The Dark Knight Rises Spoiler-Filled Discussion Thread

I’ve written my official review of The Dark Knight Rises, and if you want to check it out, you can do so here where it was published an hour ago. Like most reviews, I tried to steer clear of major plot details, and in this case, I barely mentioned the story at all to not ruin anything for anyone in the highly anticipated feature.

But that’s not how I wish reviews were. I think reading reviews BEFORE seeing a movie is stupid, as it forces you to form judgments before giving something a shot on your own. Rather, I see reviews as a mechanism for discussion once you’ve already seen the film. At least in theory, as I rarely put this into practice. Today, however, I can’t resist wanting to discuss the specifics of The Dark Knight Rises which is why I’m creating a separate post where we can talk about the film openly.

If you’ve seen the film and want to chat, we can do so below. I have some thoughts of my own I’ll share, and feel free to add in your own viewpoints in the comments. Spoilers start below.

I’ll kick things off by talking about the two big “reveals” of the film, that Marion Cotillard’s Miranda Tate was Talia al Ghul, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s John Blake became Robin.

To me, neither of these were terribly shocking. I write for movie fansites, so the moment these two roles were announced, it was IMMEDIATELY guessed by a number of fans that this is who these characters truly were. There was no proof beforehand, but as soon as you started watching the film, you felt both of these theories were correct. And they were.

If you watch the film and already suspect something, the little clues seem to scream the answers at you. Miranda’s story about not coming from money, and the scar on her back indicated she clearly had secrets. The tipping point for me came far before that when Bruce Wayne said that they “must give control of the company to Miranda” which was clearly part of some master plan greater than the singular douche who wanted to take over Wayne Enterprises.

With JGL’s Blake, it was less of a moment of epiphany and more of just a feeling that he simply *felt* like he would be a perfect Robin, and his role in the film was building toward that from the moment he stepped foot into Wayne Manor and told his own story about being an orphan. If that wasn’t enough of a clue, when Bruce tells him about being a symbol, working outside the system, and wearing a mask should have probably clue you in.

But even though neither of these were surprises to me, I still felt like they were expertly threaded throughout the film and made for a fantastic plot and thrilling conclusion. I was actually faked out for a minute when it was “revealed” that Bane was Ras al Ghul’s son. I thought Nolan had played up on the Talia al Ghul rumors and pulled a last minute switch that went against the comics.

If you were paying attention however, the film essentially told you that the child in the legend was not Bane. The prisoner tells Bruce that Bane suffered an attack by the other inmates and was disfigured and in constant pain. When the little kid escapes out of the pit, he has no such injury which clearly points to the fact that he (she) isn’t Bane. And once you listen to the lines about the “protector” it almost seems obvious, though I did not catch it the first time through the movie.

Other topics of discussion:

Bane vs. Joker?

Did they really need to not mention The Joker once? I get that it was “out of respect for Ledger,” but It made it seem like the events of The Dark Knight seem were sort of irrelevant to the overall trilogy story.

Did you like or dislike the large stretch of time Bruce/Batman was gone during the film? (I loved the prison scenes personally).

Did Catwoman seem tacked on, or was she relevant enough to the plot?

Why did Bruce Wayne need to fake his own death? Is he continuing to do so after the events of the film? It’s not like he’s in disguise. Would it have been more impactful to kill him? A thought I had during the film was that possibly he would really die, and Thomas Blake would become the new Batman rather than Robin. Comic sacrilege sure, but I think that could have worked as well.

Did Batman hang up his cowl in the end to turn things over to Robin entirely, or do you imagine the two of them returning to work together?

Is this better than The Dark Knight? Why or why not? I lean toward yes, after watching both over the weekend. Overlooking Ledger’s Joker performance which casts a shadow over everything else, this is simply a better structured, scored, shot and executed film in my eyes.

 

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67 Comments

  1. Like you Paul, I watched DKR twice in theatres in two days. I was a fan of the movie the first time I saw it, however, it took a second viewing for me to fully appreciate it as much as I do now. In regards to JGL being Robin, a friend and I agreed that this was the smartest possible way Nolan could have infused Robin into The Dark Knight trilogy. It made it feel as realistic as possible, and I was very pleased with it. We also had discussions based on the relevance that DK had on the finale, which was very little. Aside from the “Dent Act” and the personal demons haunting Jim Gordon, it seemed to be completely pushed aside. I felt that they should have at least mentioned it at one point.

    As an aside, one question I had after watching it the second time around, how does Bane eat? haha

  2. When it was revealed that Miranda was actually Talia, i felt disappointing in myself for not seeing it earlier :/
    My only issue with the lack of connection to DK is that there was no explanation why the joker was no where to be seen, although i suppose he could have been relocated to a more secure location 😛
    And i have to agree, it is better as a film than DK, as fantastic as Ledger’s performance was, you cant base a film on one of the actors.

  3. I prefer to think that JGL took up the mantle of Batman instead of another persona like Robin, I mean he gets to find the batcave and all the batgear, commissioner Gordon still uses the bat signal and it would strengthen the whole “Batman as a symbol” sybolism where the public have this immortal unstoppable Batman as opposed to a new replacement hero.

    Great film, as good or better than TDK in my opinion with only a few small flaws

  4. I would of loved to see miranda tate and bruce wayne scene during the fireplace scene in wayne manor, have miranda call bruce, “beloved”.

  5. I too was fooled into thinking bane was ra’s Al ghul’s son for a long part of the film but when I saw it again I couldn’t help but wonder why I was fooled. One thing I didn’t get was what’s the point of stealing the fingerprints? Was it so they could use them to activate the fusion reactor and if that’s the case why not just activate it sooner with talia’s and Bruce’s handprints?
    I really liked the movie but I think it’s the weakest of the trilogy but batman begins is my favorite so I guess I just like being different.
    Paul, what were the tow instances of bad editing you mentioned in your official review? You said it seemed like batman saved two different people simultaneously and asked where someone was right after speaking with them. I must have been too enthralled with the movie to catch those and I’m just wondering what you meant.
    P. S. John Blake! Not Thomas. 🙂

  6. Ok now I can say what I hated about the end.

    1. Catwoman killing Bane. It should have been Batman completely beating him by finding the structual weakness in his mask and allowing Bane to feel pain.

    2. The Robin thing felt completely tacked on. Blake could have taken over as Batman without that wink to fans.

    3. Bruce giveing up the fight and living happily ever after. Thats not something Batman would do. I get that you need to make changes for the movies and it is a concrete ending but I didnt like it.

    4. This didnt happen in the end but Alfred giving up on Bruce was totally out of charecter. Many times during Batman Begins Bruce asks has Alfred given up on him and he always responds “Never.” To see him give up on Bruce in the middle of the film just felt wrong.

    Overall though these are minor complaints. The movie was great and the best CMB part three ever but that bar is very low. IMO it didnt live up to the previous two Batmans but that bar was set really high. Worst of the three but still an amazing movie. Bane and Catwoman were great and the stakes were never higher.

  7. I agree it does hurt that there was no mention of the Joker, but I imagined that had Heath been alive he would’ve had the presiding “judge” cameo instead of Dr. Crane (which I still enjoyed a lot).

