The Official Rate/Review Thread for TDKR (TAG SPOILERS!!!) - Part 2

[BaleISBatman4ev]

WHile i agree that the TDKR script isn't as taut as TDK's ... i think that the epic scope and wide array of thematic arcs and character arcs made it harder to reign in TDKRs big moments as successfully as TDKs...

In my opinion TDK was one long big build up, set piece after set piece to ONE major thematic payoff... and that was Batman taking the fall for Harvey by way of Joker corruption.

TDKR was trying to do 3 or 4 major payoffs and i guess the fact that it's an ending forces its hand in some regards. First you have Bruce recovering from the previous movie's events and coming back into action, a GREAT moment that was NAILED, then you have his fall, again NAILED... then you have his revelation and rise and triumphant return most of which was Nailed but his triumphant return feels truncated somehow and not allowed to breath.

I think because TDKR is trying to do so much more in a much broader scope i think it will end up being the most talked about of the three which is really cool. TDK there isnt much to discuss except how awesome and perfect it all was and who were the 5 people harvey killed.... TDKR will hold a special place JUST for being the most ambitious of the 3 films... TDK will remain the sole masterpiece of the trilogy even though really they are each masterpieces in their own right.

[CConn]

Originally Posted by KILLING JOKER

I agree and I apologize to you if I offended you with the post that started this long debate between me and Socrates there. As I said before, I really do like the movie quite a bit but I do get annoyed by some people who can't admit to ANY faults in the movie and go to extreme lengths to defend everything about it. You actually seem to be very level headed and smart.

Oh no, I'm not offended at all. Just saying everyone's on even footing in terms of pointlessness.

[CConn]

Originally Posted by dark_b

TDK was a groundbreaking superhero movie and Nolan raised the bar. fact is that TDKR story is not as tight as TDK. everything that is happening is normal. the movie deserves that we nitpick about every detail.

I don't quite get what you're going for with that, but okay.

[Blue_Scholar]

Originally Posted by BaleISBatman4ev

WHile i agree that the TDKR script isn't as taut as TDK's ... i think that the epic scope and wide array of thematic arcs and character arcs made it harder to reign in TDKRs big moments as successfully as TDKs...

In my opinion TDK was one long big build up, set piece after set piece to ONE major thematic payoff... and that was Batman taking the fall for Harvey by way of Joker corruption.

TDKR was trying to do 3 or 4 major payoffs and i guess the fact that it's an ending forces its hand in some regards. First you have Bruce recovering from the previous movie's events and coming back into action, a GREAT moment that was NAILED, then you have his fall, again NAILED... then you have his revelation and rise and triumphant return most of which was Nailed but his triumphant return feels truncated somehow and not allowed to breath.

I think because TDKR is trying to do so much more in a much broader scope i think it will end up being the most talked about of the three which is really cool. TDK there isnt much to discuss except how awesome and perfect it all was and who were the 5 people harvey killed.... TDKR will hold a special place JUST for being the most ambitious of the 3 films... TDK will remain the sole masterpiece of the trilogy even though really they are each masterpieces in their own right.

If I could have this as my signature I would. So instead of that, I'm getting it tattooed on my back.

[dark_b]

Originally Posted by CConn

I don't quite get what you're going for with that, but okay.

we nitpick about every micro detail in the first 2 weeks. we didnt do that with TDK

[Tasogare Sebei]

Originally Posted by KILLING JOKER

Funny thing is I like the movie and i was responding to one very small aspect of the film and what I thought was ridiculous about it. Here are just some of your quotes. Maybe by taking a second look at them you can see how one might take them as condescending or insulting.

I honestly doubt if you can a discern the correlation with this analogy and our dialogue, but you demonstrate such an ability very well.

Your ignorance justifies calling my explanation stupid.

Do you speak English as your primary language?

Should I feel sorry for your inadequacy projected towards my use of the English language?

I'm sure everyone is very impressed by your vocabulary but certainly we can discuss a Batman movie without taking all these digs at people we don't agree with. I called an opinion "ridiculous." What you are doing is insulting others and thinking maybe they aren't quick enough to pick up on it.

I honestly never noticed the citable faults while watching The Dark Knight Rises. I became too engrossed with discerning parallels in meaning, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I only became aware by perusing the threads. I completely empathize with your perspective regarding my words, but you have to acknowledge the context in which I respond. You and others have written in a manner that can be construed as demeaning or "digs." However, you only cite my quotes and present a bias against me. You just made a snide remark by calling me Socrates; is this not condescension? Take a look in the mirror before you judge me. I personally do not care for the movie's faults, so you have no reason to express annoyance with me corroborating their plausibility. I sincerely apologize if I have offended you. I also apologize to you CConn.

