Third Dark Knight Rises Trailer

Three big superhero movies coming this summer.  The world's all nuts for The Avengers right now, but right behind it, The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan's third and final Batman movie.

I made this observation a few years ago...don't know if I blogged it.  When it comes to the superhero trilogies of the past 10 years, it tends to play out like this:

Movie the first - The origin story shoehorned in with the best known storyline.

Movie the second - Free of the constrains of the origin story, the creators cut loose, explore the heroes as best they can, and invariably create the best of the franchise.

Movie the third - Since all the actors are signed to a trilogy, the attitude is, "Fuck it, this is the last one, let's throw in all the cool shit that the fans want to see." 

But Christopher Nolan and his Batman films, he's kind of thrown this model out the window.  For the first movie, he ditched the best known storyline and focused purely on the origin story.  For the second film, that's when he brought in the arch-enemy, really pushing the hero to its limits.  So for the third...well, I have no idea.

As I mentioned with the previous trailer, it's really neat that they are bringing this trilogy to a definite end.  Comic books aren't designed to end, which is why they've been running since the 1940s.  When it comes to a superhero's end, everyone's got their own idea of what it should be.  For Batman, it's pretty much agreed that the best telling of "The End of Batman" is The Dark Knight Returns.

So a cinematic end to Batman.  The mind boggles.

Reminder of what we know....  It takes places 8 years after The Dark Knight.  Christian Bale is back as Bruce Wayne/Batman.  Michael Caine is back as Alfred.  Morgan Freeman is back as Lucious Fox.  For the new characters, Tom Hardy is Bane, Anne Hathaway is Catwoman, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a Gotham City cop.

Trailer!






My thoughts: I'm digging Anne Hathaway's Catwoman. That line at the end, "My mother warned me...." seems very Catwoman-esque. Really glad they cleaned up the sound issues with Bane's mask and we can actually hear him.  And Bane tossing aside Batman's mask like that?  Does he "break the Bat?" 

I can hardly wait to find out!  July 20 is when it hits theatres!