  8. At some point in the movie a cup shots at batman and it doesnt affect him, but when talia stab him it works like a charm. is there an explanation?

    No one is suspicious that batman and Bruce died at the same time? and another thing is the batmobiles started driving all over the city and all of bane little helpers know who batman really is its hard to belive no one is making the connection.

    Last thing, Nolan told he wont do another Batman movie so why leave a room for a sequel in the form of Robin? I think that DC and warner bros pushed on Nolan so they wont lose their precious franchise.

    Anyone else thought of those things?

  9. The reason Bruce Wayne faked his death was two fold. 1.People figured out he was Batman. 2.He was in debt up to his eyeballs.

    Plus
    Robin was Dick Grayson as a kid. As an adult he becomes Nightwing and eventually becomes Batman post-battle for the cowl. So odds are he skips the whole “Robin” phase and either serves as Batman or his own persona of Nightwing.

  10. the way I look at Talia’s scar on her back was that Bruce did it to her in Batman Begins when they were training and he cut a couple people to throw off Ras al Ghul when he was tripping on the flower smoke.

  11. I did notice the weird editing mistakes at the end. Crane judges Gordon and Co., and Bane takes Miranda. A few scenes later, Bruce and Selina show up and have a conversation with Miranda and Lucious, and then not more than a few scenes after that, she is held captive by Bane again.

    The whole Robin thing was handled well, IMO. Rob J and james said it well, but Blake keeping the idea and symbol of Batman alive is central to the mythos. And Bruce is alive and well, Batman is dead. Makes perfect sense.

    Did anyone notice that Bane seemed to get smaller after Batman tears his mask? Me and my friend thought so, I was wondering if anyone else caught that.

    Also, to truly nitpick, if the truck carrying the bomb was lined with lead, which required Gordon to actually get INSIDE of it to use their jamming device, how did Talia expect her detonation signal/device to work?

  12. I’m sorry, guys, but TDKR was Spider-Man 3 levels of bad. Maybe I’m just megacynical since I’ve spent so much more time with these characters in other mediums than the Nolan nuthuggers, but this movie started out mediocre and got worse with each passing minute. To save myself time, I’m going to copypaste some of my reasoning from a post of mine from another site.

    1. Every character was out of character (Alfred ditching Wayne because the bad guy looked really mean when his entire character is based aroud being the ONE person he that is always there for him and Bruce shutting down for 8 years because his girlfriend died when losing loved ones to a maniac was the entire reason he was Batman in the first place).

    2. No thought went into the story other than Nolan’s insultingly half-baked Randian philosophy (implying the 99% would devolve into savage anarchy if not for the 1% holding us together).

    3. The realism was just gone (a Batspaceship now…really? Also, crime is all gone. Just like that eh? We should pass the Dent Act globally then if it’s that simple).

    4. Bane talked like Darth Vader channeling Goldfinger while having a stroke (also, his weakness was getting hit in the face…not impressive).

    5. The fights looked like bad pro wrestling

    6. While the ending was disturbingly trite to begin with Nolan couldn’t even sack up enough to stick with it.

    7. The statue at the end made me laugh out loud with it’s ridiculousness, and I audibly groaned when they suggested the detective use his full name, “Robin” (wink, wink audience members!). Corny as it comes. Also, all he has to do to find the Batcave is look for it? Why didn’t anyone else think of that?

    8. They reveal Talia as a convenient plot twist I already saw coming, show her story in a flashback as she reveals her plot in another horrible cliche, and then she promptly fucking dies. Laaaaaame. Would it have killed them to make her actually in love with Wayne (you know, like the actual character?) and be divided between loyalty to her father and her love instead of making her just a weak excuse for a plot twist?

    9. Batman comes off like such a bitch. Seriously, dude gets owned by every other character in the movie.

    10. The image of every cop in the entire city being sent shoulder-to-shoulder down the same sewer passage was so many kinds of stupid.

    11. That ridiculous power source/bomb thingy. There’s only one guy who can do it, but all it takes is a second or two to convert a power source into a nuclear bomb. ‘Kaaaay. And then you can make it not a bomb anymore simply by reconnecting it to it’s original base. Ummmmm. How would that make it not a bomb? And if flooding it would be enough to destroy it, why not just roll the fucking thing into the ocean?

    12. Ra’s al Ghul and his people are awfully petty. They really hate Gotham specifically out of all other cities that much? What is destroying it really going to accomplish? The religious fervor and lack of real motivation for Bane and Talia (who otherwise seem intelligent enough) is cartoonish and not at all befitting of villains from an adult story. In the comics the LOS is all about working globally with an end game in mind where Gotham is just the first of many steps to reboot a corrupt society, but Talia specifically says her father’s work is complete when she dies, which implies that all this was just some lame plot to destroy one measly city. Weak.

    And there is plenty more where those came from. This is one of those rare movies that actually taints the previous films as well. When you put these three films together, the story is very, very small for a Batman story. Really, forget everything else you know about Batman and count up how much he actually accomplished in the decade since he became Batman in the films. Stopped a couple petty crooks. Killed Ra’s al Ghul after he’d already effed Gotham royally. Stopped Joker from blowing up a boat. Killed Harvey Dent to save one child. Disappeared for 8 years or so. Ran cops on the most comically over the top police chase since OJ as a comeback. Gets smashed by Bane. Disappears another few months. Beats up Bane by figuring out his weakness is getting hit in the face (world’s greatest detective indeed). Kills new girlfriend. Iron Giants in his spaceship because apparently there aren’t any helicopters in Gotham that they could have used to do the same thing at any time. Compared to the insane amount of money he spent on these endeavors, I’d say his list of feats is pretty fucking unimpressive. It seems like Batman really was just an obsessed weirdo with too much time on his hands if you put these movies together as a trilogy, whereas BB and TDK were an awesome beginning to an epic hero story. So many bad decisions and poorly thought-out ideas in this one, though. And when you put together the hints at The Patriot Act (authorizing the government to spy on it’s citizens) in TDK with the implied comparison between Bane and the Occupy movement, it becomes pretty clear that Nolan leans towards the fascist side of law enforcement, which pisses me off. I think this gushing review (from a film reviewer whose entire career is almost all perfect scores according to Metacritic) says it pretty well:

    http://www.salon.com/2012/07/18/the_dark….il_masterpiece/

    I have a feeling the longer this film is around, the more people are going to start noticing the truckload of WTF weaksauce they’ve been served up.

  13. The Dark Knight Rises is the best movie out of the three in my opinion, The Dark Knight a close second but that was mainly because of the role of the Joker, The Dark Knight Rises however is better because of the movie as a whole.

    I was really pleased with how Nolan created the “villain putting the whole city in danger scenario” in this movie. In the dark knight you didn’t really get the feel that the WHOLE city was in jeopardy when the Joker made his threats and took over the two ferry boats but in this movie he let Bane take the entire city and send it into a pandemic state.

    It has my vote for movie of the summer.

  14. one more thing, I was a little bummed how Bane died. yea he got blown apart but by cat woman?…….eh. Small issue but not that big of a deal.

  15. I don’t think the movie deserved 5/5 stars, absolutely not. To imply that it does, would imply that it was equally on par with BB or TDK. It simply wasn’t. For a myriad of reasons mentioned above, there were significant lapses in Nolans storytelling and some minor plotholes that were not addressed, as well as a few moves away from realism. I’ll name a few.

