THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Post-release thread..... - Page 13

Plus, although Batman was only operating for a year or less, he managed to wipe out a major Crime family, then took on a maniac who was committing very public atrocities. That shit would stay in the public's consciousness.

Just saw Batman Begins again and is the little boy (who would go on to play Joffrey) supposed to be John Blake?   If so, good call back...

No, he's not. Blake's mom died when he was too young to really remember her, and you can clearly hear kid Joffrey's parents arguing in the balcony scene. And Blake is in his mid- to late-twenties at the youngest, so he would've been at the care home in Begins/Dark Knight.

Bruce hasn't been a recluse the whole time, just since the fusion project was shut down (which I think was said to be three years earlier, but I could be wrong).

Not so sure and even if that were so the movie doesn't effectively portray it that way.  The scripts a mess in that regard.  If you step away and remove your knowlege of what Batman is supposed to be and just connect the thematic dots between the 3 films TDKR fails to link up with the first two.  Also the idea that the Dent act suddenly eradicated organized crime on it's own is a BIG stretch!  Sure the Joker and Batman personally lopped off the Mob's head people but to have an overnight elimination of crime???

 

Also they telegraphed a hunted and redeemed Batman in the Dark Knight.  Goyer claims they had this ending in mind all along but I don't buy it.  They decided on the flash forward 8 years ting at the last minute or perhaps after losing Heath.  You can see the script struggling with this conceit.

 

Also stopping development of the reactor but leaving it under the city is a HUGE fucking leap of logic to ask of the audience.  A greater film could have gotten away with it.  This one can't.

I haven't read one post in this thread.  I just came back from the movie and wanted to say:

 

HOLY SLOPPY RUSH-JOB.

And this is coming from someone who loves TDK but fully acknowledges the sloppiness of that movie as well.  Not a film I have any pressing urge to rewatch right away.  I never felt like Nolan's heart was fully invested in this project the way he was with TDK.  I fully acknowledge this is just me blindly projecting my issues with the film onto him.

This could have used several passes to the general story to iron things over.  The imprisonment section is embarrassment in comparison to Batman Begins.

Reading through half of this thread, I'm a bit amazed that there are so many people who loved this.

 

It played mostly so flat for me.  

 

I have friends who weren't taken with TDK who seemed to really like this.  So I guess the shoe is on the other foot.  It seems to be because this movie gives off the sense that it's having more fun (the big Bond stuff).  I like all that stuff, but I thought it was almost all executed in such a slapdash way.  It had so little impact on me.  This was particularly frustrating since the movie was obviously going big.

 

Renn's idea about Nolan simply embracing a dreamlike editing style is fun, but I also find it to be complete BS.  Hahahahaha.  It felt incompetent to me.  There were very few moments when I wasn't feeling and taking note of a pointlessly abrupt cut or transition.  I'm not surprised that it felt like Wayne teleported from the underground prison to Gotham in mere scenes.  That's how everyone seemed to get around Gotham through most of the movie.  

 

I'm with Prankster in thinking that Nolan wasn't all that into this project.  

 

Also:  halfway through the thread and nobody seems to have mentioned THE GLORIOUS RETURN OF THE BUMBLINGLY FABULOUS ADVENTURES OF CLUMSY COMMISH GORDON!  Dropping important objects.  Being a cartoon character who can easily survive a truck crash that kills the film's main villain.  Hahahahaha.  

 

 

It's not that Nolan was never aiming for a realistic tone, it's that in accomplishing said tone he also accomplished said incongruence with said plot. Said incongruence was jarring, which is why us non-fanboys never fell in love with the first two movies. Finally with the third movie Nolan quit doing tone half-assedly and went all the way with the Kiss Kiss and the Bang Bang and in spite of some of the plot and dialogue being clunky the film works better as a whole because of it. Because in the end it's still a billionaire orphan superninja flying ace who dresses up like a bat.

 

It's like Nolan finally asked himself "Why so serious?" and realised there wasn't a good enough answer.

My friends and I were laughing our asses off when Gordon got out of the back of that truck and looked around not believing his luck like he was in an warner bros cartoon or something.  Only to laugh even harder when we realized that it straight up killed Talia.  So funny.

Well, to be fair, the truck crashed right on the cab, so Talia would've gotten the brunt of the force.

Was just about to say I never even thought it would kill him. The back of the truck just sort of slips down. But it was obvious meant to be a lighthearted moment when Gordon climbs out in shock he survived. Also, its Batman. I have no trouble with stuff like this, possibly because I just don't care, I was entertained.

I do hope that whoever does the next Batman film gives a Batsuit that's less armour like.

 

Isn't Batman supposed to be a Master Martial Artist and Detective? Relying on his own personal skills not gadgets.

 

I always thought Batman's costume would be like Zorro's. Lightweight, easy to move in. A Dark Cape for distracting opponents. Some Kevlar here and there. With a lockpick and some smoke pellets. Just the basics.

