The Dark Knight Rises Am I the only one that feels like TDKR prevents Nolan's trilogy from being perfect?

[Deserana]

I think it works for a few reasons - it sets up both Talia and Bane as the conflicting sides of Bruce's need for Batman. Talia represents his 'vengeance for a loved one', and bane is his 'protector of the innocent'. It also allows for Talia to cut the knife much deeper for Bruce, while creating two great backstories for each villain. I don't feel like the Talia twist is cheap, although she doesn't really get enough screentime for us to really buy their closeness, but they do set it up as though they've already known each other for awhile and so it's still believable to me. Her death is still pretty lame haha.

The character of Talia I have no issue with. I think she has plenty of backstory when you actually think about the life she must have had especially seeing as the majority of the Bane pit stuff was actually Talia's story. I just felt like the moment it was revealed was poor. She dies literally 5 minutes later maybe sooner. I think it would have been better if we at least had an idea that she wasn't as she seemed or if the reveal was made before the final battle. Then knowing Batman has not one but two people to find in such a short time increases the tension. We could have then also had some great scenes with both Bane/Batman and Talia/Batman.

 

[Micromind]

What you just listed are ways in which Nolan's interpretation differs from the comics. But that's not (most) people's problem with TDKR, it's why you hardly hear any complaints that Talia wasn't in love with Batman and didn't call him beloved. TDKR's problems lie within the movie itself, not that it didn't abide uncompromisingly to the source material.

What source material ?

If the movie is not following comics closely but loosely then it can deviate in many places.

For examples I will just list some of the "complaints" from some posters where they want This movie to address them differently but same poster have no complaints about similar deviations from source material in TDK and BB.

"Talia should not be in this movie"
Talia ties into the story arc carried over from BB, at least she has some background that we know of unlike Rachel Dawes, who was there in BB for some unknown reason.

"Bane should have been a solo villain."
Fine, but how will he get an army of trained soldiers, some will say he did work in small African nations as a mercenary, but then why would he go after Gotham City ? Why not some other City, and why would he have a something against batman / Bruce Wayne ?

Sure all that could be addressed in the story too, but then it would need even longer run time, tying it all up with LOS, Ras Al Ghul and Talia is better as it references the elements introduced in the earlier films.

"Why Eight year gap ?"
Bruce Wayne was not the same man after the events of TDK, Gotham was not in the same state after the events in TDK. Gotham city was a much safer place thanks to Dent Act.

Bruce Wayne wanted to help the city by giving them an alternative Green energy, but even after five years of research and after he spent huge portion of money on the project, the project remained a failure, that made him a recluse, he personally blamed himself for deaths of Rachel and Dent and he blamed himself for the failure of clean energy project, he could not be Batman again either, as Batman was not needed, he went into a shell.

All this took some time, it cannot happen within a short time period of say Two years. (Research and development of clean energy project and then its subsequent failure.) and its psychological impact.

Such issues are explained if anyone cares to look deeply within the movie, it is Not part of TDKR's problems.

 

[TheBat812]

The character of Talia I have no issue with. I think she has plenty of backstory when you actually think about the life she must have had especially seeing as the majority of the Bane pit stuff was actually Talia's story. I just felt like the moment it was revealed was poor. She dies literally 5 minutes later maybe sooner. I think it would have been better if we at least had an idea that she wasn't as she seemed or if the reveal was made before the final battle. Then knowing Batman has not one but two people to find in such a short time increases the tension. We could have then also had some great scenes with both Bane/Batman and Talia/Batman.

Upon re-viewing the film I thought there were plenty of hints that something about her was not quite right. Even on first viewing I thought, Oh, she's going to be Talia, then they totally made me buy that she was actually good, so I let it go, only to be surprised again. It did a great job of putting me in Bruce's shoes, blind to her true motivations, and trusting of her. It definitely felt a bit fast the first time, but has definitely grown on me with repeated viewings. I do wish we had more talia in the film post-reveal, but I think that's only the fanboy in me, it does not both me from a cinematic perspective. t:

 

[Brother Jack]

I thought Tate/Talia wasn't handled quite as well as she could have been (which probably would have been remedied by an earlier scene showing her true allegiances), but I personally loved the scene when she's revealed and betrays Batman. The "slow knife" speech combined with the score and cutting back to Gordon getting the jammer to the bomb was great. Bale's reaction to the betrayal was just perfect.

