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

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by JacksonArcher, Jul 10, 2012.

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How do you rate "The Dark Knight Rises"?

  1. Excellent

    147 vote(s)
    58.3%
  2. Good

    61 vote(s)
    24.2%
  3. Fair

    26 vote(s)
    10.3%
  4. Poor

    12 vote(s)
    4.8%
  5. Terrible

    6 vote(s)
    2.4%
  1. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The other reason is that John Blake becomes the next BATMAN, not some version of Robin.
     
  2. C_Miller

    C_Miller Captain Captain

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    I don't necessarily think it needed to be a secret.
     
  3. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Commodore Commodore

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    He was alreadyRobin in TDKR . Just not a costumed sidekick. But still a young assistant, apprentice to Batman. Who is an orphan and knows Bruce is Batman. That sounds like Robin to me.

    The ending is Robin will take over as the new Batman. Almost every story in the comics about Batman's successor has it being Robin. When you think about, Robin never was just a sidekick but Batman's apprentice in the comics too. The movie takes all those ideas just leaves out the costume.

    The name "John Blake" is irrelevant. He only says that as his first name once at the end. Otherwise he is only called "Blake" through the whole film. Same with his name in the end credits.

    Something I never seen anyone notice is the significance of how we learn his name is Robin. Bruce Wayne listed him in his will under that name. Which means Batman knows him as Robin. That is very symbolic of who the character is.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2012
  4. Flying Spaghetti Monster

    Flying Spaghetti Monster Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Of course it did. You remember how much attention every single detail of this film got attention before it came out. If any of the familiar Robin names got out, people would have spread it like WildFire, and read into every shot that the pre-release material had, whether it had that actor or not
     
  5. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well, yeah. Blake was never a Flying Wallenda, and was a cop before having anything to do with the Batcave.
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Commodore Commodore

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    In Nolan's version of Batman a child sidekick would not have worked. But he still kept as many elements from the comics as possible. Remember Robin still met Bruce as a child. He was also inspired by the image of a heroic Batman. He became a cop partially because of Batman.
     
  7. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Making his first name "Robin" was somewhat silly. But it was still a moment that made me smile. I dunno.

    I watched the movie recently on BD, got it for Christmas, and really it's hard for me to get enthusiastic about it. There's just a LOT of problems in it that are hard to overlook. I can overlook the silly microwave/water boiling machine in the first movie, or how The Joker managed to two ferries with explosives and other contrivances in his plan(s) in the second one but the third movie, I think, asks way too much.

    IIRC in the comics Bane spent MONTHS breaking down Batman, wearing him out, to buy himself time to discover his secrets, breaking people out of Blackgate/Arkham and so on. Here, until we're shown he's working with Talia, we're pretty much led to believe he just "knew" where to attack Batman's armory. The comic version strikes me as more interesting.

    Then, somehow, Bane is able to plant all of these explosives all over the city in the concrete (what? The Gotham recently rebuild the football stadium and most of their centuries-old sewer tunnels? Gordon and the police just thought it was a good idea to send the vast majority of their officers into the sewers?

    How DID Wayne get back into Gotham?

    And, what, the government just pretty much let Gotham stay occupied under siege for MONTHS?! And kept sending in supplies and such? What?!

    Much of this movie doesn't make sense, and really, as good as Hardy was in this he's just not nearly as interesting watch as the Joker and his Sean Connery-ian accent is hard to find intimidating with bulking hulk that he is. It's like watching Mike Tyson talk. You know he can turn you into pulp but you can't help but laugh.

    And, really, would it have been that big of a deal to work the Venom into the story somehow? Couldn't it just have been a powerful artificial steroid Bane was using that was constantly being pumped into him through the mask rather than, "Uhhh... anesthetic. His face got jacked up.. or something."

    And Wayne's recovery is pretty remarkable. Apparently all he needed was some fancy techno kneebrace to overcome the complete lack of cartilage in the joint. And, of course, it's hard to ignore him going into retirement for 8 years after only being Batman for ONE year. He retires because his girlfriend died, apparently more devastating and life-shattering than his parents being murdered right in front of him so he goes complete emo for 8 years.

    There's just a lot of flaws in this movie and they don't all add up and leave me unsatisfied. I enjoyed it, it's "good" and certainly better than the other Batman franchise but hardly think it breaks the "curse" of the third superhero movie always being the worst one. (Of course it's leaps and bounds better than Batman Forever, Spider-Man 3 or Superman 3.)
     
  8. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    ...but now you know better, right?

    He entered the cave system connected to the Batcave, got in the Bat, and flew into the city.

    Or he snuck in with the food shipments.

    The presumed alternative was kaboom.

    It's all Obi-Wan's fault! He was holding him back!
     
  9. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Now that I think about it, how did TALIA know about the armory? It was off the books and she presumably knew about it BEFORE Wayne Enterprises was signed back to her.

    Then Bane sucked at closing off the city and the military sucked at getting INTO the city.

    Say New York City is seized by terrorists in a similar fashion. They've blown up all of the bridges and tunnels, save one, for supply shipments. They've managed to neutralize local law enforcement -as well as any military stations/personnel that may be in the city- released prisoners and simply have small army of people to hold the city. They threaten to blow up the city with a nuke should anyone leave or enter the city.

