TDKR Oscar Chances? - Part 1

[DACrowe]

Originally Posted by Spider-Fan

People always show more love for the newer movie. I don't think in time, TDKR will be held in any regard near TDK. Heck, when SR came out, it was very divisive and a good portion of people on here thought it was best Superman film ever. You don't see that same number of posters praising that film anymore.



I don't think in any test, your friends is a good public opinion gage. They always mirror your opinion to some degree, whether we admit they do or not.

I agree TDKR is not held in the same high regard as TDK. But the mainstream generally considers TDKR a good, if even great, movie. It is the fans who are more picky being upset about things like an eight year retirement or Talia not having enough character development. That is more a fan problem than anything.

[Anno_Domini]

Originally Posted by Fudgie

Done. What should it say then?

How about in January you or I could create a poll on here to see which is the favorite Nolan Batman film since all three are out on DVD/Blu-Ray and if TDKR gets the bigger lead, then you can have 'I was wrong and Anno_Domini was right that The Dark Knight Rises is the best installment of the Dark Knight Trilogy' and if TDK gets the bigger lead, I'll have 'I was wrong and Fudgie was right that The Dark Knight is the best installment of the Dark Knight Trilogy'?

Just thought of this right now, but you can work on it to make it better if you want to, lol.

[Fudgie]

Originally Posted by Anno_Domini

How about in January you or I could create a poll on here to see which is the favorite Nolan Batman film since all three are out on DVD/Blu-Ray and if TDKR gets the bigger lead, then you can have 'I was wrong and Anno_Domini was right that The Dark Knight Rises is the best installment of the Dark Knight Trilogy' and if TDK gets the bigger lead, I'll have 'I was wrong and Fudgie was right that The Dark Knight is the best installment of the Dark Knight Trilogy'?

Just thought of this right now, but you can work on it to make it better if you want to, lol.

Sold to the man in the cold sweat. January it will be.

I like you. You're a sporting type.

[Dark Knight]

Originally Posted by atomicbattery

I consider it the best of the three.

It gave me something I never expected from a superhero movie- an emotional response. I've always attended them for sensation.

This is pretty rare for me- I've only experienced it a couple of times in a theater (Shawshank Redemption and- feel free to laugh- Finding Nemo). When the bats burst out prior to Bruce's leap I felt chills, and at the climax I was choking back tears. I was desperately trying to suppress this response because I thought that the lights would go up and the girl I was with would see my wet eyes and think I was an idiot.

This film overwhelmed me.

Your not alone brotha. Great post!

[Dark Knight]

Originally Posted by 747

Well everyone I know in real life that has seen the movie, loved it. And it got only major praise in the reviews from my country.

Everyone I know who saw the film loved it.

A cousin of mine was the only one who said he couldn't keep up with the film.....but he was drunk when he saw it and he has ADD. Sheesh.

The film wasn't perfect, but what film is?

[Fudgie]

Originally Posted by Dark Knight

The film wasn't perfect, but what film is?

We should use that excuse for all bad movies.

It's the worst Nolan Batman movie. Easily.

[Anno_Domini]

Schumacher's Batman weren't even GOOD to begin with.

[Fudgie]

I don't think Rises is GOOD either. Here's some good reasons why; http://sequart.org/magazine/13903/wh...t-rises-fails/

[jmc]

Wow great article.

[Anno_Domini]

Originally Posted by Fudgie

I don't think Rises is GOOD either. Here's some good reasons why; http://sequart.org/magazine/13903/wh...t-rises-fails/

Cool. But there are a lot of positive articles out there as well which I bet you have seen and read and I agree with them, lol.

[LeoGal83]

Originally Posted by Anno_Domini

Cool. But there are a lot of positive articles out there as well which I bet you have seen and read and I agree with them, lol.

Agree.

[CFE]

This was a few pages ago, but someone made mention that the point of the League in "Begins" was to be the check against human corruption...and so naturally, Gotham City at that time was a proper target. Then they argued that because Gotham is in peace time by "Rises," the idea of the League attacking the city again is rendered invalid.

That's not true.

The idea was that while Gotham appeared crime-free on the surface, it was still rotten to the core as evidenced by Daggett and other corporate figureheads. Organized crime might've been abolished, but corruption was still there...ready to give rise to a new evil.

I can't believe a lot of you wouldn't remember that. That was all in the marketing and Nolan and Co. discussing the film.

So yeah...Gotham, even after 8 years, was still a viable target. And you should've all known that going in.

Add to the fact that Bane KNEW Bruce was both Batman AND the man responsible for crippling the League?

Yeah, Bane and the League was sooooo going to destroy Gotham...both in revenge and to rid the city of what corruption sill remained in the wake of the Dent Act.

Not trying to start up anything, but...yeah.

[Fudgie]

Originally Posted by jmc

Wow great article.

Yup it is.

Originally Posted by Anno_Domini

Cool. But there are a lot of positive articles out there as well which I bet you have seen and read and I agree with them, lol.

Yeah? Ya got some as detailed as that one?

Originally Posted by CFE

This was a few pages ago, but someone made mention that the point of the League in "Begins" was to be the check against human corruption...and so naturally, Gotham City at that time was a proper target. Then they argued that because Gotham is in peace time by "Rises," the idea of the League attacking the city again is rendered invalid.

That's not true.

The idea was that while Gotham appeared crime-free on the surface, it was still rotten to the core as evidenced by Daggett and other corporate figureheads. Organized crime might've been abolished, but corruption was still there...ready to give rise to a new evil.

Ehhhh every city in the whole world has got guys like that who take bribes under the table for illegal favors.

Did the LOS nuke every city in the world for that? Nope. The city was so crime free that Gordon was gonna get an early retirement plan.

That ain't a viable LOS target.

I can't believe a lot of you wouldn't remember that. That was all in the marketing and Nolan and Co. discussing the film.

Show links.

So yeah...Gotham, even after 8 years, was still a viable target. And you should've all known that going in.

Two guys on the take doesn't make it a viable target. Like the Mayor said no city is without crime so ya don't see the LOS taking out the whole damn world because of it. They only waste cities that are hopelessly full of crime. Begins said that. TDKR contradicts Begins.

Add to the fact that Bane KNEW Bruce was both Batman AND the man responsible for crippling the League?

