The Dark Knight Rises The TDKR General Discussion Thread - - - - - - - - - - - Part 143

[BlueLightning]

Seriously...the DC logo is something that's wrong with TDKR?

Actually, it kind of bothers me.

Spoiler

 

[ThreadPool]

The "best" part about that video is how they failed to comprehend that Tate/Talia intentionally tagged the wrong truck. Pay attention!

 

[ThePhantasm]

Most ignorant and wasteful videos on YouTube.

Seriously...the DC logo is something that's wrong with TDKR?

Come on man, some of those were intentionally hilarious. "Liam Neeson isn't killing anyone in this scene."

That was actually a pretty funny video.

 

[ChrisB]

Come on man, some of those were intentionally hilarious. "Liam Neeson isn't killing anyone in this scene."

That was actually a pretty funny video.

My favorite line is "We didn't die in the blast, but the radiation will certainly kill us. Hooray!"

 

[ThePhantasm]

"Bane tickles a man to death off screen."

 

[Anno_Domini]

I still have trouble figuring out what Bane was doing to Daggett in that scene...maybe slowly breaking his neck? One hand probably stayed on his shoulder/neck while the other was over his face, slowly turning his head around to break it maybe? Is that possible, or at least possible for a guy that can punch through pillars and break Batman's cowl?

 

[ThreadPool]

*edit* LOL! Wrong thread. Parts of that video were still funny.

 

[JAK®]

Because Blake is just a film prop for the other characters like Wayne and Gordon to play off of. He isn't a real character, he's an "idea" floating around... the idea that anyone can become Batman. That's all Blake is. That's why Blake sucks.

/endrant

Most Christopher Nolan characters act like this. They don't talk like real people. They react according to the themes of the movie, and their actions don't make much sense outside of that. Nolan's talent lies in making sure you don't realise this, but he failed in TDKR.

 

[BatLobster]

I wouldn't go as far to say that Blake is just a generic idea. The movie showed him to have his own distinct characteristics from Bruce Wayne and Gordon and established him as his own man with his own path.

And I was emotionally sold by his speech about how he figured out Bruce's identity, due to a rock solid performance from JGL and a great piece of score from Zimmer. Sue me .

 

[shauner111]

He's more than just a concept. He's a character with his own identity too. Just because some of you weren't emotionally moved by him or dont like him for whatever reason, doesnt make him nothing but a film prop.

 

[ThePhantasm]

I posted this in another thread, and still stand by it:

Blake is two-dimensional. He's a perfect Gary Stu character who has no flaws and no real struggles. He magically intuits that Bruce is Batman. He's apparently the only cop on the force with half a brain other than Gordon. He's tossed the keys to the batcave without ever proving to Bruce or to the audience that he deserves it or has earned it. Basically Bruce goes "oh this guy sympathizes with me here's the keys bro have fun." After being so careful to keep his stuff from falling into the wrong hands, into the hands of someone who would misuse it, Bruce trusts a guy who he has known for about five or six scenes with all of it.

The guy was an unbelievable, two-dimensional, flawless, flat character who was wholly uninteresting. One sob story about losing his father and being angry about it does not a character make, especially when that never gets expressed later at any point in his actions.

Good characters are written according to the addage "show, don't tell." Blake never showed that he was anything but two-dimensional. Oh, he'd "tell" some backstory in here or there, but that doesn't make him a character. He'd "tell" that he is angry all the time, but we never saw it (unlike with Bruce). It makes him a cardboard cut-out with a cliched backstory.

 

[Anno_Domini]

If anyone wasn't a real character in the trilogy, it would be Rachel Dawes. Blake is just looked as an "unreal" character because of what he embodies in this film, and it's not a bad thing because he's meant to be this hopeful young cop and detective that is just trying to see through all the lies and conspiracies as Bruce Wayne tried to in the beginning of the trilogy.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Hard to believe that Christian Bale will be 39 tomorrow...

Time has just flown.

 

[BatLobster]

I posted this in another thread, and still stand by it:

Blake is two-dimensional. He's a perfect Gary Stu character who has no flaws and no real struggles. He magically intuits that Bruce is Batman. He's apparently the only cop on the force with half a brain other than Gordon. He's tossed the keys to the batcave without ever proving to Bruce or to the audience that he deserves it or has earned it. Basically Bruce goes "oh this guy sympathizes with me here's the keys bro have fun." After being so careful to keep his stuff from falling into the wrong hands, into the hands of someone who would misuse it, Bruce trusts a guy who he has known for about five or six scenes with all of it.

