The Dark Knight Rises Anyone else think they overrated Harvey Dent's importance to the story?

[milost]

How the hell was I supposed to respond to that post where you're basically saying that the film, no matter the writing fallacy that may or may not be present, works for you as a whole. That it gives you a satisfying experience when the end titles roll? That's your opinion, what can I argue? How do you expect me to refute that? How am I "moving the goal".

 

[AnneFan]

The revelation of the Dent cover up was badly handled. All we got as a reaction to the big cover up ( and I don't know why anyone would just take Bane's word for it either) was Blake giving Gordon a flowery speech about the morality of what he'd done. No Gotham reaction at all to it.

This was disappointing, for sure. They could have done a lot more with it. Bane had Gordon's letter, but so what? How was that concrete proof? Ultimately it was "I say Dent was a murderer so just believe me."

 

[Walt Bickle]

Convenient how you're ignoring everything in my post addressed towards you, and pounce as soon as you have something new to harp on. Constant moving of the goal post is a sure sign that a typical TDKR debate is in effect.

But yeah, considering the fact that the series starts on the question of whether or not Gotham is "beyond saving", and Bruce had sacrificed so much to save it...it's pretty much Drama 101 to face Bruce in his final hour (as Batman) with the past coming back to haunt, and the threat of everything he's done for the city being all for nothing. Not to mention the fact that legacy themes (with Thomas Wayne) were a huge part of BB that simply was not touched on at all in TDK. If you're going to end a character's arc, you have to look at things in the beginning. It's the same principle as setting up something in Act 1 of a screenplay and paying it off in Act 3. It's just basic storytelling.

Lol and milost, you're stealing one from my playbook with the Scream 3 clip. I've posted that before to backup my own points. It really all depends on what one wants in a threequel. I'm actually a huge fan of the Scream franchise, and Scream 3 is probably the worst. But it's not because they tied it back to Scream 1. That was actually the best part of it IMO. It made a lot of sense tying Maureen Prescott's origins back to Hollywood, it fit the themes of the trilogy like a glove. It's the worst mostly because of the more comedic, "Scooby Doo" tone. But the commentary on trilogies and the way they dealt with it in their typical meta fashion was really cool.

you make great points about the themes etc but they established that escalation was going to be the next theme and joker was the embodiment of that. I hated the way TDK never mention batmans parents and ***** though, I still wanted to see him dwell on them...and the fact that he doesn't use a batarang once.

 

[BatLobster]

How the hell was I supposed to respond to that post where you're basically saying that the film, no matter the writing fallacy that may or may not be present, works for you as a whole. That it gives you a satisfying experience when the end titles role? That's your opinion, what can I argue? How do you expect me to refute that? How am I "moving the goal".

I still had specific points in there, but no worries.

For the record I was half-kidding there, I don't think you were intentionally moving the goal post there, although it is a common tactic (from both sides) in these debates.

you make great points about the themes etc but they established that escalation was going to be the next theme and joker was the embodiment of that. I hated the way TDK never mention batmans parents and ***** though, I still wanted to see him dwell on them...and the fact that he doesn't use a batarang once.

To be clear, I'm not saying TDK did anything "wrong" by not focusing on these things and telling its own story. It was TDK's job to complicate the story started in BB, not resolve it.

 

[shauner111]

I loved that they went back to Begins. It's how it should be done when you end a story. Breaking Bad had their little flashbacks and parallels to the pilot in the final episode of the series.

Bringing back the League of Shadows was just great for me as a fan. I guess people didn't want an ending, or if it was an ending: they wanted something that kept things moving forward like they did in TDK (which barely references the previous movie). I dont like that because i personally wanted to know more about Ras' backround. I grew up as a Bane fan a lot more than say..Riddler or Hugo Strange (who i originally wanted for the 3rd movie), so i was good with that decision too. Talia? Sure. I love the Al Ghul family history. Having Bane and Talia just meant that they were tying things back to the original in order to close the story..and i was game.

