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

[Dick Whitman]

I never understand those type of hypothetical ideal cut and paste castings. Performances are influenced by the director, the other actors, and the mind set of the actor/actress where at the time. Its impossible to know what the result would have been. Even if taking about people who really were up a role they did not get.

 

[Trekker4747]

So does anyone agree with me on the idea that -even if we're not told so directly- "The Pit" resurrected Bruce's strength and physical abilities (akin to the Lazarus Pit in the comics.) Granted that's not what the Lazarus Pit does in the comics but it seemed implied given how much Bruce/Bats accomplishes once he leaves the pit.

 

[Dick Whitman]

It was definately metaphorically influenced by the Lazuras Pit. Which also fits with the theme of his rise. Not just in a physical rise out of a pit but symbolically Bruce will be immortal like Ra's. Ra's through his daughter and Bruce through his successor John Blake.

 

[JarodRussell]

I'm still amazed how the Nolan films matched my personal tastes by 100%. I never liked Burton's or Schumacher's Batman films, I always said to my friends how cool a realistic, down to Earth Batman would be, since he is the only comic book hero who does not have superpowers, who is just a mere mortal, and who uses his money to buy technical equipment to fight criminals, and how cool it would be to take those "silly" comic book villains and turn them into believable, also just human, people.

And the Nolan films hit exactly that spot. Right on the money.

 

[SalvorHardin]

A 9 minute featurette has come out with a behind the scenes look at the sound and music of TDKR

http://youtu.be/xnIasa7n6bI

 

[O'Dib]

sweet!

 

[LaxScrutiny]

The details of a superhero origin can be condensed to basic details. Like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2l4bz1FT8U
"...and who disguised as Clark Kent..."

With further info given if it suits the actual story.
Alex Ross did two page origin stories of the JLA which are similarly effective.

I'll pay extra if they use that theme music in the next Supe's movie.

 

[Brolan]

Saw it on Saturday and my one word review is: awesome.

 

[Pauln6]

Seriously TASM added nothing of consequence to the origin story. Half the movie was wasted on this.

Agreed. The change of tone, memories of his parents, and MJ's absence could have easily been explained as side effects of the black costume debacle. All the other characters were established and Green Goblin could be replaced with Hobgoblin.

The problem with that is a lot of people did not like the 3rd film at all. It would have been foolish to build a new plot off it.

The movie may have been... less than the movies that came before but there was nothing wrong with the concept; it formed one of the more popular storylines of the eighties. Carnage builds on Venom. Does anyone think Carnage would make a terrible villain?

But your approach typifies the approach of many producers. The first time we have a dud, we reboot. It isn't really necessary though. As long as the movie you are doing has a good story etc the continuity can remain. If the reboot has a bad story, rebooting achieves nothing.

The reboot problem is one of attitude, not storytelling or production.

It's also worth noting I suppose that Spiderman 3 may have upset some fans but it made a lot of money. The fact that it was a weaker movie was not the reason why we didn't get Spiderman 4 - that was due to creative disputes.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Well my point was that it would have been better to just ignore the third film. While I liked TAS they could have easily done a new adventure of Spider-man without any specific back story.

What has happened with these reboots is they are written like television Pilot episodes. Not just a mere origin story but setting up future plotlines. So that everything is tied particular details of the current origin. So its hard to break away from the past. So that when a creative team leaves a franchise the new group feels the need to cut ties with the previous "administration".

My personal preference would be for more standalone films. Keeping consistency of key background details. Not specific continuity. Than new teams could take over with focus on continuing the characters not on themselves. Of course constant reboots are the pattern of the actual comics now.

 

[Warped9]

I've been having this discussion with friends as well as others. Succinctly, I like The Dark Knight Rises, but with a caveat.

The characters in this trilogy, notably Bruce Wayne/Batman, Jim Gordon and Alfred, are not the familiar ones from the comics or even B-TAS. These are Nolan's interpretation of these characters just as Frank Miller departed from the general characterization of those characters with his The Dark Knight Returns story in the mid '80s. Nolan's characters make choices the comics' or the TAS characters wouldn't make. They behave differently. As such the story unfolds differently than it would in those other versions.

In the comics (particularly in the '70s) Batman wouldn't be a tortured soul looking for a way out, he wouldn't accept blame for a crime he didn't commit, he wouldn't withdraw and be a recluse, and he wouldn't be stupid enough to meet Bane head-on after getting his ass kicked previously. In the comics, and in TAS, Batman would be a lot smarter in how he tackled Bane. That's the essential difference with Nolan's Batman: he's not as smart or forward thinking as the comics or TAS version.

