The Dark Knight Rises The TDKR General Discussion Thread - - - - - Part 154

[AnneFan]

I wasn't a fan of all TDK Rises posters, but I really liked these:

And like BB's posters, they all followed a colour theme.

 

[titansupes]

Bane and Talia believed in the same ideals Ra's did, re: destroying Gotham. They just had an extra layer of personal vendetta against Batman to go along with it, as well as their own relationship.

 

[ThePhantasm]

I wish the film had the atmosphere of those posters.

 

[The Shape]

I wish the film had the atmosphere of those posters.

Super dark with rain and rocks flying around everywhere?

 

[Slade W]

As a fan of Talia I was a bit disappointed that she wasn't used in a bigger capacity in the film (where it was known that she was Talia) and her death was underwhelming but that is just personal preference. Marion Cotillard is a great actress but I just don't think that she suited Talia. I still really enjoyed the film and I am happy that she was in the trilogy.

I am not the type of fan that allows a character not being portrayed how I want them to be or them not sticking 100% to the source material or something silly like that annoy me. The most important thing is that a good story is told and there was so I was happy.

 

[ThePhantasm]

Super dark with rain and rocks flying around everywhere?

I'm not saying the weather necessarily, its just those posters strike me with a mood and aesthetic that I never get from watching the actual film.

The Begins posters had the same aesthetic that was featured in the Narrows in the film, and the TDK posters had the same sort of glassy blue aesthetic that was featured in the night scenes in the film. But the TDKR posters have this sort of dark gritty goth-noir aesthetic that nowhere shows up in the film, the film is just kinda bleak and dull in atmosphere to me.

 

[BatLobster]

I actually do think the posters fit the film like the BB and TDK ones did, but it's more subtle because all about whites and blacks but obviously without being a black and white film. You have the dark underground locations like Bane's lair, the prison pit, the Batcave which all accentuate the deep blacks. But then you a wintery post-apocalyptic look later in the film with lots of scenes with snow and ice which brings out a very white, bleak look. And then you have shots that combine the two, like the POV of the top of the pit where you've got deep blacks at the bottom of the frame and bright white light towards the top, or the bright light reflecting everywhere during the sewer battle, or Blake rising in the cave with white light shining towards the top of the frame. It's more subtle but it's there, and it's definitely no coincidence that each film was marketed with a certain color scheme and had a certain look.

The first teaser poster reflects the film the most accurately actually to me as it's basically a visual allusion to the pit, while suggesting the scale and city-wide destruction in the film.

It's not a very rainy film though, so it might've been more appropriate if it was snowing rather than raining in the Rise posters like these:

 

[Ryan]

Bane and Talia believed in the same ideals Ra's did, re: destroying Gotham. They just had an extra layer of personal vendetta against Batman to go along with it, as well as their own relationship.

Interesting and I'm not saying that's not the way it is as I haven't seen the film in ages. Ras's mission seemed more like a 'return to balance' type of motive. He wanted to remove the criminal element and corruption on a grand scale. The Talia/Bane plot just sounded like they wanted to blow it up. Furthermore, I don't quite understand why Bane wanted to carry out Ras's plans anyways? I can kinda see why Talia would as it was her dad etc. But Bane was excommunicated by Ras and sent into the pit. I still feel like he was 'fulfilling Ras Al Ghul's destiny" as per Talia's desire.

I wasn't too blown away by the tdkr posters. I liked the Legend ends one with Bane but was really annoyed that they couldn't more creative then using the tdk photo of batman standing on the police car for a tdkr movie. I liked the tdk posters the most.

 

[Slade W]

Interesting and I'm not saying that's not the way it is as I haven't seen the film in ages. Ras's mission seemed more like a 'return to balance' type of motive. He wanted to remove the criminal element and corruption on a grand scale. The Talia/Bane plot just sounded like they wanted to blow it up. Furthermore, I don't quite understand why Bane wanted to carry out Ras's plans anyways? I can kinda see why Talia would as it was her dad etc. But Bane was excommunicated by Ras and sent into the pit. I still feel like he was 'fulfilling Ras Al Ghul's destiny" as per Talia's desire.