It all comes down to Nolan not wanting a "villain of the week" scenario for the 3rd movie.

Some may have thought that Bane could do his thing and the writers didn't need to attach Talia to everything. OK, but i think that's a missed opportunity. You have a character who can connect to Ras + his daughter, and you're going to decide to ignore that? Meh. Tying it to the LOS was a good move. Like i said, there were bits of history that was hinted at in Begins and i wanted to see more of it. I wouldn't have cared that muchif they never brought it up, but since Bane was the villain, it just seemed like a no-brainer. It made everything feel that much more complete.

Alfred fantasy? Why not? It doesn't change anything. This is not Sandman killing Uncle Ben when we were shown something different in the first movie. It was a touching moment between Alfred and Bruce and i wouldnt trade it. It was the Good Will Hunting moment of the movie, like Kevin Smith says, and i thought it made the ending that much more powerful.

 

[milost]

But Bane is the new "villain of the week". If he wasn't they wouldn't have promoted him as such or copied the Prologue villain introduction to apply to Bane too.

He was the next, cliched "big bad". From the moment Bane/Hardy was announced, to the pic of him in the dark studio, to the hype and promotion of that December prologue. Bane was the new baddy in town. Every Batman film series has done this, Batman and Robin is the only one to get all jokey (or meta, if that's what was intended) about it with the "there's a new villain in town, he calls himself Mr. Freeze" line. This goes back to the 60s with the Adam West show.

 

[BatLobster]

He was both. They marketed him as such for sure, but when you see the actual movie it becomes apparent fairly quickly that his origins tie back to the larger overarching story in play.

But yeah, "OF COURSH" he was the big villain of the movie.

I think whatever villain they went with had to have some sort of backstory or explanation though. You couldn't just have another character appear in Gotham from thin air like The Joker. It keeps The Joker more unique that way. He's the true "freak" of all the villains that we got in these movies.

 

[Walt Bickle]

The thing is batman is not supposed to end, but yeah I get that the trilogy had to end somewhere. for a batman film though I would have liked the ending to show that batman and jokers scenario will loop again and again. ending the series with joker not returning takes away what joker is and ****s on the speech that he made to bats when he was upside down at the end of TDK.
fair enough they wanted to end bats career in TDKR... but the problem is they never began it in the first place, he was batman for a year and a half at most.

 

[milost]

The only way the Nolan films wouldn't have had "villains of the week", is if villains like the Joker and Ra's and Dent were reuccruing. They weren't. The only one that did was Crane, but those were short gag cameos.

"The main characters usually confront and vanquish different gimmick characters, often leaving them never to be seen again." - a villain of the week

That's what was done in these Batman movies. Nolan said that he intended to stay away from it, but he clearly dabbled in it excessively. If people don't think that's the case, just look at the Joker. If you still don't buy it, look at those nifty art poster cards for the blu ray set of the different films. I don't know why Nolan would be against that either, that's one of the qualities of Batman that's so great. What's wrong with a "villain of the week"? Remember, it was Goyer and him that faulted the previous Batman and comic book films for killing off their villains back in 2004, yet that's exactly what they did too. I remember fans treating Nolan and Goyer's movies like they stood apart because of this, but they didn't. Ra's died and never came back. Joker was in one film and then was intentionally never mentioned again. Two-Face was killed shortly after being introduced. Bane? Dead. Talia. Dead. All were "villains of the week".

X-Men and Superman are the only ones that don't really have that style of films. It's usually always Magneto or Lex Luthor for the most part

 

[BatLobster]

Here's how I see it. BB kind of eschewed the traditional "villain of the week" model that we'd become used to for Batman films. The villain they marketed the most, Scarecrow, wasn't even the main villain. This was a huge departure from everything we've come to expect from a Batman film. The benefit was this drew the focus of the movie to Bruce.