The comics or TAS Alfred would never abandon Bruce, ever. And the comics or TAS Jim Gordon wouldn't be party to such a lie regarding Harvey Dent.

The trilogy works as long as you can accept this different interpretation of the characters. If you can't get past that then you might have issues with this trilogy and the last film.

Batman is a character that has long been open to broad and diverse interpretations. How else could versions such as the Adam West and Shumacher interpretations gain on audience? And since Frank Miller pretty much everyone has been doing a riff on the emotionally scarred and tenuously stable obsessive. The indomitable warrior and great detective and tactician is pretty much forgotten or ignored.

That said Chris Nolan's trilogy is still a noteworthy work if you can look at it for what it's trying to do rather than simply by what it doesn't do. Yes, he could have done this story without Batman. He could have used a cop or a P.I. or some other proactive figure. But he chose to use Batman because no other superhero could really be as easily adapted to this story, and in extent broadens the audience likely to see his story. I also have to say that using a superhero to explore certain issues is admirable as it lends the character and the genre more substance beyond simple escapism. Hell, it's similar to why we love Star Trek so much, because it dares to reach for more than adventurous escapism.

We can quibble about the execution, but it's still admirable because outside of the comics themselves very few superhero films even dabble with any ideas of substance---certainly not the mainstream characters. The Avengers is a helluva fun movie, but it's just a roller coaster ride that isn't about anything.


What I do find sad, and this is about all superheroes, is that ever since the deconstruction of the superheroes got going in the '80s is the idea someone has to be psychologically flawed to even contemplate going beyond the norm to do something right.

 

[Lord Garth]

Batman wouldn't be a tortured soul looking for a way out, he wouldn't accept blame for a crime he didn't commit, he wouldn't withdraw and be a recluse, and he wouldn't be stupid enough to meet Bane head-on after getting his ass kicked previously.

Damn right.

 

[Lord Garth]

I wasn't going to post what I think, but I'll copy what I told someone else. If viewers of this thread don't agree, I don't care. You all have your opinions and I have mine. I'll state my viewpoint and then leave it at that. Thank you and thank you.

I liked Batman Begins. I liked The Dark Knight.

The Dark Knight Rises is a whole other story.

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It left a strong impression on me when I left the theater. The problem was, I hadn't processed that impression yet. I thought (past tense) maybe it *might* be the best Batman movie. I didn't feel that strongly about the other two movies, so why was this movie so different? I couldn't figure it out and it wasn't just because it was the end of a trilogy. Then I thought about it, thought about it some more, and realized they took things too far. After the strong impression finally sank in, I realized in its own way, it's as over the top as "Batman & Robin"; just in the opposite extreme. At least "Batman & Robin" has MST3K value.

Never, in 30 years, has my opinion of a movie ever dropped so far so fast. Christopher Nolan should've gone with his instincts and stopped with two. I think they could've gotten a lot of mileage of out this incarnation of Batman, underneath someone else. But Nolan had to have a trilogy and went for broke. It even impacts what I think of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" now that I know where they're heading.

It didn't bother me that they combined Dick, Jason and Tim into one character since no live-action Batman will ever get far enough to include all three... but John Blake should've been in costume at some point, whether it was as Robin or Nightwing.

"The Dark Knight Returns" angle didn't work at all. Eight years was way too long of a gap. And Bruce can't move passed Rachel even after all that time? My father never forgot my mother but, after the first three years, he did move on and in three more years he was in a stable relationship with someone else. And Bruce would never retire as Batman even if the police were after him. The mission always comes first, for the real Batman.

It's probably just as well this version of the character never took on a Robin. Who'd want a minor under the care of someone who throws up his hands and gives up everything six months into his career, right after "The Dark Knight"? So we went from one of the best origin stories ever for a hero to a story about a man who turned his back on everything after the first speed bump. Then he pretends to sacrafice himself so he can escape to an island and live with a thief while totally broke. Who the Hell is this guy? I've never seen him before. That's what made it depressing instead of dramatic. It's like the anti-Bruce Wayne. All of Alfred's scenes and most of Lucius Fox's scenes are wasted on Anti-Bruce.

