Fair enough. I personally didn't like it.
I love a lot of Bane's lines. My personal favorites would be these though:
"Oh, you think darkness is your ally? You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it. Molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was a grown man, by then it was nothing to me but blinding!"
"Ah, yes. I was wondering what would break first. Your spirit...or your body."
Indeed, Bane has some great lines as that's a trend with Nolan's trilogy. Ra's al Ghul, The Joker, Bane...all great lines from the three villains.
And back to your examples though....I remember when a "rumor" was made that TDKR would begin right after TDK where Batman rushes his way to the Batcave only to be stopped at a bridge by Bane where then Bane "Breaks the Bat". Remember that one?
I'm not saying that to definitely be the case. I'm saying that the movie never establishes who they are. We don't know if they're the LoS or if they're just mercenaries working for Bane. It is left completely ambiguous.
Oh, I agree. The League of Shadows is only mentioned by Bane and Talia and that's why I felt they were the LoS and the men were just there to be this 'League of Shadows 2.0' that weren't even using a ninja moniker as seen in Batman Begins(although when Bruce enters the LoS' headquarters in the beginning, we did see the members in the same kind of clothing), but the idea of they just being regular mercenaries and only Bane's men is really interesting and a new way of thinking. Thanks for actually giving me something new to think about with TDKR
You know what? That's actually a really good point. I admit I haven't thought of that. If those are indeed Bane's guys and not the LoS, then Bane and Talia are indeed co-conspirators. However, like I said before, whether or not those guys are the LoS is left completely ambiguous thus Bane working either for or with Talia is also left ambiguous.
If he is working with her and not for her, the final scene with Bane is even more confusing now since that specific scene clearly shows that Talia is the big bad all along and that Bane was just working under her. Notice how even Bane's attitude changes after the Talia reveal to more of a lackey attitude.
Also, it wouldn't be much of a surprise for me either if those really are Bane's guys and Bane is Talia's lackey at the same time. Seeing how almost every single scene in the movie is contradicted by another scene in the movie, it wouldn't surprise me by this point if that was indeed the case.
I still don't get that "lackey" vibe. I mean, the one order Talia tries to make and Bane doesn't even listen. Bane was more like a protector and was just being an accomplice at that moment while Talia stabbed Batman but when Talia has to leave, saying their goodbyes, Bane then decides to just kill Batman before the bomb goes off.
It's never stated that they are in league with each other. Bane and Talia both say individually and at different times "I am the LoS". You can still have the League being made up of only Bane and Talia and have Bane working under Talia.
Or have them just working side by side. I think the idea that Bane is working under Talia and not just with her is because Talia's doing all of this because of her father, but Bane has just the same right of being a co-conspirator when he has men, when he is doing more than half of the plan while Talia sits back as this mole with being Miranda Tate. While Ra's treated Bane like crap, he does care for Talia and would devise this plan together.
Like I said before though, it still didn't have anywhere of the impact that it did in the book due to Bruce being apparently weakened (and I say apparently because I still don't get how all those injuries showed up just out of thin air) and not weakened by Bane himself but by...well...whatever he got weakened by in Nolan's head. lol
The leg comes from the ending of TDK as is explained by Nolan and the other injuries mentioned by that doctor...I assumed it was from that year when Bruce was Batman and they just never fully healed, but I still never saw those reasons to keep Bruce from continuing as Batman since nothing stopped him in the previous two films.
Those are my biggest problems with the movie. Why did he hang up the cape and cowl to begin with for 8 years? Everything from BB and TDK gave you the idea and feeling that he was going to continue being Batman, especially TDK's ending. The Dent Act isn't really a valid reason because you can't have a deus ex machina act that magically just gets rid of organized crime plus it only gets rid of organized crime and unorganized crime can be even more dangerous than organized crime since there is no one to hold the criminals by a leash - if anything, Gotham would need Batman now more than ever. That and the fact that BB and TDK (but mostly TDK) brought in the whole "freaks" theme from The Long Halloween, which was the idea that Gotham's mob would fall soon and more freaks like the Joker would show up, which is why Batman is needed because only he can handle them, which is why Harvey was corrupted while he wasn't. Nolan just ignored and contradicted TDK altogether with TDKR, except for the fact that Dent died.
I never got the bold for TDK. I see the escalation factor of the mob taking their last resort and getting Joker to help them, but when Joker talked about something that could imply more freaks showing up after Dent is shown to have gone to the "dark side" as well, it didn't happen when they saved face with Dent and kept him as this 'White Knight'. That to me showed that Nolan wasn't even going to bring up a "rise of freaks".
And going by Rachel's speech in BB, the organized crime is the main issues and something that gave Bruce the reason to be Batman and taking out that element, while obviously not factual, kept a lot of crime out of Gotham City. When Rachel said guys like Falcone creates guys like Joe Chill, it showed that Nolan's version had the organize crime being the main factor for crimes in Gotham. Taking out Batman's goal of cleaning up Gotham and you have nothing for Batman to do besides wasting the police's time and giving chase, thus Bruce decided to retire for eight years.
And why was it time for him to leave the cape and cowl behind if he could still go on being Batman physically, which we both agree on? The movie's ending is one of the biggest anti-Batman messages I've ever seen in any Batman adaptation. Batman is the last superhero to ever retire because he wants to hang up the cape and cowl and because he wants a peaceful life. What makes Batman so interesting is that even though he always wanted that, he knows he can't have it because Gotham will always need Batman. You might defend the ending by saying "Nolan's Batman is not supposed to have that same mentality" but I would argue that based on TDK's ending, he got there already or was on his way of getting there.
Both Nolans and Goyer repeatedly mentioned how they wanted Bruce Wayne to finally leave Gotham and leave the painful memories and yes, saying that, I know that's not Batman at all, but it does give some fine closure to a story arc that did become very polarized from the beginning to Batman not being the "detective" many wanted to see and TDK changing its tone that I'm not blind enough to see does get some "hate".
And The Batman will continue in the form of Robin John Blake. It's all in the imagination of people, but I see Robin training first before he dons a suit.
On top of that, even if you can justify Bruce hanging up the cape and cowl, it is still incredibly stupid that he passed the mantle to a rookie cop that doesn't even have 1/10 of the required skills in order to be Batman. Bruce left Gotham and left his mantle and burden on the shoulders of a guy that would realistically get murdered on his first night out.
But you're thinking this without thinking of the many possibilities: Robin training, Robin only using the computer in helping out the GCPD like an Oracle-type route, maybe even training himself and then training the orphans as "followers" of Batman. It's all in the imagination of the viewer.
Everyone will pick Joker, myself included.
The majority, but not everyone.
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