I only said this is how I initially perceive people who enjoyed the film. I'm not actually putting any validation on what my knee-jerk reaction is. I'm sure some people love it because they think it's a masterpiece.
Okay, I might have missed some of the nuance of what you were saying there.
Anything I said came from a point of what the production showed us was going to happen and what the other two films showed us what these characters and world was about. When the third film turned on that I became irked. That's not something I'm disliking because I'm subjective about it. It's because it's not what it said it was going to be. TDK wasn't like anything I thought it was going to be and I liked that.
Again this is where the fundamental difference of opinion comes into play. I never got the impression that the "Bruce/White Knight" ending was 100% where this franchise was heading. It was one possible ending, sure. I just didn't feel the same betrayal and I never thought the white knight ending was promised or the inevitable conclusion the films were building toward. To me the only inevitability was that "Batman" would be redeemed somehow in the eyes of Gotham and Bruce would arrive at a new state of being- most likely via death or leaving Batman behind for good.
I recently saw Oblivion. I thought it was going to be considerably different. It wasn't as bad as I feared and, in my opinion, completely what it intended to do.
I had a similar experience. Oblivion was not great, but it was pretty solid and accomplished what it set out to do.
This is not about what /I/ want from these movies. It's about how the movie is presented to us and what we actually get. Like Iron Man 3 [blackout] when Kingsely turns out not to be the Mandarin It ruined the whole film for me because the movie is marketed as Kingsley being the Mandarin and the film itself treats him as the Mandarin then drops it for the sake of laughs. [/blackout] In my opinion that's horrific and TDKR says one thing int he first half and something else in the second. (and doesn't abide to BB and TDK)
I struggle to think of anything that egregious in TDKR in terms of false advertising. The Bane/Talia twist doesn't even come close to the Mandarin twist, because we aren't denied the thrill of experiencing Bane as a villain in the piece as promised, and it actually gives us some insight into his character rather than reducing him to comic relief. I'm not sure if that's the comparison you were making though, I don't think it was but there you go.
Except he didn't bring up Thomas or Martha as a reason for doing it at all. He did it because John Blake told him to. There is no accountability between Bruce and his dead parents. They throw us a small bone at the end with the orphanage but how does that, at all, relate to his parents? Wouldn't it have related to them better if he had a memory of his father talking about an orphanage or something? Wouldn't it have been more married with the memory of his parents if, you know.... his parents were somehow involved with his reasons for doing things?
Why should it need to brought up? It's his father's house after all. Nothing represents the Wayne wealth and legacy in these films more than Wayne Manor (aside from the monorail which was downplayed after BB). Some things just speak for themselves. Even if Bruce is not consciously doing it for his parents, he is still doing something that they would be very proud of.
Sure but there's no way to measure if that affected my viewing of the film. I'm telling you it's not as you will surely tell me it isn't the sole reason you like the film.
I believe you.
But films aren't bound by what happens in the real world. I'm not understanding the disconnect with you accepting that something like Bane could happen to a city with the people's expressed permission but can't accept the opposite, that a man who does good, would inspire them to do good too.
It is of the same value but on a different side of the scale. Fine don't like it personally but don't tell me it doesn't fit into the film when we know it does. If you put someone pure evil into a film you can have someone pure good. Because that's a balance. They are of the same denomination but not the same creed.
Okay, fair enough. I'll leave the subtext off the table and take that idea at face value as something that could be believable in the world of the film. I still don't think it's a superior substitute for what we got, because I find it to be thematically muddled and betraying the the promise that
I personally perceived to be present in the first two movies: that the symbol of Batman would become a legend for Gotham. Supplanting the symbol with Bruce Wayne as a symbol, negating the possibility for Batman to ever exist again in Gotham, does betray that, to me.
Ask yourself this question mulling my idea now but change disenfranchised and freed oppressed prisoners to something more... socially fit.
I think that's a different scenario entirely. The film shows some "regular" members of society (like the doorman) joining in on the revolution, but the vast majority of folks were holed up in their homes with their families. Honestly, I think that's the sane and normal reaction. It's what I'd be doing.
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding you here, not 100% sure what you were getting at.
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