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

[Warped9]

its too bad that alot of you had trouble hearing the actors, especially Hardy. In the theatre i was at, i could hear everyone just fine.

Same here.

 

[Peacemaker]

I didn't have a problem either except for one scene: his takeover of the stock exchange. That's was it. However, there is an obvious break in the effect during the first fight scene - Hardy's natural voice came through loud and clear.

I, too, also noticed that Gotham was obviously Manhattan Island this time. At least in the first film, there was some attempt to hide it. My inner geek was a little peeved at DC for having fictionalized the names of cities in the DCU in a manner Marvel never has.

 

[Warped9]

I, too, also noticed that Gotham was obviously Manhattan Island this time. At least in the first film, there was some attempt to hide it. My inner geek was a little peeved at DC for having fictionalized the names of cities in the DCU in a manner Marvel never has.

There was a lack of consistency. In Batman Begins we get a very stylized fictional Gotham. In The Dark Knight the stylized city is gone and it could be any major city. Finally we get a dead ringer for Manhattan although some of the filming was in Chicago.

 

[DWF]

I, too, also noticed that Gotham was obviously Manhattan Island this time. At least in the first film, there was some attempt to hide it. My inner geek was a little peeved at DC for having fictionalized the names of cities in the DCU in a manner Marvel never has.

There was a lack of consistency. In Batman Begins we get a very stylized fictional Gotham. In The Dark Knight the stylized city is gone and it could be any major city. Finally we get a dead ringer for Manhattan although some of the filming was in Chicago.

LA was also used as a standin for Gotham, I could see the famous U.S. Bank tower in a number of shots.

 

[Greg Cox]

I, too, also noticed that Gotham was obviously Manhattan Island this time. At least in the first film, there was some attempt to hide it. My inner geek was a little peeved at DC for having fictionalized the names of cities in the DCU in a manner Marvel never has.

There was a lack of consistency. In Batman Begins we get a very stylized fictional Gotham. In The Dark Knight the stylized city is gone and it could be any major city. Finally we get a dead ringer for Manhattan although some of the filming was in Chicago.

And Pittsburgh.

 

[Mr Light]

In all seriousness, I would have appreciated it if they subtitled Bane's dialogue.

Let me say some positive things, now:

--the opening with Bane in the plane was absolutely amazing. it looked like they literally did that practically, having a plane dragging another plane in the air. That was incredible.
--Catwoman was awesome. She looked great in her catsuit and ears without it looking like she's wearing a costume. I also liked her journey from thief to betrayer to sidekick.
--The Batsuit looked absolutely perfect in this one. Any live action Batsuit always has problems with how it looks but this one was flawless. He looked so bad ass.
--The Pit prison was an amazing looking set. They literally built that?
--The first Batman / Bane fight in the sewer looked incredible. (I'm pissed he didn't use weapons against him but it was an ambush) The water on them, the setting, the way he got wailed on, cracking his cowl, that all looked amazing.
--No Man's Land is my favorite Bat story, so I think it's really cool they did that in the movie. And Knightfall is the other huge epic as well. So it's like the greatest hits of the comics! I just wish it was two movies (see the other thread, lol)
--The big mass battle at the end was nice and epic.
--The Batwing was awesome.
--I liked that this was the return of the League of Shadows and that we got Talia. I just Ra'sh was shown to be behind it all.
--I never get tired of the Scarecrow cameos
--I love that they "killed" Batman at the end and gave Bruce a happy ending. However I wish they killed him for real. I particularly loved the moment when Bats says to Gordon maybe a hero is just a guy putting his coat around a little boy's shoulders. That was a really effective way to reveal it without just spitting his name out. So that in a way Gordon was the inspiration for Batman.

So, who thinks that if Heath were alive, they would have shown the Joker being released from prison for No Man's Land, and the first thing Bats would have done when he was returned was hunt down the Joker before going after Bane?

 

[Agent Richard07]

^ Including the Joker in a priosn break would have been problematic because they wouldn't have been able to have him in make-up. It would have just been Heath Ledger with an orange jumpsuit and scars at the sides of his mouth. No Joker mystique. And Having Batman go after him would have been too much of a detour from the main plot.

