more about how people can’t separate talent from character. It’s a weird combination of hero-worship and Just World fallacy, or something.
Honestly, that’s more likely than not. If you’re a singular genius with an unmatched and irreplaceable voice and perspective, people will put up with a lot of your bullshit. If your main draw is being able to shit out a lot of unremarkable, technically proficient product, well, there are a lot of guys who can do that, so being the one who is easy to work with gives you a significant advantage.
Yeah, that basically just described Uwe Boll. By all accounts a nice guy. Terrible fucking director.
The world is positively jam packed with lovely, lovely people who have no aptitude for making good movies. It’s okay to count Snyder in their number.
Why do people insist that filmmakers they don’t like aren’t necessarily “hacks”?
And conversely that someone can be a great artist and be a terrible person.
The idea that Snyder is influencing a new generation of filmmakers that aspire to make movies that are even longer, dumber, boringer, with even slower slow motion sounds truly dystopian.
To me, this is even weirder than when we learned that Spielberg liked Michael Bay. So much of what Zach Snyder does looks like what Nolan is purposefully avoiding to do.
Maybe that’s the influence. They look at Snyder movies and say “OK, let’s make sure we don’t do THAT!”
If you want to keep working in Hollywood, you don’t say anything bad about anyone in Hollywood.
People like Nolan and Spielberg are just leading by example because that’s how they came up.
You hit that nail exactly on the head.
Spielberg really does like Michael Bay though. He produced his Transformers movies.
Yeah, and I suspect that this is at least as much based on personal relationships as on principled critical detachment. While I think there are huge quality variations between Nolan, Spielberg, Bay, and Snyder, there is no denying that they’re some of the biggest directors of the last twenty years be box office returns. They probably go to a lot of the same cocktail parties and have produced each other’s movies, so a savage takedown would make things awkward at the country club.
But not speaking ill of other directors is one thing. Spielberg hired Michael Bay to make Transformers and Nolan worked with Snyder on “Man of Steel.” So it goes well beyond not wanting to shit talk people.
Sure, it can be more than one thing.
That’s a great comparison, but I could actually see what Spielberg recognizes in Michael Bay. When Bay talks about his “process” (What? Don’t laugh) he actually comes across smarter than people give him credit for.
It could be a similar thing with Nolan and Snyder. Now I don’t think Zack is even as talented as Bay, but he has a passion that can be infectious. Big Kid Energy I guess. He truly loves the things he works on, and I can admire that.
Bay makes burgers and fries, but knows he’s making burgers and fries, and says “Yeah, they’re just burgers and fries. Look, it’s nothin’ fancy but sometimes you just want a burger and fries.”Snyder makes burgers and fries and declares that his burgers and fries are haute cuisine more groundbreaking than Heston Blumenthal or Rene Redzepi could ever hope to cook up and that everyone recognise it as such.
“What if a burger and fries got raped in prison? That could happen in my film.”
I think you’re on to something with that. Combine it with the fairly consistent reports that he’s just a really nice guy on set and you can see where people who work with him defend him as a person.I can’t see them watching his movies and then defending THEM as well, but I guess they’re just being nice.
I hate Bay but the guy can churn out projects on budget and turn a profit with serious reliability.Ssomething, I suppose, to be said for that
Bay makes pretty explosion summer popcorn movies, so long as he stays in his wheel house we’re good.
Exactly. There must be some kind of shadenfraude in there. We just have to cross several dimensions and crack open a tesseract to find it.
Nolan is brill but, in terms of futurism, creativity and find I’d rather watch a Washowskis production.
Idk, a lot of the “cartoonish self seriousness” in Snyder’s movies feels to me like an exaggerated version of that in Nolan’s Batman films.
If we’re being blunt, the real distinction is that Nolan’s DC films almost, but don’t quite, take Batman too seriously or push the “what if fantasy character grapple with real world shit?” thing to the point where it just breaks the story and makes everything become stupid again, except stupid in a joyless and miserable way instead of stupid in a gaudy and campy way which can at least be kind of fun at times.Zack Snyder’s DC movies simply cross that line in too many ways.
