"The Dark Knight Rises" Review and Discussion Thread (spoilers)

[Set Harth]

Captain Craig wrote:

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It's still a solid film, I'll own it but it's not a go to film. I can't say I enjoy them.

Why do you want to own films you don't enjoy?

[The Borgified Corpse]

^Obsessive completeism is one of the major pillars of the geek psyche.

Captain Craig wrote:

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I guess to wrap this up like Nolan wanted to do he had to circle back to League of Shadows. The LOS was never referenced in TDK which for me makes returning them a bit meh. It'll be like circling back to the Ten Rings when no mention was made in IM2, despite the implication they were there. Would it have been so tough to toss out a LOS reference in TDK?

While there may not have been an overt League of Shadows reference in The Dark Knight, I frequently felt their presence in the movie. In particular, when Bruce is talking to Alfred about the Joker and Bruce dismisses the Joker, saying "Criminals aren't complicated," echoing Ra's Al-Ghul.

Lapis Exilis wrote:

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Bruce makes it a point in BBegins to call Batman a symbol (and he returns to that idea in TDKR, telling Blake, "Batman is a symbol. He could be anyone. That's the whole point of Batman.")- that's a far cry from the preferred interpretation in the comics and animated series where Bruce thinks of himself as Batman first and everything else second. In Nolan's universe, he doesn't consider Batman anything but a tool to fulfill Bruce Wayne's goals.

Perhaps, although Rachel didn't seem to buy it. The reason why she rejected him in both Batman Begins & The Dark Knight was because she felt that Batman was too large & inseparable an aspect of his personality.

[Samurai8472]

This is nuts

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml

A source said: 'He wanted to kill Bale who plays Batman, along with the rest of the cast and God knows how many innocent people.'In his sick fantasy he wanted to strike a blow on Gotham City which represents New York City in the movie. It was the fantasy of this deranged monster.

[sojourner]

Guartho wrote:

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This is genuinely surprising news to me. Where are they?

Stunning. stunning example of "out of context". I applaud you.

[Captain Craig]

Mach5 wrote:

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Croc? In na NOLAN film? You may as well throw in Mr. Freeze, while you're at it. Played by Arnold.

So what you're telling me is your only exposure and knowledge of Croc are the appearances via the Animated appearances over the last 20yrs. Croc was initially a strong arm who wanted to start a criminal empire in Gotham with himself as one of bosses. His appearance was still human just with skin that had a scaly condition look. So, yeah, a much more true to his roots type Croc could easily have been in a Nolan film.

Set Harth wrote:

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Why do you want to own films you don't enjoy?

Re-reading it I did not fully lay out my complete thought there so I see the confusion I caused.

I don't enjoy them as much as some other films but they are still good enough to own and re-watch on occasion. Just not as occasionally as some other super hero films of late.

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

In the context of a comic book movie, why do some people have a problem with Batman surviving the blast by, say, diving underwater? Assuming of course that, as we're shown almost immediately afterward, the autopilot was in fact functional and he could have bailed out with enough time that he wouldn't be right under the blast? It doesn't seem to me much more of a stretch than Gordon being in the back of that truck that crashed without any seatbelt and a big metal globe rolling around and coming out with merely a minor injury to his arm. (Or the Joker being in that other truck that flipped over and crawling out with just a crick in his neck, or Bats and Rachel falling off the building and landing with enough force to crush a car but being fine, to use examples from outside this film.)

Would it necessarily work in real life? No. But it doesn't seem unbelievable for Batman, especially since we already know he was more prepared than he was letting on in the moments before he took off with the bomb.

[Sci]

The Mighty Monkey of Mim wrote:

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In the context of a comic book movie, why do some people have a problem with Batman surviving the blast by, say, diving underwater? Assuming of course that, as we're shown almost immediately afterward, the autopilot was in fact functional and he could have bailed out with enough time that he wouldn't be right under the blast? It doesn't seem to me much more of a stretch than Gordon being in the back of that truck that crashed without any seatbelt and a big metal globe rolling around and coming out with merely a minor injury to his arm. (Or the Joker being in that other truck that flipped over and crawling out with just a crick in his neck, or Bats and Rachel falling off the building and landing with enough force to crush a car but being fine, to use examples from outside this film.)

Would it necessarily work in real life? No. But it doesn't seem unbelievable for Batman, especially since we already know he was more prepared than he was letting on in the moments before he took off with the bomb.

I.... really think surviving any proximity to a nuclear bomb requires much more suspension of disbelief than those other examples. You're not talking about surviving being near literally enough energy being released to destroy a city.