Then for for TDK, they go with THE most iconic villain in the Batman lore, probably in all of comics. So they lean into that. It's not "just" a villain of the week, it's the ULTIMATE villain of the week that will cause enough psychological trauma in that week to last you a lifetime. Bruce was still the central character, but the focus did shift away from him a bit and he didn't have the most dynamic arc in the film.

So then for TDKR, it's a mixture of both. You have a villain who will fill that void, have the personality, screen-time and offer the excitement expected in a film following TDK, but you're also tying that into the al Ghul saga which means you're not having to create something entirely from scratch, it's partially based on existing story elements. It also helped shift the focus back towards Bruce.

 

[Shikamaru]

"Villain of the week" has a lot of negative stigma attached to it for no solid reasons, but it isn't really a good or bad thing. There are a lot of misconceptions over it. People confuse it with the episodic/one-and-done/filler formula, which is not the case at all.

 

[BatLobster]

Yeah, that's kind of my point. Villain of the week isn't a bad thing in and of itself.

However, I do think it's less than ideal if you're trying to make a conclusive third film in a trilogy.

 

[shauner111]

But Bane is the new "villain of the week". If he wasn't they wouldn't have promoted him as such or copied the Prologue villain introduction to apply to Bane too.

He was the next, cliched "big bad". From the moment Bane/Hardy was announced, to the pic of him in the dark studio, to the hype and promotion of that December prologue. Bane was the new baddy in town. Every Batman film series has done this, Batman and Robin is the only one to get all jokey (or meta, if that's what was intended) about it with the "there's a new villain in town, he calls himself Mr. Freeze" line. This goes back to the 60s with the Adam West show.

Villain of the week meaning: there's a new villain out of nowhere and it has nothing to do with anything other than it being a new gimmick/character that is doing bad **** and Batman needs to stop him. And it goes on and on..

The thing is batman is not supposed to end, but yeah I get that the trilogy had to end somewhere. for a batman film though I would have liked the ending to show that batman and jokers scenario will loop again and again. ending the series with joker not returning takes away what joker is and ****s on the speech that he made to bats when he was upside down at the end of TDK.
fair enough they wanted to end bats career in TDKR... but the problem is they never began it in the first place, he was batman for a year and a half at most.

"Batman is not supposed to end"? Says who? The comics? The fans? It's not their movie, Nolan wanted to give him an ending for his interpretation. Because it's not the comics, and he can. "Supposed to" means nothing in film.

Cool, but Ledger died, so that's that. Replacing him with another actor would have felt cheap.

Never started his career? That's your problem right there man. You see it as a career like the comics, but the Nolans have said that it wasn't their intention to show the complete story of Batman. It was never built to show the "career" of Batman. It's actually a temporary plan that Bruce has. He doesn't vow to his parents to be Batman forever while he goes after every mugger he sees for the next 3 decades. He stays in Gotham until Gotham's citizens can become inspired to take back their city. And yes, cops are citizens (and people) too t:

He could have checked out after TDK. When the Dent Act came into place. But he doesn't because he's a screwed up individual. Gotham becomes a mess again, and so he takes Alfred's advice and his own from that plane scene in Begins, and finally decides to end his reign and leave town. This is why Bale and Nolan keep referencing that plane scene as their favorite from the trilogy. Because it's the key to everything.

 

[milost]

Batman Begins had "boring" villains, that's why. It's the only Batman film of the 7 that doesn't have a clear main villain attached to it. That's probably because it's more about the origin than it is anything else. It also wouldn't surprise me if WB forced Scarecrow in with a mandate when Nolan and Goyer were working on the project. They didn't have the same pull they would inevitably had by 2011.

I'd consider Ra's the main, but even then it's murky territory. You have fake Wannabe Ra's, a random Asian "Ra's" at Wayne Manor (I'll still never understand the point of that one) and Liam Neeson is gone for a good chunk of the film. Crane and Falcone are also in there which makes it even more complicated.