I'd be happy with something like the suit in the Arkham games.  I'm a little tired of the all-black look.

felix, Clearly Batman should have a...grappling hook and Batarangs in his utility belt as well.  I always preferred the armored Batman as I find it looks cooler.

I thought Bane was going to be like Tyler Durden for a while and this was going to be his Project Mayhem. Maybe he would've been made slightly better if he had a less generic agenda. Did you notice some of his thugs disguises? Could've been another class warfare comment, but his film never committed to anything.

 

"We shine your shoes. We mop your floors. We pour your concrete. Do not Fuck With Us."

I actually loved Bane, up until he became a lovesick henchman who was only there to be blown up. The biggest stumble of the film for me - the Talia reveal should've taken place much earlier, maybe even playing a part in Bruce's initial backbreaking.

 

I thought this was pretty great, all told. I don't really get the lazy/uninterested Nolan complaints - this thing is crazy ambitious and very, very involved. Had Nolan been disengaged from this the studio would've probably gotten away with forcing their Riddler/Penguin agenda.

 

It's also by far  the best film about Bruce Wayne as a character, and Bale's best performance in the role.
 

 

Just seconding both of these sentiments. I've seen a number of Chewers make this assertion - that Nolan wasn't engaged with this one - here and on Facebook, and I think it's way off base. After INCEPTION, especially, he had no need to do a third Batman film and has talked quite a bit in interviews that it wasn't until he cracked the story that he decided to make it. I think this film featuring the strongest performance by Bale and it being extremely Wayne/Batman-centric argues for Nolan being quite involved and engaged, rather than the opposite.

I don't think anybody who isn't somewhat engaged with the world would come up with such an adorably endearing combination of Dickens+Rocky for the final film in a trilogy. But I never bought into the logic that Nolan didn't enjoy the world he created, it just wasn't all that interesting until now.

 

 

Like thinking about this movie again,  there's something about how it embraces everything that makes a lot of modern interpretations of Batman so troublesome(including delightfully fucked up politics) and turns it into a big Wagnerian trilogy-closer that makes it absolutely fascinating to me. 

Edited by LaurenOrtega - 7/23/12 at 5:48am

This is what's bugged me about all three films, and is exactly analogous to film James Bond. Whether it's Bale, or the script, or both, Batman is the element that fails to engage me every time, and it's worst in TDKR. Here, Batman is almost wholly dependent on gadgetry/vehicles, and is simply reacting throughout the movie. No "World's Greatest Detective." No master tactician. No highly trained, pinnacle of human perfection martial artist, who's 10 steps ahead of his opponent. Instead, we get Bale moping around as Wayne, or Batman in his stiff-as-a-board combat armor, piloting a flying tank. It's even implied that Blake can step into the Batman role because now HE has the flying tank - forget the inherent genius or lifetime of training.

I enjoyed TDKR more than I thought I would, but it was because every character other than Wayne/Batman had something interesting going on. The interplay between Oldman & JGL was great, and Hathaway was a complete scene-stealer.

I must've missed the back-fixer gadget and the escape-a-giant-hole gadget that Bruce took with him into the Pit.
 

That's only because he had plenty of time to rest on it in "least hellish evil prison ever."

Yeah, that hellish hopeless place where prisoners provide medical care and encouragement to one another.  Would have been better to have had Bane just dump him in some hole in Gotham somewhere and let him find his own strength to get out.

 

As for the gadgets, Batman's basically a notch below a G.I. Joe character here.  He's got battlesuits, combat bikes, tanks, mil-spec hovercraft, you name it.  That doesn't make for a very interesting character, especially when a lot of the appeal of Batman is how he uses his physical and mental abilities to win rather than simply outgunning his opponents.

The prison wasn't supposed to be representing evil, but despair. A friend of mine told me, which I apparently missed, that Wayne threw down the rope for others to climb up to safety. If that happened, then that was indeed interesting. He not only saved innocent people from Gotham but also supposed criminals on another continent. 

The prison was really quite nice, all considering. However, Tom Conti, so whatever.

 

Regarding the character of Bruce Wayne/Batman. I've said it before, I'll say it again - the best Batman film is still The Shadow.

 

I caught that on second viewing - he absolutely did throw the rope down for everyone to use to escape.

Weird to start complaining about Batman's gadgets in the first Nolan film to actually strip him of all his trappings and show him rebuilding himself physically and mentally. Also weird: complaining about Batman having tons of gadgets and vehicles when that's been the case with pretty much every onscreen iteration of the character, ever.
 

 

They've been ordered to keep him alive. And it absolutely is Bane's folly to throw Bruce in there and expect him to rot. Bane is so confident that he's broken the man, and so sure that watching Gotham crumble will destroy him even further, than he obviously doesn't consider the possibility of a near-cripple breaking out of a prison that nobody but his one true love has ever escaped from.