I don’t make that distinction. TDK is fucking ludicrously self-serious. I really like Begins but TDK was the start of a truly eyeroll-worthy “grimreal” trend that Snyder followed up on, just with less narrative chops. And that’s saying something given how godawful some of the dialogue and plotting is in TDK.
Well I think Nolan is more early Burton Batman, made modern, where Snyder’s are what came after lol. I like to bring up one of Snyders least like movies, SuckerPunch, is it a great movie, no, is it a good movie, eh not really, but visually I find it pretty damn compelling. I think he makes visually appealing movies, but that’s about as deep as they go.
Yeah—I think Christopher Nolan has a Zack Snyder-sized blind spot in his perception.
The praise seems over the top:“When you watch a Zack Snyder film, you see and feels his love for the potential of cinema.”
Unrealized potential, maybe?
I think you’re reading too much of “the discourse” into it. Just because we watch his movies and see overwrought bullshit doesn’t mean that that isn’t expressive of his love for the potential of cinema. Por que no los dos? Mix the two together:
Zack Snyder believes that cinema has the potential to express his interests and desires in their highest form, and that’s what he puts on film. His interests and desires, to other people, come off as overwrought bullshit, and that’s what we see on film. Dos!
Not really, it seems accurate. Zach loves the potential of cinema so much he doesn’t infringe upon it by making movies that are better than mediocre. That way the potential remains untouched and pristine.
It honestly makes a fair amount of sense. I’m not a Snyder guy, but his films have a very distinct voice, for better and often worse. And the thing I do appreciate about him is exactly what Nolan is saying, there’s a longing for spectacle, bravura, enormous moments and a striving for the iconic. Zack wants every shot to matter, to be a work of art. Often to his own detriment. But there’s a grandiosity to it that is appealing in a way.I’m not here to trash Marvel, but the films rarely have much of their own voice, the action from one to the next is interchangeable (which makes sense since it’s done, by and large, by a separate team), and there’s shockingly few images I really think about or remember from them. Sure, Gunn or later Taika managed to instill some unique flavor in (arguable whether always for the better as well), but for the most part its served up as comfort food. Professional and predictable.It’s no shock to me that Nolan finds at least some amount more interest in the former than the latter.
If you told me Bay and Snyder graduated from film school at the top of their respective classes, I’d believe you, even as I cringe and squirm through some of their movies.
Which is interesting since as much as I might have problems with Snyder as a storyteller at least he can competently direct an action sequence.
It’s not that complicated.When Nolan watches a Snyder movie he sees shots, performances, and music choices and goes, “This is a talented director.”When some random moviegoers on the internet watch a Snyder movie they see shots, performances, music, dialogue, editing, sound design, costumes, budget, and say, “Man, this script is really bad — I hate this director.”The difference is Christopher Nolan knows what a director is and most people think a director is a guy who makes movies happen by willing them into existence. Nolan appreciating Snyder’s visual language is different than people hating Snyder’s visual language because they hate the plots of his movies and slow motion.
Those things are part of Snyder’s visual language, though
Considering his best work has been adaptations I do wish he back to doing adaptations. His original stories has been pretty generic.
“Snyder helped establish the template for comic book movies as they evolved from summertime popcorn fare into ubiquitous year-round spectacles”What the fuck
Some people just like to watch the world burn. Others like to direct a film based on a graphic novel about the world burning but somehow miss the point that the world burning was a bad thing in their adaptation because slow motion fights are cool, making their work appealing to those that like to watch the world burn.
Those of us that didn’t read the graphic novel weren’t confused by the difference between them and the message was still clear.These characters are still clearly messed up and broken, often causing more harm then good. Especially at the end lol
I was going for more of a reference to Alfred from The Dark Knight and Snyder fans than any specific adaptation Snyder actually did.
Though it does apply to at least two of his adaptations.
Cool. Except if you DID read the graphic novel that’s not *really* the message. It’s much more about propaganda via pop culture and how superhero comics, and power fantasy fiction in general, feed into that. In adapting the graphic novel Snyder made the mistake of not having similarly metatextual conversations about the propaganda of film. The reason you can’t/shouldn’t adapt Watchmen is because it’s very specifically about the comic medium. The sequel series on HBO works in part because it’s not an adaptation of any existing comic book material and thus isn’t beholden to those themes.