But it's still very much following the "villain of the week" formula. The very nature of the Joker (from the card in Begins, to the appearance in Knight, to no mention or existence at all in TDKR) is proof of this.

And I don't care what Bane's relation to another villain is, giving him his own 6 mins that December wasn't WB's idea, it was Nolan's. They tried to build up another big bad like they did in 2007. "Here's the new villain, this is BANE". Each villain essentially has their own gimmick, no doubt about that. Nolan wasn't immune to this. I don't see why such a concept would be viewed as something to be ashamed of.

The Joker was the best example of this. A colorful, fun, and gimmicky villain. He stole the show with his charisma and character . . then vanished, only to be followed by Bane. That's a villain of the week.

 

[shauner111]

Batman Begins had "boring" villains, that's why. It's the only Batman film of the 7 that doesn't have a clear main villain attached to it. That's probably because it's more about the origin than it is anything else. It also wouldn't surprise me if WB forced Scarecrow in with a mandate when Nolan and Goyer were working on the project. They didn't have the same pull they would inevitably had by 2011.

I'd consider Ra's the main, but even then it's murky territory. You have fake Wannabe Ra's, a random Asian "Ra's" at Wayne Manor (I'll still never understand the point of that one) and Liam Neeson is gone for a good chunk of the film. Crane and Falcone are also in there which makes it even more complicated.

But it's still very much following the "villain of the week" formula. The very nature of the Joker (from the card in Begins, to the appearance in Knight, to no mention or existence at all in TDKR) is proof of this.

And I don't care what Bane's relation to another villain is, giving him his own 6 mins that December wasn't WB's idea, it was Nolan's. They tried to build up another big bad like they did in 2007. "Here's the new villain, this is BANE". Each villain essentially has their own gimmick, no doubt about that. Nolan wasn't immune to this. I don't see why such a concept would be viewed as something to be ashamed of.

The Joker was the best example of this. A colorful, fun, and gimmicky villain. He stole the show with his charisma and character . . then vanished, only to be followed by Bane. That's a villain of the week.

Who said it's something to be ashamed of? Villain of the week mainly means a new villain with no ties to anything. He/she comes in, creates some bad news for Batman or the people of Gotham and Bats has to solve it and get rid of it. Then the next story/episode/movie has a new one. That's what it means.

Begins didn't have boring villains. I was very entertained by them. It just wasn't focused on them. Good. The movies shouldn't be about the villains. Dark Knight was about escalation, and Joker is the ultimate villain that represents that. He's everything Batman isn't. The complete polar opposite. Bane is simply not a villain of the week situation in Rises. Mad Hatter or Clayface would have been.

 

[milost]

Villain of the week meaning: there's a new villain out of nowhere and it has nothing to do with anything other than it being a new gimmick/character that is doing bad **** and Batman needs to stop him.

Bane, Bane, Bane.



Batman Begins

- Ra's Al Ghul
- poison the city
- new toys to handle the job
- Batman has to stop him (gadget, gauntlets and quips him)

Dark Knight

- The Joker
- social experiment
- new toys to handle the job
- Batman has to stop him (gadget, gauntlets and quips him)

TDKR

- Bane
- bomb the city
- new toys to handle the job
- Batman has to stop him (gadget, gauntlets and quips him)



Same, formulamatic films. It even plays the same "time is running out for Batman to defeat the villain" during each sequence. It's the same score on the monorail, Prewitt building and Bat/bomb sequences. The villain gimmick and "villain of the week" formula is nothing to be looked down upon. These Nolan movies followed it to a T, no matter how pretentious we want to be about it.

 

[shauner111]

Bane, Bane, Bane.



Batman Begins

- Ra's Al Ghul
- poison the city
- new toys to handle the job
- Batman has to stop him (gadget, gauntlets and quips him)

Dark Knight

- The Joker
- social experiment
- new toys to handle the job
- Batman has to stop him (gadget, gauntlets and quips him)

TDKR

- Bane
- bomb the city
- new toys to handle the job
- Batman has to stop him (gadget, gauntlets and quips him)



Same, formulamatic films. It even plays the same "time is running out for Batman to defeat the villain" during each sequence. It's the same score on the monorail, Prewitt building and Bat/bomb sequence.

