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GAF Cinephilia: Are there other film series as "complete" as Christopher Nolan's Batman?

Yes. Nolan's take on batman is overrated now (saying now before someone else does) but the reason for this thread is to not bathe in its near perfect beginning, climax and ending.

Instead, what are some other films series that have a similar sense of completion.

Complete as define here as in:
1. Satisfying closure.
2. Would not add or subtract.
Bonus: main character's story arc ends, but the film is left open ended as to give a sense of a livable world.
Double bonus: director has publicly express the series as completed.

They analogy I get from such a film series is walking in a museum and seeing my favorite Painter. You are in awe of its content, memorized by the characters/object.


Sadly today, I feel it's hard to find films like this. If it is not countless sequels it is then remakes.


Tell me some great films that give a sense of completion.
 
Star Wars the original trilogy. Forget the prequels or the sequels. This has the satisfying ending, dont really need anything more. You can imagine Luke goes on being a badass, etc etc.
Yeah... I really want to add things like the star wars original trilogy, Rocky 1 2 (not 3)and 4 Terminator 1 and 2 but they are not pure thaf sense of closure.


So far I would say Back to the Future may be the best in terms of closure and and wouldn't change or add anything.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Nolan's Batman Trilogy is all over the place, when it comes to quality.
The first movie was good.
The second was brilliant.
The third was average at best.

Other sagas that are as good of better:
The Dollar trilogy
Back to the Future
Lord of the Rings
The Godfather
The original Star Wars
Toy Story
The original Indiana Jones Trilogy
Evil Dead
Naked Gun
Austin powers
 

winjer

Gold Member
We can also consider the Matrix trilogy, although it dropped in quality with each iteration.

The Evil Dead trilogy is also cool. And the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy.
 
The Harry Potter series. Spider-Man 1-3 felt incomplete, there should’ve been a 4th. I consider the Nolan Batmans still the best superhero offering of our generation, personally loved TDKR and consider it better than any superhero garbage we got this past decade
 
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EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Heath ledger dying was unfortunate, Bane gave Batman trouble but not as big as the Joker did.

dc comics joker GIF
 

Trilobit

Member
Sure, the last one is sort of whacky fun, but the Back to the Future movies are my favourite trilogy. Watched all three the same day in my local cinema a few years ago and it was one of my best movie experiences. I'm so happy that there hasn't been any sequels or remakes of it.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Easily the best Batman movies. The Bane one wasnt great, but the first two were excellent. Also, Katie Holmes was such a sweetheart.
 

Doom85

Member
You all can hate on Dark Knight Rises all you want, but don’t try to convince me this isn’t one of the best moments in a superhero movie ever:

Gordon: I never cared who you were.
Batman: And you were right.
Gordon: But shouldn’t people know the hero who saved them?
Batman: A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy’s shoulders to let him know that the world hadn’t ended.
Gordon: …Bruce Wayne?

Me:
michael fassbender perfection GIF
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
You all can hate on Dark Knight Rises all you want, but don’t try to convince me this isn’t one of the best moments in a superhero movie ever:

Gordon: I never cared who you were.
Batman: And you were right.
Gordon: But shouldn’t people know the hero who saved them?
Batman: A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy’s shoulders to let him know that the world hadn’t ended.
Gordon: …Bruce Wayne?

Me:
michael fassbender perfection GIF

That moment was indeed perfect.

Which makes it all the worse that Nolan fucked up the character so badly in other ways in Rises.

Eight years off, my arse.


….and Lord Of The Rings is the only truly complete trilogy that exists, for what are very obvious reasons.
 
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GeekyDad

Member
You all can hate on Dark Knight Rises all you want, but don’t try to convince me this isn’t one of the best moments in a superhero movie ever:

Gordon: I never cared who you were.
Batman: And you were right.
Gordon: But shouldn’t people know the hero who saved them?
Batman: A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy’s shoulders to let him know that the world hadn’t ended.
Gordon: …Bruce Wayne?