 

[Victarion]

Bane could have worked fine on his own. Aside from Talia, I got the impression that Bane was enraged at Bruce throwing away the chance to become Ra's Al Ghul's successor. Look at the way he says "...and you betrayed us." and the ferocity of those punches. Look at what he wanted to do with Bruce rather than kill him. Look at how he and Talia attacked Gotham. Yes, I could see someone saying it was the Fear Gas thing on a bigger scale. But it really wasn't. If Ra's plan worked, the citizens would've been drugged as they destroyed their city. Under Bane and Talia, they citizens were perfectly sober. He would've proven himself superior to Bruce and Ra's.

 

[Brain Damage]

What source material ?

If the movie is not following comics closely but loosely then it can deviate in many places.

For examples I will just list some of the "complaints" from some posters where they want This movie to address them differently but same poster have no complaints about similar deviations from source material in TDK and BB.

Right on.

"Talia should not be in this movie"
Talia ties into the story arc carried over from BB, at least she has some background that we know of unlike Rachel Dawes, who was there in BB for some unknown reason.

Rachel Dawes was a fully fleshed out character. Talia was not. We actually saw why Rachel had such an impact on Bruce, the speech she gives him outside of Falcone's bar is ultimately what propels him to look beyond his own pain and embark on his crusade. Comparatively, we are only told about Miranda's history with Bruce, as it all happens off screen. I have no problem with Talia being in the movie, but she wasn't a well developed character.

"Bane should have been a solo villain."
Fine, but how will he get an army of trained soldiers, some will say he did work in small African nations as a mercenary, but then why would he go after Gotham City ? Why not some other City, and why would he have a something against batman / Bruce Wayne ?

Because he is a member of the League of Shadows and he's there to fulfill Ra's Al Ghul's destiny? Bane's motivations/resources made perfect sense the way they were set up in the movie before the Talia reveal.

Sure all that could be addressed in the story too, but then it would need even longer run time, tying it all up with LOS, Ras Al Ghul and Talia is better as it references the elements introduced in the earlier films.

Again, they could have tied it in perfectly well with the LOS and Ra's without using Talia. In fact, they did. Until the reveal, everything we are led to believe about Bane makes perfect sense. So why is Talia necessary other than to be a shocking twist to the audience?

"Why Eight year gap ?"

Bruce Wayne was not the same man after the events of TDK, Gotham was not in the same state after the events in TDK. Gotham city was a much safer place thanks to Dent Act.

Bruce Wayne wanted to help the city by giving them an alternative Green energy, but even after five years of research and after he spent huge portion of money on the project, the project remained a failure, that made him a recluse, he personally blamed himself for deaths of Rachel and Dent and he blamed himself for the failure of clean energy project, he could not be Batman again either, as Batman was not needed, he went into a shell.

I agree with most of this. While giving up for eight-years isn't something that my ideal Batman would do, it made sense within the context of Nolan's world. My biggest gripe is that like a lot of things in this movie, the clean energy project is fed to us through forced exposition. This is mainly a scripting problem, and really it should have been fixed there. Forced exposition is the kind of thing you have in a first draft, then you work out better ways to integrate the information into the story naturally in revision. Instead, in TDKR we get things like Alfred's wikipedia summary on Bane and Dagget's line about "You mean the clean slate that does blah, and blah, and blah, and would be really useful if you're a master thief with a record? You mean that clean slate?"

God, that Dagget line actually makes me cringe every time. Seriously though, this stuff is writing 101.

 

[The Joker]

This is basically what I thought. But I also thought that Bane would have unleashed Joker upon Gotham.

