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

[RoJoHen]

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?

This was an issue for me as well. Aside from the bits with evil Harvey Dent, TDK may as well have not happened. TDKR was far more a direct sequel to Batman Begins; I feel like the whole Joker story may as well have not happened. While it is arguably the best of the series, TDK doesn't really fit in with the other two movies.

 

[davejames]

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.

It was definitely a good adaptation of the character... but I still don't know if Bane's really a worthy enough villain to be Batman's big, final opponent.

Beyond the physical thing I just didn't find him all that interesting here.

 

[Mach5]

Yet, I'm saddened we never got a Riddler, Penguin, Black Mask or Croc showing in a Nolan film.

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

 

[Greg Cox]

This was an issue for me as well. Aside from the bits with evil Harvey Dent, TDK may as well have not happened. TDKR was far more a direct sequel to Batman Begins; I feel like the whole Joker story may as well have not happened. .

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

 

[Ayelbourne]

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

Nowhere. He probably thought of fission reactors.

 

[Snaploud]

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

Nowhere. He probably thought of fission reactors.

Fusion reactors exist. They're just not very useful. Up until now, they've all consumed more energy than they've produced.

 

[scnj]

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?

This was an issue for me as well. Aside from the bits with evil Harvey Dent, TDK may as well have not happened. TDKR was far more a direct sequel to Batman Begins; I feel like the whole Joker story may as well have not happened. While it is arguably the best of the series, TDK doesn't really fit in with the other two movies.

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

 

[CaptainCanada]

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.

It's a movie. The reality of physics doesn't matter. He survived by bailing out, and it's not really important how or if that would be possible in the real world (since plenty of other things that happen in this movie series are similarly impossible).

 

[DWF]

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?

This was an issue for me as well. Aside from the bits with evil Harvey Dent, TDK may as well have not happened. TDKR was far more a direct sequel to Batman Begins; I feel like the whole Joker story may as well have not happened. While it is arguably the best of the series, TDK doesn't really fit in with the other two movies.

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

Funny how the Joker tried to kill Dent after he admitted to being Batman.

 

[Ayelbourne]

Fusion reactors exist. They're just not very useful. Up until now, they've all consumed more energy than they've produced.

Let's just call them fusion test devices. They're still a long shot from a working reactor that can sustain fusion reactions for more than a second.

 

[Set Harth]

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.

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.

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/art...ght-Rises-NYC-premiere.html?ito=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]

To continue, we do have fusion reactors that work. Lots of them.

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

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

 

[Captain Craig]

Yet, I'm saddened we never got a Riddler, Penguin, Black Mask or Croc showing in a Nolan film.

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.

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?

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]

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]

This was an issue for me as well. Aside from the bits with evil Harvey Dent, TDK may as well have not happened. TDKR was far more a direct sequel to Batman Begins; I feel like the whole Joker story may as well have not happened. .

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

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?

This was an issue for me as well. Aside from the bits with evil Harvey Dent, TDK may as well have not happened. TDKR was far more a direct sequel to Batman Begins; I feel like the whole Joker story may as well have not happened. While it is arguably the best of the series, TDK doesn't really fit in with the other two movies.

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]

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.

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.