Movies - TV
Christopher Nolan's Blade Runner Shout-Out In Batman Begins Was Unintentional
By JOE ROBERTS
While “The Dark Knight” is considered the best of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, “Batman Begins” manages to stand out from the others in how Gotham City is portrayed.
Rather than using real-world locations like the other two, “Batman Begins” is a mix of studio sets, miniatures, and actual places, giving the fictional city a unique look and feel.
Nolan said, “We wanted the look of Gotham to have a recognizable texture, of a sort of New York on steroids,” and he looked to Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” for inspiration.
In an interview, Nolan said, “The atmosphere of ‘Blade Runner’ was also important, that feeling that there was this whole world outside the frame of the scene.”
Scott and production designer Lawrence G. Paull’s approach resonated with Nolan, adding, “I immediately gravitated toward the visual treatment that Ridley Scott had come up with.”
The Narrows in “Batman Begins,” with its never-ending rain and dilapidated setting, feels almost like a tribute to “Blade Runner;” however, this isn’t entirely true.
Nolan said, “It’s hard to say what was conscious homage, and what was my analysis of why ‘Blade Runner’ was so convincing in its production design and in the way it uses its sets.”
The filmmaker continued, “We definitely tried to emulate that style, and I think in doing so we actually created homage, particularly where we used the rain very much.”