    Do you REALLY think the President, Congress, the military and, hell, the American people are just going to shrug and say, "Whadda you gonna do?! Send them a truck full of food every couple of weeks and we'll call it good."
     
  10. Set Harth

    Set Harth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yes, the fact that Bane did not manage to encase Gotham in a giant impenetrable sphere does indeed mean that he sucked. As for the military, kaboom.

    In the real world? I have no idea. In any event, kaboom. ( Which would involve political fallout if not the other kind. )

    And I don't see what the attitude of "the American people" has to do with it. So what if they don't like it? The vast majority would just bitch and complain, and any few that tried to get in would be stopped by the military.
     
  11. Yminale

    Yminale Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    You just complained that Bane showed no evidence of long term planning but the attack on the armory and the stadium showed other wise. As for being off the books, well it's called a paper trail.

    Well that's what happened during Katrina (and Sandy), so yes I do buy it.
     
  12. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    That the attack on the armory and stadium "shows otherwise" isn't evidence of long-term planning it's evidence that "something" must have happened but we're never shown it so we're left to assume it did. We just know that "somehow" Bane got explosives all over the city, in bridges and tunnels and in the stadium and that "somehow" he knew where to set-up shop under Batman's armory but we're never really told why. It's the same thing as how The Joker was able to get so many explosives planted onto city ferries. But it's a bit bigger and more complex because what Bane pulls off is much more massive in scale, done without organized crime being in the city, and did it while being completely off the radar.

    As I recall, the American people were VERY upset with what happened with Katrina. (And the fairly minor missteps with Sandy are hardly comparable to the week-long clusterfuck of Katrina. Unless the media has just not mentioned rapes and murders happening in a New Jersey stadium.)

    Also slow response to a natural disaster in a city is very different than a large region being held hostage by a nuclear weapon over a period of MONTHS.

    That's the thing that's easy to forget in this movie... MONTHS passed between the incident in the football stadium that started everything and when Bane activates the reactor and the end of the movie. Something like six months, as I recall. That's also six months where presumably there wasn't much going on in Gotham as far as maintaining public works infrastructure and systems. Pipes, powerlines, tunnels, trains, all stuff that needs to be maintained regularly and won't sit well for six months.

    Yeah, Bane's plan in this movie just doesn't hold up well under scrutiny. As I said above, the microwave thing buys a handwave because it's pretty much thrown in there as just "something" Batman has to do to prove his worth to the city. The movie is really about something else, not the microwave doo-hickey (which obviously has huge problems too.) Joker's Sophie's Choice and much of what he does involves levels of planning that'd be hard to pull off and his Rube Goldbergian series of events also had to go PERFECTLY for everything to work. It also buys and hand wave thanks to Ledger's chilling, thrilling and endlessly watchable performance of The Joker.

    TDKR has neither of those to fall back on. Hardy was good but it was hard to get as wrapped up in his performance enough to hand wave what he pulls off, and the movie simply asks us to accept too much. I don't even think Ledger's Joker could've bought this much hand waving.

    As I said above, I think TDKR is good, but it just has a LOT of problems that I find it hard to look over. Bane's plan and how it is executed is one of them.
     
  13. Agent Richard07

    Agent Richard07 Admiral Admiral

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    I loved that voice. It was better than making him sound like some clichéd brute with a deep gruff voice, the kind you usually get with tough guys.

    Agreed. The anesthetic gas was pretty weak. They could have done something better with the mask.

    I got the impression that he quit, not only because Rachel died, but because he was in over his head and because the crime bosses had been rounded up anyway.
     
  14. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Commodore Commodore

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    He retired because he thought he achieved what he set out to do. People have miss understood the effect of Rachel's death.

    Bruce had envisioned his life after Batman being with her. Without her and without a needed to be Batman he had no idea what to do with himself. The public image of Bruce Wayne was an act. He was not going to be that guy for real. He clearly did but some time into Wayne Enterprises before his full seclusion.
     
  15. GalaxyX

    GalaxyX Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I don't know if anyone has mentioned this as I only skimmed thru the thread.

    But there were two things that completely ruined the movie for me:

    1. The "brushing away" of Bruce's knee injury.
    2. The "brushing away" of Bruce's back injury.

    If you have a knee in which all cartilage has been destroyed, you are NOT hooking up some kind of spring activated brace to kick harder, not unless you want to experience excruciating pain while doing so.

    And if your back gets snapped in half, AND you are lucky enough that the spinal cord was somehow untouched, you will NOT recover unless trained surgeons get in there and rebuild your vertebrae and spinal discs!! Probably having to use artificial ones.

    Dammit it's pissing me off thinking about this right now! That so ruined the movie for me. I've only seen it once. And this is from a guy that watched Batman Begins 11 times in the theatre, and TDK 4 times.
     
  16. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    I agree, the medical issues were handwaved too much.
     
  17. Gaith

    Gaith Vice Admiral Admiral

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    He couldn't have at least gotten a dog or two?! :p
     
  18. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Meh, he's Batman when the hell has something being unrealistic stopped him.
     
  19. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

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    It's not the brushing away that irritated me, it's that they completely forgot about his knee brace. It would have been nice to see that he gets an advantage over Bane's brute force by using it and other mechanical enhancements.
     
  20. The Mirrorball Man

    The Mirrorball Man Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The movie is more about people than it is about technology.