Sort of like what he did in Knightfall when he unleashed the villains from Arkham on Gotham. I remember they deliberately released the Joker from his cell first because "He would lead and inspire the others with his own brand of madness".

I've thought this because Bruce's experience in the Pit is supposed to mirror the people of Gotham. Bane is poisoning both with what he believes is false hope. Bruce with the apparent ease of escape, Gotham with the absence of corruption and domination of the 1%. The poison being that Bruce physically cannot escape, and every time he tries, a bit of his hope dies, and Gotham's hope would die with Joker being free, he'd realise his dream and temporarily win Gotham's soul,and thus completing his character arc on screen.

That would have been so much better than a city completely oblivious to the fact Bane intends to detonate the bomb anyway. There's no tension to that scenario at all.

I think it's more the fact that it might have just been too painful, both Chris Nolan and Christian Bale had become good friends with Heath and it might have been too much for them. The situation was always a double edged sword, no matter what they did (off screen explanation, recast no mention) they would all draw attention to the fact that their friend is dead.

That's possible. Christian did get a bit emotional at the MTV awards this year after they showed footage from the previous two movies which of course included Heath's Joker; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqOTeonyfRc&feature=related

He got a bit choked up when he said it was wonderful to see Heath there.

The character of Talia I have no issue with. I think she has plenty of backstory when you actually think about the life she must have had especially seeing as the majority of the Bane pit stuff was actually Talia's story. I just felt like the moment it was revealed was poor. She dies literally 5 minutes later maybe sooner. I think it would have been better if we at least had an idea that she wasn't as she seemed or if the reveal was made before the final battle. Then knowing Batman has not one but two people to find in such a short time increases the tension. We could have then also had some great scenes with both Bane/Batman and Talia/Batman.

That's exactly the problem. I didn't give a damn about Miranda Tate and her few very brief scenes where she's wittering on about clean energy projects. I didn't buy her sex scene with Bruce. There was no emotional weight to it. No sexual chemistry between her and Bale. When she's revealed as Talia, she simply tells her back story, hops into a Tumbler and gets one of the worst death scenes I've ever seen.

She really felt shoe horned in.

 

[Figs]

She really felt shoe horned in.

People love to complain about Blake, but this movie would have been way better if Talia was never in it. Remove her completely and have Bane steal the bomb like before and have him only start the timer(a much shorter one)as an act of desperation when Batman defeats him at city hall. I would have liked it if he only used the bomb to scare Gotham into doing what he wanted and his main motivation was to rule the city much like he wanted to do in Knightfall. It would have trimmed some fat with Tate/Talia being gone.

 

[Victarion]

If Bane had been the sole villain, I think it would've been great to have the Dent Act picked up by multiple states/allies of the United States. Then Bane would have a stronger reason for attacking Gotham: Overturning the Dent Act. Since he was oppressed by a regime that would become widespread thanks to the Dent Act, Bane would attack Gotham himself.

Then use League of Shadows contacts in other locations to incite civil unrest. The bomb would be insurance to keep the Army/U.N. from interferring too much. The trick would be finding incriminating evidence against Dent. If not Gordon's confession, perhaps Catwoman would've been hired to steal security tapes from the buildings near the final standoff where Dent held the Gordons at gunpoint. Would those buildings have that event on their security tapes?

 

[batfreakforever]

Its a bold trilogy. It has balls.

 

[Deserana]

Its a bold trilogy. It has balls.

Now that I agree with wholeheartedly. Whilst I have issues with TDKR I admire it greatly. I mean could you imagine many other people waiting 40 minutes before the hero emerged in a sequel? Origin films fine. That makes sense but I don't remember waiting that long in any other comic book sequel. Add to that the fact it attempted such a huge story with big effects.

The fact it tried to make a character like Bruce actually move on and have a successor. The series actually ended and didn't make a sequel just for the money. The trilogy wanted to tell a story and it did and a bloody good one it was and then it stopped.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

There's about 12 minutes between Talia's reveal and her death. It did seem a lot shorter than it really was.