    Bane punching through columns?

    Blake just “knowing” Bruce Wayne is Batman because of a look and Bruce doesn’t bother denying it at all.

    Bruce somehow arriving at Gotham after the prison (A minor scene or a few lines of dialogue woulda changed everything here)

    A nuclear bomb with a six mile radius goes off…nuclear fallout would be gigantic, poisoning gotham and the water. (Not to mention that doctor took about 20 seconds to turn the reactor into a bomb WITH a detonator switch)

    Bruce JUST met Blake and barely spent time with him throughout the movie, yet has no problem giving Blake access to the new cave without even discussing any ground rules, like “Don’t kill anyone.”

    These are just a few and there are more. This was a good movie, I’m not saying it wasn’t, but it was far from perfect and it was far from Nolan’s best.

  16. There were some major problems with this film.

    Catwoman wasn’t a well done character. She was a moving plot point. There was never any depth to her character at all. She stole from Bruce (introduction) betrayed his (the twist) and came back to save him (redemption). Poorly written and shoe horned in.

    Everyone figuring out that Batman=Bruce Wayne was terrible. For a crime fighter who has taken pains to keep his identity secret, it seems sloppy that a random cop (JGL) could figure out who he is easily, then both catwoman and Gordon without any effort.

    Batman went from being an intelligent crime fighter to being a fool. His entire plan for taking on Bane was “try harder”. The first fight (which was a bar fight in a sewer) could be forgiven because he was taken by suprise, but the 2nd time? After he escapes from the crazy prison and comes home to save his city, the only plan he had was to hit Bane harder than last time. No additional training (healing his body is not training), no gadgets, not even a sneak attack. He simply swung harder and hoped for the best.

  17. Great review and great points i agree with everything you said.
    Except for one thing!
    Many people seem to be under the view that Blake became robin just because his birth name was robin and it appears you feel the same or maybe i misread?
    Anyway he did’nt become robin he became a new batman.
    If you listen to what batman says to gordon about anyone being the batman and about it being a symbol it all makes sence.
    Wayne retired, blake took over.

  18. I loved the movie but i have some issues with it. Mainly plot holes. Really Blake just knew he was batman? Bruce wayne rolls up to the place in a lambow with two hot chicks but blake see;s past this and figures out who he is?

    Ok so you have a bomb to blow up gotham and destroy it. But fuck it lets hang out for 3 months instead and then blow it up because of course you do.

    Batman ridding off into the sunset with a nuclear bomb was a little too much for me.

    I liked how it showed how broken batman , however he puts on a magical leg brace in one scene and doesn’t walk with a limp for the rest of the movie. No one comments that suddenly bruce doesn’t have a limp either.

    These things bug me but still one awesome movie, gonna have to see it again.

  19. @Feenicks

    I actually assumed he picked up something that was stronger in terms of armor in is old lockup under the shipping yard.

    The only thing I really had an issue with is that Bane’s “Death” wasn’t elaborated on much as throughout the film it seemed like he could take a rocket and survive. He was just blasted and that was it.

    Other than that I enjoyed the crap out of this movie and think that it is the best of the three.

  20. I think TDKR is probably second best out of the three films. I would place TDK ever so slightly higher based on Heath Ledger’s performance, the basic correctness of the plot (set in Gotham, starts with mob bosses etc, Joker rises from criminal underworld), and the fact of TDK being a character piece.

    TDK is all about the individuals and their motivations and what drives them to do what they do. The extended scene with the Joker and Dent in the hospital is one of my favourite scenes as it describes the Joker’s philosophy and how much it differes from Batman. It’s a film about criminals and crime, whereas DKR is about revolution and grander concepts.

    In effect DKR is about totally uprooting the whole Batman setup, about removing everything we know and understand about the series and changing the rules, so Bane gets to own the Bat physically, Catwoman outsmarts him and fools him, Alfred abandons him despite every time he said he wouldn’t, and Talia Al Ghul betrays and almost kill him.

    It’s about bringing Bruce Wayne back to reality, which is why Paul thinks DKR is more realistic than TDK. In a realistic universe (which Nolan has created) Batman would eventually meet his match, would get battered and injured long term, and would have to change tactics and find a new way of confronting new enemies. Some have complained about him overusing the “Bat”, but I would use it if I had it, and I had got my ass kicked by the bad guy repeatedly.

    Stopping Bane was never the point of the film, it was about saving Gotham from itself. Bane and Talia were trying to lead them to their own destruction by encouraging them to turn into mindess animals ashing out at order and structure. In many ways the shadow society they created resembled Communistic and French Revolutionary ideals of being anti-heirarchy and anti-priviledge. Trashcanman said that this meant that we need the 1%, but I don’t think that was the point, it was more that people without structure and order in their lives become savage and turn on each other. I don’t think this was played out too well in the film, but the implication was that without the structures we have created to control ourselves we are capable of a lot of destruction. Bane embodied that destructive capability, and in a way he was more scary than the Joker precisely because the Joker predicated himself on being outside society but never expecting that society to do more than slap him on the wrist. Bane’s whole plan was to annihilate scoiety to allow decadent Gothamites to kill themselves with their folly. In an ideal world Bane’s plan wouldn’t have worked as nobody would have gone along with his vision, but as people are too corrupt, sick or simply hateful, they allowed him to execute the most ambitious and hateful plan to destroy the city.

    Batman as a concept is a similar figure, in a way he’s in the same position as Bane, a powerful man with resources, but Batman chooses to support the structure rather than oppose it. This is a far harder job, and he does worse at it than Bane, but in the end the world we all recognise reacts and it’s not Batman in the end that destroys Bane, but Catwoman, the one character that starts the film hating structure and working to escape it but who comes to see that in order for society to exist and for people like her to thrive, they need that structure to work around.

    Also, to those complaining about how his reaction to Rachel’s death caused him to abandon Batman when similar loss made him take it up. Think about it like this, Wayne saw Batman as a way to prevent the loss of loved ones, to protect people who needed saving and to make sure criminals can’t harm people with impunity. When the Joker was plainly not afraid of him, and killed Rachel despite his best efforts, his illusions about the effectiveness of Batman were shattered. If Batman can’t protect his loved ones then why be him?

    I also thought Bane’s voice was amazing. Who can complain about a Vader-esque sounding Goldfinger? He delivered the most awful lines about horrible things and made them sound great just because he had a cultured accent. It’s the ultimate in screwing with the audience, as we always hear bulky characters with stupid sounding voices, and Bane’s voice was the exact opposite of expectations.

    That’s not to say the film is perfect. I did question why they didn’t show how Wayne got back to Gotham after escaping the prison. I did question why more wasn’t made of the mask Bane wears or what it represented. I was unsure why the US government couldn’t have sent a jamming signal as Bane had clearly made it obvious it was a remote signal he was using. It did seem quite dumb to send every single police officer into the sewers all together, and they did look very clean and shiny after getting out.

    But Scarecrow court, excellent. Death by Exile for all!

