The Dark Knight trilogy remains the best superhero trilogy featuring the caped crusader played by Christian Bale. Christopher Nolan’s films took a complete departure from the campy and fantastical portrayal of the DC hero from previous iterations. The director took a very visceral and gritty approach to the character, including the use of practical effects as much as possible.
The trilogy came to an end with The Dark Knight Rises with Batman battling his greatest threat yet in the form of Tom Hardy’s Bane. While Nolan took inspiration from the comics, he rarely lifted quotes from the comics. However, two dialogues from the film were directly from two beloved comics featuring the dark knight.
The Dark Knight Rises Featured Iconic Lines From Two Beloved Comic Issues
Christopher Nolan’s Batman films were less about the superheroics of the beloved DC character and more about the complex backstory and traits of the character. Each of the films had a specific theme that Bruce Wayne/ Batman was exploring and Nolan also brought a lot of realism and grittiness with the action sequences as well.
The Dark Knight Rises proved to be the climactic journey of Batman in the trilogy with the character dealing with a lot of pain and regret after the tragic events of The Dark Knight. While the trilogy avoided being comic-book and too fantastical, the director did not forget to include nods/iconic lines from comics that inspired his films.
The third film features two dialogues that were lifted from the comics (via X). When Batman first emerges in the film and is pursued by cops, one senior officer tells another cop “Boy, you’re in for a show tonight, son”. This is obviously inspired by a line in The Dark Knight Returns comic where a cop says “We’re in for a show, kid” as he believes that Batman is nearby.
The other dialogue is when Batman meets Catwoman on the rooftop. When he turns back to face her, she is nowhere to be seen (a hilarious nod to Batman’s signature trait). He exclaims “So that’s what that feels like”. This is clearly lifted from the Kingdom Come comic, where Bruce Wayne utters the same line when Superman disappears in the middle of their conversation.
These iconic callbacks prove that Nolan respects the source material while also trying to invent something unique with his version of Batman. The Dark Knight trilogy is still celebrated today and continues to be a template/ inspiration for the current superhero films in both Marvel and DC.
Anthony Michael Hall Is Honored To Have Been A Part of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight
Alongside high-profile names like Christian Bale. Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Liam Neeson, many great character actors were also a part of Christopher Nolan‘s Dark Knight Trilogy. Among them was Anthony Michael Hall, who is most popularly known as a member of the Brat Pack and films such as The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles.
The actor played Gotham news reporter Mike Engel in 2008’s The Dark Knight and he recently talked about his experience on the film with Comicbook.com. Hall revealed that it was a huge privilege to work on the film alongside actors he grew up admiring like Oldman and Michael Caine. The actor worked on the film for six months and praised Nolan for being a brilliant master/filmmaker. Hall said,
I was just so honored to be a part of that film. Just to work alongside a master like Nolan, it was really incredible. He actually is younger than me, but he has such an old soul feeling to him, Nolan and a lot of it is his intellect. He’s a brilliant guy. To work with guys that I admired growing up, like Gary Oldman, Michael Caine. It was just a real privilege and a pleasure to be a part of that movie.
Hall’s comments echo other actor’s experiences of working with Nolan. There has not been a single actor who has had a bad experience with him and everyone hails the director in such high regard. Nolan’s commitment to his films and the unique way he deals with actors always brings out the best in them (through their performances).
Fans can watch The Dark Knight Trilogy on Max.