[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by dark_b

we nitpick about every micro detail in the first 2 weeks. we didnt do that with TDK

I highly doubt that. This is the hype. People around here find at least five things to complain about before breakfast.

[Homer J. Fong]

Members of the Hype complain about more before 9 a.m. than normal people do all day.

[Arta]

Just came from a second viewing, liked it a lot the second time around now that I'm not going blind from being too close too the screen. Also, all the seemingly random plot points like the orphans living in the sewers, the stock exchange attack, the construction company, the clean slate device, etc flowed much better now that I know how they all connect to Bane and Talia. And I never ceased getting hyped for Bruce's escape from the pit. I actually wish they could have truncated some of the other plot threads and make that part longer.

Still not as good as the other films, I just find it pretty watchable now. Even Bane's voice doesn't bother me as much now (for the most part).

[BatMatt]

In for my third viewing. First in IMAX, only saw TDK prologue in this format so very pumped!

[The Guard]

Only one other person attempts the climb throughout the movie. The rope appears taught on one side and has slack on the climber's side. I infer the rope as a literal safety and a metaphorical inhibition. Who says I cannot perceive a plausible and contradictory inference to yours?

Actually two others do, that we see. Bruce, Talia and the unnamed prisoner attempt the climb. And we're told quite clearly that many have over the years.

No one says you can’t perceive a plausible and contradictory inference to mine. I certainly don’t believe I have. We don’t even disagree about the rope being both a literal safety device and having metaphorical significance.

I notice how you conveniently omit my evidence to support your argument and resort to an ad hominem attack. Well, allow me to retort. Your ignorance justifies calling my explanation stupid. You obviously fail to explore the synonymity between "the most powerful impulse of the spirit: The fear of death," the "power [that] can be yours," and the sympathetic nervous system.

I wasn’t making an ad hominem attack on your points. If I was, don’t you think I’d have made an actual statement about you or your points instead of just saying “That’s stupid”?

I was saying that the film’s viewpoint, the film’s presentation and take on the intersection of fear, death, failure and success, is stupid.

You quoted some other people’s statements. I assume that you did that to indicate “Here’s where the ideas came from”. I didn’t feel the need to address where it came from, because I don’t care where it came from. I care about whether the concept that is in the film is silly or not. I find it to be silly and flowery prose with no inherent meaning, and with no realistic psychological impact.

The idea that if you have no fear, you must then have fear to overcome fear that you didn’t have to begin with…is just dumb. There’s no logic to such a character progression. You bring up the survival instinct…but the survival instinct is called the survival instict for a reason.

But here, I’ll address your quotes:

"By dying to the desire to cling to life for fear of death, we are liberated from the fear of death. That is to say, if you can obtain a mental state of accepting that you have nothing tethering you to this earth or this life, then you've got nothing to lose, for if you possess no attachments in this world, then there is nothing that would cause you to live in fear of losing them" (John Little)

Bruce was supposed to FIND fear of death, though. How does this passage about being liberated from fear of it apply? Bruce doesn’t abandon the things tethering him to this Earth. And he did have something to lose.

"Like everyone else, you want to learn the way to win, but never to accept the way to lose. To accept defeat--to learn to die--is to be liberated from it. Once you accept, you are free to flow and harmonize" (Bruce Lee).

Bruce didn’t accept defeat, though. He very much wanted to succeed. If the idea is “Accept that you can fail before you start to attempt to succeed”, well of course. That’s an obvious, inherent part of anything you attempt. But it wasn't a part of life that the film neccessarily explored.

Do you even know how the sympathetic nervous system functions when you activate it and what hormone it produces? Do you know working out stimulates the sympathetic nervous system in the exact way as running from a pit bull? The SAS member Chris Ryan used determination to control the adrenaline coming from his sympathetic nervous system. He covered roughly forty miles per day for five days. He even remarked smelling like death through the ordeal. However, you simply cannot recognize the analogy between the anecdote, Bruce jumping without the rope, and the doctor's soliloquy.

Ok…all that stuff from other posters about you being pretentious and condescending?

You writing stuff like this is why they’re saying that kind of thing.

Yes, I know the basics of the human body and the human body under stress. The film doesn’t explore the sympathetic nervous system,. Nor does it explore the concept of adrenaline or any other hormone in any real way. The film explores the psychological impact of learning to feel fear again after not being afraid of death. I don’t think your examples exactly apply.