  21. At JB I’m pretty sure batman beyond the animated series deals with a retired Bruce Wayne. Not sure exactly. I think JGLs roll was also a mod to that storyline as a younger batman (his first name being robin I think was just to please fans). My only small gripe is the shot of batman in the bat cockpit 5 seconds before the nuke goes off….could have done without that shot.

  22. First I want to say the movie was just OK.
    1.The nuclear bomb idea i am done with. I am sick of movies and TV resorting to nuclear bombs as a way to create tension. It’s over used and to easy. (Nolan is better than that)
    2. Catwomen was definitely an add on.
    3. Also catwomen and Bruce being together in the end of the movie didn’t fit with Batman. Bruce became Batman to bring to justice people like Catwomen. Now he sees no problem with Catwomens criminal actions because he wants to settle down and please Alfred.
    4. Banes voice was still annoying and hard to understand.
    No way this movie is as good as TDK!

  23. It seemed very obvious to me that the Scarecrow court scene was created with the intent of the joker being in the big seat.

    The biggest annoyance to me was that Bane’s mask was his achille’s heel, and dominated at least 2 scenes from the movie that I can remember (the opening sequence and his 2nd fight with batman) and yet it was never explained beyond “he got punched in the face a bunch or something.” Medical science is already capable of doing better than that, and he clearly has access to money and technology.

    Also I’m totally OK with the Robin ending as long as they don’t make the Robin movie.

  24. Bane’s quick ending, after all the grandiose speeches and monologues etc was very disappointing, he essentially had the same death as the Arab in Indiana Jones who puts on a great sword performance just to be shot by Indy. Might be a stretch but whatever.

    Could care less about the Talia revelation, I couldn’t connect with her character. MAYBE if she made an appearance in the prior two movies would I have felt connected, like “seeing an old friend” but no. The revelation she was in the league of shadows was just as dramatic as Guy Pearce being alive in Prometheus.

    That being said, awesome movie.

  25. I think the reason for Bane’s death at the hand of Catwoman was so blunt on purpose. It showed that using guns to kill was easy and that Batman was willing to take the hard route, even if it was the hardest and could get him killed.

  26. I personally think Azreal would have been better then Robin, but no matter really. What really made me loose intrest in the film was the slight mention of “A giant crocidile”. I am assuming he ment killer croc. But as the movie goes on , there is no more mention of this. why tease me in the first place? the rest of the film was sluggish , not writen too well, the direction seemed desparate or even lost. On the other hand Hardy (Bane) and Hathaway (catwoman) I thought were great. She really supprised me in this movie. Not a bad movie , but could have been much much better .

  27. Even though it was a marathon of a movie (3 hours? Was every scene THAT important?), I enjoyed it. That being said I had some of the same gripes that have been mentioned before (i.e. Blake conveniently realizing Batman’s identity) but I was really bothered by the last fight scene between Batman and Bane, especially when Batman says “Hand over the trigger, and then you have my permission to die”

    Ok I know Nolan loves calling back to lines (i.e. what do we do when we fall, didn’t you get the memo, etc) and it’s representative of Batman turning the tables on what Bane said earlier, but CMON! Part of the reason Batman and his relationship with his rogue gallery is so interesting is because Batman’s one rule is “don’t kill” yet he is constantly faced with pressure to kill these incurable psychopaths who are repeatedly sent through the revolving door of Arkham Asylum. Even in TDK, in the face of the Joker, he refused to break his “one rule”. That’s part of what makes Batman so compelling. But when he utters Bane’s line back to him during the final fight of TDKR, it felt out of place and inconsistent. Was Nolan trying to convey that Batman had become so desperate or fearless that he was willing to kill/let someone die?

    But then again, he did technically kill Ra’s al Ghul in Batman Begins so fuck it I guess!

  28. At some point, when Bane destroyed Batman’s back, I thought that Blake would become Batman and I wouldn’t have hated that story. What I didn’t like is that Blake is actually Robin, but Robin was never called Robin. We had Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, etc.

    About Bruce’s fake death, I really thought at first that he was dead for good and I liked it that way, I mean in prison he learnt to finally fear death and so to embrace it in the end would have been great, but faking it is ok too. I guess Bruce destroyed his own Batman to be sure to never take the cowl again, as Alfred told him it would lead him to his death.

  29. @ Rob J

    — I’m with you on this. I would have done away with any of the references to Blake as Robin. That was annoying. Instead, let him become the Batman. In terms of the story that Nolan was telling, across all three films, that would make more sense anyway.

    Tiny plot points aside, this is the best of the three films in mho.

  30. LeI think it would have been cool if they showed Blake fighting with batons or a staff and they showed that Bruce was working on a black and blue suit in the final scene with Blake. That could have

  31. That could have led to a Nightwing movie starring JGL rather than a straight up reboot.
    I really like this idea Paul and I think you should continue it with big movies.

  32. Perhaps I saw it differently, but I saw JGL becoming a new Batman, not Robin. He got access to the Batsave with all the Bat themed gear. While I’m sure Lucius will help out it’s not like they had unlimited funds to retool everything with a Robin motife. Batman is the symbol Gotham will respond to.

    Saying Robin was his middle name was just a bit of fanservice.

  33. Wow, where to begin. I’ll begin first off by saying that if Heath were still alive, he wouldn’t have appeared as the judge instead of scarecrow because in all likelihood he would have changed the entire story of the movie, it is even plausible that there wouldn’t even be a bane (however I do believe Bane was inevitable in the nolan-verse as he is a great parallel to Batman)

    did they need to not mention the joker once? I think Heath Ledger would agree with me in the idea that the story was more important than his death. Yes it was a tragedy that such a talented individual (any individual really) died, yes it was respectful to be cautious about how to approach using him, but at the end of the day the story is still important, and these movies were bigger than any of the individual pieces involved. I get not recasting him, and that alone in my opinion should have been enough to honor his name, but to not even mention him is a true tragedy. This may sound harsh, but people live and then they die. We understand so little about death that to me death doesn’t warrant the amount of despair it receives. 25 years from now nobody is really going to care that Heath is dude. That may sound mean, but it’s true. Lives don’t stand the test of time, but idea’s and legends do, and that’s what these Batman movies not only preached but became. 25 years from now the third movie won’t be as good simply because people don’t know the context of the joker, and it will somewhat ruin these movies. Joker isn’t a man, he’s an idea (anarchy embodied), and it was a disservice to the character and his impact on the story and characters that he wasn’t even mentioned.

    Did you like or dislike the large stretch of time Bruce/Batman was gone during the film? Not really. Joss Whedon said it perfectly when he said (and I’m paraphrasing) that: the batman movies are great, but their not about Batman. And that is true. It’s about the city of Gotham and it’s inhabitants, it’s about corruption, it’s about pain, chaos, regret, fear, power, change, and redemption. It just also happens to have Batman. These movies don’t dwell deep into Batman/Bruce Wayne’s psyche, and never had, so for him to not appear in a large portion of the movie is ok, because he isn’t the main character or idea behind the movies (yes he’s the protagonist, but the movies is about what one person’s actions do, not who or what one person is)

    Why did Bruce Wayne need to fake his own death? Is he continuing to do so after the events of the film? It’s not like he’s in disguise. Would it have been more impactful to kill him? A thought I had during the film was that possibly he would really die, and Thomas Blake would become the new Batman rather than Robin. Comic sacrilege sure, but I think that could have worked as well? Did Bruce Wayne fake his own death. Granted I only saw the movie once (so far), but it you could make a case for both sides. Bruce Wayne is world renowned, so he would have been recognized as alive by somebody in Florence. Upon further reflection, yeah, he did probably. He also most likely continues to fake his death as why fake your own death at this point?
    I thought Bruce should have died for several reasons, first is it would have made the movie even more emotional and impactful. Next, it would further cement the idea that Batman is immortal. Bruce learns from Ra’s al Ghoul and dies a man and becomes reborn as a legend, the goal that he had strived for since Batman begins.

