The Dark Knight Rises The TDKR General Discussion Thread - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part 145

[Tequilla]

?

Batman has gone places in the comics that he will never go in a movie. TDKR is really a fusion of two old comicbook runs, with a happy ending bolted onto the end.

Surely you can't mean what you seem to be saying here.

It's not a bolted happy ending. It's his resolution as Bruce Wayne.

I sure can.

 

[regwec]

Okay, but I will have to ask you to explain what you mean, then.

This is a movie that is completely unparalleled not only in the genre , but even in the immense character legacy.

As we have (I think) implicitly agreed, TDKR is largely based on two old comicbook runs (No Man's Land and Knightfall). It also stirred in some League of Shadows stuff that we saw in BB, and in comics since the 1970s before. It showed Batman apparently dying, which he has done hundreds of times, most recently in Batman RIP, which was published in 2008, some years before TDKR came out. It also purported to give Bruce a happy ending, which you describe as his 'resolution'. We have seen a number of 'resolutions' to Bruce Wayne's story, spanning throughout other elseworlds (The Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come) and notably in the Silver Age's Earth 2.



Almost every element from TDKR is borrowed and adapted from some old comic somewhere.* As someone who loves the comics, I think that is a good thing. But I don't understand how you can seriously contend that TDKR has shown us anything that is unique or 'unparalleled...in the character legacy'.

Perhaps I have misconstrued your comment, and you just mean that TDKR is the best ever realization of the Batman mythos, judged objectively on quality. Of course you are entitled to your view, but I think 4/6 of the other Batman movies are better, not to mention limitless examples from animation, comics, and (I am willing to believe) videogames as well.

*Edit- the exceptions are Dagget and John Blake, though the latter is derivative in the sense that he is a sort of proto-Robin. If these were the elements that you think are so exceptional or unparalleled in the character legacy, then I can only respectfully doubt their importance or relative merits.

 

[Tequilla]

Okay, but I will have to ask you to explain what you mean, then.

Perhaps I have misconstrued your comment, and you just mean that TDKR is the best ever realization of the Batman mythos, judged objectively on quality.

It's exactly that . It's a culmination of a specific storyline (that starts with Begins) , instead of an enormous mesh of different ideas regarding the path of the character , that by the time it ends it holds no weight.

 

[regwec]

So, the value in TDKR is just that it is the end of a three-parter?

I'm not sure how this is different from any number of graphic novels etc which are clearly self contained and distinct, and have genuine 'endings'.

 

[The_Raganork]

I hate it when someone tells me I didn't like a movie because I didn't get what I expected. This is commonly thrown around with Iron Man 3 and TDKR.

Please watch the third trailer for TDKR and ask yourself if you got <that> movie.

I didn't dislike it because it wasn't TDK 2.0 (in fact I was pretty vocal about not wanting it to be like TDK) and I didn't dislike it because it didn't do what I wanted to with Bruce or anyone else's arc.

The story was lackluster, the editing was horrific, character development was null and void at some points and it wanted to grand in scheme without being grand in the middle. THAT is what made BB and TDK and Spiderman 2 and X2: X-Men United and the First Blase film all VERY good. Because it didn't need an "End of all things" story, it had something personal to all the characters at stake.

In TDK if Joker had won at worse we would have had a BB Gotham again. From a grand view that's not <that> bad but what made the story gripping was how this step backwards would affect all of our characters. From Bruce to Harvey to Gordon to Rachel (even if you didn't like her) the plot infused their personalities and their losses into the scheme of how it would play out, while TDKR didn't. If the nuke blew up, everybody died. I didn't feel much, personal, was at stake.

There are moments where I feel the film come through with character. For example; Bruce baptism in bats in the pit however, overall, the film just felt like it was taking me from action sequence to action sequence with sparse story elements in between them.

Then when Bruce returns to Gotham it is literally about nothing. We spend about an hour of Bruce and Co walking around and fighting with the only real story progression being Talia's revelation which strips Bane clean of his intellect.

Now Bane remains a worthy opponent because he was interesting from the start but when you tell me "by the way it was all her idea" it just takes away from the complete package of the villain.

Again, I maintain, if Talia had pulled the remaining valves on Bane's mask OFF instead of putting them on, it would have given her such an evil quality and would have kept Bane intact but simply used. It would have been a battle of the clever minds. The genius Batman, The Genius Bane and the secret genius Talia.

It's slight missteps like that that make the story fall apart for me and I just don't enjoy it that much.