[Caliburn24]

Wait a second, people are actually silly enough to think TDKR has some sort of ambiguous ending? I know people want to read into it like Inception or something, but it is a pretty cut and dry ending. Forbes puts it succinctly.

First of all, let me clear one thing up right away — yes, Bruce Wayne really is still alive at the end. For some reason that escapes me, a segment of fans are insisting it’s “open to interpretation” whether Bruce actually is sitting in that cafe, or if it’s just Alfred’s imagination. But there should be no confusion, the shot of Bruce at the cafe comes amid a montage of scenes showing each person close to Bruce finding out a bit of information revealing Bruce survived the nuclear blast. Lucius finds out Bruce secretly did repair the autopilot on “the Bat,” Gordon finds a repaired bat-signal on the roof of the MCU (contrary to some reviewer’s misunderstanding, Gordon didn’t repair it himself, he walks up and looks shocked to find the new bat-signal, runs a hand over it, grins, and looks around, all in the montage about Bruce’s actions), John Blake gets a big bag full of equipment and a GPS locator, and Alfred gets Bruce’s money and then sees Bruce at the cafe. Bruce’s arc ends with him finally being able to move on with his life, and without that fulfillment Bruce would actually have no true character arc (getting his back fixed and climbing out of the hole to fight Bane again is not a full arc, for those inclined to say the climb out of the pit is the major point in his arc).

Sure, the ending is chock full of rather outlandish implausible elements, but the entire trilogy has problems of that nature. It does not equate to Nolan pulling some tricky ambiguous ending that runs counter to anything seen in the films previously.

[RoJoHen]

Greg Cox wrote:

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Well, aside from Rachel dying . . . and Batman being blamed for Dent's murder . . .

scnj wrote:

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But Joker's big plan involved breaking Harvey Dent. Joker's story is integral.

Well yes, I get that. It's hard to explain what I mean. Certain events in TDK are certainly required for TDKR to make any sense, but the movie as a whole just doesn't "feel" like it belongs in this trilogy.

[Warped9]

Caliburn24 wrote:

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Wait a second, people are actually silly enough to think TDKR has some sort of ambiguous ending? I know people want to read into it like Inception or something, but it is a pretty cut and dry ending. Forbes puts it succinctly.

Sure, the ending is chock full of rather outlandish implausible elements, but the entire trilogy has problems of that nature. It does not equate to Nolan pulling some tricky ambiguous ending that runs counter to anything seen in the films previously.

This. I'd be hardpressed to think of any film that didn't take liberties with reality as we know it for the sake of story, particularly a superhero film.

[Venardhi]

Captain Craig wrote:

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So what you're telling me is your only exposure and knowledge of Croc are the appearances via the Animated appearances over the last 20yrs. Croc was initially a strong arm who wanted to start a criminal empire in Gotham with himself as one of bosses. His appearance was still human just with skin that had a scaly condition look. So, yeah, a much more true to his roots type Croc could easily have been in a Nolan film.

Indeed. He is no more difficult to explain than the Joker or Bane, certainly, and has just as much potential for use in a grounded dark Batman story.

[trekkiebaggio]

Apparently a few people have been citing similarities between TDKR and Rocky sequels. IGN posted an article which lists a few of the common elements.

How TDKR is like a Rocky Sequel

[Venardhi]

Kevin Smith brought that up in his latest Fat Man on Batman/Smodcast. That whole pattern is kind of a hero's journey trope.

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Sci wrote:

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I.... really think surviving any proximity to a nuclear bomb requires much more suspension of disbelief than those other examples. You're not talking about surviving being near literally enough energy being released to destroy a city.

The blast radius was said to be 6 miles IIRC. All it really comes down to is believing that the Bat's top speed is sufficient to put whatever "minimum safe distance" you feel is necessary between him and the blast by the time it reached full bloom. He did exactly what Catwoman assumed he'd do before he pointed out that he couldn't because there was no autopilot. But later we find out the autopilot had been fixed.

[Captain Craig]

^^^
The only issue with that is in the closing moments you see three things in this order:
-Batman in the cockpit
-timer on the bomb to :05 seconds
-Blake on the bridge viewing the bomb going off

How much minimum safe distance can you get on 6 mile blast radius in 5 seconds?
He's not Superman, no ejection system is going to get that accomplished. It's suddenly asking for lots of suspension of disbelief in a saga that more or less has enjoyed being steeped in a mostly real world of application toys for Batman. Furthermore with Blake and others watching how would you not see an "escape moment"?