    Did Batman hang up his cowl in the end to turn things over to Robin entirely, or do you imagine the two of them returning to work together? I think for the most part Bruce has hung up the cowl. That’s why he went to florence with Catwoman, to live his life like alfred and his parents would have wanted. John Blake took up the mantle of Batman with Bruce likely training him in the arts of being Batman. If things got bad enough I’m sure Burce might don the cape and do some of the Robin-esque work, but otherwise John Blake is Batman.

    the Dark Knight was better. The acting was better (heath obviously, but Aaron eckheart was BRILLIANT, as was everybody else not named Maggie Gyllenhall), the characters were better (come on, how many characters EVER are as good as the Joker?) the despair in Bruce was better (DK really doubted everything about what he was doing, if he was crazy, if he was even doing the right thing where as in DKR bruce only doubts whether he is strong enough physically to make a jump of beat Bane in hand-to-hand combat), the fight was better (in DK it was a battle of ideology and soul, in DKR it was a battle of misguided crime fighter vs. crime fighter), the script was better (interrogation room in the dark knight, enough said). That isn’t a discredit to the Dark Knight Rises. DKR was one of the better movies ever made, easily in my top 50 and most likely my top 20, however the Dark Knight was one of the best movies ever made and will truly stand the test of time.

    I hope that was legible, logical, and smooth. All these ideas kinda rushed to my head almost simultaneuosly and I was very anxious to get it all out that it might not have come out as neatly and “professional” as I would liked.

    Hope to hear from ya Tassi!

  34. Something about all three movies that I just picked up on, a plot hole if you will. In Batman Begins he becomes batman, lets say that plotline takes 2 weeks at most, maybe a month, and it ends with him finding out about the joker.

    So then lets say he finds the joker and the dark knights plot takes up another two weeks or so. (between each movie lets say six months at most, wouldnt take batman that long to find the joker.)

    and then he goes on Hiatus for 8 years, and comes back for a few days as batman, leaves AGAIN for 5 months, and then comes back as batman for 1 day… This Gotham City has Batman for like less than a year at most.

  35. Here is what I found interesting. Where was Titan? Bane was suppose to be enhanced by a drug that made him super strong. Where was that in the film. Also, who says that Blake becomes Robin? I know at the end they mention that his name is Robin but there are so many different options for him. He could take on the persona of Nightwing, or I personally think he is going to take on the persona of Batman like Jean-Paul Valley did in the knightfall series that this movie seemed loosely based on.

  36. How did batman “survive” the bomb blast? All the scenes leading up to it had him in the batcopter. So I dont understand how he didnt die from the blast radius. I would love it if somebody explained that please! 🙂

  37. I love the movie, but if I had to nitpick certain things it would be these:

    1) Bane’s voice. At times, as others have mentioned as well, it was difficult to understand what he was saying. When he read Gordon’s speech (several pages somehow equaled much less when spoken) it was distracting.

    2) Towards the end the movie felt rushed to wrap up everything. Probably an extra 10-15minutes would have helped the pacing for me.

    3) I was actually okay with Batman/Bruce being dead at the end and JGL taking over and finishing with that. Yes, a happy ending is enjoyable, but I still would have felt closure without seeing Bruce dining it up with Selina.

    4) Robin. It was a little too blatant of a reference for me. I personally would have liked a subtle one, but hey can’t win them all.

  38. wow, really amazed at some of the comments here. some of you either didn’t watch the movie and just read a summary or you just don’t get how a movie works.

    some of the repeated comments i have been seeing (all over the web, not just here)

    “it only took the scientist a few seconds to make the reactor into a bomb”
    –um, no it didn’t. it’s a movie, they don’t show everything. in a 3 hour movie did you really want a scene of the scientist messing around with a machine for a while? no, bane says make it the bomb and we cut to him being done. guess what else, bruce didn’t just teleport from the prison back to gotham and the whole movie actually took place over a 6 month period.

    “a bat spaceship?? so fake. it looks ilke the batmobile without wheels”
    –yes, because everything else in the movie is 100% real. it’s an experimental military vehicle. who cares. and yes, it looks like the batmobile because the same guy(s) probably made them both

    “so blake just happened to figure out bruce was batman and then just happened to find the batcave??”
    –yes, he just happened to figure out bruce was batman. throughout the movie they show he has great detective skills. also based on his age we can probably assume this was right when batman first started up, so bruce wayne was gone for 7 years, comes back to gotham, and all of a sudden batman shows up? blake is a smart guy. also, tim drake figured it out in the comic, so its possible. and no, he didn’t “just happen to find the batcave” first off, we see bruce has left coordinates and spelunking gear for him, also, HE KNEW BRUCE WAS BATMAN AND THE BATCAVE IS UNDER WAYNE MANOR!!!

    “this tiny part was missing”
    –whether it was bruce not discussing batmans rules with blake, or not showing him getting a place ticket back to gotham or not showing bane eating lunch. whatever it was, it’s insignificant, but we can assume it happened. bruce and blake start talking about masks in the car. we don’t see the rest of the car ride, we can assume they talked about more. again, in a nearly 3 hour movie lets not add onto it by including every little scene.

    “everyone figuring out batmans identity, OMG”
    –ok, if by everyone you mean 2 people. blake i already mentioned above. who else “figured it out” only bane, and that’s a maybe. ra’s already knew and could’ve let his daughter know who in turn could’ve let bane know. or maybe bane did figure it out, as he did in the comics. as for catwoman, she only found out because she was there when bane announced it. and he practically told gordon himself. he had no control over bane or catwoman and seeing as he was heading out anyway, whats the harm in letting gordon, his best friend really, know who he was. besides, this was done much better than in every other batman movie where he or alfred invites whatever love interest he has into the batcave.

    “why didn’t batman just use his gadgets on bane, he had no plan”
    –he tried that in their first fight. he threw smoke bombs, bane laughed and said he was trained the same way, so he expected it. he tries using his EMP to turn off the lights, bane says he was born in darkness. its no use. then in their second fight he does have a plan. he knows banes mask keeps him from pain, so if you notice batman is trying to land every punch on the mask so he can break it. and guess what, it worked.

    ‘he has a limp and is broken, puts on a magical leg brace then is fine the rest of the movie”
    –whats the problem? his main issue was his leg, he put on a tech brace, and it fixed his leg. “but the rest of the movie he’s ok…. ” yeah, he wore it the rest of the movie. “no, not in the prison” ok, right, not in the prison, but he kept off it a good 3 or 4 months while his back healed, his leg healed as well.