 

[Agent Richard07]

Batman/Bruce hangs it up after the events of TDK. This paints him as emotionally weak and defeated after being Batman for only about a year or so. This doesn't ring true with the Batman of the comics or the character shown in the previous films. Batman/Bruce can be hurt, but he's resilient and perseveres.

The Bruce we see here seemed fairly consistent with previous versions of the character that show him as withdrawn or deeply affected by life. Becoming a Howard Hughes-style recluse isn't much of a leap from there.

And this is contradicted late in the film when someone says has been fighting for years. So which one is it?

Did someone say that? If so, I'd say it's just talk. A bit of hyperbole.

 

[CaptainCanada]

So, who thinks that if Heath were alive, they would have shown the Joker being released from prison for No Man's Land, and the first thing Bats would have done when he was returned was hunt down the Joker before going after Bane?

I'm skeptical of that; that's really a story on its own.

 

[Mr Light]

But if Dark Knight became an insane financial hit primarily based on Heath's performance, you don't think Warner Brothers wouldn't have moved mountains to bring him back in the sequel?

 

[Samurai8472]

I didn't have a problem either except for one scene: his takeover of the stock exchange. That's was it. However, there is an obvious break in the effect during the first fight scene - Hardy's natural voice came through loud and clear.

I, too, also noticed that Gotham was obviously Manhattan Island this time. At least in the first film, there was some attempt to hide it. My inner geek was a little peeved at DC for having fictionalized the names of cities in the DCU in a manner Marvel never has.

I don't think this was the best Nolan Batman film if you're judging location shooting continuity. It was too sloppy with the Freedom tower and obvious New York skylines.

At least for "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" you knew Chicago was the primary location and not 3 different spots

Still, if you don't pay much attention it blends seamlessly.

LA to Pittsburgh to New York and back to Pittsburgh.

There was a lack of consistency. In Batman Begins we get a very stylized fictional Gotham. In The Dark Knight the stylized city is gone and it could be any major city. Finally we get a dead ringer for Manhattan although some of the filming was in Chicago.

They never went back to Chicago for the third film


Locations were:

LA

-Bruce returns and Selina saves a boy

-Batman returns after 8 years and follows a police chase

Pennslyvania

-Gordon meeting the cop at his house

-Heinz field for the football stadium


New York

-Wall Street

-Bruce leaving Wayne Enterprises after he's left as a board member.


Scotland

-Prologue scene

India

-Prison Pit

 

[Kegg]

I'd definitely assume the Joker would have played a role had Heath survived - for one thing, unlike Ra's al Ghul and Two-Face, he didn't die at the end of the movie.

^ Including the Joker in a priosn break would have been problematic because they wouldn't have been able to have him in make-up.

He'd be part of the prison break, probably not show his face (but hear his voice) and he'd then appear some time after in Joker costume. Who's to say how the anarchist would really take Bane? He could fight Bane because that's kind of how he rolls. We could even be in a situation where the Batman kind of needs Joker in the Bane thing (in the sense we saw him need Catwoman in this movie). Lot of ways the movie could have played the Joker's role had he been there.

 

[Greg Cox]

I believe the Wayne Manor scenes were filmed in England.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

I think that our contemporary developed world cities are not conducive to the story told in this film. If a major city is experiencing a severe disturbance, such as a riot, the national government will send in military units to quell the disturbance. We have seen this multiple times in our country's history, most recently being the Los Angeles riots in 1992. I don't know of any incident in our country's history in which Special Forces are sent in to restore order. I could be wrong, and, if so, can someone name at least one incident?

Everyone keeps refering to riots as a real world counterpart to what is depicted in the movie, but that's not the right analogy. New Orleans and Katrina is. City cut off from the rest of the world by disaster. Left to sit, fetid and dying with citizens running wild out of fear and desperation, with no federal intervention for a week. Now put to that a terrorist with a nuclear bomb who says he'll blow the city if any outside force is brought to bear. Special forces were sent in because they could be sent secretly.

The director could have depicted the decay of a great nation set in the near to far future with Batman being seen as the symbol of order over the chaos.