The villain gimmick and "villain of the week" formula is nothing to be looked down upon. These Nolan movies followed it to a T, no matter how pretentious we want to be about it.

You obviously don't know what i mean. When i say villain of the week, and im pretty damn sure it's what everyone usually means when they use that phrase, is everything i described and that's all. Meaning they're a brand new villain who comes out nowhere, causes ****, Batman gets rid of the problem and there's nothing more to it. How is Bane that? Bane relates to Bruce's history, his past, tied to characters that are very much involved with Bruce's rise as the Batman. The parallels are there, the connections are there to the League of Shadows. He makes himself involved in the Harvey Dent fiasco. He and Talia together are there to finish a job that Ras couldn't complete. They are the opposite of a "villain of the week" scenario.

Mr. Freeze as the villain in TDKR, that's a villain of the week situation right there. Depending on how they would write him.

 

[milost]

Who said it's something to be ashamed of? Villain of the week mainly means a new villain with no ties to anything. He/she comes in, creates some bad news for Batman or the people of Gotham and Bats has to solve it and get rid of it. Then the next story/episode/movie has a new one. That's what it means.

They all followed everything you just mentioned. The key is that each villain is new but not recurring. That applies to all 3.

Begins didn't have boring villains. I was very entertained by them. It just wasn't focused on them. Good. The movies shouldn't be about the villains. Dark Knight was about escalation, and Joker is the ultimate villain that represents that. He's everything Batman isn't. The complete polar opposite. Bane is simply not a villain of the week situation in Rises. Mad Hatter or Clayface would have been.

Bane is.

He's the big strong guy with the sci-if mask that's strong and brawls Batman. They chose him SPECIFICALLY for his physical formidability. That's called a gimmick.

They then played him up as the new main baddie. None of the previous villains returned. That's a "villain of the week". Look it up. They play the same card they played with the Joker. Big prologue debut, promoted, Bruce underestimates him, at the end vanquishes him. Different villain, same formula. Villain of the week.

In 1966 it was a death trap that Batman had to get out of, by the 80s and current times, it's the well being of the entire city . . . every time.

 

[milost]

You obviously don't know what i mean. When i say villain of the week, and im pretty damn sure it's what everyone usually means when they use that phrase, is everything i described and that's all. Meaning they're a brand new villain who comes out nowhere, causes ****, Batman gets rid of the problem and there's nothing more to it. How is Bane that? Bane relates to Bruce's history, his past, tied to characters that are very much involved with Bruce's rise as the Batman. The parallels are there, the connections are there to the League of Shadows. He makes himself involved in the Harvey Dent fiasco. He and Talia together are there to finish a job that Ras couldn't complete. They are the opposite of a "villain of the week" scenario.

Mr. Freeze as the villain in TDKR, that's a villain of the week situation right there. Depending on how they would write him.

Where was Bane in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight? Oh, that's right, he wasn't he was created in 2011.

Bane literally comes out of nowhere. We don't know anything about him till Alfred does a google search on him and finds he's part of "Da League". Batman never faced a guy like this (Alfred even says this and even hypes him up, game boss style that he's a "faster" and "stronger" opponent) before and Bane certainly isn't recurring. It's a villain of the week. Having an involvement with Ra's means diddly squat, that's not the definition of the formula. Bane is new and played up as such for most of the film. You, nor I saw anything like him in either two films. The other main bads never came back. Villain. Of. The. Week.

 

[BatLobster]

Can we at least agree that Talia wasn't a villain of the week? It's mostly because of Bane's alliance with her that I don't consider him a "pure" villain of the week.