The guy was an unbelievable, two-dimensional, flawless, flat character who was wholly uninteresting. One sob story about losing his father and being angry about it does not a character make, especially when that never gets expressed later at any point in his actions.

Good characters are written according to the addage "show, don't tell." Blake never showed that he was anything but two-dimensional. Oh, he'd "tell" some backstory in here or there, but that doesn't make him a character. He'd "tell" that he is angry all the time, but we never saw it (unlike with Bruce). It makes him a cardboard cut-out with a cliched backstory.

But see, that's where a good actor comes in to imbue the character with something beyond what's on the page. Sure, on paper Blake is generic as it gets. But I thought he was well executed. And I wouldn't necessarily agree that he has no struggles in the film. You can really feel the pent up anger boil to the surface during that bridge sequence in the climax. You see a guy who desperately wants to believe that justice can prevail within the system, placing his trust in the cops to do the right thing, wanting them to see he's one of them. And he just explodes with rage once he realizes how deeply f***ed the situation is. Then the disillusionment sets in. I thought it was raw and engaging. Again, comes down to performance. It's also not true that him losing his family is never expressed in his later actions, as his repulsed reaction to killing that guy with a gun is a directly calls back to his father being shot over a gambling debt.

Nolan has that luxury in his career now where he can write a pretty basic bare bones character to service his film's ideas, aim high with the casting, and rely on that to give it the emotional believability it needs. I take both writing and performance into account when assessing how I feel about a character.

 

[JAK®]

But see, that's where a good actor comes in to imbues the character with something beyond what's on the page. Sure, on paper Blake is generic as it gets. But I thought he was well executed. You can really feel the pent up anger boil to the surface during that bridge sequence in the climax. You see a guy who desperately wants to believe that justice can prevail within the system, placing his trust in the cops to do the right thing, wanting them to see he's one of them. And he just explodes with rage once he realizes how deeply f***ed the situation is. I thought it was raw and engaging. Again, comes down to performance. It's also not true that him losing his family is never expressed in his later actions, as his repulsed reaction to killing that guy with a gun is a directly calls back to his father being shot over a gambling debt.

Nolan has that luxury in his career now where he can write a pretty basic bare bones character to service his film's ideas, aim high with the casting, and rely on that to give it the emotional believability it needs. I take both writing and performance into account when assessing how I feel about a character.

Hm. You may have convinced me slightly. I must admit that JGL's acting ability did make me like the character. In fact I probably liked him more than Bruce Wayne in TDK.

Still, even on first viewing his explanation of how he deduced Batman's identity came across as weak.

 

[kvz5]

I posted this in another thread, and still stand by it:

Blake is two-dimensional. He's a perfect Gary Stu character who has no flaws and no real struggles. He magically intuits that Bruce is Batman. He's apparently the only cop on the force with half a brain other than Gordon. He's tossed the keys to the batcave without ever proving to Bruce or to the audience that he deserves it or has earned it. Basically Bruce goes "oh this guy sympathizes with me here's the keys bro have fun." After being so careful to keep his stuff from falling into the wrong hands, into the hands of someone who would misuse it, Bruce trusts a guy who he has known for about five or six scenes with all of it.

The guy was an unbelievable, two-dimensional, flawless, flat character who was wholly uninteresting. One sob story about losing his father and being angry about it does not a character make, especially when that never gets expressed later at any point in his actions.

Good characters are written according to the addage "show, don't tell." Blake never showed that he was anything but two-dimensional. Oh, he'd "tell" some backstory in here or there, but that doesn't make him a character. He'd "tell" that he is angry all the time, but we never saw it (unlike with Bruce). It makes him a cardboard cut-out with a cliched backstory.

Gary Stu is exactly the first thing I thought of after watching TDKR. He was created to fix all the flaws Nolan dumped on Gordon, Bruce, and Batman's characters. Blah. It was the first JGL character that I really disliked. I was surprised that he got more praise than Hardy from the critics. *shrug*

 

[BlueLightning]

I liked Blake. There is a lot going on, he had a quality of wholesomeness that I really enjoyed. I came absolutely in blank about the the character and it was one of the nice surprises of the film.