The Enlightenment philosophy heavily influences The Constitution and Declaration of Independence, documents that preserves our great country. Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War nearly 2,300 years ago, but the US military still applies its strategies in combat today. People still practice jeet kune do and apply its philosophies to daily living. Bruce Lee has been dead for thirty-nine years. Martin Luther King Jr. applied Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolence philosophy to awaken America's social conscience. King's work still remains in progress to this day. You are white, so I do not expect you to acknowledge any tangible results from nonwhite philosophies; they will always remain convoluted and nonsensical to you. Excuse me for refusing to adopt your ethnocentric myopia and covert bigotry that you project through your rebuttals. You are right. Philosophy is a bunch of mumbo jumbo that is not based on anything tangible.

...

I never said that all philosophy is mumbo jumbo. I never even remotely implied it. I just find silly, in this particular film, the philosophy about someone with no fear of death having to gain fear of death to overcome one’s fear of death.

"It was obvious to the master from the start of the conversation that the professor was not so much interested in learning about Zen as he was in impressing the master with his own opinions and knowledge. As the Zen teacher explained, the learned man would frequently interrupt him with remarks like 'Oh, yes, we have that, too' and so on. Finally, the Zen teacher stopped talking and began to serve tea to the learned man. He poured the cup full, then kept pouring until the cup overflowed. 'Enough!' the learned man once more interrupted. 'The cup is overfull, no more will go in!' 'Indeed, I see,' answered the Zen teacher. 'Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. If you do not first empty your cup, how can you taste my cup of tea?'"

I find you using quotes to imply that I have no wish to learn because I have my own opinions laughable.

And I find your comments about me being white, and about whites not acknowledging any tangible results from nonwhite philosophies to be rude and incredibly ignorant.

Stuff like this is why people keep calling your posts pretentious and condescending.

And if you waste my time again reading childish, quasi-racist nonsense like that…we won’t be discussing this film further.

[kthevs]

Okay, who's the person who said that Alfred imagined the cafe at the start of the film? Was this person texting during the movie and not paying attention? Alfred actually went to the same cafe many times while Bruce was gone for 7 years. He even told Bruce that it was in Florence by the river Arno. He did not imagine going to a cafe. As Greg Cox confirmed on that other message board, the ending is not meant to be ambiguos.

[kthevs]

Originally Posted by Mister H.

Fail after fail. No, Nolan didn't telegraph the ending and it wasn't an example of shoddy writing. As I already explained, the cafe scene was inserted early on so that when it is shown in the end, and the viewer sees that it is the exact same cafe that Alfred had imagined, doubt is allowed to creep in, and the audience is given the option of believing what they want. Maybe Bruce died and Alfred is fantasizing about Bruce being alive. Maybe, and more likely, Bruce did indeed fake his death. But to deny the intentional ambiguity makes you look both stubborn and foolish.

You are too arrogant for your own good. You don't care about the Christ allegory in the finale? Oh, okay man. That's pretty much the summation of the entire trilogy, but you're above that, right? As others have pointed out, you continually miss the obvious intentions of the writers and director of TDKR and its really strange, as you are obviously a very intelligent person. You're just miserable at reading films.

Good God. You clearly didn't pay attention. Al never images a cafe. he actually went to a cafe during the 7 years Bruce was gone in Begins. He even tells Bruce where this cafe is (By the river arno in Florence). While he used to go to the cafe, he had a fantasy of someday seeing Bruce there. He once saw a guy from behind who kind of had Bruce' profile, but it turned out to be someone else. The ending is not a dream, nor a hallucination (Greg Cox makes this obvious in his official novel of TDKR). Bruce retires with Selina in the spot where he knows Al will bump into him. He does this to show Al that he's not dead and to make Al happy. There is no ambiguity intended. Greg Cox even said this on a message board- here are his words-

Honestly, I read the script and there was no indication that those final scenes were meant to be ambiguous or open to interpretation in any way. Or that the final scene with Alfred was some sort of fantasy sequence. It was just as real and concrete as Gordon finding the new Bat-signal on the roof, as real as Lucius discovering that Bruce had secretly fixed the autopilot, as real as the orphans moving into the manor, as real as John Blake finding the Batcave . . . .

I'm genuinely surprised that so many people are speculating that the Alfred scene was a dream or a vision or whatever. That's certainly not how I handled it in the novelization (on sale tomorrow, btw). And certainly nobody at Warner Bros. told me to make it ambiguous or anything . . . .