I mean, one of the movies he made was from a series that started back in the ‘70s (in modern movie format). X Men happened and kept happening before he started. It makes sense if you edit it to “Snyder helped establish the template for gloomy, joyless comic book movies as they evolved in symbiosis with a deeply toxic fanbase that enabled his worst cinematic impulses”
The trilogy is good but it isn’t brilliant. And it isn’t as cool or acceptable to be a smug diva as it used to be. He’s made 12 films, most of them very good. They’re all about time but that’s getting a bit old. And, no, I’ve never made a movie. There are younger directors coming up who, hopefully won’t be such pedants because people can also get weary of “See how I did that? Eh eh?”
I’m looking forward to seeing Poor Things because it looks freakin’ absurd and we need something fresh, even if it’s a bit grotesque (yes, I know he’s 50). Nolan can keep obsessing over his self-reflexive quantum romances. Bergman did it (films about filmaking) better anyway and at least he knew how to brood properly.Ugh. I wish del Toro would go back to Europe and write some material from his life, tap into those roots.Snyder sucks. I’ve heard of punching down but why is he praising an inferior director? Weird.
He’s made 12 films, most of them very good. Unless you have a longlist of people currently working about whom you can also write this, the rest of what you typed about Christopher Nolan is a reason for you to 1) type less about Christopher Nolan and 2) skip his films if you think his interests are getting old. Let that man cook. Stick to shitting on Zack Snyder.
Del Toro isn’t from Europe.
Yeah, I had a brain glitch(again). He Made Pan’s Labyrinth and Devils Backbone in Spain and I’m fairly sure that’s still in Europe. He has also film in Hungary and Prague (his favorites, I think).
Following up to say that, while making his films in Europe, his work was very personal and distinictly not American, which is their genius, imo. He has spoken about his upbringing and there is material there for something extraordinary and, yes, it would be nice if it were set in Mexico.
>“There’s no superhero science-fiction film coming out these days where I see some influence of Zack,” Nolan claimed.
—
The actual quote is “There’s no superhero science-fiction film coming out these days where I don’t see some influence of Zack” which makes way more sense that the botched AV Club misquote.
“When you watch a Zack Snyder film, you see and feels his love for the
potential of cinema. The potential of it to be fantastical, to be
heightened in its reality, but to move you and to excite you.”
I’d argue you could have said the same thing about Ed Wood…
Imagine if, like, Hitchcock or Cecil B DeMille had publicly caped for Ed Wood.
But Ed’s films are short, endearingly scrappy, and often feature a Kelton.
If we want to talk modern day, that sounds like an apt description of Neil Breen or Tommy Wiseau or James Nguyen or any of the weirdos whose names are spoken in hushed tones around the Rifftrax office.
Both Nolan and Snyder felt shortchanged by Warner Bros, due to the way Tenet and Justice League were handled.Nolan was also asked to work on a Superman reboot for Warner, and personally picked Snyder as the director. So, he’s partly responsible for inflicting Snyder to the world.
Shouldn’t we feel shortchanged by Tenet?
It was by far the best movie I saw between the first two lockdowns in France. Well, more exactly by far the better, given that the other one I saw was The New Mutants. I went as far as picking the only theater in Paris that had a 70mm copy, complete with a written disclaimer by Nolan where he states that 70mm film is basically virtual reality without the need for googles.That’s the film where Christopher Nolan ultimately reaches “Star Trek: Voyager” levels of technobabble. He tends to make every other movie about some visual gimmick showing some space-time paradox, but with increasingly belabored justifications. Tenet is so far his most egregious offender, as he tries to give the illusion of a coherent reverted universe, while almost nothing makes sense here (shouldn’t the characters be fed with suppositories when they’re reverted?). This was a well-deserved flop.Yet, Nolan’s big issue was with Warner’s strategy of releasing the entire 2021 lineup simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max, partly as a consequence of Tenet failing to meet expectations. As he had to deal with an entirely different team at the head of the studio (the old guard was replaced by then-owner AT&T), he considered that the studio wouldn’t show any more loyalty to the directors working for them (which was correct, given what happened later when David Zaslav became in charge).