    “rachels death should’ve made him fight, not give up”
    –eh, yes and no. bruce became the bat after seeing his parents killed by a common thief. as he did his thing as the bat, he stopped those common criminals and mob guys, but also there was escalation. before the bat crime was bad, but not insane, because of him people got out of control, blowing up hospitals and typing people to exploding drums of gasoline. he felt that if he was out there more the criminals would get crazier. this is proven at the beginning of the movie when they say all they have now is small petty crimes and no batman for 8 years. so rachels brutal murder made him realize the batman makes crazy villains and he has to retire so the over the top villains don’t show up.

    all that being said, yes, there was issues with the movie but it was still great.

    i wish bane had been bigger and more brutal. i wish there was at least a reference to some sort of venom (say his masks doses him with PCP or something), i wish they showed more of life in gotham after bane took over and i wish they destroyed more of it. and i really wish bane went down with a better fight.

    mostly though i wish they had stuck to the comics a bit more. instead of retiring batman at the beginning, they should’ve had him being batman all 8 years, running himself ragged. bane shows up, beats him to just about dead then drags him to arkham or black gate, lets everyone out and announces to them they no longer need fear the bat, and then he crushes batmans spine.

    this way there is at least some relevance. the way the movie was done gotham has been used to a batman free life for 8 years. criminals aren’t as crazy and citizens aren’t as scared. breaking him changes nothing. and even if they were used to him being there, it still changes nothing because no one really knew his back was broke except catwoman.

    had batman not retired and bane broke him in public this sets up an awesome scenario where all the criminals know they can run rampant as no one is there to stop them, it will also mandate that the citizens take the law into their own hands as they have no protection. it would really help to “give gotham back to the people”, as it stands right now all breaking batman did was keep him out of banes way for a few months.

    /rant

  39. There’s no way DKR is better than The Dark Knight. Yes the themes are grander and explosions bigger but The Dark Knight had nail-biting oppressiveness throughout the entire movie that nothing else tops. Just the interrogation scene alone was worth the ticket price, not to mention the first 5 minutes with the Joker. This is on top of the once-in-a-lifetime acting job by Ledger.

    DKR was very very enjoyable but I felt that while the story structure was tight, some of the execution wasn’t. I think the biggest gripe was how Nolan handled Miranda / Talia. Maybe it was the chemistry or the story progression between her and Bruce but her character and the twist should have had more impact. It just didn’t.

    Loved Bane and his voice, however. Bang up job for Hardy. Blake was handled pretty well and JGL knocked it out of the park. I would definitely watch a JGL Batman movie.

    Lastly, I would have to rank DKR a notch below The Dark Knight but above Batman Begins. Compared to the other two, the movie seems a little awkward in comparison. Let’s not even mention katie Holmes.

    Still DKR is one of the best movies so far this year and I enjoyed the crap out it.

  40. Quick and simple thoughts:

    Personally I thoroughly enjoyed this film, I thought that Hathaway did an excellent job in the role of Catwoman. I liked how the cat element of er costume was primdominantly trhe way in which her headpiece sat on her head. She was an awesome fighter and it would have been interesting to see her and Batman possibly have a quick sparring scene.

    I knew about Miranda being Talia, I think a lot of comic fans would have known. Bane was good but he has a completely non-related connection to the comic book or previous film/tv versions of himself and his origins. But I suppose Nolan has to keep things as grounded in reality as possible.

    It would have been nice to see Talia in some fight scenes.

    Personally whilst I liked the character of Blake but didn’t like that he was suppose to become Robin.

    There wasn’t much Batman in this film when I think back.

  41. I am HUGE batman freak and was simply inlove with the trilogy. TDK is my personal favorite followed by TDKR and then BB.

    Rises did have some problems like the plot holes as many people have already mentioned but for now i just cant not give this movie a 4.5/5. Come on dudes, lets be realistic. Making a follow to The Dark Knight is already a pretty daunting task but Nolan pulled it off. It may not be perfect but it was mind-blowing when it was good. I actually liked Bane’s voice cause i thought it added to the character dimensions and Blake was well played by JGL.

    The scar on Miranda back was a sort of giveaway that she was gonna turn. I honestly don’t know how but that’s what i thought when i saw it. I do agree with the thing about Alfred getting off character in the middle by leaving Bruce cause he thought he was gonna get killed by Bane or something. Selina was hella hot and i will never look at the Batpod the same again. Dat ass man. And she did play her part well and really made Selina be sexy, tough and deceiving.

    Bruce was done very well in my opinion and i personally don’t want to see anyone else under the cowl anymore but Bale. The upcoming reboot will damn that sentiment to hell.

    Speaking of which, what do you guys think of the upcoming reboot? i think i read somewhere that Nolan was gonna be directing again. Which is really fucking weird. Reboot with the same director?

  42. “he kept off it a good 3 or 4 months while his back healed, his leg healed as well.”

    The doctor said he had no cartilage in his knee. Cartilage doesn’t grow back.

  43. Well said, steve p. Well said, indeed. I was thinking all those things, though I still feel the time jumping at the end hurt the film as a whole. I especially think that a worn-down Batman of 8 years probably would have served the story better.

    @Mochadude, he’s the goddamn Batman, that’s how.

  44. My sister thinks Bruce didn’t actually survive, and that was just Alfred having his fantasy, like he talked about earlier in the film. But that Selina was with him sort of makes it seem like he did survive, since she wanted to erase her past and start a new life, and there is no reason for Alfred to imagine her there.

    I liked Catwoman. Anne Hathaway surpassed my expectations with the role.

    I didn’t find Bane that difficult to understand at all. He had an almost polite way of talking that made him quite terrifying because it contrasted so much with the things he did. I rather liked him being Talia’s protector as well. I thought Tom Hardy did very well in the role and I hope we see more of him over here in the States in the future.

    I think John Blake took up the mantle of Batman, not Robin. Robin was his real name, not his “hero” name. Like everyone else, he thought Batman/Bruce Wayne was dead, so he became the new Batman. Only a few people knew who Batman really was, and Bruce told Blake earlier that Batman was a symbol, so Blake simply decided to keep the symbol alive. Bruce Wayne might be dead, but that didn’t mean that Batman had to be dead as well.

  45. What this movie does well is it asks you not to compare it toe-to-toe with TDK, but the judge it as the ending of a three-part story. When you step back and do that, you have perhaps the best trilogy of all time.

  46. I seem to recall only one laugh in the whole film, it would have been good/humourous if when being confronted by Talia and held by Bane if Batman said something along the lines of “you know i f***ed her right?” gettin Bane angry and this being the excuse for him to fight Batman, it was out of character for Bane to go against orders just as everyone unconditionally followed him.

  47. Here’s a question, if Heath Ledger didn’t pass away, what role would he have played in TDKR, would he have been in it at all, would they have worried about Bane?

  48. @Sam

    “One thing I didn’t get was what’s the point of stealing the fingerprints? Was it so they could use them to activate the fusion reactor and if that’s the case why not just activate it sooner with talia’s and Bruce’s handprints?”

    My friend asked me about this as well, but they mentioned “finger print verification” for when Bruce made the crazy stock play to bankrupt him. He was framed of course, using the prints.