The LOS is not motivated by revenge.

Not trying to start up anything, but...yeah.

It's ok. All these points you made have been shot down before.

[TheBat812]

Originally Posted by Fudgie

I don't think Rises is GOOD either. Here's some good reasons why; http://sequart.org/magazine/13903/wh...t-rises-fails/

Alot of these 'problems' stem from an unrealistic expectation of 100% believability. Filmmaking is still storytelling, not necessarily depicting everything as real, but as real within the world. Nolan's cinematic language is similar in all three films, all using a realistiic way of presenting things, while the story and its elements remain more surreal and focused at enhancing Bruce's story. TDKR is no different, but because of the raw take on Joker especially, people seem to remember that movie as way more 'realistic' than it really is, thus tainting people's expectations of TDKR.

[Fudgie]

Originally Posted by TheBat812

Alot of these 'problems' stem from an unrealistic expectation of 100% believability.

Someone didn't read the article properly:

The Dark Knight Rises Invalidates The Dark Knight

Maybe that’s an artistic choice, however poorly executed. But the choice to have Batman retired in Rises, retroactive to the end of the previous film, also invalidates the incredibly moving ending of The Dark Knight.

There, Gordon famously narrates “we’ll hunt him… because he can take it.” The idea isn’t that Batman’s retiring. It’s that he’s sacrificed his reputation for a greater good. Even early in the film, we see how Batman’s heroic status has led to copycats getting themselves killed. What Gotham needs is reformers like Harvey Dent, not more vigilantes. And Gotham’s exotic hero has inspired the Joker to become Gotham’s equally exotic villain. For Batman to work, he’s got to be on the outs with the police – a “dark knight” who inspires “white knights” like Harvey Dent, before his corruption.

It’s a brilliant realization. While it’s unconventional for Batman, it’s inarguable based on the evidence in the film itself. It’s shocking and radical, but it follows directly and inevitably.

Don’t forget that the movie’s called The Dark Knight. That’s not an idle choice. So when that film’s title finally comes on screen at the end, the title echoing Gordon’s narration as Batman speeds off, it feels like a punch to the gut. Sure, the Joker’s machinations involve some major plot holes, despite being thoroughly entertaining, and the film’s got flaws. But it’s all forgivable, because the movie’s ultimately a meditation on what it means to be a hero – and how, for Batman to have the effect he intends, he’s got to be a “dark knight” at odds with the law.

Which he never actually became, except by reputation, if he’s retiring when we see him speeding off.

If that’s true, when did the police “hunt him… because he can take it?”

Rather than take the heat of being hated, Batman quit. After a career of about a year.

This kind of ruins the brilliant ending of The Dark Knight – which isn’t only what that entire movie’s been leading up to, but what that film’s title is all about.

It’s almost like Nolan didn’t understand The Dark Knight at all. Or more likely, he simply chose to ignore the meaning of his previous film. He wanted to tell a story of a retired Batman, and it was simpler to say Batman had retired at the end of The Dark Knight than imply he had a few adventures in which he battled cops before retiring. After all, the audience might like to see that, and it’s harder to explain. So to streamline the third film’s story, Batman’s now retiring when he speeds off at the end of The Dark Knight.

This decision makes sense, if all one cares about is The Dark Knight Rises. But it kind of invalidates the entire meaning of The Dark Knight.



The Chronology of The Dark Knight Rises Makes Batman’s Career an Abortion

The Dark Knight Rises is set eight years after The Dark Knight. This gives the film a vibe not unlike Frank Miller’s classic The Dark Knight Returns. And it’s undeniably interesting to watch Bruce Wayne hobbling with a cane, playing Howard Hughes instead of the billionaire playboy seen in Batman Begins. (Nolan’s been talking for years about doing a movie on the late-stage Hughes, and the references are unmistakable.)

Bruce and Alfred (from The Dark Knight Rises)But the idea is that Batman hasn’t ventured out since the end of The Dark Knight. That film was set about a year after Batman Begins. This means that Batman’s entire career was one year long, followed by eight years of retirement.

Sure, people in the Gotham of The Dark Knight Rises may still remember Batman as part of that crazy year in which Gotham began to transition from a corrupt, mob-run city into one firmly on the road to reform.

But this seems like a strange choice, to say the least. Basically, Bruce’s career as Batman was an abortion – a one-year period that ended in the repudiation of the entire Batman project. That might make sense, given that Bruce lost Rachel and saw the city torn apart by the Joker, who seemed to be responding to Batman’s presence. But Bruce both trained to become Batman and has been retired for roughly eight times longer than he was Batman.

Remember how Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns had lots of people reacting to Batman’s return, wondering whether he was an urban myth? There’s nothing of this in The Dark Knight Rises, despite that Batman’s been gone for two entire Presidential terms. And unlike The Dark Knight Returns, Nolan’s Batman was only active for a single year. One would expect Batman would have plenty of conspiracy theories surrounding him, especially since Gotham’s teenagers probably wouldn’t remember the events of the previous two films.

Yet no one in The Dark Knight Rises recalls that crazy year, beginning with the city under threat in Batman Begins and ending with the city menaced by the Joker. It’s all rather fuzzy. There’s no sense of Gotham as a particular place with a particular history.

Because doing so would underline that Batman was only active for a year, and that’s not the impression Rises wants us to have. We’re supposed to feel that Batman still has weight, both in the city and in Bruce Wayne’s heart. We’re not supposed to think about how Batman’s career was a year-long blip between almost a decade of training and almost a decade of retirement.

But it is. According to the films themselves.

That's just two parts that have zilch to do with believability. The article tells it like it is.

Filmmaking is still storytelling, not necessarily depicting everything as real, but as real within the world.

Yup and the articles spells out to ya in oodles of detail why the story telling sucks. This is my favorite part:

A huge part of why The Dark Knight works is because, despite some inconsistencies between the two films, it flows almost inevitably from Batman Begins. That movie ended with the idea of escalation, that Batman’s presence would cause not only the mob to become more violent but for criminals to take on costumes and extreme identities like Batman. The Dark Knight might look like it takes place in a different city than Batman Begins, and we might well wonder what the Joker has been doing for the intervening year. But it takes this idea of escalation and runs with it.