But it's not because I didn't get what I want. I didn't get what I wanted or expected in TDK and yet I still love that movie. It's a matter of showing me something in trailers and promotions and then everything in between those clips is almost blank pages.

 

[The_Raganork]

It's not a bolted happy ending. It's his resolution as Bruce Wayne.

I sure can.

It most certainly is.

There is nothing in TDKR's end that is cohesive with BB or TDK and even TDKR in a lot of ways.

For three movies that put focus on Bruce learning that loss and forgiveness are major parts of his life. That sacrifice and resolution are reoccurring themes in his actions, TDKR just seems to throw at us a "and they lived happily ever after" ending at us without much of a basis.

"I don't have the luxury of having friends" Says Batman at some point but throughout three films he creates a network of them who fight on his behalf and support him.

"This power is too much for any one person to hold." This is his common excuse against the nuke thingy and his Bat-computer. Yet both can provide a great cause of good for the people of Gotham.

Alfred says: If you gave it to the police they could do their job's better. But Bruce is too distrusting of Gotham to do that.

...and in the end he's still too distrustful of Gotham to do that? After years of fighting along side Fox, Alfred, Gordon and the GCPD he gives his entire arsenal to...someone he just met and has ascertained his identity through ridiculous means?

"Batman has no limits"

"Batman has no jurisdictions"

There were CLEAR ideas that Batman and Bruce would go wherever they were needed to save Gotham but TDKR's end suggest that he just stops one day because he's tired of it? Now I'm not proposing that he had been Batman forever but at least a better reason to stop being Batman.

Death would have been a great one. Just like Thomas and Martha's death galvanized Gotham and then Harvey now...Bruce. No masked heroes needed. The idea that Batman could fight crime but would create Jokers and Brian Douglasses was what TDK was about. That Batman was a blunt instrument for one purpose and that purpose would never be to inspire Gotham but to protect it.

That's why Harvey Dent is the one Gotham is looking at in TDK. Because he IS one of them. That's why Gordon is a hero in TDKR because he's IS one of them. Batman is a wraith, a thing in the night. A watchful protector blah, blah, blah but he's not human and he's not a Gothamite.

So to see Batman die and Gotham praise him whilst Bruce Wayne has a vacation in Italy felt totally tacked on to TDKR's ending and opposite of the other two films, for me.

 

[Tequilla]

So, the value in TDKR is just that it is the end of a three-parter?

I'm not sure how this is different from any number of graphic novels etc which are clearly self contained and distinct, and have genuine 'endings'.

No.

Rises depicts Bruce's journey. How it covers that story, and the character catharsis is what makes it special. Being the third one , taking advantage of the laid groundwork of the previous movies and being extremely coherent from a thematic pov , it certainly elevates it even further.

There is nothing like it in Batman's legacy.

 

[Tequilla]

It most certainly is.

There is nothing in TDKR's end that is cohesive with BB or TDK and even TDKR in a lot of ways.

[Rachel touches Bruce's face] No, *this* is your mask. Your real face is the one that criminals now fear. The man I loved - the man who vanished - he never came back at all. But maybe he's still out there, somewhere. Maybe some day, when Gotham no longer needs Batman, I'll see him again.

&#8230;When I told you that if Gotham no longer needed Batman we could be together, I meant it. But now I'm sure the day won't come when *you* no longer need Batman. I hope it does; and if it does I will be there, but as your friend. I'm sorry to let you down. If you lose your faith in me, please keep your faith in people.


This is actually the story of the trilogy. It's right there. Through dialogue ! Bruce's inability to escape it.

If people miss it....they simply miss it. That's actually a Begins and TDK quote.

 

[regwec]

I will only answer by giving you good news: all the greatness, excitement and intrigue of the Batman 'legacy' is still for you to discover. 90% of the published material hovers way above the relatively mediocre TDKR, and you have all of that to look forward to.

 

[BatLobster]

The happy ending was not simply bolted onto the end, it was integral to the story the whole time. Bruce earns the happy ending the moment he climbs out of the pit, and there is no moment in the comics, animated series or any other medium that mirrors that moment and what it truly represents for the character.

TDKR had a great blend of honoring the mythos and pushing the genre.

Truth be told, I don't really care why some fans didn't respond well to the movie. I have my opinions about why some (key word here people) of them didn't, based on what I've observed on these message boards and from discussing the movie for almost a year now. But I'm fully aware that some people, like Rag, were very hyped for the kind of movie TDKR was going to be and just felt it didn't deliver. Fair enough. For me it delivered in a big, bad way.

So at the end of the day, we're still two wildly different camps looking at each other perplexed as if to ask, "did we watch the same movie?".

