THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Post-release thread..... - Page 19

The nitpicking has officially now gotten ridiculous. 

 

But what's wrong with Alfred leaving? I thought it was obvious that him "giving up" was essentially the feeling that he had failed Bruce all of these years. That realization only came to pass when Alfred saw that Bruce was wanting to don the cape and cowl once more. Burning the letter, guiding Bruce's hand through his trials and tribulations on being the Bat... it was all in vein. He was wanting to die doing it. And Alfred always wanted Bruce to have a life of his own. He just couldn't stand by and watch him destroy it, so he left.

There's nothing wrong with Alfred leaving. Had he stayed he would've become a plot device for Bane and probably ended up dying for forced-dramas' sake. Either that or he would've stayed and people would've nitpicked about why Bane just didn't use Alfred as a threat to Bruce.

I'm confused by how people can love The Dark Knight and complain about the plotholes in this, even though Dark Knight has the exact same ridiculous plotholes.

 

Hey, remember when Two-Face shot the limo driver and the limo flipped over and it apparently killed Eric Roberts and the driver, but not Two-Face for some reason?

And that some reason being... the seat belt!

 

Shaun, that's what I thought would happen with Alfred. I'm glad it didn't go that way. Alfred's departure was pretty logical with his progression.

He put on his seatbelt, Mangy. No way he never, ever could've possibly died.

 

Did I mention he was running around the city with his face half-melted off?

And while we're at it, can you really believe in Two-Face? Maybe Harvey should have died on that hospital bed!

I like the movie. It also has the exact same issues the new movie does. If anything, I found Dark Knight Rises to be less murky at points than TDK.

Those may be the movies we deserve, but not the ones we need right now. 

 

For me at least, much of the problem stemmed from the fact that the majority of the early going (and parts of the latter) seemed to exist simply because we need to be given a bunch of information then rushed to the next scene, which rather than making the plot feel brisk gave the impression that we were sort of treading water until things actually started happening. There were certainly plotholes in TDK, but even though I wasn't a huge fan of that film each scene was entertaining enough that I was (mostly) engaged moment to moment and so it was easier to just go along with the film's moments of spotty logic. TDKR on the other hand often just left me disengaged and waiting for large chunks, and as a result it was a lot easier to dwell upon the "nitpicks" that others have mentioned and have them cumulatively damper the experience.

 

I think it was on the El Mariachi commentary track, but Robert Rodriquez mentioned that the very nature of film-making means that there will inevitably be minor lapses and breaks in the artificial reality (the rapid day/night thing for instance), but the sign of a quality film is that people are too caught up in the meat of the story to notice or care. I think the amount of specific complaints may represent a much more fundamental problem, that for some the movie simply failed to provide immersion and thus left itself open to detached scrutiny.

 

This 100 times. Of these, I think it's Modine's character that's most problematic/unnecessary. Selina provides both a mirror for Bruce AND an inspiration; he intuits that she wants to not only evade the law, but start life over again. She provides him with the path out, with a companion to brave it, and the partner he needs to save the city.

 

Yeah, I get all that, and trust me, I want her in the movie. I want her really really bad. I'm just talking in terms of plot she doesn't serve a lot of purpose. My examples were more to get people talking about story choices and off of nitpicks.

 

My main problem with Alfred leaving isn't that it doesn't make sense, it's just that when he's gone there's this emotional hole in the movie that feels unbalanced. I'm sure that's by design, but it was just tough for me to soldier through. Alfred is the heart of these movies, Lucius is the brain, and Gordon is the soul. When one is absent things seem off.

I was expecting Alfred to pop back up when Bruce escapes the pit, or to be among the people in Gotham when Bruce returns (with his planning skills, he'd be pretty useful for divvying up the food and supplies that were brought in, no?). While I actually fucking loved the smile and nod at the end, I could've used an actual exchange between the two before Batman flies off to his doom. But logistically, with everything going on, it probably was hell trying to keep all the pieces straight, so I can't begrudge them too much.

My problem is that aside from the argument on the stairs and the sleepy "Alfred?" when he wakes up the next morning, Bruce hardly notices he's gone.  It might affect the audience (and moreso because we miss Caine, not the character), but Alfred's absence has no real impact on the story that we're shown on-screen.

By the way, I was totally fine with Alfred leaving. He was always barely accepting of this scheme to begin with, but tried to support Bruce the best he could. He could see how bad news bears Bane was, and could see that Bruce was going to walk right into his death, and what parent (cause after 25-ish years of being there, what else IS Alfred?) can bear to stand idly by and watch that? And even that aside, Michael Caine freaking killed me in that scene. There were a few tears that got out during that exchange, I'm not ashamed to admit. 