Even Rachel’s death flows from this idea. If you’re going to become Batman, you’re going to have to pay a price. And the loss of your childhood friend and lifelong love is one hell of a price.

Ultimately, The Dark Knight finds that, given this escalation, Batman has to be an illegal vigilante. If he’s seen as a good guy, good people will be inspired to imitate him, which he doesn’t want. And the bad guys will have to up their game to fight him. To change Gotham for the better, Batman ironically has to be seen as a bad guy.

One film flows from the other. The two aren’t a perfect fit, but they’re of a piece.

Nolan made a lot of noise, after The Dark Knight, about how he was concerned that there weren’t an awful lot of good third films in movie series. If he was going to make a third film, he wanted it to feel like the conclusion of a single story.

In other words, the third film should take what Nolan had done to its logical, inevitable conclusion. It should flow from the previous two films, in the same way that The Dark Knight flowed from Batman Begins.

It’s no surprise, then, that Nolan returned to the League of Shadows. For Batman Begins, Nolan was especially concerned that the villain of the third act be tied to the first act, which led to Ra’s al Ghul being made Batman’s mentor. So it’s no surprise that he wanted his third film to feel tied to his first.

The Dark Knight Rises, Talia character posterBane accomplishes this quite well, and the revelation of Talia al Ghul, while not surprising to fans, echoes the revelation in Batman Begins that Liam Neeson’s character was the real Ra’s al Ghul. Their childhood stories worked for me – well enough that I found them, collectively, more interesting than either Bruce Wayne or Selina Kyle.

Bruce’s time in the same prison that birthed Bane and Talia also echoes how we first see the adult Bruce, in Batman Begins, in a prison. He’s going back to his origins, reinventing himself as Batman in order to come back stronger. Grant Morrison had Batman do much the same thing, in 52.

True, I wish the film better explained how Bane’s mask keeps him injected with chemicals to deal with the pain. We’re only told that it keeps his pain away, which isn’t enough. But Bane and Talia, like the best comic-book villains, act as negative opposites of the hero. If Batman’s a self-made man, they’re a self-made man and woman, despite her lineage.

Bane’s also a logical villain for the final film. After all, Bane was invented in the comics as the villain who was going to take down Batman – and then did, in a previously unprecedented way, in the arguably classic “KnightFall” storyline. Rises is smart to borrow from this, and it does “KnightFall” one better by having Bane take down Bruce Wayne as well as Batman.

The Dark Knight Rises teaser imageThe effect feels very much like Miller’s “Born Again” storyline on Daredevil, in which he brought that hero as low as he could go. That’s an easy model to borrow, and it’s been done plenty of times with plenty of super-heroes, even without consciously patterning the story after “Born Again.”

The Bane of the comics also has a connection to Ra’s al Ghul, having worked as part of the League of Assassins (as the League of Shadows is named in the comics) during “Legacy,” the first storyline to feature Bane after the resolution of “KnightFall.” True, Bane’s origins aren’t typically tied to Ra’s al Ghul, but that’s a logical choice to tie the trilogy together – just as it was logical to make Ra’s al Ghul Batman’s mentor in Batman Begins.

Similarly, Bane’s takeover of Gotham, borrowed from the “No Man’s Land” storyline, is suitably dramatic material for a final outing.

I also liked that Bane launches his revolution from the tunnels underneath Gotham, which for me recalled the too-often-ignored Batman: The Cult. This doesn’t mean I have to agree it’s logical to trap the entire Gotham police force down there, or that Applied Sciences is so vulnerable from below. The idea of a revolution, especially against billionaire Bruce Wayne, comes from the sewers, symbolically from the city’s untouchables, is especially resonant.

Rises even ties the trilogy together by having Catwoman steal Martha Wayne’s famous pearl necklace, another callback to Batman Begins.

And the repeated “rise” motif reverses the falling motif of Batman Begins — even if Rises fails to coalesce around this idea, the way The Dark Knight does around what its title means. There’s no transcendence here, but the themes of the series are at least superficially tied together.

All of this represents smart choices, on the part of Rises. But simply having the daughter of the villain from the first movie as the villain of the third isn’t enough to tie a trilogy together, any more than having the Joker as the villain of The Dark Knight would have been enough, on its own, to make that film feel like a logical extension of Batman Begins. That was accomplished thematically by following up on the notion of escalation, which in turn led – in a way that felt inevitable – to Batman becoming a fugitive from the law.

The idea, again, is to project the previous film(s) forward by asking where they would inevitably lead. The question is, if this goes on, what’s going to happen next?

Batman Begins ended with the idea of escalation. The Dark Knight ended with the idea of Batman being hunted “because he can take it.”

Well, can he take it? We don’t know, because he retired instead. Yes, we get one sequence in Rises, set eight years later, in which Batman flees scores of cops. But that’s not a new status quo. It’s simply a showpiece that’s quickly upturned as Bane’s threat forces the police to once again work with Batman. Why, they don’t even bother to resist the idea of becoming his cannon-fodder “army” once they’re released from their underground imprisonment.

So much for following through on what the previous film set up.

Moreover, both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight rises set up deeper questions about Batman’s mission, particularly as it relates to Bruce’s legacy and what his parents would have wanted.

There’s a subtext to Batman Begins in which Bruce Wayne is actually going against his father’s legacy, rather than fulfilling it by helping Gotham in another way. Thomas Wayne was a philanthropist who set up the city’s monorail system, which we see the Waynes using in flashback. Bruce Wayne uses this money not for philanthropy but to buy hotels (to indulge his playboy cover) and to finance his one-man war on crime. In the process, Wayne Manor and Thomas Wayne’s monorail, both symbols of the Wayne family legacy, are destroyed.

Even at the end of the movie, Batman’s more concerned with the Joker than with the thousands of innocent civilians in the Narrows who were driven mad by the Scarecrow’s fear toxin – which would almost certainly have been Thomas Wayne’s prime concern.

There’s something powerfully Oedipal here, of the son symbolically killing the father to take his place. And that’s just what Bruce does in Batman Begins.

Only it’s not at all clear that Thomas Wayne would be happy with the way Bruce chooses to help Gotham City. Thomas Wayne, philanthropist, would probably not be pleased to know that his son has chosen to help Gotham by getting into fistfights and blowing things up.