It has been noted before that Batman stories work best in a world gone to hell.

True, I've heard many attempts to explain the mountain of problems with Prometheus, but no one has come close to doing it,

And no one can explain Bane's plan in the opening movie as anything other than a spectacularly absurd and mind-boggingly stupid idea that succeeds mostly through a colossal amount of dumb luck which he is gifted free of charge by the screenwriters (and I considered that your explanation acknowledges the problem with the scene rather than justifies it).

And understand I'm using this scene as an example. I could talk about the general stupidity of Bane's plans regarding Batman or Batman's inexplicable and completely unearned decision to trust Catwoman a second time etc. (and I'm not even touching the prison hole, which could be given a couple of paragraphs), but it's easier to needle in just one logical problem the film has.

I'm pretty sure the movie did not make one lick of sense - but I kinda don't care. Which is funny because I'm usually wildly picky and critical of Batman stories. I've read hundreds, seen dozens upon dozens of hours of Batman, animated and live action, and out of all that I like maybe 10 stories, but those 10 I really, REALLY love. TDKR suffers from many of the things that would make me hate another Batman story (and perhaps I'll hate this one on subsequent viewings - who knows?), but it pretty much rides high on sheer coolness and the cache Nolan has built in the other two films.

We were watching the new Aaron Sorkin show Newshour, and at the end of the 1st episode, a young woman says to a guy who just ran the coverage of a major news story through intense investigation, "You were like Batman". So I told my thoroughly non-geeky SO, "She just told him she very much wants to have sex with him." And my SO was completely baffled. I told him when a woman says that you're like Batman, she means she wants you - because Batman is just plain hot. I mean from both sides of the equation. I'm lucky in that I understand the wish fulfillment side of Batman - I read or see a great Batman story, and like a guy, I want to be Batman (not Catwoman, not Batgirl, but the brilliant wounded badass master mind himself!), at the same time, being a woman, I understand the sheer sexiness and romance of the character. Somehow or another TDKR captures all of that, even if it does so in the middle of a rather nonsensical plot.

 

[davejames]

--The Batsuit looked absolutely perfect in this one. Any live action Batsuit always has problems with how it looks but this one was flawless. He looked so bad ass.

I thought the suit looked great for most of it (the action figure style neck doesn't even bother me anymore), but I DID think it looked awfully fake and rubbery in the final daylight battle.

It suddenly looked a whole lot less like armor and more like a heavy, uncomfortable costume. Probably couldn't be helped though.

I'm pretty sure the movie did not make one lick of sense - but I kinda don't care. Which is funny because I'm usually wildly picky and critical of Batman stories. I've read hundreds, seen dozens upon dozens of hours of Batman, animated and live action, and out of all that I like maybe 10 stories, but those 10 I really, REALLY love. TDKR suffers from many of the things that would make me hate another Batman story (and perhaps I'll hate this one on subsequent viewings - who knows?), but it pretty much rides high on sheer coolness and the cache Nolan has built in the other two films.

Wish I could have been the same way, but for me the problems and silly story contrivances were just too much to bear. Maybe if the movie had simply flowed a lot better, like the previous two did, it would have helped.

 

[doubleohfive]

Lastly - did anyone else notice that Alfred's line from the trailers - "I promised your mum and father I'd take care of you, and I've failed." (I'm paraphrasing) was absent in the film?

That was his dialogue at the funeral at the end.

No, what he said at the funeral was different from the trailer. Maybe it was his delivery in the film when he was crying; and the trailer just used a different take?

 

[Gotham Central]

I didn't have a problem either except for one scene: his takeover of the stock exchange. That's was it. However, there is an obvious break in the effect during the first fight scene - Hardy's natural voice came through loud and clear.

I, too, also noticed that Gotham was obviously Manhattan Island this time. At least in the first film, there was some attempt to hide it. My inner geek was a little peeved at DC for having fictionalized the names of cities in the DCU in a manner Marvel never has.

Gotham City was modified version of Chicago in the first movie (tit was filmed here). Wayne Tower was a Modified version of our Board of Trade.

