"The Dark Knight Rises" Talkback (Spoilers)

[Kiddington]

Just got back from it a little while ago. Place was surprisingly packed for a matinee on a Monday afternoon (glad to see ticket sales don't seem to be hurting too much, given the unfortunate circumstances in Colorado), but anyway...

I sorta share the same general opinion as everyone else; not as good as TDK, but still a pretty damn good movie in its own right. I do have to agree with EK, though; the plot twist at the end... ehhhhh. I personally could've done without it, if only just to keep Bane as sinister and as threatening a force as possible (his whole character feels a bit too softened after this, which contradicts his actions earlier in the film).

Still though, great movie. I really feel for whoever is tasked with the challenge of rebooting the franchise when the time comes. This will be a hard trilogy to live up to.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

This is probably something that should be posted in the That Guy With The Glasses thread, but I thought I'd post up Doug's review of the movie here on this thread (the link has both The Bum review and Doug's actual review of the movie). The short version is that he's one of those people who flat out didn't like the movie, which to my knowledge are still a minority among the people who have seen it, but there is still a noticeable increase of people underwhelmed by this Nolan Batman film than the first 2, despite its still general positive reception.

Here's the funny thing, after watching his review I do actually legitimately agree with a lot of his points that are problems with the film. I won't deny for a second that this film has plenty of flaws. That said, I honestly think he's being WAY too harsh on it. A lot of the problems he brings up aren't nearly as big of an issue as he makes them out to be, and quite a bit of it is honestly nit-picking on his part. I also completely disagree with him about the prison aspect of the movie. That part is up to interpretation. First off, the whole idea of why there were no guards there is because its supposed to be impossible to escape. Its a mental thing more than a physical thing, and from that aspect it works. People are so convinced of how realistic these Batman movies are supposed to be, but I think they forget that Nolan movies aren't as realistic as much as they are metaphorical. These films get stereotyped with the realism aspect too much just because they are relatively the far more realistic to other superhero movies, but there are plenty of aspects of each one of these films that are not even close to possible in real life, so in that regard they are still movies, first and foremost, which is why I judge them as such and don't mind times in any of these films where there are suspensions of disbelief.

The main point that I disagree with Doug about on the film, though, is the whole idea of the hero's journey and development. In fact, I couldn't disagree with him more. While I agreed with most of his other flaws for the movie, I felt that he was COMPLETELY off on his analysis (or lack thereof) of Bruce Wayne/Batman's character arc. I'll get into more depth about it later when more of you guys watch the movie and I don't have to worry about spoilers, but on the contrary to what Doug says I found that Bruce's development through this film was far stronger than in the first 2 films and was easily the best aspect of this movie. If it weren't for that it would have lost pretty much 90% of the character depth that it had to offer, IMO. I do agree with Doug that there was actually "too much" story in this one, though.

At any rate, while I do think that the film has many problems, the key difference between how I feel and how people who didn't like it feel is that I was still genuinely interested while I was watching the film, and I was for the most part constantly entertained, if nothing else. Its not one of those movies where I try my hardest to like it but feel completely underwhelmed (ex: Iron Man 2 or X-Men 3). The scope is big and the movie takes advantage of it. Admittedly the movie uses its high-budget set-pieces as more of a crutch than the first 2 movies. If it weren't for those, the movie would have honestly lost quite a bit of its entertainment value. Still, I find that it has the right balance of depth, scope, and action to keep it up as an above average superhero movie.

[talonmalon333]

I just got home from seeing it a little while ago. Truthfully, it might be a little too early to formulate an overall opinion, cause I need to let it sink in, first. However, one way or another, it was great. I really enjoyed it. There are a few things I'd like to mention from it. These are spoilers, so don't read unless you saw the movie. But either way, I'll type them in a color hard to see, so you'll have to bold to actually read them.