Every director has to have a ‘worst’ movie. Just as well he made it easy for us. Thing is, I can actually see him wanting to make a sequel.
I forget, how did he get “shortchanged” by Tenet? He got the in theaters release way too early in the pandemic that he wanted. If cinema wasn’t saved by his brilliant work then it’s more on him than on WB.
Tenet has the most riveting truck heist ever filmed. To rob one truck, you need to put one truck in front of it, one truck behind it, one truck to the left and one van to the right. You won’t find that in some vile Fast & Furious movie.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahafuck me, no, stophahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
“Oh, and his personal hygiene is above reproach.”
Zack Snyder…is….brilliant man with lots of well thought-out, practical, ideas (like saying out loud to other people that he wants Batman to get r*ped). He is insuring the financial security of this company for years to come (Ted Sarandos can’t help himself with these middle-aged perpetual 13 year old edgelords he keeps blowing hundreds of millions on)
https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/516b5d9b-c578-47cf-bc78-eb5d8aa00e8e
James Gunn said The Flash was really good, so…
“There’s no superhero science-fiction film coming out these days where I see some influence of Zack,” Nolan claimed.Sorry, but shouldn’t the quote be “where I DON’T see some influence of Zack”? Reread the quote (if it is in fact a direct quote) and you’ll see that it doesn’t read as praise.
Given that this is A) AV Club and B) Sam Barsanti, I’m guessing this was a misquote missed by the editors, whom of course there are none: “There’s no superhero science-fiction film coming out these days where I see some influence of Zack” …which would mean he thinks Zack has had no influence on these films, tortured syntax and all. Surely they’re missing a “don’t” here. Edit: I checked, and of course they fucked it up. Are they even trying at this point?
christopher nolan SEEMS like a smart guy because he says everything in a british accent. my friend interviewed him once and in the moment he was like ‘wow! how insghtful’ but when he had to transcribe it later he was like ‘this is nonsense’.
Just reminds me of a Between Two Ferns clip I’ve been seeing a lot lately in blooper reel collections (the algorithm knows what I like) of Zach asking Benedict Cumberbatch “If you didn’t have an accent do you think people would be able to tell that you’re not a very good actor?”
That kind of comes through in the movies, too, though, doesn’t it? They all seem like they’re really smart, deep films, but as often as not they’re just convoluted and confusing. The more Nolan does the “trick” of making movies non-linearly, the more it seems like a crutch, a distraction to hide other problems.
“There’s no superhero science-fiction film coming out these days where I see some influence of Zack,” Nolan claimedThat makes sense.
This is that droll, sardonic British humor… right?
Back in England, ‘Oppenheimer’ is considered a sublime comedy.
Monty Python’s Nuclear Circus
“He is not become death, the destroyer of worlds, he’s a very naughty boy!”
The real problem is that we’re listening to Christopher Nolan in real time.If you alternate between slowing down, and rapidly speeding-up the quote, it just reads “hack.”
“you see and feels his love for the potential of cinema. The potential of it to be fantastical, to be heightened in its reality, but to move you and to excite you”I will absolutely give that to Snyder, he understands what looks great on screen better than at least half the schlock directors the wrangle for this films.Snyders problem has never, ever, been his lack of understanding about what’s “cool”. The flaws are, well, most of the rest.Honestly I happen to agree with the notion that while Snyder films are hardly top tier, they are SNYDER films. In a era where younger directors seem terrified to step outside the box in any way (or held in fear by producers and the filthy algorithm), at least Snyder has carved out a style that belongs to him. Fuck it, we need more hacks who dream of making great films. Instead we have hacks happy to hack
Nolan, being himself an absolute shit writer, doesn’t recognize other shit writers when he encounters them. Which is really Snyder’s biggest problem and my personal problem with Nolan most of the time.We need fewer directors who are convinced they can also be screenwriters.