The Dark Knight doesn’t strongly echo these themes, but they’re there implicitly. Instead, The Dark Knight carries forward the idea, left at the end of Batman Begins, that Rachel represents a normal life, which Bruce might have when he’s done being Batman.

Rises takes this up by showing Bruce still mourning for Rachel, which seems to be one of his reasons for having retired. And Rises tries to conclude this theme by giving Bruce something of a normal life with Selina Kyle, although this feels extraordinarily poorly executed and rushed.

Rises tries to tie this into the Oedipal idea from Batman Begins. Alfred expresses how he wished Bruce would have a normal, happy life – and opposes Bruce becoming Batman again, although this is pretty inconsistent with his behavior in the previous two films, in which he seemed perfectly content to help Bruce become Batman and carry on doing so, even after Rachel’s death.

But through its failure to depict Selina Kyle as an adequate replacement for Rachel, Rises fails to fulfill this theme. Yes, it gives Bruce a happy ending, but it feels arbitrary and forced – not at all like the inevitable destination of the trilogy.

So too does Rises fail to take up the idea of Batman being hunted, the way The Dark Knight took up the theme of escalation. Instead of being hunted, Batman retires, and the hunting is fuel for one scene only.

Most importantly Rises fails to make good on the theme, present since the beginning, of Thomas Wayne’s legacy. True, that’s present in the third film. Because Wayne Enterprises can’t afford to fund its program for orphans, due to Bruce’s actions as Batman, he’s symbolically failed to live up to the responsibilities his father has left. We’re even told that these orphans, kicked out due to lack of funding, have joined Bane’s army.

This too gets a happy ending, when we see Wayne Manor turned into a home for orphans that bears the name of Bruce’s parents. But like the Selina Kyle ending, this too feels forced and arbitrary, rather than having the weight needed to feel like a successful resolution of these themes.

Ironically, the entire Bane plot is shot through with just the kind of concern for social class that might have made achieved such a successful resolution. After all, Bane’s army seems to represent the downtrodden. These are exactly the people Thomas Wayne wanted to help in a systematic way, and they’re exactly the people Bruce has ignored, in favor of high-adrenaline street fights.

And if you’re going to deconstruct Batman, by breaking him both physically and spiritually, as well as bankrupting Bruce Wayne and making him lose his company, wouldn’t you want to make Batman question his entire mission – his choice to become Batman in the first place?

After all, that’s implicit in the first movie, in which Batman saves the city but only by destroying the public transportation system Thomas Wayne built, in order to help the poor and the working-class.

It’s implicit in the second movie too, in which Batman’s presence has deformed the local criminals, spurring the rise of the Joker.

Would it really have been so threatening to fans, had Bruce questioned whether becoming Batman was a good idea after all? Whether he’d contributed to the iniquity in Gotham, by ignoring things like public transportation in favor of making tanks – or a cellphone-based surveillance system that was only used once?

Why, under the hands of either a more able or a braver screenwriter, the entire takeover of Gotham could have represented a real, existential challenge to Batman. Some of these disenfranchised might even have complained about how hard it is to get to work, almost a decade after Thomas Wayne’s monorail was destroyed. We could have seen how Bane’s army was composed of people like the orphans who were kicked onto the street because Bruce was too busy funding Batman.

Instead, those orphan kids are reduced to a murderous, anti-rich mob that turns people over to the Scarecrow for sentencing. And instead of questioning how he’s created the army Bane leads, Batman leads the police to war against these same orphans.

Besides being hunted by the cops, Bruce’s total failure to fulfill his father’s concern for the downtrodden of Gotham was the one thing the final film absolutely had to address, given what had been set up by the previous films. Instead of addressing this and questioning Batman (as the previous two films did), Rises plays superficially with themes (like “rising” versus “falling”) and delivers the most hostile and illogical of right-wing fantasies in a way that ridicules everything Thomas Wayne and his Wayne Enterprises stood for.

No, there’s only the pretence of deconstructing Batman here. There’s only the pretence of a happy ending. There’s only the pretence of a culmination of the previous films’ themes.

One is left to guess that the previous two films left these themes implicit because Nolan didn’t want to deal with them. And left with the challenge of concluding his trilogy, he still couldn’t bring himself to deal with them, despite setting them up in such a way that they were the elephant in the corner, demanding to be addressed.

All the ingredients are there. The chickens have come home to roost. The way Bruce has ignored the legacy of Thomas Wayne all along has created an army of hopeless have-nots, which Bane has exploited to spur a revolution.

Consequently, the film either has to deal with this – and really deconstruct Batman – or cop out and make that army an unthinking horde, a neo-con’s wet dream, so that the only solution is for Gotham to rally around an Ayn Rand ubermensch to beat up this mob and, indeed, kill them.

Talk about stacking the deck.

Talk about pulling your punches.

And talk about missing an opportunity to really wrap up a trilogy, using what you’d already established as the foundations on which to build something masterful.

But worst of all, it isn’t the conclusion of “the Dark Knight trilogy” at all. Rises feels more like a fan film, a possible ending, than something that carries elements from the first two films to their inevitable conclusion.

Awesome.

[LeoGal83]

Originally Posted by TheBat812

Alot of these 'problems' stem from an unrealistic expectation of 100% believability. Filmmaking is still storytelling, not necessarily depicting everything as real, but as real within the world. Nolan's cinematic language is similar in all three films, all using a realistiic way of presenting things, while the story and its elements remain more surreal and focused at enhancing Bruce's story. TDKR is no different, but because of the raw take on Joker especially, people seem to remember that movie as way more 'realistic' than it really is, thus tainting people's expectations of TDKR.

Perfect... The entire trilogy follows the same logic.

[Fudgie]

Originally Posted by TheBat812

Alot of these 'problems' stem from an unrealistic expectation of 100% believability. Filmmaking is still storytelling, not necessarily depicting everything as real, but as real within the world. Nolan's cinematic language is similar in all three films, all using a realistiic way of presenting things, while the story and its elements remain more surreal and focused at enhancing Bruce's story. TDKR is no different, but because of the raw take on Joker especially, people seem to remember that movie as way more 'realistic' than it really is, thus tainting people's expectations of TDKR.