 

[BatLobster]

I don't see how he was there to fix Gordon's flaws. I would say he's there to offer contrast, not necessarily "fix" things in other characters. Besides, he comes around and admits that Gordon was right by the film's end. So he does have a little arc going on there.

 

[The Joker]

I posted this in another thread, and still stand by it:

Blake is two-dimensional. He's a perfect Gary Stu character who has no flaws and no real struggles. He magically intuits that Bruce is Batman. He's apparently the only cop on the force with half a brain other than Gordon. He's tossed the keys to the batcave without ever proving to Bruce or to the audience that he deserves it or has earned it. Basically Bruce goes "oh this guy sympathizes with me here's the keys bro have fun." After being so careful to keep his stuff from falling into the wrong hands, into the hands of someone who would misuse it, Bruce trusts a guy who he has known for about five or six scenes with all of it.

The guy was an unbelievable, two-dimensional, flawless, flat character who was wholly uninteresting. One sob story about losing his father and being angry about it does not a character make, especially when that never gets expressed later at any point in his actions.

Good characters are written according to the addage "show, don't tell." Blake never showed that he was anything but two-dimensional. Oh, he'd "tell" some backstory in here or there, but that doesn't make him a character. He'd "tell" that he is angry all the time, but we never saw it (unlike with Bruce). It makes him a cardboard cut-out with a cliched backstory.

Well said. I couldn't agree more

 

[TheBat812]

But see, that's where a good actor comes in to imbue the character with something beyond what's on the page. Sure, on paper Blake is generic as it gets. But I thought he was well executed. And I wouldn't necessarily agree that he has no struggles in the film. You can really feel the pent up anger boil to the surface during that bridge sequence in the climax. You see a guy who desperately wants to believe that justice can prevail within the system, placing his trust in the cops to do the right thing, wanting them to see he's one of them. And he just explodes with rage once he realizes how deeply f***ed the situation is. Then the disillusionment sets in. I thought it was raw and engaging. Again, comes down to performance. It's also not true that him losing his family is never expressed in his later actions, as his repulsed reaction to killing that guy with a gun is a directly calls back to his father being shot over a gambling debt.

Nolan has that luxury in his career now where he can write a pretty basic bare bones character to service his film's ideas, aim high with the casting, and rely on that to give it the emotional believability it needs. I take both writing and performance into account when assessing how I feel about a character.

Definitely. Very reminiscent of Kubrick.

 

[ThePhantasm]

And I wouldn't necessarily agree that he has no struggles in the film. You can really feel the pent up anger boil to the surface during that bridge sequence in the climax.

I agree with you that JGL is a fantastic actor - it seems strange to me that he gets handed two-dimensional characters in Nolan films (Inception, TDKR). But I feel like you are overreading the bridge scene. That isn't "pent-up anger" coming out - nothing in the movie necessitates that interpretation. Any person would be frustrated and angry in a high stress situation like that. Blake being angry in a high stress situation does not make him stand out as a character, unlike Bruce, whose anger is palpable throughout the trilogy. Heavy emoting in one scene does not a character make... no matter how talented the actor is.

 

[FeedOnATreeFrog]

I agree with you that JGL is a fantastic actor - it seems strange to me that he gets handed two-dimensional characters in Nolan films (Inception, TDKR).

I don't really think Arthur from Inception is comparable to Blake.

Arthur, and none of the team were characters (to the point that some people theorize that they are a part of Leo's subconscious...). Which led me to be confused when critics were praising JGL's performance. What performance? Who was Arthur again?

I didn't get that same experience with Blake. Blake was written fine (at least not in the same category as Arthur), and JGl was great in the role.

 

[kvz5]

The kid (Zach) with cancer that Bale called up to talk about Batman just got a bag of Batman loot from him:



He looked so happy.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

The kid (Zach) with cancer that Bale called up to talk about Batman just got a bag of Batman loot from him:



He looked so happy.

Very awesome.

 

[Just_Human]

Holy ****

So much fail about Robin and Talia

http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=348001

http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=348001&page=2