It's playing with and subverting audience expectations. He has all the hallmarks of your typical villain of the week, and they have fun with that, but at the same time it's not quite that.

 

[Victarion]

I feel that Dent's contribution/importance to the story as overrated. As overrated as the Joker card's contribution to Joker's presence in The Dark Knight.

I wouldn't call Talia or Bane "villains of the week." Guys like Flass, Gambol/the Chechen and Maroni are more "villain of the week." They come in, do something, and leave. The villain of the week lacks any sort of depth or connection to the hero. Fortunately, the only freak villain without any sort of connection to Bruce was Scarecrow.

 

[Senator Pleasury]

Go figure, that's exactly what I believe the good writers who wrote this movie to have done. Only they did what most good writers in their position would've done- write a sequel to the first two movies, not just the most recent movie, that brings the themes and plotlines of BOTH to a conclusion in an exciting, proper way.

For me, they did wrap up TDK's plotines in a proper and exciting way. And i didn't think it was tedious. It's as simple as that.

Yet both Gordon and Batman's lies had no consequence whatsoever. They had Batman saying the truth would destroy Gotham's spirit. Yet we saw nothing about Gotham's reaction to the truth. As I already said, at the end of TDKR, Gordon's still the heroic commissioner and Batman is the loved hero. The lies ahd no consequences and apparently Batman was somehow forgiven somewhere in between. There was almost no resolution at all as to what was proposed in TDK.

 

[milost]

So he's a "kinda, sorta, 2/3 of the film" villain of the week?

Then I guess we all acknowledge that Talia steals his thunder and takes his balls from him then huh? How come all those times we argue the "crying, lackey who had his origin stolen from him" angle falls on deaf ears or we get the "well Bane was his own man" then? Which is it?

This is one of the reasons that I think the Bane and Talia duo drag it down for people. They're both in such a weird, undeveloped territory where it would have just been better to give one of them the axe for a more cohesive story. I think of all the villain team ups (Catwoman/Penguin, Two-Face/Riddler, Freeze/Ivy, Ra's/Scarecrow") they're the worst because they try to compliment each other in the end they just cancel each other out. I think Tate could have easily been cut and made for a better story. She's in there literally for the sake of a twist (that people saw coming from a mile away).

 

[Victarion]

I didn't think she stole his thunder. Bane was already beaten; I didn't see what else there was to do with him. Tate was hung up on her daddy's death. Like how Bruce was brooding and angry over his parents' deaths. Bruce created an outlet for it in Batman. In TDKR, Bruce wanted desperately to return to the Batman. To an outlet for his anger over his parents' death. Talia was symbolic of what he could've become if he didn't move on from his anger. As Bane was symbolic of what he could've become if he fully embraced the League's philosophy. Talia herself states that she wanted to honor Ra's by finishing his work. That makes Bane's speech in the sewer fight his M.O. for going to Gotham: revenge on Bruce for betraying the League, throwing away something Bane strove for and was denied.

I will be back in two-ish months to essentially restate the above.

 

[shauner111]

Who saw the twist from a mile away? The fans? The fans that know about Talia as a character and the ones who saw the set photos. These movies weren't made for that crowd really.

Where was Bane in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight? Oh, that's right, he wasn't he was created in 2011.

Bane literally comes out of nowhere. We don't know anything about him till Alfred does a google search on him and finds he's part of "Da League". Batman never faced a guy like this (Alfred even says this and even hypes him up, game boss style that he's a "faster" and "stronger" opponent) before and Bane certainly isn't recurring. It's a villain of the week. Having an involvement with Ra's means diddly squat, that's not the definition of the formula. Bane is new and played up as such for most of the film. You, nor I saw anything like him in either two films. The other main bads never came back. Villain. Of. The. Week.

......

Villain of the week doesn't mean a new villain lol. Does Bane just come out nowhere, do bad things without any connection to anything whatsoever, just a new plot that is unrelated to anything previously? No. Obviously our definition of the term is completely different.