Here's more just for you, nothing to do with believability:

With The Dark Knight having been as awesome as it was, I went into The Dark Knight Rises with very high expectations. The former had managed to find the fine line between drama and comic book movie (a line which I didn’t know existed, mind you) and one could only imagine that Christopher Nolan would create something even more magical, having found this cinematic sweet spot. Unfortunately, Nolan, being aware of how great The Dark Knight was, decided to make its successor essentially a clone of itself on steroids, weakly building on its strengths while exaggerating its weaknesses. TDKR tried to capture the subtle brilliance of TDK’s lengthy dialogues, the eerie believability of its action scenes, and the sensitivity of its more delicate moments, yet managed to be somewhat cheesy in its rendition of all three. It felt somewhat synthetic, as if the strengths of a great movie were being bulked up for a box office-smashing sequel. It’s sort of like the Mitt Romney of this summer’s movies; from afar, it seems to walk the walk but is much more staged and awkward at closer examination.

Don’t get me wrong – this was still close to as good as a comic book movie can get. The sheer awesomeness of the first two in this series makes us forget that we are still dealing a film in the same franchise as Jonah Hex, Green Lantern, and a few other disasters. Having not seen the first two Batman films, I would maybe even have clapped at the end of this movie as 200 people at the premier I went to felt compelled to do. However, knowing the ability Christopher Nolan possesses to create a film which is both visually and intellectually thrilling for the entirety of its runtime, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed overall and even slightly cheated at times. Please excuse a quick caps lock moment – ****SPOILER ALERT**** – alright, presuming I’ve scared away those who haven’t seen it yet, let me more specifically discuss what I mean:

Simply put, the movie was too long. Action movies need not (should not?) be 2 hours 45 minutes. I don’t think the adrenal gland – action movies’ best friend – is designed to keep grooving for that long. It felt as if Christopher Nolan had set a hard goal on this number, because I feel a lot of the movies’ problems could have been solved by cutting down some of the more mundane parts. There were dialogues and sequences in the middle of the movie that felt excessive and superfluous, and plot twists which featured the unfortunate double-whammy of being both difficult to follow and difficult to stay awake for.

I wanted to appreciate the heartfelt monologues doled out by Alfred numerous times in the movie, but found my more perverse Batman-fan side yearning to see stuff get blown up. I wanted to understand what the deal with the prison-well thing was, but couldn’t figure out for the life of me why every single person wasn’t escaping from the prison if you just needed to jump. (You’d think they’d be doing squats in their free time) I tried to calculate how long it would take the Federal government to do something about Bane in the absence of any law and order in Gotham, and decided it would have been much shorter than the months it seemed that a crew of rebels and deadbeats had the city on lockdown. I even wanted to believe that Bruce Wayne appearing at the very end after seemingly sacrificing himself, the ultimate okey-doke in feel-good action movies, wasn’t just Christopher Nolan securing future revenue streams with a disappointing and sickeningly predictable plot twist.

Instead of shooting each other with their assault rifles, the Good Guys and Bad Guys ran at each other all Lord-of-the-Rings-like. Bizarre.

Even the allusions to the struggle of the rich vs. poor felt half-hearted. While Catwoman’s various comments throughout the movie are clearly a parallel to the Occupy Wall Street movement, I’d prefer it was either discussed in more detail or not mentioned altogether rather than such a nuanced and controversial topic be glanced over as carelessly as it was.

Again, all of these are examples of things The Dark Knight did well. TDK managed to combine well-written and well-executed dialogues, a plodding narrative which took the perfect amount of time to develop, bits of social commentary that felt honest and genuine, and non-stop action which made the hair on your neck stand up, due to both how breathtaking it was and how real it seemed. The newest version tried to one-up itself on all of those measures, leaving much to be desired and a sense of Christopher Nolan having missed his chance to think outside the box.

http://tusb.stanford.edu/2012/07/the...ard-fails.html

[Fudgie]

Aaaaaand one more for TheBat812:

“The Dark Knight Rises” faced an uphill battle even before production began. Creating a powerful and fulfilling ending to any story is a challenge. On top of that, TDKR has to follow Nolan’s acclaimed previous installment in the Batman franchise: “The Dark Knight”. As a fan, it is truly difficult to imagine anything living up to the standard set with Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker. But Christopher Nolan has proven that he has a deep understanding of the personalities and philosophies that make Batman what it is. He has also proven his ability to tell a larger-than-life story that is firmly rooted in believable characters with relatable motivations. The story of a billionaire playboy dressing up in a bat costume to fight crime sounds ridiculous on the surface, but Nolan’s telling of Bruce Wayne’s rise as the Batman has felt shockingly real. That is, until “The Dark Knight Rises”.

With TDKR, Nolan continues to show a solid comprehension of the characters within the Batman universe, while the cast does a wonderful job of bringing these characters to life. Tom Hardy’s Bane is the personification of despair and intimidation. Every step he takes is filled with unshakable confidence and single-minded determination. When he utters the words “Speak of the Devil… and he shall appear”, the weight of the statement comes across without any hint of theatricality or exaggeration. He is that scary.

Equally as impressive is Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle (she’s never actually refered to as Catwoman in the film). Her ability to slip between the cracks while remaining in control of any situation is a joy to watch. Hathaway delivers just the right amount of playful mischievousness, without ever crossing the line into caricature.

Both Bane and Kyle play perfectly off of Christian Bale’s portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman. Throughout TDKR, Nolan uses the imagery of “standing on thin ice” as metaphor, particularly through Bruce Wayne’s diminishing ability to live in the world around him. As the film progresses, you can feel Wayne, Kyle, and Bane spiralling towards each other. It’s almost as if they are being drawn together by their similarities, while their differences put them squarely at odds.

So Nolan has all the right ingredients to tell a compelling story. However, it is in the fundamentals of storytelling where “The Dark Knight Rises” fails.

Nolan is historically an efficient storyteller. If his previous work has taught us anything, it is that every moment, every single line of dialogue, is important. Nolan has trained his audiences to watch his films with a keen eye, and a good memory. While this works to his benefit in a film like Inception (which is practically designed from the ground up to be watched multiple times), it actually works against him when he tries to use a device as simple as traditional foreshadowing. When Mr Fox tells Bruce Wayne that his new flying vehicle (aka “The Bat”) works perfectly except for the Auto Pilot, the audience knows that the Auto Pilot will become a pivotal factor in the plot. When Nolan makes a point of shifting the camera angle to reveal a scar on Miranda Tate’s back, but avoids explaining its existence, he is practically screaming at the audience “DON’T TRUST THIS CHARACTER!!! THERE’S SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS IN HER PAST!!!” The movie is simply full of these kinds of give-aways. It is so rampant that “The Dark Knight Rises” failed to deliver a single surprise to me. Every plot point, every reveal is telegraphed a mile away.