-This isn't very important. But I found it kind of interesting that, in the end, Ra's al Ghul was almost like the ultimate villain of the trilogy.
-Michael Caine was fabulous as Alfred here, despite having less screentime. At the end of the movie, in all honestly, he almost made me cry.
-I love Anne Hathaway. She's so amazing and absolutely beautiful... But putting my personal crush aside, I was a bit skeptical about her going into the movie. However, she did a great job as Selena Kyle.
-Bane was great. I will say this, that his voice had to grow on me, but I was fine with it in the end. And his delivery with dialogue was great. Very strange, but it fit.
-Christian Bale was the same as always. Great as Bruce Wayne... but I really don't have to say anything about his Batman voice. Nothing that hasn't already been said.
-Admittedly, for a while before seeing the movie, I had this weird feeling like the Batman and Catwoman relationship would be strange. In any other continuity, I really feel Selena Kyle is the only one for Batman. But in this trilogy, Rachel was already so well established as a character, that I thought it might seem weird introducing Selena Kyle in the last movie. But that wasn't an issue, the relationship was handled well, especially in the final shot of the film.
-The climax was arguably the best part of any Batman movie.
-It's funny, throughout the movie, I didn't think twice about the fact that they were referring to Bane as Ra's al Ghul's child, despite the fact that, of course, any other continuity would say otherwise. But of course, then they revealed Talia in the end. For this reason, I actually didn't mind that plot twist as much as a lot of people, though that might change over time when I think about the movie more.
-When all the inmates were escaping, the first thing that I thought about was "Where is the Joker in all of this?". Yeah, yeah, I know he can't appear cause... well, you know what happened. But story-wise, it just made me wonder what they did with the Joker after The Dark Knight. He'd love this chaos more than anyone.
-Enjoyed the Crane cameo.
-There were a few points in the movie, namely toward the end, where I considered the idea that John Blake would become Robin. I'm glad Christopher Nolan followed through with this, despite voicing his dislike about the idea of Robin.
-The ending was perfect.


I'll decide over time how much I like it in comparison to other Batman movies, such as The Dark Knight.

[Avaitor]

You know, I don't think we should be so tough on spoilers on here. The thread does warn about them showing up, after all. If you really don't want the movie to be ruined, don't come on here until you've seen it or skip over parts of text where you think it'll happen. Since EK is the only admin who's seen it yet, he can rightfully police the thread if needed, so it should be okay for Foggle and I to step down.

So feel free to talk about the movie without whiting your text.

[talonmalon333]

Alright. Since it's okay by you, Avaitor, I'm gonna just post something related to spoilers.





I watched the NC's review of Rises. There are some things he said that I understand, but think he was too harsh on. There was also a thing or two that I highly agreed with. But there are things that I think he was just off on. While watching the video, I actually thought the exact same thing as EK did, when the NC talked about Bruce's arc, as well as the lack of guards at the top of the prison.

Another thing I'd like to mention is when he complains about the villain's supposed lack of reason for what they are doing... Now first of all, I can understand people not liking Talia al Ghul's inclusion. But her inclusion gives some insight on why things are happening. It's, at very least, something you can go along with.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

He inclusion makes sense, and people had speculated on that twist long before this movie was even released, but really the way they pulled off the twist was just way too spontaneous, IMO. There was no build-up or clues throughout the entire movie that hinted that she might be Talia. In fact, Talia was never even mentioned in this or any other of Nolan's Batman movies, so anyone who didn't read the comics or watch the animated series would have absolutely no idea who that character even was. In fact, Ra's never even mentioned in the first film that he had a daughter (he just said that he had a wife), so really going by the movies alone, there was nothing building up to that twist, hence it feeling so forced and like it came out of nowhere.

You know, I'm sure I'll be alone on this, but I would have been fine enough with the first twist of Bane being Ra's son who escaped from the prison. Yeah, that's a huge liberty from the comic books, but so is Nolan's entire Batman trilogy for that matter. I don't read the comics anyways, and I have always judged these films on their own merits, and on their own merits I could have actually bought that back-story for Bane before it was revealed that he was just Talia's protector. Actually, the first twist that didn't turn out to be true made Bane seem an even stronger villain since he was even a more twisted and extreme version of his "supposed" father and could accomplish what the original members of The League of Shadows could not. But having Tate revealed to be Talia and Bane just simply her protector just killed everything Bane had build up to be up to that point in the film, and that's what really irks me about that twist, as it swaps out a strong villain so spontaneously for a completely new villain that has no time to have their true character explored since by that point the film is already almost done with its climax. If it weren't for that the climax of the film would have been perfect for me.

At any rate, while it killed the threat of Bane for me, it thankfully wasn't enough to kill the spirit of the film for me. I can see how some people like the NC might find this movie underwhelming. I'd personally think that they just had their expectations set too high, or that it just didn't work for them. That said, I thought it was legitimately great, but of course with tons of problems. Still, in my eyes the good far outweighs the bad in this movie, and I do stick by my opinion that its still a superior film to Batman Begins, though its far behind the likeness of The Dark Knight.

[talonmalon333]

You know, I'm sure I'll be alone on this, but I would have been fine enough with the first twist of Bane being Ra's son who escaped from the prison.

That actually seems to be a common opinion, at least around the internet.

I'm not sure if it's as good as TDK or not. TDK was probably more consistently good. But the climax to TDKR was my favorite part of the trilogy.

[gunswordfist]

I'm in the car after seeing the movie. What the hell was Bane's goal again?  Oh and I hate his voice. At least Mystery of the Batwoman did one thing right.