  49. Now I saw the Dark Knight Rises about 24 hours ago. So I’ve had time to think this over.

    SPOILERS! IF you don’t want to ruin the movie DO NOT READ.

    I have ten very distinct reasons why I am dissapointed in the movie.

    1. Too many plots taken from comics: I think Nolan is great. However, as an avid Batman fan, I have noticed he uses a lot of plots from different comics/comic runs/graphich novels for his movies. Batman Begins: Batman:Year one was used HEAVILY I mean some scenes in it resonate direct copies from scenes just changed around alittle. He also used Scare crowes origin as well as a bit of Ras Al Ghul. This is fine most comic book movies use other author’s comic work as inspiration and even knock things off. Dark Knight: Uses subplot from Batman A Long Halloween, Origins of Two-face and Joker. All fine and dandy. In fact in this film he only took some very small scenes from these comics/graphic novels. IT felt more original and WAS more original hence why it was more of a hit then Batman Begins. Now, Dark Knight Rises. It uses subplots/story plots from No Man’s Land, Knightfall Saga, Bane vs. Batman, Birth of a Demon, Catwomen stories. Essentially he used material from alot of different sources. Trying to fit it all in to roughly a 2 hr and 40 min film. It’s fine to use comic book source material for a comic book based film because heck ITS BATMAN its what fans expect even at times want. Works. However if you notice Dark Knight Rises had WAY too much backstory/source material working with then the other two previous films.

    2. How Nolan’s releastic world falls flat. Nolan is known for creating the most “realistic” batman. However within the story there are some problematic problems. For instance the scene in which 1,000’s of cops are going underground and its a trap made by Bane. When I saw this scene I was asking WHY?! HOW!? Why would they send THOUSANDS of cops for one man. I understand having maybe a fraction of how many where running down there but not ALL the “cops” in gotham. Really? When has a man hunt ever been done on foot in modern times where ALL the cops were running in ONE area after a small group of people. (They didn’t even want him that bad earlier in the film when they started chasing Batman who only re-appeared after 8 years of disappearing.) That was also another scene I felt was stupid. They all chase after Batman who for all they could know is a copy cat and maybe even hired by BANE to lead them off his trail……

    3. Batman’s back breaking wasn’t very dramatic. Why? Begining of the film he’s limping around in a cane depressed. HE WAS ALREADY A BROKEN MAN without BANE ever touching him. In the comics it was dramatic because Batman felt unbreakable, Bane did something that NO one else ever did he broke him literally and mentally. In Nolan’s film the man was already broken after his girl (who wasn’t even dating him at the time but ANOTHER man) died. I understand he loved her but iit made no sense. His parents die and is killed by som criminal he goes hell bent on fighting crime, his not-so-much girlfriend that he loves dies and he is broken? No, simply, NO he wouldn’t be, he’d be hell bent on beating crime. Batman would be going insane chasing criminals. If this was realistic, Batman is essentially insane about fighting crime, it would become a day to day obsession with no end. Not some man shutting himself up. Alfred wouldn’t be afraid of him going back out there, Alfred would have been trying to get him to relax and take time off from fighting crime like an obsessed lunatic. Anyways, when Bane broke him in the movie it just didn’t have any effect the man was broken already there was NO point.

    4. Alfred’s big speech falls flat. Right away Alfred tells him he is leaving and why. He starts with a hight note and then the conversation goes to a “reveal” but falls flat because his highnote was he was leaving beause bruce wouldn’t listen to him any other way and it was the only way to tell him he had enough. Simply put his big reveal should have come first and then say I’m leaving I can’t see you go back out there. I love you like a dad, blah blah blah.

    5. Nolan tries to show everything that has happened from the last two movies in this one but ignores anything Joker related (exception of Harvey Dent’s last 2 minutes on screen). I get why he didn’t want to touch it. BUT he could have had at least some mention. Hell, Joker was supposed to be very impactful in the last film but no one makes one mention of him and there WAS a perfect time. When Blake is questioning Gordon after learning the truth about Dent and the Dent Act Gordon could have said something like. ” That Dent act put men like Crane away for life. Would you want the Joker out? He would have been without that act.” I mean comon I think that would be a VERY good reason why Gordon dirtied his hands so to speak. It would be tasteful that way Nolan gives credit to how important Joker was in his universe not just ignoring him like the white elephant in the room no one talks about. Crane was put in the film and had NO purpose. Honestly, there was no point.

    6. Bane is turned into Batman and Robin Bane all over again for the last 10 seconds of his life. Okay so Bane is the huge Mastermind. At least thats what Nolan and friends want you to think. (except the mentioning of Ras and huges hints of Tate’s real identity all over the place) Either way you do think that Bane was the one behind the plans and was maybe trying to please his masters or something or show that he is better then Ras. Either way in the last 10 seconds of his life he is reduced to a Bodyguard just like he is in Batman and Robin. Yes, he actualy SPEAKS and is very intellegent in this film, but he is just a bodyguard following orders from Talia, nothing more. It’s an insult in the comics Bane is very egomatic and a villian in his own right. He didn’t need to be following Talia’s orders.

    7. Talia is a weak character. You hardly know her throughout the film except that bruce gets intimate with her for one night and leaves her to get his back broken after chasing his other girlfriend and that she owns most of Wayne company because he didn’t care to stop anything that happened to his source of Batman gear and life.

    8. Catwoman had no real purpose in the film other than for Batman to run off with, chase, and date. Oh and kill Bane. Honestly she makes a huge deal at the party with bruce that something big is coming and then when it does she has nothing to do with it, nor seems to have any knowledge of it. She could have been one of the main people being a leader of theives stealing from the rich and then betrayed by Bane but no she just gets herself busted after feeling guilty and then does the right thing at the end.

    9. Revolution fails. Bane makes a huge deal about a revolution, heck even Catwomen mentions it to bruce that something is coming. Bane makes a speech about Dent and all his lies and all he gets on his team is Criminals from jail, not the common man on the street. What would have been more blowing to Batman would be him convincing everyone that the status quo is a lie and to join him. Batman fighting the people he has been protecting for years…. oh wait…..

    10. Mediocre ending with obviouse Tim Drake (cough) I mean John Blake taking up the mantle. Alfred getting a possible heart attack from finding out Bruce is alive and that his mourning over the man he conisdered a son didn’t even bother to give him a hint he was alive. Oh, and Batman retires from fighting crime but no real explatination is given. I just felt it was weak.

    It was fun to watch but didn’t make sense as a film and comparing to Nolan’s other 2 Batman films the worst of them. I could have dived deeper into my 10 reasons but I’d rather summarize them as jsut 10 main points I wanted to make. Please to not get too upset. IF you loved the film great. I am just stating problems I saw with it. I felt Nolan could have done better. I just felt he needed to just have one strong villian less secret twists and focus on a few characters. The dark Knight was great because your main focus was Harvey Dent, Batman, and the Joker. This film was Batman, Bane, Gordon, Blake, Catwomen, and Talia? It just wasn’t as strong as it could be. Too many new characters. It was an okay film I’d say a C for Nolan standards. He is great at making films but this one was lacking. Thats how I feel and I am glad that many people enjoyed the movie. I’d watch it again but it’s not the greatest of the Batman films in my opinion. Thanks for reading.