And you know, rather than getting defensive about why others think some people had very specific reasons for not liking the movie I'd be more interested to see why some of you guys presume that myself and others love the movie. Surely you must have some sort of thought or hypothesis on it.

 

[Tequilla]

I will only answer by giving you good news: all the greatness, excitement and intrigue of the Batman 'legacy' is still for you to discover. 90% of the published material hovers way above the relatively mediocre TDKR, and you have all of that to look forward to.

Ah. I expected. The moral arrogance .

Well then , let me tell you i've read Batman since the age of 7. Outside of 2005+ , there's actually very little i dont....own. I would certanly love to rediscover it once again.

But thanks for the advice. I've discovered the character a looooong time ago.

Next time...ask. Don't be so petulant and assume people dont know it.

Rises puts to shame most of the material that exists regarding the character.

 

[The_Raganork]

[Rachel touches Bruce's face] No, *this* is your mask. Your real face is the one that criminals now fear. The man I loved - the man who vanished - he never came back at all. But maybe he's still out there, somewhere. Maybe some day, when Gotham no longer needs Batman, I'll see him again.

…When I told you that if Gotham no longer needed Batman we could be together, I meant it. But now I'm sure the day won't come when *you* no longer need Batman. I hope it does; and if it does I will be there, but as your friend. I'm sorry to let you down. If you lose your faith in me, please keep your faith in people.


This is actually the story of the trilogy. It's right there. Through dialogue ! Bruce's inability to escape it.

If people miss it....they simply miss it. That's actually a Begins and TDK quote.

Ok and? TDKR actually goes in the opposite direction of this.

Bruce never came back for Rachel.

The entire span of BB and TDK he's trying to show her he could come back. That perhaps there's space for both in his life or at the very least that one day Bruce Wayne would come back.

That never happens, in fact it's never even Addressed in TDKR. There's no talk about the duality, the movie suddenly starts treating Bruce Wayne and Batman as the same person where the previous two films did a fine and remarkable job of showing the duality of the two characters and how they differ.

"People need a hero with a face"

That's the entire point of the trilogy. It was shown with Thomas, it was shown with Harvey, it was shown in the failure of Brian Douglass, in Joker's failed attempt to have the ferries blown up and then in TDKR they accept a hero with a mask, throwing away two films of great importance and story for an exciting ending where a nuke blows up and batman escapes a 6 mile blast radius with one second left on the clock.

 

[The_Raganork]

The happy ending was not simply bolted onto the end, it was integral to the story the whole time. Bruce earns the happy ending the moment he climbs out of the pit, and there is no moment in the comics, animated series or any other medium that mirrors that moment and what it truly represents for the character.

TDKR had a great blend of honoring the mythos and pushing the genre.

Truth be told, I don't really care why some fans didn't respond well to the movie. I have my opinions about why some (key word here people) of them didn't, based on what I've observed on these message boards and from discussing the movie for almost a year now. But I'm fully aware that some people, like Rag, were very hyped for the kind of movie TDKR was going to be and just felt it didn't deliver. Fair enough. For me it delivered in a big, bad way.

So at the end of the day, we're still two wildly different camps looking at each other perplexed as if to ask, "did we watch the same movie?".

And you know, rather than getting defensive about why others think some people had very specific reasons for not liking the movie I'd be more interested to see why some of you guys presume that myself and others love the movie. Surely you must have some sort of thought or hypothesis on it.

I am a fan of cinema and storytelling above all else. My problems with TDKR will always fall upon a failure to do it's best in those two categories. I couldn't care less about what kind of Batman film it was...the question is was it a great film, independent of Batman, superhero, action, drama categories and for me it was simply a mediocre film.

 

[BatLobster]

Rag, do you not agree that when Bruce climbs out of the pit, THAT is the moment when the man who vanished (the man who fell), returns? The beauty and symmetry of it being that he does so by accepting a little bit of fear back into his heart, the thing he's spent his entire adult life trying to control. He learns to value his own life again. That scene represents the moment in which the two personas finally are one and he is whole again, symbolized by the bats in the scene, I feel. They ushered him into and out of the darkness, almost like his spiritual guides.

The movie could have been called Bruce Wayne Rises as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Tequilla]

There is no talk about duality ? As in dialogue ...maybe (and its wrong , alfred is there). Considering the first act is all about how he actually deals with the duality , its almost funny that remark. The whole movie is about Bruce's duality.

Bruce's journey to escape his tormented life and his destructive persona is Rises most ambitious story. Because it is so personal .

The legacy issue is what makes the scope to be much wider.

