Where Gotham goes from here
Warner Bros
This is why it may be for the best that “The Batman” eschews realism in exchange for a more blatantly gothic, almost mystical version of Gotham. As much as Matt Reeves’ new Batman movie has a reputation for being dark and gritty like the Nolan films, it goes about it in a way that feels like much more of an embrace of a lot of the Batman comics. It does this by making Gotham feel distinct and otherworldly. It’s not a place we can visit in reality.
Matt Reeves’ film understands that darkness and realism aren’t inherently the same thing, which allows the movie to keep its gloomy tone while also having more freedom with its creative choices. Characters like Poison Ivy couldn’t have existed in Nolan’s films, but it’s not hard to imagine them existing in the Battinson universe. “The Batman” walks this tightrope main through its depiction of Gotham, a city so absurdly gothic and moody that no one would ever look at it as just a stand-in for Chicago.
Why The Dark Knight Redesigned Gotham From The Ground Up
Warner Bros.
By Michael Boyle/April 7, 2022 12:11 pm EST
Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy, meanwhile, took place in a version of Gotham that generally felt like a real major city. Although the Gotham in “Batman Begins” had the gothic, often fantastical vibes that fans of the comics are familiar with, “The Dark Knight” changed things up, and the city felt more like a stand-in for Chicago. Regarding the difference between the first two films, director of photography Wally Pfister explained:
And that’s exactly what they did. “The Dark Knight” featured a modern, realistic city that better represented the tone Nolan was going for. Heavily based on Chicago, this version of Gotham feels like any city in modern day America, which allows the Joker’s subsequent reign of terror to hit harder.
A modern Gotham
Warner Bros.
The sheer extent to which Gotham changes from “Batman Begins” to the rest of the trilogy is still jarring, though. Despite the thematic and in-universe explanations for this change, the fact that the city’s been redesigned to the point where it’s almost unrecognizable from the first movie makes the trilogy feel a little disjointed. It almost feels like “Begins” is part of a different franchise than the other two movies. While “Batman Begins” still seems like it’s trying to maintain a comic book feel, the setting of “The Dark Knight” indicates a clear desire on Nolan’s part to ground the story as much as possible.
The downsides of realism
“The Dark Knight Rises” was especially picked apart for its plot holes in a way that often overshadowed any kind of deeper examination of the movie’s themes or character arcs. It didn’t help that the movie came out in 2012, around the beginning of the rise of lazy, nitpick-focused film criticism that led to YouTube channels like Cinema Sins. When Batman set up a flaming bat symbol on one of Gotham’s bridges to send a message of hope to the city’s citizens, people went straight to asking, when did he have time to do all that?
Where Gotham goes from here
Warner Bros
This is why it may be for the best that “The Batman” eschews realism in exchange for a more blatantly gothic, almost mystical version of Gotham. As much as Matt Reeves’ new Batman movie has a reputation for being dark and gritty like the Nolan films, it goes about it in a way that feels like much more of an embrace of a lot of the Batman comics. It does this by making Gotham feel distinct and otherworldly. It’s not a place we can visit in reality.
Matt Reeves’ film understands that darkness and realism aren’t inherently the same thing, which allows the movie to keep its gloomy tone while also having more freedom with its creative choices. Characters like Poison Ivy couldn’t have existed in Nolan’s films, but it’s not hard to imagine them existing in the Battinson universe. “The Batman” walks this tightrope main through its depiction of Gotham, a city so absurdly gothic and moody that no one would ever look at it as just a stand-in for Chicago.
Matt Reeves’ film understands that darkness and realism aren’t inherently the same thing, which allows the movie to keep its gloomy tone while also having more freedom with its creative choices. Characters like Poison Ivy couldn’t have existed in Nolan’s films, but it’s not hard to imagine them existing in the Battinson universe. “The Batman” walks this tightrope main through its depiction of Gotham, a city so absurdly gothic and moody that no one would ever look at it as just a stand-in for Chicago.