Besides, if Batman was supposed to be dead, and that last bit was just a reverie, what about Selina? She didn't "die" in the explosion, so why wouldn't she get an epilogue of her own, if that final scene wasn't meant to wrap up her story as well?

It's hilarious how you completely misunderstood things, Mister H. This is not Inception 2. There is no ambiguous ending. Your entire logic is based on mishearing something in the movie.

[Tasogare Sebei]

Originally Posted by The Guard

And I find your comments about me being white, and about whites not acknowledging any tangible results from nonwhite philosophies to be rude and incredibly ignorant.

I care to understand what you say; this is the difference between you and I. Let us not mince words anymore. I specifically address you and no one else. You are the exception, so do not stereotype my statement. You know the connotations in the words you choose to write. Now is the end of the dialogue.

[dark_b]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

I highly doubt that. This is the hype. People around here find at least five things to complain about before breakfast.

we ddint do that in the first 2 weeks. TDKR had a lot small mistakes that stick out

[magneto23]

Just saw this for the 2nd time. Really good movie. BUT it should have and could have been a really GREAT movie. This really isn't a review its more of a list of issues I had with the film.

There were bits and pieces that needed cut/trimmed out and there was a lot that needed to be added/extended in this film. The Miranda Tate character needed more screen time/build up so that ending reveal could have meant so much more. Bruce in the pit needed more attention IMO. Showing his healing process and him dealing with his inner struggles a little more before escaping. And I loved that part of the movie, I just feel like it could have been even more powerful/emotional/beautiful than it was if some more time was spent down there in that pit/prison. Some more attention should have been placed on how the city/citizens were dealing with the terrorist take over all those months. We should have seen MORE of the dark hopeless conditions. The passage of time wasn't dealt with well at all. They should have had a couple montages or something that showed the time changes. Selina kinda disapered for a couple stretches in the film, could have used a few more scenes with her. As unappealing as this notion is to SOME people, I feel like this film needed to be 3 hours long, maybe longer. 2:40 before credits wasn't enough to smooth everything out for this film.

[Bruce_Begins]

Originally Posted by The Guard
Bruce was supposed to FIND fear of death, though. How does this passage about being liberated from fear of it apply? Bruce doesn’t abandon the things tethering him to this Earth. And he did have something to lose.

Bruce did not fear Death, but he feared failing to save Gotham, so he followed the advice of not tying the rope so that if he fell, he would die and in the process miss the opportunity to save Gotham, a thing which he feared.

Originally Posted by The Guard
The idea that if you have no fear, you must then have fear to overcome fear that you didn’t have to begin with…is just dumb. There’s no logic to such a character progression. You bring up the survival instinct…but the survival instinct is called the survival instict for a reason.

That is your opinion, If you think that Bruce was not any more wise by following that prison Doctor's advice to go without Rope as it was a dumb then you are entitled to your opinion, why can't other have a different opinion, its is all subjective.

[BlackFox]

Originally Posted by dark_b

we ddint do that in the first 2 weeks. TDKR had a lot small mistakes that stick out

TDK has plenty of "mistakes" as well, every film does, convenient happenings and coincidences that make it a better story to tell and helps the movie work better in pacing. TDKR is no different in that respect, but so is every other film made, the level of tolerance just seems to change with each individuals like of the film.

[munchie64]

Originally Posted by dark_b

we ddint do that in the first 2 weeks. TDKR had a lot small mistakes that stick out

Maybe the Hype didn't, but the Internet sure did. It happens with every movie. It happened with Avengers. It's happening with this. The Internet always complains and nitpicks. They scream and they cry, much as you’re doing now.

[regwec]

I see nothing in what dark_b has said that could be interpreted as "screaming" or "crying".

[Greens]

It's a BB reference

[the dmg]

So when I talked to my brother about TDKR and his thoughts, he replied that it was the worst movie of the year. He thought Hardy was great, but everything else about the movie was a stinker (mind you, he loves TDK and is a huge Nolan fan). I asked him to elaborate, he thought Blake's arc was great until they called him Robin (he likes Batman as a loner). He thought the pit wasn't necessary to have in the film, and that the Dent Act didn't make sense. There were a lot of other things he said too, but I can't remember. Usually, I can have a good debate with him about films, but sometimes he just gets obnoxious with things (he still hasn't seen IM and trashes it, along with any MCU title as well).

[regwec]

The pit was a brilliant metaphorical thread used to weave Bane and Bruce together; it broke down, in my opinion, when a needless twist was introduced to supplant Bane with Talia in the dichotomy that had been so carefully constructed.

[Thread Manager]

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