 

Yeah, this is sort of the root of my problem with it. Alfred's absence is barely felt, and in exchange we get, what? More Matthew who-gives-a-fuck Modine. It was these sort of story choices that I think hurt the movie far more than quibbling details.

 

Agreed.  Bruce's sole constant in life is gone, and not a single fuck is given by Bruce.  Does Bruce even mention Alfred after he leaves, sleepy "Alfred?" aside?  Does it affect him at all, aside from not having keys to Wayne Manor?

 

I'm with you on this.

 

I think sticking closer to a pulpy vibe made the plot holes seem less egregious. It was the clashing tones in The Dark Knight that amplified the pacing issues and plot contrivances. The final third was in many ways just as bad as that of the first film, worse in some respects as we went from relatively straight up crime drama (although caped vigilante using a sky-hook to abduct a criminal from a high rise building isn't Lumet, I'll grant you) to a man running round with half his face burned off shooting people, and a zombie cellphone sonar network.

 

This tonally held together better and didn't put as much strain on the occasionally awkward plot movements, although I think the problem with both The Dark Knight, this and Avengers (to lump them shamelessly together) is that at points all three tried to make up for dodgy drama with complication and contrivance. All three Nolan Bat-films and the Marvel team up are delivered with more than enough chutzpah to get me over the bumps though, but I can see mileage varies.

 

I heard the comparison the other day with Return of the Jedi. I'm not as offended as some by the emasculation of Han and the Ewoks, but I'll agree Jedi is flawed. It gets the Luke and Vader arc perfectly right though, much like TDKR deals with Bruce's journey well, have lots of decent pay offs and emotional beats and both have a cracking final hour or so. For those reasons alone I more than happily watch Jedi again, and I'll do the same with this.

I could overlook those plotholes because atleast the scenes with the Joker were fun and interesting.  And Harvey Dent was good too.

 

TDKR was just boring.  Batman gone for 8 years, a magical piece of Legislation cleans up Gotham, a magical card gets Bruce Wayne bankrupt, reposession in magic time.  None of these things are real in a series thats series thats suppose to be grounded in reality.

 

And couldn't they have given us another bad guy as the judge besides Scarecrow?  I'm sure this was suppose to be Joker but it would have been cool to see someone else?  Riddler, Penquin, Harley Quinn?  A cameo like that would have been great. 

 

I would also love to see this movie with the origional Bane voice mix.

I don't get why people say it would be the Joker.  Unless that was what was scripted, and even then it made no sense.

The Scarecrow always worked for the League.  The Joker played everyone and it seems unlikely they'd trust him to run around at all, even if it's not like it's an actual court.  It makes perfect sense to have the cameo villain be the Scarecrow rather than somebody that has his own agenda.

I don't think Modine's character was totally unnecessary. His role was to show how authority figures placed into no order, extreme conditions, handle their current lack of power. He wasn't ready to die for the city to save its people. To protect it. Not until Gordon beats it into his fucking head how much of a coward he is. 

 

Just another voice of agreement here. Alfred leaving I bought, and am fine with, plot-wise. The film's complete dropping of the ball of directly dealing with it is, I think, the film's biggest error. 

 

One small thing I loved, and caught it both viewings: Bane makes this soft "Ahhhhh!" sound in the prologue, when the plane drops 90 degrees down and he lets himself fall down the aisleway. Hardy isn't getting nearly enough love for what he does with the role. 

Look at that! We've found the one person who actually disliked Cillian reprising his role again.

 

But how much time passes between Alfred leaving and Bane breaking Batman? A day? Enough for him to try to fix the Dagget/energy device problem, get Selina to take him to Bane, then have moments of connection with Blake and Talia (during which pre-conjugal conversation he does mention Alfred again and that "he took everything"). He's committed to finding and confronting Bane, and the rest I read as being pretty much motivated by the immediate need to deal with the fall out from losing his fortune, and a sense of reaching out to deal with emotional loss (of Alfred) and impending demise.

 

Also, are people seriously wondering if the final scene with Alfred is a dream? Invalidated by the previous scene with Fox finding out about the autopilot and the fact that Alfred never saw Bruce and Selina together before, presumably?

