5 Reasons Why Richard Linklater's Before Midnight Could Complete Perfect Trilogy

3. It's The First Definitive Love Story Told in "Real Time"

One of my favorite things from Sunrise and Sunset is that the characters make the promise at the end of the first film and keep it by the time the second one comes out; giving the movie that "real time" element. And that's huge, when you think about it. One of the reasons the Toy Story trilogy was so effective for my generation was because I grew up, literally, with the character of Andy. When Toy Story 3 premiered, I was headed to college at the end of the summer, just like Andy at the end of the film. It was incredibly moving and emotional for me as a viewer, and really hit home with my friends and immediate family. Likewise, Linklater's movies succeed using the same element. In contrast to Christopher Nolan's latest and final Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises, where we're taken to a story that takes place eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, I feel it was a missed opportunity to really give the audience a sense of authenticism while they were sitting in the theater watching the film. Now, I understand Nolan's reasoning for scripting TDKR that way, as his Batman films are much, much larger and more explosive than the movies we're talking about here. Batman doesn't require as much intimacy in regards to time as these characters do; it's just not that type of film. So, in a way, it's an advantage a movie with a smaller scope has over a mega-blockbuster (though it could be said Toy Story somewhat bridges the gap). Quite frankly, a movie this confined, intimate, and humanistic is really driven home with the "real time" element, and I'm ecstatic to see if Before Midnight plays out the same way.

"But we're not real anyway, right? We're just characters in that old lady's dream. She's on her deathbed, fantasizing about her youth. So, of course we had to meet again."