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

Thanks a lot, Inception.

 

See, I thought of the ending to TDKR as an Atonement ending, not an Inception ending (because I've not seen Inception and have no idea how it ends). Cecelia and Robbie never got to live out the lives they deserved to live, so Briony imagined the life they should have had. Bruce died in the nuclear detonation, so Alfred imagined the life that should have been.

At least, that was the way I read it in the theater.

I've come to think that the ending is unintentionally ambiguous. The problem is that Nolan tells us three mutually-exclusive things about the nuclear device. He tells us it's a neutron bomb (in other words, a sub-Hiroshima low-explosive yield, high-radiation yield device), that it has a 6 mile blast radius (in other words, a 700-kiloton device), and that it has a 4-megaton yield (in other words, a 13-mile blast radius).

I still think of "Bruce dies" at the Occam's Razor ending. It's the simplest solution to what's seen on screen. You don't have to invent a scenario to explain how Bruce escapes the explosion that doesn't make the narrative as shown a lie.

 

1. Maybe that's why it was a big deal that that Russian scientist was the only one who knew how to do it.

2. How do you know what "literally" can or can't be done with a fusion reactor when there's no such thing as a man-made fusion reactor?

 

^^^Physics. Unlike normal combustion, where the activation energy is pretty small, the energy required to fuse two nuclei is intrinsically large. That is essentially the engineering problem. It's just too hard to focus that much energy on the small amount of fuel (tritium?) that is in the apparatus. It must be a small amount of fuel or the thing would just be a chain reaction, aka bomb. It's like saying you can turn a microwave into a bomb by putting forty barrels of witches' brew into it. If you could somehow fit the extra fuel in, turning such a reactor into a bomb by just shoving in more fuel wouldn't require much specialized knowledge.

On the other hand, if you posit some handwaving tech in which there is an unobtainium catalyst that (by some paradigm shift in physics) lowers the quantity of energy required to fuse nuclei, it obviously would require greatly specialized knowledge to build/make whatever does this. But once built, such a catalytic process would easily operate on any desired amount of fuel, meaning it would be even easier to turn into a bomb!

Such a thing would be pretty blue sky (gross understatement.) It might explain why Wayne is supposed to decide to suppress the tech. But if it's easy, then why pretend just one person knows how?

 

oh, does the Alfred revelation to Bruce scene remind anyone of that now endlessly mocked scene of Harry Osborn's butler telling Harry "oh by the way, Spider-Man didn't kill your dad. Sorry I didn't tell you earlier. Laters?"

I mean, apparently it's been eight years and just now Alfred realizes his lie didn't make things better like he thought it would?

 

I figured Bruce only then admitted to Alfred, maybe even to himself, that it was all about Rachel.

 

This is close to what I'm saying. Basically I just mean, that if we knew how a fusion reactor would really work, we'd have one. Therefore, it's well within my suspension of disbelief that a practical fusion reactor would have some aspect of how it works that makes it possible to convert it into a bomb, unlike a fission reactor.

Whether C4 is involved or not is not really an issue, but then, I didn't notice the C4 when I saw the movie in the first place. I just thought he reconfigured the caboobledobber and then pulled the whatsahoosit safety control out.

 

Lots of films are open ended. Not everything needs to have a definite answer.

Yeah, and given the escaping of the blast of a 6 mile radius nuclear explosion etc...

Oh.....

 

First off, Guy was talking in the real world, not the movie.


To continue, we do have fusion reactors that work. Lots of them. The problem is that none of them are efficient enough to produce net energy. The physics on how they work are quite well known which is why it can be said that they literally cannot be turned into a bomb. It's one of the many reasons that fusion is better than fission for energy generation. If something goes wrong you won't get a catastrophic failure. It just stops working and maybe does some damage to the reactor in the process.

In the context of the movie I have no problem with "superhero science" turning the device into a bomb. Heck, it was "superhero science" the minute they remove the core and the reactor keeps running.

 

I didn't think the reactor kept running just the computer that was meant to regulate it.

 

Just not this one.

By the same token, not everything needs to be ambiguous simply because some people are hooked on ambiguity.

 

But that kind of defeats the whole point of the ending, that Bruce is finally moving on with his life, just as Alfred always hoped, while passing on the torch to Blake.

The physical logistics of when exactly Batman bailed out don't really matter as far as the overall story is concerned. It's all about the Bruce coming back one last time before riding off into the sunset . . .

(But maybe we can debate this at Shore Leave?)

 

And you're quite welcome to believe that.

You need to see something ambiguous before you think that way though.

And just for the record when I watched the film I didn't see it any other way than you did. I thought Bruce survived etc. But I do think others are welcome to think differently and I can see their points are valid.

But also you could say that Bruce dying is him finally having peace too. Although that's a lot darker an ending.

I don't have much problems with Bruce moving on though. I think Nolan's Bruce Wayne has always been waiting for a day to let things go and move on.

 

Well obviously he didn't end up being the Batman of the comics, but it still appeared in the first two movies that he was headed in that direction. And it certainly seemed to be the intention that this would be the most faithful depiction of the character we've ever seen.

I get that this is supposed to be Batman's last story, and that's something I was really looking forward to seeing. I just don't buy that it would ever end up being this "happy and wonderful", or that he'd be so easily cured of his obsession with helping the innocent and avenging his parents' death.

 

Problem for me is not all of it seems to "add up," between the construction of the Batcave and all of that to not have this movie series end with Bruce in full-swing in the Batman career.

 

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

 

Not really. Firstly, 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.

Secondly, in The Dark Knight his entire goal is to protect Harvey Dent so that Gotham can have "a hero with a face", and he can hang up the cape and be with Rachel.

So he wasn't headed in the direction of being the Batman from the comics at all.

Faithful to what? Batman has had many interpretations over the years, and only a few of them have been the fully obsessed, I'll die before I take off the cape, I am the night Batman.

Nolan certainly picked up the tone of his universe from that interpretation, but his take on the character's goals has always been very different.

Nolan's Batman is not doing this to avenge his parents' deaths. He wanted to murder Joe Chill to avenge their deaths and was denied that - he explains that to Ra's while in training. I could even argue that Nolan's Batman is not obsessed with helping the innocent - he's actually obsessed with death, first his parents', then Rachel's. What feels weird about TDKR is that his reaction to Rachel's death is the opposite of his reaction to his parents - their deaths spurred him to action, hers shut him down. It would have been more effective to explore that a little, indicate that he felt fully responsible for Rachel's death because his activity as Batman unleashed the insanity of the Joker, who had been merely a two-bit operator before. That he quit because he'd done the opposite of what he'd wanted to do - inspired death instead of hope. That theme skirts around the edges of TDKR, but is never developed.

 

I actually enjoyed this movie more than the last one. Here, I said it.

Sue me.

 

Well, I loved The Dark Knight but I really enjoyed Rises too. I'm not sure yet if it's better that TDK yet...I need to see it again to figure that out.

Anne Hathaway was great as Catwoman...

 

I've seen in twice now and the second time things seemed to draw on even longer. Likely cause I wasn't waiting for any reveals, hanging on every speech for a clue as to what happens next. The things that don't make any sense don't get any better.

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?

That said I did like having a very faithful, near perfect adaptation of Bane (stupid breather mask aside) and his stories the past 20yrs come to the screen. Nice that Talia is also finally introduced to the masses from his Rogues gallery.
Yet, I'm saddened we never got a Riddler, Penguin, Black Mask or Croc showing in a Nolan film.

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.