If you honestly dont understand how those quotes connect deeply with Rises story , we have very little to discuss. Tdk show us a man completely entrapped in his alter ego .And Rises starts with the same notion. That you could see right ? It's right there through Alfred's expositon....

 

[The_Raganork]

Rag, do you not agree that when Bruce climbs out of the pit, THAT is the moment when the man who vanished (the man who fell), returns? The beauty and symmetry of it being that he does so by accepting a little bit of fear back into his heart, the thing he's spent his entire adult life trying to control. He learns to value his own life again. That scene represents the moment in which the two personalities finally are one and he is whole again.

The movie could have been called Bruce Wayne Rises as far as I'm concerned.

it's such a superficial way to look at it. Batman climbs out of that pit, not Bruce.

It has nothing to do with the elements that make Bruce:

His parents

Rachel

or
His role as a crucial Gothamite.

When they say: "The apple has fallen really far from the tree" in regards to Bruce's actions versus who his father was THIS is where the problem with Bruce lies.

He needed to come back and show Gotham that Bruce Wayne could be the hero Thomas Wayne was. That Batman can be the muscle but that Bruce Wayne was the face and the prince of Gotham who returns as it's king to lead it to success.

Like Years of comics have been doing, Batman fights crime while Wayne protects the city using Wayne Enterprises to head many plans that secure it.

This was missing from TDKR. Bruce Wayne as a title and as a person does absolutely nothing while Batman becomes the singular focus. Nolan betrayed his idea of what Bruce could be in BB and TDK by having a film that doesn't address any of the problems Wayne actually has.

If we had one moment...just one, where Wayne stands up to Bane not as Batman but as a Gothamite and the people of Gotham see their playboy prince turn into someone who won't be bullied and they come to his side, inspired by WAYNE's actions then this film would have been a hell of a lot better.

Instead we got none of that. We had Batman and Gordon, again, lie to the people of Gotham to pull the wool over their eyes for the greater good. A very sad conclusion that our two heroes couldn't or wouldn't get it right.

 

[regwec]

Ah. I expected. The moral arrogance .

I don't think Batman movies v comics is really a "moral" debate.

Well then , let me tell you i've read Batman since the age of 7. Outside of 2005+ , there's actually very little i dont....own. I would certanly love to rediscover it once again.

But thanks for the advice. I've discovered the character a looooong time ago.

Next time...ask. Don't be so petulant and assume people dont know it.

You don't know it. If you honestly believe that there is anything particularly exceptional about TDKR, which is merely derivative of the material you claim to know so well, then you have either forgotten what you have read or failed to understand it.

Rises puts to shame most of the material that exists regarding the character.

Rises is that material, just clumsily translated into an indifferent movie, with the inclusion of some forgettable ancillary characters.

 

[regwec]

It's right there through Alfred's expositon....

Lots and lots of Alfred's exposition.

 

[The_Raganork]

There is no talk about duality ? As in dialogue ...maybe (and its wrong , alfred is there). Considering the first act is all about how he actually deals with the duality , its almost funny that remark. The whole movie is about Bruce's duality.

Bruce's journey to escape his tormented life and his destructive persona is Rises most ambitious story. Because it is so personal .

The legacy issue is what makes the scope to be much wider.

If you honestly dont understand how those quotes connect deeply with Rises story , we have very little to discuss. Tdk show us a man completely entrapped in his alter ego .And Rises starts with the same notion. That you could see right ? It's right there through Alfred's expositon....

...and then nothing happens. He stays trapped in his monster and uses an excuse later to leave the suit but keep the entity intact.

It's not needed. No one needed to see Bruce continue on his path obsessed with Batman. At least TDK had him struggling to get past it. TDKR has him embrace it and wipe Bruce Wayne off the map.

This is NOT what BB and TDK were about at all. There was always some hope that Bruce would see how much Wayne was needed as much as Batman.

...And if you can't have a discussion without sinking into condescending accusations then block my name from this discussion. I have little to no interest discussing something with someone who can't remain cordial in conversation.

 

[The_Raganork]

Lots and lots of Alfred's exposition.

Which was horrific to watch.

the exposition was like "Nolan's Batman for dummies" how anyone can excuse some of those moments is completely beyond me.

 

[Tequilla]

I don't think Batman movies v comics is really a "moral" debate.


You don't know it. If you honestly believe that there is anything particularly exceptional about TDKR, which is merely derivative of the material you claim to know so well, then you have either forgotten what you have read or failed to understand it.