I’m a firm believer that a story can still be enjoyable even if you already know what’s going to happen. In Nolan’s previous Batman films, the tension is built just as much by interactions between the characters as by the plot. But in the case of TDKR, Nolan seems to be counting on the element of suspense to capture the audience, which is completely undercut by his own insistence on giving the plot away ahead of time. He dedicates a large chunk of screen time to Wayne’s attempts to escape from the pit. The epic music builds, the camera rotates as Bruce makes the vertigo-inducing climb to freedom… only to fall short. Meanwhile, I’m sitting in the theatre tapping my foot, waiting for him to just get out of the damn hole already. There’s never any doubt he will escape (even the title of the film gives it away), and there is little dramatic payoff when Wayne finally succeeds. The “realization” that his lack of fear is what prevents him from succeeding is instantly dropped from the film, with no relevance to later events.

In addition to being a dramatic failure, the entire sequence in the pit brings other problems to the table. Several times over the course of the film, we hear the pit refered to as “hell on earth”. But when we see it for ourselves, it really doesn’t seem that bad. Wayne has a friendly care-giver feed him and fix his back (with the single most ridiculous form of physical therapy I’ve ever seen, but I won’t dwell on that), while the kind old man in the cell next to him offers philosophical wisdom and insight. In fact, we’ve seen Wayne survive far worse conditions already. The only hints of true suffering come when Wayne glimpses the chaos and destruction burning through Gotham in his absence, but these moments are not given enough time to deliver their full weight.

The clumsy portrayal of the pit has deep consequences to “The Dark Knight Rises”. Not only does it suck all the power from Wayne’s struggle to escape, but it undercuts our understanding of Bane as well. We begin to question: why exactly does he hate the world so much? Why is he so determined to destroy Gotham? As the plot develops, Nolan attempts to bring deeper insight to these issues, but only succeeds in confusing things further. Bane claims to fill a dual purpose; leading a revolution while completing The League of Shadow’s mission to destroy Gotham. Isolated from the rest of the film, Bane is quite believable in either of these roles, but his actions fail to synch with his supposed purpose. Despite all his window dressing, the reality is that he’s not leading a revolution. He simply wants to rip Gotham apart. While this goal initially seems to substantiate his role as the new leader of the League of Shadows, the nature of his plan feels completely at odds with what we’ve learned about the League’s history and modus operandi. In Batman Begins, Ra’s Al Ghul and the League of Shadows are part of an ancient order who has quietly and secretly shaped the course of history. The concept of immortality is at the core of the League, and even helped shape Bruce Wayne’s intentions behind becoming the Batman. Bane on the other hand appears to want nothing more than to lead the League on a 5 month suicide mission. Why? As far as we’re told, it’s so he can accomplish Ra’s Al Ghul’s final goal, and punish Bruce Wayne in the process. But why is Bane willing to sacrifice his life, and the lives of the rest of the League, for these goals? After all, the League must endure if it is to continue fulfilling its destiny, or so we’ve been told.

Nolan attempts to answer these questions as well. As it turns out, Bane did everything because Miranda Tate, aka Talia (Ra’s Al Ghul’s daughter) told him to. This opens a giant can of worms all over our understanding of Bane’s character. If growing up in the pit had really transformed him into such a monster, why the sudden urge to care for Talia? If it truly is his devotion to the League of Shadows that drives him to commit such unspeakable acts, then why is he so eager to sacrifice the entire order to punish one single man? The only conceivable answer I can come up with is that Bane does it all because Talia tells him to. He loves her so much that he will allow himself to be blown up along with the rest of Gotham, just so she can have her “revenge”. Personally, I feel this motivation runs counter to everything Bane is supposed to represent, both within the film as well as the greater Batman lore.

As Bane’s believability as a character crumbles, so too does the “revolution” that he has unleashed on Gotham. The simple numbers behind this entire scenario just don’t add up. We don’t know exactly how many followers Bane brings to Gotham, but it can’t be much more than 100. After isolating Gotham from the outside world, Bane and his followers release all the convicts from Black Gate prison, who number somewhere close to 1000. So a little more than 1000 criminals are free, and suddenly a city with a population of 12 million goes completely crazy? Bane plays the part of a revolutionary leader, but Nolan spent the first act of the movie telling us that life in Gotham is better than ever. Why would the citizens want a revolution?

Unnecessary plot contrivances are unfortunately common throughout the film. When Bruce Wayne looses all his money, Fox tells him that it would take too long to prove that the transactions were fraudulent. Despite the fact that they have in their possession the laptop which was used to hack into the system and execute the trades. And despite the fact that an armed assault took place at the exchange the exact moment the trades were executed. Right.

We see Bane’s militia sets up their own court system in what is perhaps the most ludicrous scene in the entire film, both conceptually and in execution. We see Dr Crane sitting at a desk piled atop broken furniture, with streams of typewriter printouts flowing down to the floor (as if he was actually keeping record of anything). It’s almost a bad pun: a sham courtroom with the bringer of insanity acting as judge. It is the sort of cartoonish, senseless spectacle that plagued Joel Schumacher’s campy entries into the Batman franchise, and it sticks out like a sore thumb here.

When some undercover marshalls sneak into Gotham city to help Gordon’s resistance movement, they are taken on a trek across the city so that Fox can explain in person that Bane’s bomb will detonate soon. If time is really such an issue, then why didn’t Gordon just explain the situation himself, rather than sending the marshalls across town?