 

And the lawyer at the end said that Bruce hadn't updated his will since losing his fortune. Does that mean he planned on donating the house to the orphans and making Blake his successor before the stock exchange attack? If so, he was already at a pretty low enough point to make those arrangements in anticipation of getting his arse kicked by Bane. If so, that rather makes the loss of his fortune more of a device to get Talia into position and less meaningful in terms of stripping down Bruce.

 

Yes. Even if we grant the Joker's in Gotham - and Harley makes some good points as to why he might not be - Bane would either just kill him outright of leave him locked. The Joker, freed, would 1) most definitely fuck with Bane's plans and 2) likely not allow anyone but himself to kill Batman. 

 

The Scarecrow's cameo provides thematic and visual consistency. Having it be some entirely new villain would be more distracting and quite jarring to the film. Riddler or Penguin? When we haven't seen or heard anything of them at all? I thought it was a great cameo, and it's also an interesting side comment from Nolan: one of Batman's first foes remains alive and potentially freed - AGAIN - despite all his efforts.

The Scarecrow sucked in the first film and in a movie that has Batman crippled for half of it this would have been the perfect place to have a kick ass villian have some fun. 

It should have been Lock Up.

 

Because the movie wasn't juggling enough already.

You're forgetting! Alfred being gone makes Bruce so depressed he sleeps with Marion Collitard! (Watching that scene again, it seems Bruce is even more saddened by Alfred leaving than by the thought of Rachel).

 

Did I have problems with this movie? Yes. Tons of exposition dumps in the first hour or so, some great ideas that were too half baked, some pretty "huh?" decisions made (look, I get it Batman, no killing...unless your shooting at the driver of a giant truck with your giant bat plane...but would it have killed you to shoot a net or something at those mercenaries in front of city hall at the end there so that less cops would be shoot and killed? And not to get off on too much of a tangent, but the fact that we just cut from Bruce in the Bat to him walking towards Bane is a REAL missed opportunity to recreate one of my favorite moments of Dark Knight Returns: Why not have Bane mock Batman for hiding behind his awesome plane, too afraid to face him one on one, only for Batman to land it and step out to face him one on one, a la Returns? No? Am I alone in thinking that would have been awesome?) .

 

But this is the best damn ENDING for Batman that we'll ever see. He gets to die and inspire the people. He gets to retire and be happy and content. He gets to pass on the mantle so that no matter what, should Gotham be threatened again, there will always be a Batman to protect it. Any problems I had with the movie were overshadowed by Nolan just getting the ENDING for Batman so damn right. 

 

Not to mention Hathaway made me go "Michelle who?"

"Hey Bane, before you kill me, you know that woman you've been pinning over for years and would do anything for? Totally banged her. Have fun in the friend zone!" 

How hard would it be?  All the Scarecrow did was sit there and cracked a joke.

 

What if Bane knew Bruce banged her?  I think Talia's the kind of chick who would gloat about that shit.  Gives Bane extra motivation to snap his back, methinks.

 

I actually tweeted that immediately after seeing it.  Guy totally got friendzoned.  "He loved her" or somesuch followed up by Talia's last words to him, "You are a great friend."  And then he gets unceremoniously blown away by an anti-tank gun.

 

Also, I'll second your love for Hathaway in this.  Her first switch from innocent maid to Catwoman was just a great little bit of acting.

 

Introducing a new villain with the stature of the Riddler or the Penguin for such a brief appearance would have distracted from an already-cluttered narrative and be yet another ball in the air. It could never be just a cameo; the audience would be constantly wondering when Batman would have to kick the Penguin's ass too.

Quote:

 

Not just blown away, but blown away by Batman's new girlfriend.  That's gotta be extra burn.

 

"You think the friend zone is your ally? You merely adopted the friend zone. I was born in it; molded by it. I didn't see the zone until I was already a man. By then, it was nothing to me but BLINDING!"

I'm confident that Bane knew that Talia and Wayne did the dirty. "You know I'll have to kill you now?" Came across as a personal thing to me.

The dismissal of legitimate criticism as nitpicking is not becoming. Some things bother people, some don't. Sometimes little things that one might overlook become larger when taken in aggregate. Plot inspired ignorance of the Gotham SEC may be minor, but when taken in combination with the bizarre google fu and expositoon when it comes to researching Bane, the constant life saving arrival of aid on both sides, the incredible shrinkage of time and space, the Blake knowing who batman is, not by deduction but by seeing a smile... it adds up to bad for me. If it doesn't for you, awesome, but don't call them nitpicks.

When the explosives go off, we see explosions all around the city. It's an epic, evocative display. Blake is caught in a hell on earth. It was extraordinary. I really liked that.