I rest my case. The arrogance was how you couldn't accept a Batman fan absolutely adored the movie. So i just couldnt know it ....could i.

And i dont need to claim my knowledge from my childhood hero.

 

[The_Raganork]

I rest my case. The arrogance was how you couldn't accept a Batman fan absolutely adored the movie. So i just couldnt know it ....could i.

And i dont need to claim my knowledge from my childhood hero.

There is no talk about duality ? As in dialogue ...maybe (and its wrong , alfred is there). Considering the first act is all about how he actually deals with the duality , its almost funny that remark. The whole movie is about Bruce's duality.

Bruce's journey to escape his tormented life and his destructive persona is Rises most ambitious story. Because it is so personal .

The legacy issue is what makes the scope to be much wider.

If you honestly dont understand how those quotes connect deeply with Rises story , we have very little to discuss. Tdk show us a man completely entrapped in his alter ego .And Rises starts with the same notion. That you could see right ? It's right there through Alfred's expositon....

Temper your expectations of people's responses based on your own, please.

 

[regwec]

I rest my case. The arrogance was how you couldn't accept a Batman fan absolutely adored the movie. So i just couldnt know it ....could i.

And i dont need to claim my knowledge from my childhood hero.

It makes no difference to me whether you loved the movie so much that you carry the DVD cover in your wallet. That's great. But your baseless assertions that it is somehow unique in the vast lexicon of Batman material is simply empirically wrong- you can find where every idea has appeared before.

Your name calling has come from nowhere, and it does you little credit.

 

[BatLobster]

it's such a superficial way to look at it. Batman climbs out of that pit, not Bruce.

It has nothing to do with the elements that make Bruce:

His parents

Rachel

or
His role as a crucial Gothamite.

When they say: "The apple has fallen really far from the tree" in regards to Bruce's actions versus who his father was THIS is where the problem with Bruce lies.

He needed to come back and show Gotham that Bruce Wayne could be the hero Thomas Wayne was. That Batman can be the muscle but that Bruce Wayne was the face and the prince of Gotham who returns as it's king to lead it to success.

Like Years of comics have been doing, Batman fights crime while Wayne protects the city using Wayne Enterprises to head many plans that secure it.

This was missing from TDKR. Bruce Wayne as a title and as a person does absolutely nothing while Batman becomes the singular focus. Nolan betrayed his idea of what Bruce could be in BB and TDK by having a film that doesn't address any of the problems Wayne actually has.

If we had one moment...just one, where Wayne stands up to Bane not as Batman but as a Gothamite and the people of Gotham see their playboy prince turn into someone who won't be bullied and they come to his side, inspired by WAYNE's actions then this film would have been a hell of a lot better.

Instead we got none of that. We had Batman and Gordon, again, lie to the people of Gotham to pull the wool over their eyes for the greater good. A very sad conclusion that our two heroes couldn't or wouldn't get it right.

I see it completely differently. It's not about Bruce Wayne, the billionaire playboy rising. It's about the human being that was lost the moment tragedy struck his childhood and cast a shadow over his whole life (including the empire and all that wealth), finally reemerging into the light and getting a second chance to live his life.

That is why TDKR is the perfect conclusion to what was setup in Batman Begins. It's "the prestige"- it brings the thing we thought was gone, back. And yet, it makes good on the idea that the Batman symbol can be everlasting and allows Bruce to be more than just a man.

That is why the whole, "Bruce Wayne becomes the White Knight" idea was never going to work for this movie. I also don't get why people are so fixated on the fact that Gordon and Batman "lie" again. First of all, Gordon isn't complicit in the lie this time. He truly thinks Bruce is dead when the city honors Batman, and he only gets a hint that he could still be alive. Plausible deniability, not too different than Lucius keeping Bruce's identity a secret for Begins and TDK. Second of all, they're not lying about who the real hero is this time, and that is important. I never wanted TDKR to have some broad, "Lying is bad mmmk?" message. That's obvious. But the world of Batman has never been of black and white moral absolutes. It lives in the grey. Both TDK and TDKRs endings are grey, but TDK's leans much darker where TDKR's leans more optimistic. But there's still a touch of the appropriate cynicism there, for a story that acknowledges that sometimes the structures fail us and we need things that can operate outside of them for salvation.

 

[Tequilla]

Temper your expectations of people's responses based on your own, please.

Ragnarok if you saw the movie in such a different way than i did , there's very little we can discuss it. That's it. I'm glad to talk about different interpretations of anything. But this is almost another realm. You said the movie doesnt touch is duality , when its basically (for me ) the story of it. This isnt a gap. Its a different movie.