Of course, Nolan is also building towards the end of his trilogy. Despite the poor execution of the narrative, all the key pieces are still in place for a payoff that does justice to the Batman lore. We have Batman rising out from despair and misery, we have the people of Gotham (well, at least the police of Gotham) standing up for their own freedom, we have Detective Blake primed to become Wayne’s successor. But then, like a row of dominos, the film plows through the checklist of events we all saw coming. Miranda stabs Batman (remember the scar on her back? I knew there was something iffy about her!), Kyle shows up to save Batman (I knew there was more to her than just being a thief! Batman said so himself, a couple of times…), and the lack of a functioning Auto Pilot comes back to bite everyone on the ass. So Batman willingly sacrifices himself for the good of the city (“You’ve given them everything…” “Not everything…. not yet”). Equally underwhelming is Nolan’s decision to climax the movie with a vehicle-based chase through the city streets. These sorts of “high action” sequences have never been the series’ strong suit. Not to mention the fact that we just watched a city-wide battle with a race to get a bomb to a safe distance a couple of months ago. When compared to The Avengers’ masterful climax, the car-chase at the end of “The Dark Knight Rises” falls sadly flat.

Even with all these shortcomings, I found myself deeply effected by Batman’s final flight away from the city. After all the pain and suffering he has endured, we see a man ready to let go. He trusts the people he leaves behind to carry on what he started. And he’s ready to stop. He will live on through his inspiration of others, and through those who follow in his footsteps. Those closest to him will mourn his death, but they will honor his accomplishments.

Well, that’s how it should have ended.

I’m ok with the revelation that Bruce Wayne “faked” his own death in order to escape and live a normal life. But once again, a silly plot contrivance ruins any hope of believability. With roughly 1 minute before detonation, we’re supposed to believe that Batman somehow flew out over the bay, ejected from his aircraft, and swam several miles to shore with a major stab wound in his ribs? Or that he was far enough away from the detonation to escape the blast radius? Then we’re supposed to believe that he went to Florence and managed to find the right cafe, on the right day, at the right time to be spotted by Alfred? My suspension of disbelief is very flexible, but it completely broke during this scene. Most frustrating of all, Nolan uses a technique I like to call “lying via editing”. We see the sun shining on Wayne’s face as he flies out over the bay, seconds before the explosion. But in fact those moments couldn’t have possibly happened so close together. Nolan is presenting the audience with a chain of events, then saying “Surprise! That’s not how it happened!”. This is not effective storytelling, it is manipulating the audience.

Even as my frustration at the final sequence began to boil over, Nolan shows some true brilliance with the final shot. Blake rises unto Batman’s former mantle, ready to continue the work Wayne started. The power of this moment shines through so strongly that I wanted the scene to continue.

http://cruellegaceyproductions.com/2...-knight-rises/

It's no shocker that the Oscar judges didn't care for Rises.

[Fudgie]

Originally Posted by LeoGal83

Perfect... The entire trilogy follows the same logic.

http://screenrant.com/dark-knight-ri...ht-comparison/

http://htmlgiant.com/craft-notes/the...e-dark-knight/

The Dark Knight Rises was a huge mess of a movie that ruined the themes set up by the previous two movies.

http://www.activered.com.au/news_and...t_Rises_Review

[BatLobsterRises]

I honestly think it's strange to completely shut out the possibility that Gotham is a symbol in being the world's "greatest city". Ra's calls it that in Begins and the Prez calls it that in TDKR. I've said this before, but Ra's is talking about the sacking of Rome, etc. The collapse of the Roman Empire predates the existence of organized crime by about 1400 years. The most common theories about why it collapsed are related to it becoming overly decadent (orgies, hedonistic lifestyle) which weakened it from the inside and made it vulnerable to invaders. You add in Harvey's little talk about the Romans in TDK, and it seems pretty blatant that the Nolans were drawing a parallel between Gotham and the The Roman Empire. Ra's says the League have been a check against human corruption for centuries. That's pretty vague and can mean a bunch of things.

There's a line in BB that shows Ra's has very little regard for the judicial system. It just gets in the way of a nice clean beheading.

Bruce- This man show be tried.
Ra's- By whom? Corrupt bureaucrats? Criminals mock society's laws, you know this better than most.

So even if you want to run with LOS being only opposed to crime and no other forms of corruption (which I absolutely do not believe), given what Ra's said, why would the LOS even give a hoot that Gotham locked up its mobsters? Sure, they're denied parole. They also get free cable and internet. These are murderers, so that doesn't really jive with the "justice is balance" angle Ra's believed in. Maybe if Gotham brought back public hangings. The LOS's definition of justice when it comes to criminals isn't carried out at all by the Dent Act. Which then of course begs the question, all cities have crime and a court of law and prisons...so why Gotham?

The moment Ra's revealed that they had attacked Gotham economically 20 years prior to Begins (intentionally creating desperation and more crime) was the moment I realized that the LOS were total psychos with goals much more abstract than ending crime. Pretty much just like Ra's of the comics. He wants to jumpstart society into starting anew, and he's deluded enough to think destroying Gotham will do just that.

"Tomorrow the world will watch in horror as its greatest city tears itself apart through fear. The movement back to harmony will be unstoppable, this time." - Ra's

That line just goes to show how Ra's views Gotham as a symbol for all cities. He thinks its destruction will cause a worldwide reform of some sort. He doesn't just call it the "greatest" for no reason. After all, with how corrupt and crime-filled it is, you'd think he would call it the "world's worst city", right? But no. He knows that Gotham is the pinnacle of urban civilization, and believes urban civilization is the great plague of man, a constant source of corruption of all forms. No it's not spelled out for you, but that doesn't make this conjecture. It becomes alarmingly clear if one just take all of his lines in Batman Begins into account with the events of TDKR.

I will end on this note. I get why before TDKR came out, one might watch Batman Begins and think Ra's motivation is a simple hatred of criminals. I'm pretty sure I was thinking along those lines too. When he tells Bruce about how he lost his wife and learned that there are those without decency, etc., it very much sounds like he's explaining why he joined in the League in the first place. I always imagined the order was- wife murdered, joins League. It was always vague, but I got that impression. But now with TDKR, we see that this is, in fact, not the case. He finds and joins the LOS before learning that his wife was killed by the prisoners (or was even thrown in the Pit to begin with). To me this even further shows that his hatred of criminals and the LOS' ideals at their purest, are different things. He went to the LOS with the pain of being stripped of the love of his life unjustly by the warlord. "A corrupt bureaucrat", if you will. Now, I'm not saying they knew all this when they wrote Begins- I just personally thought these new details' about Ra's past really enriched the character and made everything coalesce for me in a really epic way as the story expanded in both directions. And it didn't feel like a contradiction of Begins. If anything, I love Begins even more after TDKR. But, opinions will be opinions. Thanks for your time if anyone's still reading.

