DANDY HISTORY- The Curse of the Third Superhero Film

TDKRs was horrible, definitely the weakest in the series.

Iron Man 3 was better than IM 2 though, but Iron Man 3 wasn't ending the character because IM/Stark is still in the MCU, so it's a different situation.

I don't think the curse really applies anymore, at least not in a shared universe

TDKRs may actually be the last CBM trilogy that really feels like a trilogy, in the sense that, that will be the last time that we ever see those characters portrayed by those actors, and all three movies were directed by the same director, etc

I don't know if the word trilogy even means what it used too

TDKR was the weakest, but nowhere near bad. It's just not at the standard of TDK and Begins. Iron Man 3 on the other hand, is easily the worst of the MCU and I would rather gouge out my own eyes than watch it again.

One thing feels certain, the third installment comes off as a studio mandate that disregards anything the trilogy director (if he's even available) would like to do at the time...ergo the inevitable failing of the cbm "threequel".

The MCU really bucked the superhero trend. Both, Thor 2 and IM2 are considered worse than the 1st (Avengers 2 is sort of in the same boat), yet IM3 is regarded as either the best or the second best in the trilogy. The only real exception, for now, is the Cap franchise (will Cap 3 be TDKR, another cbm threequel or far surpass Cap 2?).

That MCU sequel curse has also caught on to TASM, Red, 300 and Sin City.

CBM's are experiencing that franchise fatigue even sooner.

The problem with the trilogy is typically the way the writing and directing approach it. The first one gets its feet wet, sees what the audience responds to, and tries to realize its mistakes. The second is a place that finds the problems of the first to be fixed and the movie turns out very well. The third typically takes itself too seriously and says, "Eh, [frick] it. We're done anyways. Let's go out with a bang." All the while, ignoring what made the first two so great. There are many exceptions, but I have seen this fulfilled more than I haven't.
Anyways, I think the CBM trilogy curse applies heavily to my theory (bar Iron Man since 2 is less well received) and it still goes strong. The Dark Knight trilogy fits my formula to a T. Unless your movie is named "Return of the King," good luck being better than the rest of your franchise.

@Dandy
I was only referring to CBM trilogies. The LOTR thing was kind of just a go-to.
Besides that, although I'm unsure of the critical reception, I hate half the threequels you named.
Even so, I believe that you (among others) keep trying to hammer home some point about Iron Man 3, as if it has anything to do with source material. Iron Man 3 sucks because they tricked the audience into believing we would be getting an epic battle that had been building since the first mention of the Ten Rings in Iron Man. Instead, we got our third crybaby businessman who hates Tony. It's a tired plot. The Mandarin plot pissed people off because it would have been a welcome change to a great foe, but they tricked us and said "Lol, nope. Here's another forgettable villain that hates Tony because who doesn't around here." The general audience can [frick] off when it comes to Iron Man 3. It's terrible and deserves the hate.

TDKR, my god. I would rather watch Superman 3 and the hilariously bad 4 than watch TDKR, its Nolan jerking off on camera, and drinking his own leavings. He is so high on himself and the terrible artsy aspect of the film, more worried about it being an original piece of art he created than making a good batman film. Absolutely the most terrible third on your list, Bane sounded like a joke, Catwoman beat up batman, batman is a mopy quitter, the list of liberties he took to create his "art" makes it no longer a batman film. So incredibly terrible.

@Dandy

No offense, but those are rather weak examples of why The Dark Knight Rises is the weakest of the trilogy. Any movie generates discussion on this site, or any casting where people complain that Gal Gadot isn't thick enough to play as Wonder Woman, lol. Any discussion will have positive and negative and that does not tell which film is "widely seen" as the weakest.

Also, audience wise, while it's not 94% as BB and TDK is on Rotten Tomatoes, that is the only site that I have seen that has an audience score/rating that is lower than BB and TDK(TDKR's is 90%). If you'd care to show me these other links, then I will be grateful because I haven't seen any audience score/rating that is lower except for Rotten Tomatoes but even then, everything that I had mention such as being a critical success and its critical acclaim still makes BB the weakest. Now you may believe TDKR is the weakest and that could be part of your judgment on believing TDKR is "widely seen" as the weakest, but that's not necessarily true or fact.

@Dandy

Furthermore, may I ask, if we are to go by RT's audience score/rating, how exactly can TDKR be "weak" if it's still a 90% as opposed to a 94% like BB and TDKR? That is still pretty damn good and counting off that critically, TDKR's right in the middle between TDK's 94% and BB's 85%. It's really no comparison to such huge leaps between the likes of Iron Man 1 thru 3.