Anyway, I did a rough scene/location count and Hathaway has far and away the most scenes/locations with Christian Bale, followed by Cotillard, Gordon-Levitt, and Hardy--the new characters.

Selina
Wayne Manor [Bruce Wayne]
Charity Ball [Bruce Wayne]
The rooftop/The Bat/rooftop [Batman] (could have split this one up)
Outside/Inside Selina's apartment [Bruce Wayne]
The tunnels [Batman]
After saving the kid [Bruce Wayne]
Rescuing Lucius Fox [Bruce Wayne]
Alley with the Batpod [Batman]
Gotham City Hall [Batman]
The convoy chase [Batman]
Florence [Bruce Wayne] (brief, no words exchanged)

Miranda/Talia
Charity ball (Miranda) [Bruce Wayne]
The reactor bunker (Miranda) [Bruce Wayne]
Wayne Enterprises (Miranda) [Bruce Wayne] (brief, no words exchanged)
Wayne Manor (Miranda) [Bruce Wayne]
Gotham Stock Exchange (Miranda) [Bruce Wayne]
Gotham City Hall (Talia) [Batman]
The convoy chase (Talia) [Batman]

Blake
Wayne Manor [Bruce Wayne]
Batman inside the Bat [Batman] (brief, no words exchanged)
Outside Wayne Enterprises [Bruce Wayne] (brief)
Blake's police cruiser [Bruce Wayne]
Blake and Batman rescue the police [Batman]

Bane
On the bike (very brief, no words exchanged) [Batman]
The rooftop (very brief, no words exchanged) [Batman]
The sewer fight [Batman]
The Pit [Bruce Wayne]
Gotham City Streets/City Hall [Batman]

 

[JackWhite]

There's about 12 minutes between Talia's reveal and her death. It did seem a lot shorter than it really was.

Anyway, I did a rough scene/location count and Hathaway has far and away the most scenes/locations with Christian Bale, followed by Cotillard, Gordon-Levitt, and Bane--the new characters.

Selina
Wayne Manor [Bruce Wayne]
Charity Ball [Bruce Wayne]
The rooftop/The Bat/rooftop [Batman] (could have split this one up)
Outside/Inside Selina's apartment [Bruce Wayne]
The tunnels [Batman]
After saving the kid [Bruce Wayne]
Rescuing Lucius Fox [Bruce Wayne]
Alley with the Batpod [Batman]
Gotham City Hall [Batman]
The convoy chase [Batman]
Florence [Bruce Wayne] (brief, no words exchanged)

Miranda/Talia
Charity ball (Miranda) [Bruce Wayne]
The reactor bunker (Miranda) [Bruce Wayne]
Wayne Enterprises (Miranda) [Bruce Wayne] (brief, no words exchanged)
Wayne Manor (Miranda) [Bruce Wayne]
Gotham Stock Exchange (Miranda) [Bruce Wayne]
Gotham City Hall (Talia) [Batman]
The convoy chase (Talia) [Batman]

Blake
Wayne Manor [Bruce Wayne]
Batman inside the Bat [Batman] (brief, no words exchanged)
Outside Wayne Enterprises [Bruce Wayne] (brief)
Blake's police cruiser [Bruce Wayne]
Blake and Batman rescue the police [Batman]

Bane
On the bike (very brief, no words exchanged) [Batman]
The rooftop (very brief, no words exchanged) [Batman]
The sewer fight [Batman]
The Pit [Bruce Wayne]
Gotham City Streets/City Hall [Batman]

Nice breakdown.

 

[Deserana]

Bane
On the bike (very brief, no words exchanged) [Batman]
The rooftop (very brief, no words exchanged) [Batman]
The sewer fight [Batman]
The Pit [Bruce Wayne]
Gotham City Streets/City Hall [Batman]

Such a shame whatever dialogues they did share were great. Was really hoping there would be a big scene inside City Hall and by the look of set pictures there was an exchange cut.