[Tequilla]

So funny to read detailed misinterpretations. Ultimately cringe-worthy ...but still funny (nolan didnt get it ahahahaha. So idiotic)

What i've actually understand now is how a lot of people didn't understand TDK ending , and Bruce sacrifice.

[Tequilla]

Originally Posted by C. Lee

It's a big side product of being internet children....by that I mean, grown up with the internet since being a child. More so on the net than at home, if you express a like for something that the majority of others don't...you can get merceslessly and continuously harassed about your opinion....so many tend to just go along with the crowd. For me personally....there are multitudes of things I don't agree with the majority on. If I like something, and the majority likes it too....that's cool. If I like something and the majority don't....that's too bad for them. But it doesn't change if I like it or not.

Absolutely. But that is pure insecurity . Not only people try to reduce an individual appreciation to a global consensus , a lot of times they actually dont quite understand something or dont have a formed opinion (there's nothing wrong with it) but they go with the majority .

Its quite common in message boards people grabbing other people opinions because they dont have one. Its very easy to distinguish when someone has an opinion about anything vs another person trying to mimic other people's point of view.

That's why things get out of proportion on the interntet. Suddenly everyone thinks he's aware , although ultimately ...they aren't.

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

So... just how much does one of the little gold men cost?

[Fudgie]

Originally Posted by BatLobsterRises

I will end on this note. I get why before TDKR came out, one might watch Batman Begins and think Ra's motivation is a simple hatred of criminals. I'm pretty sure I was thinking along those lines too. When he tells Bruce about how he lost his wife and learned that there are those without decency, etc., it very much sounds like he's explaining why he joined in the League in the first place. I always imagined the order was- wife murdered, joins League. It was always vague, but I got that impression.

It's what just about everyone thinks.

Some of the major driving forces in this movie are Bane, what he does to Bruce, and what he plans to do to Gotham. For me, Bane's ultimate goal does not feel new and interesting enough. While the threats in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight manage to feel quite different from each other, The Dark Knight Rises chooses to revisit Ra's al Ghul's mission from Batman Begins. The movie does justify this similarity within the story, but that didn't make it any more interesting for me. In fact, this time around it made less sense and the method for executing this plan felt less fitting. At the beginning of Batman Begins, fake Ras al Ghul says that "... the city has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustice. It is beyond saving and must be allowed to die." Ok, I get that. The city is poor, crime ridden, and corrupt so the League of Shadows believes that to serve true justice, they have wipe the slate clean and allow things to begin again. So how about Bane's plan? He still wants to destroy Gotham and "fulfill Ra's al Ghul's destiny," but the ideological justification isn't really there. As a result of Batman and Jim Gordon's lie, the Harvey Dent act goes into effect and Gotham is no longer plagued by organized crime and corruption. It's just a pretty normal city. The fact that Gotham is so safe is even emphasized in the conversation between John Blake and Jim Gordon when they first meet. So why exactly does Bane want to destroy it?

Also, as I mentioned, the method for destroying the city is not as fitting or meaningful this time around. Ra's al Ghul planned to use a fear toxin to spread panic and drive the people of Gotham to tear each other apart. Fear is central to the story of Batman Begins. The story begins with Bruce falling into a well and being scared by a bunch of bats, who his father later tells him attacked him out of fear. All creatures feel fear. As a man, Bruce sought to use fear as a weapon against those who would prey on the fearful, thus becoming Batman. Fast forward to the climax, and you've got Ra's al Ghul literally using fear as a weapon in what he believes is a mission for justice. Looking at this movie, the themes of fear, overcoming fear, and using fear as a weapon are present from beginning to end, with the endgame of Ra's al Ghul serving as a brilliant cap on everything. I've given a good bit of thought to the method that Bane wanted to use to destroy the city and the most I can come up with is that the fusion core symbolizes the potential one thing can have to do great good or evil. Honestly though, as a plot device it didn't feel particularly creative or original. The way Batman saved Gotham from the bomb felt a bit familiar as well...

But honestly, this is the first movie again. They bring back the League of Shadows and it's original plan to destroy Gotham. But this doesn't make sense; because of Batman, Gotham is no longer a city struggling with tons of crime and villains. There is no reason for Gotham to be destroyed at this point.

http://www.squidoo.com/the-dark-knight-rises4

The plot is basically rehashing the first film with minor changes, but the problem here is it makes no sense. In the first film, the League of Shadows believed Gotham was beyond saving, so they felt it best to destroy it to prevent the problem from getting worse. Here though, Gotham is pretty much on the mend and things only go bad BECAUSE the League of Shadows intervene.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/foru...k-Knight-Rises

Bringing back the League of Shadows was a mistake, first off, an indulgent nod towards cyclicalism. Ra’s Al Ghul viewed Gotham as a “breeding ground of suffering and injustice,” and wished to destroy it. It’s made painfully clear that Gotham in TDKR is a far, far better place to live than in Batman Begins, though, free of organized crime and relatively safe and secure. So why do Bane and Talia wish to destroy it, too? One theory might be that they view the new Gotham as being built on the lie that Batman is a murderer and that Harvey Dent died to make Gotham a better place, but Bane doesn’t know that until well after his plans are already underway. (Assuming that Talia’s infiltration of Wayne Enterprises was the first step on their path, it’s easy to assume that they’ve been planning their masterstroke for years.) He might suspect that Batman didn’t kill Harvey Dent, but he doesn’t know it. Another theory might be a simple sort of desire for Talia and Bane to complete the task that Ra’s could not finish, but Bane, at least, doesn’t seem to have much need to live up to Ra’s’ example, having been excommunicated from the League of Shadows by the man. Bane is a cunning and smart, but he’s not a hypocrite; saying that he desires to destroy Gotham because it is an evil city, when it transparently isn’t an evil city anymore (whatever the reason) struck me as silly.

http://matthewrorie.tumblr.com/post/...k-knight-rises

[Fudgie]

Originally Posted by Pfeiffer-Pfan

So... just how much does one of the little gold men cost?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/...-oscars-judges

More than TDKR can afford me thinks.