@huckfinnisher

I do remember the film better, and Catwoman never "beat up" Batman. Selina kicked Bruce's cane in the beginning, but that's a form of "beating" someone up now?

@Dandy

Honest Trailer is another weak example. Honest Trailers and Cinema Sins are only for parody reasons and I could break down those trailers where what they complain about/bring up, it's just laughable to call it a mistake. And I will check those links what you bring up, but once more....this isn't Iron Man 3. This isn't Spider-Man 3. TDKR isn't given a critical score/rating and an audience score/rating that is far lower than The Dark Knight and that's why, no, unless you're suggesting that each film in a trilogy needs to have some higher score/rating than the previous film or stay at the same score/rating, TDKR is not a weak film by any standards and did indeed break the curse. And I don't see what your rules are that would deem such a curse to be broken.

"Even you, in your own comment above said, "People can complain all they want, but TDKR was a financial AND critical success." because you have to know it occasionally gets a bit more flack than the other two films."

I hope you know that BB and TDK also gets flack too. You haven't been looking around enough to see how much hate even TDK gets. And at least with TDK, the criticism fits(because it's actually the weakest of the trilogy).

@Dandy

"Dude, I want to have a conversation with you, but you are obviously a huge fan of the movie and will overlook any flaws or criticisms by the numerous others who have written about. That's not a bad thing. I'm glad you liked the film. But it does make for a very boring dialog."

Re-read that statement that you previously quoted me with...it had nothing to do with you, so I don't see the relevance of you saying you want to have a conversation with me when all I said was that I could tear apart that Honest Trailer because it's laughable and just that, since it's meant to be for parody use and nothing more. I think you're misunderstanding what I am saying if you're thinking I'm badmouthing you or anything. What you're suggesting is really just sounding like you want to exchange dialogue of the flaws and nitpicks of a film and THAT makes up for bad dialogue my friend. You can't have any dialogue if you're seeking the same thing on both sides.

And you're also incorrect...I see the flaws in TDKR, but I see the flaws in every single movie. Don't make them any inferior. Superman: The Movie has a vast amounts of flaws and not just being it's a dated film, but it's still one of the best.

"I only used Honest trailers because it was a nicely packaged summarization of many articles worth of complaints and don't require you to read a bunch of text."

And the trailer is also as bad as someone making an editorial of '99 mistakes in TDKR' or whatever that was called where the person over-exaggerated the problems and would even say Batman was only in the film for five minutes and spent all that time on rooftops. Sorry, but if you'd like to discuss TDKR's flaws, or what you perceive them to be(because the flaws I am referring to is filming angles and techniques, and not story-based), then I'm all for that...but I'm not a fan of the over-exaggeration some say when talking about the film as it helps no one in any sort of discussion about TDKR.

"I could give you about 1,00,00,000 articles of the like, but when you want to be blindsided and see something as perfect, would it really matter if I did? I think you have seen those articles. I think you've known the reactions. I think you just don't want to recognize them. They are literally everywhere. "

Again, you can give me ten thousand articles, but I assure you more than 2/3 of those will be over-exaggeration blunders as I've just mentioned, and the same goes for BB and TDK....you will see 2/3 of those are complete over exaggerations.

But again, I ask you once more, what are these rules of saying which film has broken a curse or not? I show you how TDKR is not that far behind even with some user ratings, and nothing like Spider-Man 3 is to S-M 2 or X-Men: The Last Stand is to X2. So what are your critiques when talking about how the curse can be broken because EVERYTHING shows that TDKR indeed broke it unless you're suggesting that TDKR had to get better ratings than TDK on all accounts.

And if you want to have a discussion over TDKR, I would love that, if you are seeking a conversation regarding TDKR. So if you want to speak of the pros and cons, I would be game, but I want YOU to tell me your problems with the films and then I can type my response to them.

@Dandy

It's a shame you're not answering any questions I have, or actually wanting to converse about TDKR when you said you supposedly wanted to even though, as you only have done, you'd prefer to just bash it and that's it. I get it, you can't answer truthfully without sounding biased for why TDKR hasn't broken the curse, but you could at least admit this.

I was hoping for a legit conversation, but you are not. Shame.

@MisterSuperior, it was batman's goal at that point in the movie to stop catwoman but he couldn't because he was all injured and whiny pouty, then two scenes later he remembers he can kick through concrete with some leg brace? Ridiculous, Selina effectively beat Bruce at that point in the film.

@huckfinnisher

Three comments in a row all for me. Jesus, for someone who hates TDKR, you spent three comments worth to talk to me about it?