When faramir makes one last fateful attack to stem the tide of the invasion in return of the king, we know it's a bad decision and bLame denethor and his insanity. Who gets the blame for sending every cop in Gotham into the sewers? Was that really the most effective search pattern?

"You'll just have to imagine the heat." "Already felt it coming off your girlfriend's body!" "RAAAAAAAAH!"

Also, I never took Blake's bit about seeing Bruce smile as that being his only clue as to who Batman was. It was more like, he saw the anger underneath Wayne's smile (the same anger he feels), and knew the whole doltish billionaire playboy persona was an act. From there, it was just a matter of asking himself: "What does an angry guy with infinite resources DO with his free time?"

I think in the film he's talking about the dark, and when he roars out that last line he says BRIGHT!!  It's hard to tell, he delivers it in an incredibly cool kind of shriek thing.

 

Here's an idea, Talia specifically sleeps with Bruce for the sole purpose that Bane would find out, just to make absolutely sure that Bane was 100 percent invested in hurting Bruce as badly as possible.  I wouldn't put it past her.

I don't get all this "Bane wants Talia" talk. I still think he thought of her like a little sister. He protected her when she was a small child and she called him her protector and friend. Do people think he was in love with her because he had a tear at the end?

 

I thought it was because he was fucked up from Batman screwing up his mask and/or felt Talia's pain at recounting how she was abandoned as a child. I thought Bane was just feeling the effects of sympathy or injury, not some unrequited love thing. That's why I don't get this idea of him being reduced to her henchmen or bitch or whatever.

 

On a more positive note, I like how someone referred to Bane as "bad news bears". One of the most fun moments I had watching the movie was when Bane snapped Dr. Pavel's neck in front of the football stadium crowd. I turned to my friend and said, "This guy is bad news".

Edited by Naisu Baddi - 7/25/12 at 2:28pm

I thought the Crane cameo was kind of perfect.

 

And as a whole, I thought the movie just worked.  I was surprised how often I was willing to roll with it.  The weird 5 month countdown on the bomb irked me at first, but whatever.  Its there to usher in the extended climax, and honestly I thought the whole 'Gotham under Bane' piece was some of the most interesting and thrilling stuff in the entire series.

 

Also great: Gary Oldman fumbling around with the bomb in the back of a speeding truck for the final 10 minutes of the movie.

 

In summation, I'd say TDK is probably the best, but I had way more fun with TDKR.   

 

All of Bane's monologuing in that scene is fantastic. He's got a true, modern Darth Vader thing happening, and it's fucking great. The way he says "Members... of the League of Shadows..." is particularly good. You get a sense of both reverence and disdain at the same time. Hardy was having the time of his life, and it shows.

Yeah haha he really sinks his teeth into "Leeeeague of SHAW DOWS."

 

Agreed. I still don't get the "Bane wants Talia" talk. I never got that idea from the film for a second. I saw them as an evil tag-team. Bane is the big bad dude who snaps necks and rallies the troops. Talia is the sneaky partner who infiltrates from within.

 

That was a great monologue. I was less impressed by his monologue upon freeing the prisoners of Blackgate. I don't know if it's because I know he was being disingenuous, but he really seemed disingenuous.

Actually I kind of have to agree with you guys.  The only actual implication that Bane love loves Talia is the way he's looking at her at the end.

 

I got more whipped dog than lap dog there.

The Crane cameo is such an odd thing to get hung up on (and using a random villain a dumb "fix" for something that isn't broken).  

 

The stock exchange mechanics is exactly the type of thing we would shrug off in a typical action movie that doesn't have the same pretensions to intelligence.  But Nolan's take, which doles out so much attention to shell companies and MCU's and marked bills and extradition laws and electro-activated fabrics, begs us to question these sort of logistics.

 

On that note, I just didn't buy No Man's Land (as good as the basic concept is) in the Nolanverse on a fundamental level.  Pointlessness of the plan to blow it all up anyway aside, I just didn't buy that the government would let it happen (minus a weak ass SEAL attempt or so), that the citizens would settle into the situation as they did, the cops would just sit in the sewer nibbling on their rations, all for months on end.  I just had to keep telling myself to roll with it, this is the premise of the movie (see: immersion, antonyms).

 

One thing that didn't bother me at all?  Blake figuring out Batman on his own.  Once you've realized that Wayne the bimbo billionaire is an act, it's not like it's an amazingly difficult secret to unravel.  It establishes that Blake is smart and a kindred spirit.  JGL sold the monologue like no one's business.