 

[JackWhite]

Such a shame whatever dialogues they did share were great. Was really hoping there would be a big scene inside City Hall and by the look of set pictures there was an exchange cut.

What do you think was cut?

 

[Deserana]

What do you think was cut?

There were some pics of Batman standing over a kneeling Bane and it seemed like mid scene or like the scene was about to film (as if it were their starting positions). It definitely wasn't the "where's the trigger" moment but was inside City Hall. I'll try and find it...

There was another which looked more like they were about to film but I can't find it.

They could just be shooting the fight but for some reason I really get the vibe that Batman is speaking to him here and all of Bats dialogue to Bane in that scene was Bats crouched down and Bane wasn't kneeling.

 

[jmc]

Its a bold trilogy. It has balls.

Now that I can agree with, it's probably the most ambitious trilogy of films since LOTR. There has not been one series of movies since LOTR that has tried something this ambitious in term of story. That doesn't excuse film three though, it's problems are in its own ambitions, you don't win the gold star simply for doing something bold, you've still gotta knock it out of the park. I think I've said this before but Rises feels like the highlights package of a much longer movie, either something had to be removed from the film or the film had to be longer in order to tell the story more completely.

 

[Anno_Domini]

I think a few tweaks would've made TDKR perfect, but it's at least ambitious

 

[I Am The Knight]

I agree with most of this. While giving up for eight-years isn't something that my ideal Batman would do, it made sense within the context of Nolan's world. My biggest gripe is that like a lot of things in this movie, the clean energy project is fed to us through forced exposition. This is mainly a scripting problem, and really it should have been fixed there. Forced exposition is the kind of thing you have in a first draft, then you work out better ways to integrate the information into the story naturally in revision. Instead, in TDKR we get things like Alfred's wikipedia summary on Bane and Dagget's line about "You mean the clean slate that does blah, and blah, and blah, and would be really useful if you're a master thief with a record? You mean that clean slate?"

God, that Dagget line actually makes me cringe every time. Seriously though, this stuff is writing 101.

 

[Mindreaper21]

I agree with most of this. While giving up for eight-years isn't something that my ideal Batman would do, it made sense within the context of Nolan's world. My biggest gripe is that like a lot of things in this movie, the clean energy project is fed to us through forced exposition. This is mainly a scripting problem, and really it should have been fixed there. Forced exposition is the kind of thing you have in a first draft, then you work out better ways to integrate the information into the story naturally in revision. Instead, in TDKR we get things like Alfred's wikipedia summary on Bane and Dagget's line about "You mean the clean slate that does blah, and blah, and blah, and would be really useful if you're a master thief with a record? You mean that clean slate?"

God, that Dagget line actually makes me cringe every time. Seriously though, this stuff is writing 101.

This line literally made me
This is the stuff you expect in a low budget movie on the sci-fi channel.

 

[HighFivingMF]

But, and I haven't seen it in a bit, wasn't Daggett's explanation a sarcastic one. Like "Yeaaahhh. Something like that REALLY exists! "?

 

[Brain Damage]

Yes. That's how they played it. But it still doesn't change the fact that it was god awful exposition.

 

[HighFivingMF]

Does for me.

 

[TheBat812]

But, and I haven't seen it in a bit, wasn't Daggett's explanation a sarcastic one. Like "Yeaaahhh. Something like that REALLY exists! "?

You're right, this line was said in jest. It worked pretty well in context for me. The delivery sold it pretty damn well. It reminds me of the first Star Wars trilogy where the dialogue is pretty stilted but the performances make it work much better than it does on paper.

 

[Tequilla]

But, and I haven't seen it in a bit, wasn't Daggett's explanation a sarcastic one. Like "Yeaaahhh. Something like that REALLY exists! "?

Of course. Its so far-fetched even the villain makes fun of it. Yet it exists. That's why the scene is funny. And Mendelsohn delivery is perfect , along Anne's reaction.