Me:
michael fassbender perfection GIF
Yeah, not gonna lie, I still :messenger_loudly_crying: every time...

But came to say The Godfather, but glad to see others also agree. But yeah, LotR is probably even more complete, though not nearly as consistent in terms of book-to-screen translation; the overall contents probably are, but not the tone -- too much dudebro between Legolas and Gimli.
 
Back to the Future is the best trilogy.

I don’t think Batman begins trilogy landed all 3 Films. Two were great. The other one is…meh


It is extremely hard to put out a trilogy of good movies.
 
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OP, you might have to do some research and make some distinctions between what people are posting that is actually good and what people are posting due to nostalgia.

Alien 3, Spiderman 3, and BTTF 3 are all mediocre movies and are sloppy endings to each trilogy. Also before anyone brings them up, I'll say the same about Terminator 3, TMNT 3, and Robocop 3.
 

DKehoe

Member
The Lord of the Rings
The Before trilogy. They might do more of those but for now it works great as a trilogy.
 
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BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Well, there's obviously The Lord of the Rings. If a hack like Kevin Smith hates it so much you know it must be good.

I'll throw an oddball out there: the first three Die Hard movies are probably the finest modern action adventure ever made. Seeing Bruce Willis kick it with Samuel L Jackson in his prime as a sendoff was the shit as far as movie trilogies go.
 

OmegaSupreme

advanced basic bitch
OP, you might have to do some research and make some distinctions between what people are posting that is actually good and what people are posting due to nostalgia.

Alien 3, Spiderman 3, and BTTF 3 are all mediocre movies and are sloppy endings to each trilogy. Also before anyone brings them up, I'll say the same about Terminator 3, TMNT 3, and Robocop 3.
TMNT 3 and Robocop 3 are far worse than mediocre.

TDKR wasn't good at all and completely misunderstood Batman. So, I think the premise of the thread is pretty flawed. LOTR is probably the perfect trilogy in my opinion. The og Star Wars Trilogy and Indiana Jones are up there too.
 

AJUMP23

Gold Member
TMNT 3 and Robocop 3 are far worse than mediocre.

TDKR wasn't good at all and completely misunderstood Batman. So, I think the premise of the thread is pretty flawed. LOTR is probably the perfect trilogy in my opinion. The og Star Wars Trilogy and Indiana Jones are up there too.
There are 3 incredible trilogies,

SW Original
LOTR
Indiana Jones

All others are nothing compared to those three.
 

Vestal

Gold Member
My issue with calling the Nolan Bat movies a great movie trilogy is that the overall story arc of the 3 films is not well defined. You have very loose attachments between the events of movie 1, 2, 3. Where as the events in say SW or LOTR trilogies all correlate in someway to the primary story being told through 3 films.

I guess I put them in the same category as the Indy trilogy. Sure it was 3 films, but they are not there to tell and over arching story.

Based on overall reception comparatively.

Nolan Verse in release order.
1 good stand alone film
1 great stand alone film
1 meh stand alone film

Comparatively Indian Jones
1 great stand alone film
1 meh stand alone film
1 great stand along film
 

Thaedolus

Gold Member
Star Wars OT is pretty close to perfect. Jedi could’ve been better considering Empire is a GOAT tier movie, but it’s the complete three act story with just some Ewok and pacing bullshit barely bringing it down
 

SpiceRacz

Member
Three_Colors_trilogy_poster.png


Each film is separate with different characters/stories/themes. They're incredible films on their own. I don't think they quite fit the criteria, but I think you would appreciate them none the less.
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
Alien and Aliens
Terminator 1 and 2

thank got they didn't mess those up and only made two movies

oh and die hard 1,2 & 3 yup thank goodness

oh back to the future trilogy
 

Scotty W

Gold Member
Batman should not be used as a metric for completeness. The villains have no inner necessity to be there, they were simply chosen because the makers wanted to make a story about those particular villains.
 
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