 

The prison is also Bane's own personal hellhole and dumping ground now - the Conti character explicitly says as much. Who says the guys in there are evil/monstrous/violent? They're enemies of the League, not criminals. I'm pretty sure the men that have been deposited there over the years by Bane and company would be positively gleeful that a guy in their midst might stand a chance of escape and revenge.

 

Fixed.

This movie was like one step away from showing Batman rebuilding himself by chopping down trees and pulling a snow sleigh across mountains.

 

Granted I don't have a problem with this, but Nolan never sold me on the utter bit of second act despair Bruce was in.

The back-fixer gadget was ye old prison of despair's resident chiropractor. And I guess Bruce is smarter than the rest of the prisoners, in that he figured out that that much rope has weight, and is likely screwing up your leap.

It's one thing for him to have batarangs and grappling hooks and smoke bombs.  It's another for him to have an arsenal that would make some Third World countries jealous.

A  Tumbler - which he doesn't use once this film, mind - plus a bike and a plane. He's hardly going to be invading Canada.
 

 

I've always said one of the best Batman movies was Seven.

 

Oh come on, that "bike" has enough firepower to blast through a twenty-foot tall barricade without a hitch, and that "plane" is essentially a hovering weapons platform.  Don't make it sound like they're just ways he gets around town.

Of course not. But they're also not much different to every other Batman, ever. You don't like Nolan's films, that's fine. There's a lot to take issue with. But you're reaching on stuff like this.

 

But....but...I thought you really disliked grim and gritty Batman? SEVEN is far darker than any of the Nolan films, and would require a much darker Batman.

 

(I love the film, to be clear, and completely see where you're coming from. For me, BLADE [1998] is the best non-Batman Batman film.)

 

It shouldn't have taken place at all.  Talia al Ghul is to The Dark Knight Rises as Gwen Stacy is to Spider-Man 3: a recongizable character from the comics who is needlessly thrown into the mix for fan service.  She cut the legs out from underneath Bane, removed his balls at the most inopportune moment, got the death scene that Bane should have had, and she never should have been in this film at all.  Fuck her.   

 

And not in the way that Bane clearly wants to.

 

It would've been pretty dicky to leave his cheerleaders to rot, don't you think?  DESHI BASARA!

 

It's the idea of the detective work and the out-sized villain.  Killings based on the Seven Deadly Sins?  That's a classic Batman villain right there.

 

I'm not necessarily against a grim and gritty Batman.  I just dislike Nolan's particular brand of it (even if it isn't all that grim and gritty, when you get down to it).

 

Sure, other Batmans had cars and planes.  But they won with their wits and their bodies.  Not because they could avoid anti-aircraft fire and blow up trucks.

And Bruce Wayne didn't use his wits and his body at all here. No sirree.

 

I mean, point me to any Batman film which doesn't prominently feature his gadgets or his vehicles as major elements of his victory. Or most episodes of TV, for that matter.
 

I like my Batman to be more like The Animated Series. Smart, adaptable, less reliant on gadgets.

If you can't see the difference between a boomerang or grappling hook and A FLYING TANK, I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

Spoilers ahoy, those looking on the MAIN boards page.

 

This may change with time, but I'm not agreeing that the reveal at the end invalidates or makes Bane redundant. Talia's not a physical challenge for Batman, not in a straight up fight. And it's classic League strategy to let the world think the leader is someone other than the actual leader. In addition, it gave her cover as the trigger man for as long as needed. 

 

Batman defeated Bane. It was done. The only reason Bane "rises" is betrayal by Talia. Otherwise, he was finished, through a physical, moral and mental victory by Batman. There wasn't anything left to do with the character. Once his ability to withstand pain was restored, a wounded, tired Batman would have been no match. Selina's intervention was the only quick and effective solution to take care of the bomb.

 

My first viewing, I was really ambivalent on Talia. The very late third act reveal seemed too comic book-y or soap opera-ish. However, when the film is taken as the continuation and conclusion of the stories from BEGINS and, to a lesser degree, TDK, it's not. Talia's first bit of dialogue clearly echoes Ra's words ("restore balance") tells Bruce she knows who he is, without quite telling him. The film doesn't cheat, but Nolan DOES screw with audience expectations.

 

The animated Batman didn't have cars, flying machines, grappling hooks, antidotes, supercomputers, etc. and use them regularly and extensively to solve and fight crime?

We must have watched completely different shows, then.

The flying tank that he used an equivalent of in both Burton's BATMAN and Schumacher's BATMAN FOREVER.

 

Also:

 

I don't care if Batman has tons of gadgets or any of that stuff.

Also Bane as silly southern lawyer would be the best version of the character.

 

Neither of which I liked either.

 

Besides, Burton's Batwing got shot down by a revolver.

Like this?

 

Apparently they are using mostly new villians for this one. No Robin or Nightwing as well.