That particular problem isn’t going to go away any time soon, and will likely only get worse. Studios right now are all looking to have multi-hyphen everything.
Oh sure, I’m aware. It feels like every fucking week some asshole actor is deciding “You know what? I’m gonna write and direct, too.” Like everybody wants to be Neil Breen but not quite so crazy and bad at it. But yeah, Breen proves that one guy doing all the jobs is financially lucrative.
While I think “shite” might be a shade harsh your sentiment is overall understood and appreciated. Most directors…not writers.
Hahaha…. Yeah, fair. I get hyperbolic sometimes.
I will absolutely give that to Snyder, he understands what looks great on screen better than at least half the schlock directors the wrangle for this films.Literally just his job. The moment people realize producers make movies and directors make shots, the less brain-rattled they’ll be when directors compliment directors they like for directing movies they don’t like in ways they like.I could understand if Snyder movies cranked out bad performances. That’s also a director’s job — working with actors. But it’s oddly a rare complaint about Snyder’s films.At most people are just angry that he sometimes directs bad scripts that producers hired him to direct and he didn’t force the producers to let him change THEIR script that THEY hired him to direct with THEIR money.
At most people are just angry that he sometimes directs bad scripts that producers hired him to direct and he didn’t force the producers to let him change THEIR script that THEY hired him to direct with THEIR money.Is that what happens? Because the evidence suggests that he is constitutionally incapable of giving producers what they want. WB wanted a Justice League movie at 2 hours or less. Zack’s vision? 4+ hours.
“Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy arguably changed the course of movie history, proving that superhero movies could be good if you at least took the making of it seriously”Is that what they did, or did they just double down on the fact that all great Superhero films series eventually shit the bed at the end. Batman Begins is a fun movie, The Dark Knight is still an amazing film, Then Dark Knight Rises comes in to be a stupid mess of a film.
There are so many comic book movies before that trilogy that were both good and took it seriously. I’m not always on board for shitting on Barsanti but holy good sweet jebus what a stupid, stupid statement on his part.
Conservatively, 90% of people’s love for the Nolan Batman movies is because of The Dark Knight. But that movie wasn’t really an influence on the MCU – it came out the same time as Iron Man, and the subsequent MCU movies followed Iron Man’s tone and aesthetic. Instead, Nolan’s movies were a cautionary tale about how a technically skilled director can lose control of a superhero movie’s tone, leading to unintentional comedy like Tom Hardy’s BANE!? voice. And their most direct influence was on the Snyder movies, which are their own cautionary tale.
To be honest, Batman Begins is probably more of an influence than anything else. It showed Hollywood how to properly reboot a franchise that had gone awry.
I suppose, but I’m not sure Hollywood actually managed to follow that example. Sony tried with The Amazing Spider-Man, and it didn’t work out. Fox tried (kinda) with the X-Men prequels, and it didn’t work out. The MCU hasn’t attempted a reboot. WB rebooted Batman again in the Snyder movies, and it didn’t work out, so they rebooted Batman yet again, which did work out. Basically Batman Begins showed how to successfully reboot Batman 67% of the time.
The Bane voice is one of many issues with DKR. That movies has a major timeline and geography issue that I just can’t ignore. Where was the prison Bruce ends up in? How long were the Gotham police department(the entire department) trapped underground? How long did it take Batman to recover? How did he get from vaguely foreign home in ground prison back to Gotham? When did he have the time to setup the burning bat symbol? With a lesser director this would look bad but with Nolan it’s shocking. I think it points to him just not giving a fuck and doing it for the easy pay check
They also directly inspired the Harley Quinn cartoon’s hilarious take on Bane.Which was pretty much “have him say whatever in the Dark Knight Rises voice.”
The Dark Knight is a really good movie, but it’s also kind of fascist and the protagonist is the most boring character in it.
That, low-key sounds like a diss, actually. lol
Right? There’s potential for a Zack Snyder movie to move you……but it ain’t there.
Nolan is right.
Typical Hollywood…sniffing each other’s farts.
Great directors can have terrible taste. Not a big deal. I love a lot of films that are objectively bad.