Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy has been considered among the greatest films ever made. The films helped reinvent Batman as well as the superhero genre as a whole. Each film was a critical and box office success, but what would have happened if Nolan had planned The Dark Knight trilogy from Batman Begins? In The Art and Making Of The Dark Knight Trilogy, Nolan writes "People ask if we'd always planned the trilogy. The answer is complicated."
In his foreword to The Art and Making Of The Dark Knight trilogy, Nolan recounts;
"When David and I first started cracking open Bruce's story, we flirted with what might come after, then backed away, not wanting to look too deep into the future. I didn't want to know everything that Bruce couldn't. I wanted to live it with him."
This was the right decision for The Dark Knight trilogy, as focusing too much on making a franchise would've offset the effectiveness of Batman Begins. Nolan's decision to make sure that it worked as a solo feature first theoretically set up a trilogy that proved far more potent in the long run.
Not Planning A Dark Knight Trilogy From Batman Begins Was The Right Move
While the Batman universe is full of rich and complex characters, in most cases, an effective story should be fairly simple. It is not an accident that most Batman adaptations focus on the murder of Bruce's parents. His tragedy and rise to becoming Batman are certainly one of the most intriguing elements of his character. His desire for revenge and eventual acceptance of his parent's death is essential to his character arc.
Batman Begins explores this theme eloquently and while he does come to terms with it in the terms of the film, it doesn't feel rushed or insincere. However, if the trilogy was planned, there might've been a temptation to stretch this arc throughout the trilogy. This would've distracted from some other interesting themes of The Dark Knight, such as terrorism and escalation, as well as taken screen time away from Heath Ledger's fantastic performance as the Joker.
How Planning The Dark Knight Trilogy Could've Weakened Batman Begins
While all three films of the trilogy explore morality, Batman Begins arguably focuses on Batman's ethics the most, as he develops his own moral code. Over the course of the film, Bruce goes from an angry, revenge-obsessed young man to a hero with his own strict rules. If the trilogy was planned, Bruce may have not completed this arc in the first film. Additionally, the theme of fear, personified through Scarecrow's fear gas, works perfectly with Batman's arc as he learns to conquer his fears. In a planned trilogy, this theme might've been weakened for fear that the character may not have any room to grow in future films. However, Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy proves that even after a protagonist faces his fears, he can still have plenty of other demons to face, especially in the corrupt world of Gotham.
