I remember reading an interview where Nolan said that previous on screen incarnations of Batman had failed to make the titular character as interesting as the villains and that he wanted to change this with his reboot. With Batman Begins I think Nolan had achieved in making Batman interesting, mainly because the villains were weak. But also I think that origins aspect is by some distance the most interesting thing about Batman.

But if you look at TDK and TDKR (two movies I now adore), Batman more than often gets sidelined by the villains and even small time characters. The Joker stole every single scene in TDK and was by some considerable margin the most interesting character. Some would argue that TDK was pretty much The Joker's movie.In Rises Bruce Wayne is a little more interesting but more than often Bane and Catwoman steal many scenes.

Is it just that Batman's curse has always been that he has by far and away the most amazing gallery of villains of any superhero?

The villain is the driving force of the movie, Batman/Bruce Wayne could never do that (except origin films), or if it did the film would be boring.

RyanRises wrote:The villain is the driving force of the movie, Batman/Bruce Wayne could never do that (except origin films), or if it did the film would be boring.

I think I agree with that. The most interesting characters, at least with TDK and TDKR were the villains. I wonder if Nolan deliberately let The Joker and Bane take center stage in TDK/TDKR because he knew he did all he could with regards to the Batman character in BB.

gaspernoe wrote:

RyanRises wrote:The villain is the driving force of the movie, Batman/Bruce Wayne could never do that (except origin films), or if it did the film would be boring.

I think I agree with that. The most interesting characters, at least with TDK and TDKR were the villains. I wonder if Nolan deliberately let The Joker and Bane take center stage in TDK/TDKR because he knew he did all he could with regards to the Batman character in BB.

Well yeah, but overall the trilogy is Bruce Wayne's. I think there's plenty interesting in his arch.

I think Batman is as interesting as the Joker or Bane, as long as they're here to make him interesting. I think it's a two-ways thing: Batman is interesting because of the villains he's fighting, and the villains are interesting because of their motivations to get after Batman (and after Gotham by extent).

The potential is certainly there. In terms of Nolan's Batman films: we never really got to see any great scenes of Bruce putting on his 'flashy, billionaire playboy' persona, for instance. Or enough of the real Bruce in genuine terms. Did anyone really buy his torment over Rachel's death in TDKR? It worked so nicely in this scene from TDK (starting at 1:11):



Bruce was ultimately a pretty flat character to shoulder an entire trilogy. Beyond the death of his parents and Rachel, there really wasn't much there.

RyanRises wrote:Well yeah, but overall the trilogy is Bruce Wayne's. I think there's plenty interesting in his arch.

I'm not denying that the trilogy is about Bruce Wayne. But I personally wasn't nearly as interested with Wayne's story as I was with the villains. And it's really remarkable with regards to TDK in particular when The Joker doesn't actually have a story, still ends up being way more interesting than Batman.

I agree with TDK. Personally, I found myself most interested and invested in Bruce's story in TDKR. But that's just me.

People usually separate the films, but for me, the entire trilogy is about Bruce Wayne and his journey.

I copied some of this from a post I made in a past thread:

Batman Begins did an excellent job focusing entirely on Bruce and Batman, and as a result it was the first movie where the audience truly cared for him as a character. Bale's performance was well-received by everyone except the Burton fanboys.
TDK, however, took the focus far away from both Wayne and Batman, and there is no denying that (though it did loop back to him at the end with Gordon's whole "dark knight" speech). The spotlight throughout the movie was entirely on Ledger and Eckhart. They had the best lines and best parts of the script to work with, and as a result provided the best performances. Bale/Batman wasn't given enough focus nor impactful scenes aside from the action sequences. Also, it didn't help that the growl was at its worst in this movie.

Rises focused way more on Bruce than it did Batman, and that ticked a lot of casual fans off. Then of course, you had Bane who with his voice, costume, and physicality intrigued and entertained lots of fans, way more so than Batman did.

The almost secondary-character status of Batman in these movies is due to the stories and scripts of the movies. However, making Joker, Dent, and Bane the main focus of the movies was really the best way to keep audiences invested and entertained (especially the general audiences), as well as to make the best movies, so it was a necessary trade-off that sort of led to Batman himself being underwhelming.