This was one of the few experiences of following pre production and everything seemed to be the heavens aligning. Hearing about Nolan coming on to reboot Batman put a sense of hope into me. And then the casting announcements started, and things only got better.
And then we had the first pictures of the suit and the Tumbler, and it looked even better.
Finally, at long last, we had a Batman movie about Batman and not his villains. A movie finally delved into his training and showed why he was scary and insane. Batman Begins finally gave us the Batman we always deserved on screen. When it was over, and we had the tease about Joker at the end, I was fully prepared to sit there and watch the next film immediately.
I loved the film when it came out, and I love it even more now. TDK following it was fantastic as well, continuing the tradition of super hero films having superior sequels (we will ignore the FF films and Iron Man in this argument). Sadly, it still fell on the third film curse of super hero films where things go to shit at the end. While I was not a fan of TDKR, it was one of the strongest third films in a super hero series, but the bar wasn't really that high at that point.