[Dr. Insomniac]

What the hell was Bane's goal again?

Helping his beloved mistress in avenging her father?

And fuck that, Bane's voice was fresh honey oozing into steaming English Breakfast.

[gunswordfist]

What the hell was Bane's goal again?

Helping his beloved mistress in avenging her father?

And fuck that, Bane's voice was fresh honey oozing into steaming English Breakfast.

Still didn't make his rants any better. For the people...even though..ah nevermind, I'll avoid the spoilers but you get what I mean.

[gunswordfist]

I also didn't feel like Bruce was compelled to become Batman again. It just seemed like he talked to Tate and Lucious and decided to throw on the suit out of nowhere.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

He wasn't compelled to be Batman again the first time around when he initially tried to stop Bane. The whole idea was that Bruce was pretty miserable and just decided to dawn the cape and cowl again and maybe die with some honor as Batman. Alfred even pointed this out. When he was expressing his disapproval of Bruce becoming Batman Again, Bruce said something along the lines of "Are you afraid I'll lose?" to which Alfred responded "I'm afraid that you want to lose." He didn't really have any proper motivation until he went through that whole prison ordeal. After dealing with his own internal problems and escaping the prison, he was finally ready to be Batman again, for real.

As for Bane's voice, I'm kind of indifferent to it. I don't really think it makes him sound intimidating, but its understandable and it doesn't exactly make him sound weak, either, so it doesn't really make me think of him one way or the other. What ruined Bane's effectiveness as a villain for me, though, was that stupid plot twist near the end. Seriously, I know I keep harping on that, but its one of those face-palm worthy plot twists that just aggravates me because the movie honestly would have been better off without it, IMO.

For all this movie's problems, though, I still think its a much better movie than Batman Begins. Whenever someone says that its not as good as "the first 2 movies," I have to resist the urge to go on about how overrated the first film is, and how it honestly has just as many problems as this one (but this one at least has a big scope and higher stakes in its favor). The Dark Knight is definitely the pinnacle of the series, and far superior to this film. I don' think that anyone in their right minds can argue with that point.

[Kiddington]

Yeah, that plot twist at the end was really one of the only things that I grew to not care for about the movie. Bane was really a force to be reckoned with before that - not in the same vein as Joker, as he wasn't nearly as sadistic - but still pretty intimidating. After that, though, the whole thing just felt cheapened to me.

...you know, speaking of Batman Begins, I really need to watch that one again. For some reason I hardly remember anything about it (probably because I've only seen it once, at the theater, and I was only like 13-14 at the time). I should get around to buying it one of these days.

[Eddy]

You know, I enjoyed the movie, but I have to say I pretty much agree with everything Doug said in his review. And I say this without bias because I'm no Nostalgia Critic fan (I like Doug himself a lot more than I like any of his characters). Again, I liked it. As far as an action movie goes it was pretty good. And I really liked Bane and I especially liked Catwoman. But it did have some pretty glaring flaws and plot holes I have a hard time overlooking.

Oh, and I hated the ending.

[gunswordfist]

My other thoughts:

It was good to come into the movie blind. All I knew about it was the two trailers I seen and that Catwoman was in it. I was surprised by the time skip. I had no clue.

The movie didn't give me any reason to care about Catwoman or symphasize with her. All they had was the clean slate angle and that didn't do it's job. I will say that I'm impressed that they made her fit into the Nolanverse. When I first heard she'd be in thid movie, I thought she'd be too ridiculous for this Batman series.

I thought The Pit overstayed its welcome because having a place like that in Gotham (or outside of it or whatever) was too ridiculous but the more I think about it, the more I like how it was more about Bruce strengthening his spirit instead of his body.

I like Batman Begins better because while this movie was about Batman inspiring people, the first one went into greater detail about that. This movie villain had the same goal as the first, but Ra's clearly explained his motives, even if they were extreme and they showed a great contrast to Batman's which made him a good villain. While Bane did "big bad guy" speeches that made no sense. And the plot twist didn't help out too much either.

I do like how Bane is an intelligent planner in The Dark Knight Rises, just like he is in the comics. In Batman TAS and Mystery Of The Batwoman, he was mostly just hired muscle.

I love the nod to Batman Year One when Batman kicked the brick wall. I instantly recognized that.

Neither the first movie nor this one set up Bruce putting on the batsuit that well but at least Bruce had more reasons to do so in Batman Begins (not just speaking villain threat size but the reasons why Bruce decided to become Batman in the first place) Both pale in comparison to how you can feel that Bruce was compelled to become Batman again in The Dark Knight Returns (comic)

A certain villain's even more reduced role was sad. His small part in The Dark Knight was bad enough.