Having "Knightfall" fused together with "No Man's Land" and against the backdrop of "The Dark Knight Returns" wasn't dramatic either, it was melodramatic. It was too much. Then introducing Talia, Catwoman, and a three-for-one Robin who's not Robin on top of it? It was over-plotted, overblown, and overdone.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I believe Alfred did leave Bruce sometime after Knightfall. Becuase he saw that Bruce seemed to be disregarding his own health and safety. Which is how Bane defeated him in the comics.

While Bane attacked him in the Batcave by surprise. He was too stuburn to seek help with the escaped Arkham inmates. So he was in a weakened state when Batman struck.

The film is very similar to the comics.

 

[Set Harth]

while totally broke

I don't get this. Are we assuming the trades were never found to be fraudulent and Wayne simply became a pauper?

And Buce would never retire as Batman even if the police were after him.

I don't think the police had anything to do with it. The last time we see them they're cheering him on and then fighting alongside him.

It even impacts what I think of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" now that I know where they're heading.

That's the thing. This is where they were heading. Especially TDK, but it started back in BB. And you know what? No one seemed to have a problem with it. No one let it interrupt their paeans of adulation for TDK. But now it's paid off and suddenly it's a problem.

 

[Lord Garth]

It even impacts what I think of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" now that I know where they're heading.

That's the thing. This is where they were heading. Especially TDK, but it started back in BB. And you know what? No one seemed to have a problem with it. No one let it interrupt their paeans of adulation for TDK. But now it's paid off and suddenly it's a problem.

I know you're talking in the general.

I did have some reservations about The Dark Knight, and that's why I rate Batman Begins a bit above it but it wasn't enough to detract from my enjoyment at the time.

I don't think the police had anything to do with it. The last time we see them they're cheering him on and then fighting alongside him.

It's been a while, but I remember the police chasing Batman, while Gordon said that he could take it. Only Gordon was (unofficially) on his side at the end.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I have a very basic problem with the film. The first film used the theme of fear as a starting point for this man's journey. He learned to confront his fears before the first film ended. The third film he realized that he needed his fears. They are both logical variations of one theme and a good way to bookend a story about a man

The problem arises when you realized that the "fear" thing in the first film was just a starting point. But even as the first film ended the theme changed into something more. The whole escalation thing, the realization that the masked vigilante that he has become might have made the bag guys hit harder, and become stranger. The second film (for all of its flaws) had each character represent a different point on the morality scare. This theme isn't just different than the fear thing, but deeper. While most trilogies are well-served by going back and revisiting a theme introduced in the first film in a new way, here it seems like a cop out. And, at first glance - with all its threads and stories - the narrative of TDKR seems as complex as the TDK - the theme most definitely is not. Makes me think that there was no reason to have such a complex narrative in the third film if the underlying theme wound up being so paper theme. The complexities of the narrative in TDK served the story's themes. Here, they don't .

 

[Warped9]

For me it's a matter of perspective. If you want you can ignore TDKR because the end of TDK is open ended. We can easily assume Batman stays in operation despite being branded an outlaw. The flaw with that is how they build the lie of Harvey Dent. In all that time they couldn't get past that lie and just got stuck with it.

Would it really be so bad if they had fessed up from the beginning. All Gordon had to do from the get-go that night was to say what happened: Harvey Dent got fucked up by his injuries, deformity and grief and went off the deep end. Who couldn't understand that. Jim Gordon of the comics and B-TAS would never have sold Batman out. THAT'S the big fuck-up at the end of TDK.

But afterward it's compounded by turning Bruce into a recluse and Batman resigning. None of that rings true of the character we've come to expect. And it doesn't really ring true of the Batman of BB and TDK. Lastly, whatever intelligence Batman may have shown in the first two films is just gone in TDKR. After losing to Bane in a straight-up hand-to-hand the real Batman would have then used his smarts to be Bane on all fronts.

 

[Dream]

What the hell was up with Bane's voice? I couldn't understand half of what he was saying. It was almost as bad as the Bale Batvoice.

Compare this to Vader from a ANH which was 35 years ago, and I had no problem understanding anything he said.

 

[Set Harth]

It's been a while, but I remember the police chasing Batman, while Gordon said that he could take it. Only Gordon was (unofficially) on his side at the end.

I'm talking about TDKR.

Jim Gordon of the comics and B-TAS would never have sold Batman out. THAT'S the big fuck-up at the end of TDK.

And yet, as I was saying, no one seemed to have a problem with it when TDK came out. Which may have something to do with the fact that calling it "Gordon sells Batman out" doesn't wash when it's Batman's idea in the first place and Gordon just goes along with it.