In The Dark Knight they decided to jettison all of the CGI modifications and used a largely untouched Chicago (With some scenes being filmed in Hong Kong).

This movie was clearly New York which was a bit jarring. Most of the time its not that big of a deal, but there are scenes where you can CLEARLY see them building the New World Trade Center, which given the theme of the movie is hard to ignore.

 

[Gotham Central]

I
- Gotham is almost crime free after eight years and certainly free of organized crime and corruption. This a big one to swallow.
- Batman/Bruce hangs it up after the events of TDK. This paints him as emotionally weak and defeated after being Batman for only about a year or so. This doesn't ring true with the Batman of the comics or the character shown in the previous films. Batman/Bruce can be hurt, but he's resilient and perseveres. And this is contradicted late in the film when someone says has been fighting for years. So which one is it?
- Practically all the cops go underground and get trapped down there? Another biggee to swallow.
- Bane's and Talia's supposed agenda rings hollow because of Gotham's current peaceful state. It would have had more credibility if the city were more like it was in the previous two films. No one amonsgt the citizenry looked particularly unhappy and ready to stage a revolution.

I'll address each of these...

1. Gotham is NEVER said to be crime free. However it does have a lower crime rate and organized crime has been brought under control. It should be remembered though that the Dent Act was a bit controversial to the point that they wanted it to be repealed. That suggests that some fairly severe measures were put in place to deal with the crime. Keep in mind that Gotham was overflowing with crime before to the point of being out of control. Even getting it down to the normal background level of crime found in most American cities felt like victory to most of Gotham. Gotham had become more normal but it was never meant to be utopia.

2. This is one of those criticisms that only comes up because people are used to comic book characters being depicted as superhuman instead of people doing a job. Nolan specifically made the choice to show us a Batman that was at his core still a man and not a superman. Doing what Bruce does would burn him out. Remember his visit to the doctor (didn't someone write this very parody online about Bruch visiting a doctor?). Physically, Bruce is a mess. Even the best athlete cannot do what he was doing forever. The physical abuse alone would force him to retire. Bruce was in bad shape at the start of the film.

As for the timeline, we have no idea ow much time passes between BB and TDK. There were at least 3 years between films. On top of that, we do not KNOW for certain that Bruch gave it up immediately after TDK. Given his injuries, its possible that he kept on for a bit after the events of TDK and then called it quits.

3. All of the cops did not go underground, just best armed and equipped to deal with the crisis. The bulk of SWAT and MCU were trapped. Ordinary beat cops were probably sill around, but without backup/support they probably went home and blended into the background out of fear. Beat cops are not trained to fight a war. Blake was not completely alone out there. He had some help.

4. Bane and Talia's argument was that Gotham was decadent and symptomatic of everything that was wrong with western civilization. Even with less crime, Gotham was still corrupt and decadent. There is a reason that he targeted the two pillars of that decadent society...the stock exchange, where the wealthy and powerful get their money and a football game, which is the modern equivalent of bread and circuses to keep the masses occupied. Did you miss all of commentary attacking the greed of the wealthy. That Roland Dagget hired Bane to sabotage Wayne Enterprises for his own greed was just a symptom of the problem. It should also be remembered that the film takes place in the post 2008 world. The kid at the boys home mentioned that his brother went underground to find work because it was easier to find underground.

 

[Set Harth]

But if Dark Knight became an insane financial hit primarily based on Heath's performance, you don't think Warner Brothers wouldn't have moved mountains to bring him back in the sequel?

If Heath hadn't died, the third film was supposed to be about the trial of the Joker and might not have involved Bane at all.

The actors voices where barely audible over the music in my viewing of the film, they seemed so muted

I also noticed this.

 

[NebulaClassGuy]

I've no idea what the next reboot will be like, but I know I'd like to see a more classic take on Batman and without so many of the modern updates and rationalizations. A 1940's period setting would be fun, but I won't hold my breath.

I would totally be for this as well, but I would really, really, like to see just ONE more Nolan Batman film, because I want to see Nolan use the Riddler... IMO, a Nolan Riddler would be awesome. But that's me.