  50. sry, i didnt read anyone’s comments just yet, and im only half way done with the article, but as i was reading through the paragraph about catwoman possibly being”tacked” on, i wanted to say; the film actually played a bit like batman: arkham city now that i think about it. before you attack me, i said “a bit”, with the city left to the crooks, and batman/catwoman creeping around, “robin” cameo and all. Talia Al Goul working with and eventually BACKSTABBING batman, wait a minute…

  51. I think it was a good movie. In regards to production and connecting with Batman Begins, that the DK cast aside in the long run.

    However for me I think it was a gloomy unpleasant feeling what the movie make me feel. Bruce/Batman becames a shell of his former self, showing that make the right thing doesn’t makes you happy.

    The anarchy form a story perspective shows what happens when the hero don’t tries hard enough to beat the bad guys (like the evil futures in comic logic). Also in this regard (I probably be wrong), is this how americans view terrorists? (adding – in a magnified way)

  52. Like most fans of the trilogy, I made sure to watch BB and TDK before going to see Rises. From the (rather zealous) opinions of most of my friends and most of the comments here, my conclusion WILL BE EXTREMELY PAINFUL… FOR YOU!…, but I think that Begins is far and away the best of the three. Before you hunt me down, just hear me out. Here are a few reasons –

    It’s the only one that’s really about Batman –

    This is not to take away from Ledger at all, and in fact I think Ledger’s performance is easily the best of any actor in any of the films, but they are all supposed to be Batman films, and no matter how good the Joker is, it can’t make up for Batman doing virtually nothing. If you had to sum up the films as concisely as possible, this is how I would do it; Begins: Bruce Wayne becomes Batman, TDK: the Joker terrorizes Gotham, DKR: Bane terrorizes Gotham. in TDK and DKR, Bruce whines a lot and moralizes a lot, but it’s not about him, it’s about something else that he gets very upset about, but then seems to respond merely by bucking up and beating hell into the bad-guy. Begins also shows Batman as a detective, which is really the core of the character; he doesn’t detect anything in the next two, he just beats people up.

    It’s the tightest –

    It’s simply better written in every respect. It has three clear acts, and an epilogue, and the pacing is perfectly appropriate to each. The dialogue is brilliant, and sets a theme that the next two fail to match, particularly with the repeated lines; ‘nice coat’, ‘various funds and brokerages’, ‘didn’t you get the memo’, ‘mind your surroundings’, ‘finders keepers’ (pretty much too many to list), vs. ‘you have my permission to die’, ‘about your no guns rule’, etc. – the next two even start ripping off the good lines from begins – ‘don’t worry, it comes in black’. Even the comic book shout outs are better – Zsasz, ‘two faced friends’, and so on; in TDK all we really get is ‘should do fine against cats’, which is really just gratuitous and foreshadowing, not cleverly worked in like in Begins.

    The Dark Knight has the pandering ridiculousness of Gordon’s death/return, the ‘deus ex’ tension lurch into the Harvey/Rachel dilemma, and an absolute mess of an ending. Rises has pacing problems too severe to discuss in detail. What is interesting is that I would genuinly argue that the Joker’s character introduction is the best of all time, in any film of any genre, and Rises’ epilogue is the same, but these two movies are marked by this type of moment – scarily brilliant in isolation, but dragged down by context. in Begins, it seems like everything fits the context, enhances it, and works with it.

    It’s deeper –

    The final two simply try too hard to be epic, almost without realising that actually being epic does not come from the ambition and sheer length of a movie, but from its content. Begins grapples with justice masterfully, invoking a characterised embodiment of old testament wrath versus new testament compassion. Almost every single character has a line about fear, each making a different point, and each in line with their particular role. From that we get to the Joker, supposedly embodying anarchy, but really doing little other than constantly blowing things up, and Dent, Gordon and Batman forming a pseudo-triumvirate hammered home by Rachel’s utterly false account of Roman History, then in Rises we get Bane blowing up Gotham… but first chilling around for five months and starting a French Revolution to kill some time.

    The irony is that while TDK is merely, and superficially ‘about’ an entire city, and Rises skips the subtlety of Begins and starts throwing Dickens quotes into your face, Begins achieves its purpose because its characters act based on what they believe, rather than the mixture of simply talking about what they believe and Nolan working in sky shots of Gotham with contrived moral conundrums.

    HOWEVER – Katie Holmes sucks, the action (and presumably the budget) in Begins is below par, I’ve mentioned the Joker is a new level of awesome and the ending to Rises is crazy good, I liked Bane’s voice, and I loved Catwoman’s ass…iduous characterisation.

    Not saying they are bad. They are both great. Saying Begins is simply a class apart. Try watching them again, but actively look for things that are wrong with them. I found almost nothing in Begins – it wasn’t ‘epic’ because it wasn’t trying to be ‘epic’, it was trying to be ‘Batman’. The next two try too hard, and their flaws compound to drag them down (down simply being a little bit below Begins, but still very high).

    That’s just my opinion though. I’m sure everybody disagrees.

    FISH, FISH, BUTTER, BUTTER! FISH, FISH, BUTTER, BUTTER!

  53. As far as The Joker’s exclusion from the film, I feel like a slight tip of the hat would’ve actually been more respectful than no allusion at all…after all, the two previous villians Ra’s al Ghul and Dr. Crane/Scarecrow were incorporated into the storyline (I thoroughly enjoyed how Crane was woven into the film. I thought it amusing and clever). Here’s my suggestion: as much as The Joker was against “plans” and “schemers” in The Dark Knight, he did in fact have an itinerary for accomplishing chaos, SO just let him out of his cage in The Dark Knight Rises when Bane “liberated” Gotham. Allude to this fact by simply showing an empty Arkham cell-maybe filled with HA HA HAs-and have his cackling (recorded during The Dark Knight) echoing through the halls. That’s it. Let the audience assume he’s just having fun running rampant somewhere. Later on have Gordon briefly comment on finally arresting all the whackos again (audience can assume it would be easier to catch The Joker this time since he didn’t have an opportunity to fabricate an elaborate game plan), OR leave him as a potential for of Blake AKA Robin in the action that would take place after the film ends.

    On another note, the overall lighting, shooting, and feel of Gotham feels distorted to me. Even in The Dark Knight, Gotham felt different than the Gotham of Batman Begins, which I think gave Gotham its due as a dark, gloomy city. Although Gotham’s outlook is brighter, I feel that the 2nd installments of the trilogy strayed too far from the Gotham imagery invoked in the 1st film. The high speed train that weaves throughout the city is never shown after the first movie, nor are The Narrows or the complete facade of Wayne Tower…Wayne tower in movies 2 and 3 looks completely different in the first film, as does the city itself when being shown in wide shots…The Gotham of Batman Begins seems saturated in a gloomy miasma, while the latter 2 movies portray it as a normal city, bright and radiant. That’s a matter of preference, though, I suppose.

    Lastly, I do not think Selina Kyle + Batpod being Bane’s bane was befitting. I found it anticlimatic and a waste of a chance to dramatically show Bane’s demise in some other creative fashion.

    Anyone agree/disagree?

  54. Most of the comments from everybody are very valid but seriously, some of you guys think too much… to the point where you no longer enjoy a good film for the cheap thrill that it is.

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