And no, it's no defeat and it is you who's grasping at straws just to find some more reasons to hate a film to call this a "defeat". You first say Catwoman defeats Batman and after correcting you, you're now mentioning Bruce Wayne. Correct, it was Selina who made Bruce look like a fool, but that's really the idea, isn't it? Bruce doesn't care at this moment and isn't trying to fight as Bruce Wayne. Actually think the scene through before you actually grasp at those straws dude.

"it was batman's goal at that point in the movie to stop catwoman"

This is another example of grasping at straws. What film were you watching where you believed Bruce's or Batman's goal in the beginning of the film was to stop Catwoman? He wasn't "right" to stop anyone because he was crammed in Wayne Manor for three years straight doing absolutely nothing with his life and even with his mother's pearls being stolen, it wasn't enough to get Bruce out of his darkly-lit mansion or his caves...not until word came of Gordon being injured.

This is what I was even speaking about earlier....over-exaggerations from people who say they "hate" the film, but their reasons are almost laughable when they're clearly NOT what the actual film portrays. But, I will amuse myself:

"1. Bane sounded like I think the monopoly guy would sound and was hard to make out his words."

It's a divided stance on who could understand Bane and who could not, as well as who believes he sounded menacing or not and fortunately I'm on the side of the fence that understood everything he said clearly as well as finding his voice to be completely menacing and a perfect anti-Batman even when it comes to the voice as he sounded more "mechanical" as opposed to Batman's "monster"-like voice.

"2. Despite Bane in the comics having hispanic origins, Bane has a strange European accent."

Bane's father is also King Snake, who is British as well as Bane never even looking Hispanic even in a comic panel.



"3.The scene where Selina Kyle escapes (beats) Bruce Wayne."

Which makes all the sense to portray Bruce's poor state who could never have bested Selina in that scene, nor even has a "goal" of doing such to which you assume, which is incorrect.

"4.How did Bruce survive explosion at the end?"

The film was meant to make you question this simply because that entire scene is not actually continuous. You can tell by certain shadows that hits against Batman's face and then disappear the next, so this doesn't bother me as much as it may some.

"5.People follow Bain to certain death, even allow him to kill them, and there is no sort of light at the tunnel for them, its not like he is reaching that they will die and be rewarded in the afterlife."

Ra's al Ghul didn't tell anyone of any sort of reward in the afterlife as well, but they still followed him into death, even wanting to stay inside the monastery when it was going up in flames and only left when ordered by the fake Ra's al Ghul. You can even mention Joker that had thugs that ended up dying for him.

"6.Too little Batman. More than five minutes but less than 10 minutes."

This is incorrect. Batman is shown in the film for 21 minutes. Clearly much more than ten minutes.

"7.Batman quit, TWICE! Batman's only "super power" is his strength of will and resolve, instead we get emo Bruce, who quits and then comes back just to quit again?"

Will and resolve? You mean the will to climb out of The Pit and to resolve what was going on with Bane and his hold over Gotham? What exactly are you trying to get at that doesn't show the best of Batman in this one movie? He actually accomplishes something, unlike The Dark Knight. Yes, he quit on terrible reasoning after the events of TDK but he more than accounts for it by what he does in TDKR as well as taking up Alfred's wishes to move on while still passing the mantle down to Robin John Blake, giving Gordon continuous hope by giving him the symbol he still needed by fixing the bat signal on top of the MCU building, giving all of Gotham that hope "with a face", and this is just my opinion, also giving Wayne Manor to the orphanage which could lead to multiple young men and women to fight alongside the mission that Bruce started as Batman(a different take on Batman Incorporated).

"8.Batman was only batman like three times. The first film he is trying it out, maybe puts on the costume 3 times, tdk links right into the first film, so he maybe wears the suit another three times, then he just quits. After being Batman like six times. "

This doesn't make any sense. So even when Spider-Man 1 and 2 are two years apart, do you also count those times we see Peter as Spidey being the only times he's ever Spider-Man?

TDK is roughly a year after BB, so Bruce was Batman for a year.

"9. The "Legend" of the Batman is eexaggerated in this film, as Bain and Talia go out of their way to kill Batman, when he only ever showed up anywhere like six times."

Again....this idea you have that Bruce is only Batman when we see him in the film is almost hilarious.

"10.Bane beat up Batman, but then he didn't. The first time Bane beats up batman, then Batman is injured, recovers, and with no new gadgets or training or planning he just runs in there and beats up Bane the net time, its just odd."

I have to ask once more, did you watch TDKR? Batman breaks Bane's tubing, just like how Azrael defeated Bane. And when Batman doesn't cut off Bane's tubing, Batman still almost loses in the second bout.