I wasn't too blown away by the tdkr posters. I liked the Legend ends one with Bane but was really annoyed that they couldn't more creative then using the tdk photo of batman standing on the police car for a tdkr movie. I liked the tdk posters the most.

Perhaps he was viewing it like "I am going to accomplish what Ra's failed to achieve and wasn't up to the task for to prove my superiority and that he was wrong to excommunicate me".

 

[Kane52630]

I guess I'm still one of the few who still likes this poster:

 

[Slade W]

I guess I'm still one of the few who still likes this poster:

I like it a lot too. I think it looks pretty cool.

 

[BatLobster]

I'm okay with the concept, especially how it melds the Begins and TDK posters and fits in nicely side by side with them. But it's always going to look like a hacky photoshop job to me knowing they just slapped Batman on the teaser poster. That gif ruined it for me.

I do however love this one, even though it's way over the top and doesn't quite fit the movie:

 

[shauner111]

I hate that main poster.

But the imax poster is still amazing. You can say it's a misleading poster, but not really. We all know the movie isn't going to end with Gotham in flames and Batman as the only one left standing. But it's a pretty bold image. It's more of a symbolic poster that says Gotham is in flames (not literally) and Batman will rise above it. Or that Gotham could be literally blown to pieces by a nuke with Batman watching the carnage. The Dark Knight's poster was a building in flames, which describes Joker well. This is the entire city, which shows how Nolan raised the stakes.

As far as im concerned, it should have been the blu-ray cover.

 

[BatLobster]

Yeah, I can get on board with that. Symbolically it does have some merit.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

I wasn't a fan of all TDK Rises posters, but I really liked these:

And like BB's posters, they all followed a colour theme.

I really loved this Catwoman poster. I wish the overall campaign was as playful as this.

The posters were very dull for the most part and simply not that creative. In fact, I don't think the WB marketing department put as much effort into TDKR as TDK, no doubt feeling it was a sure bet anyway.

 

[shauner111]

This is one of the oldest arguments we've discussed on here. "How can you say Rises is worse than xyz" or "how can you like xyz but not Rises?"

The answer to that is simple: I judge films by what they're trying to be, to what extent they achieve being that, and to what extent whatever they're trying to be is merited. Ideally, a truly great film manages to achieve all three of those components to near perfection. I'm referring to the likes of TDK, Terminator 2, TESB, Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, etc. You can't, for example, take a comedy film and drama film and argue one which is better than the other, but you can argue one achieved what it was trying to be better than the other one did.

That being said, The Avengers tries to be a big superhero event teamup...and it succeeds at being that. The Winter Soldier tries to be a 70's political thriller mixed in with the action and war themes of a Captain America comic...and it succeeds at being that. Guardians tries to be a fun space fantasy tale...and it succeeds at being that. The Wolverine tries to be a small personal story of a man haunted by his demons...and it succeeds at being that. I like all of those films because they knew what they were trying to be and in my opinion, they succeeded at being that.

The problem with Rises is that it tries to be TDK 2.0. It's a film that tries to recapture that same level of sophistication mixed in with grounded realism of Nolan's previous work, similar to how everytime we had a tentpole CBM there was at least one knockoff version that tried recapturing that magic (Superman '78 to Supergirl, SM1 to Story's FF films, Iron Man to Green Lantern, etc.). It sets up that high of a standard to itself, and it fails to reach that standard for some of us here. It's a "bad" film, but it's "bad" in that sense as opposed to in the Transformers sense. And in that particular sense, I would rank at least 6-7 of the 2013-15 CBM's over Rises.

I couldn't disagree more with this. Rises was trying not to be TDK. There's a reason why they moved away from Joker, from the crime thriller. It's not trying to recapture anything. Begins, Knight and Rises were all sophisticated in ways, with some grounded realism. But that's not all. Each film was trying to be something, whether it's a specific genre or what kind of story it's trying to tell. And Rises in my opinion succeeded at what it was trying to do. Nolan has described what Rises was meant to do, and none of that sounded like what he was trying to do with TDK. You don't have to like every detail of the film but the way you're judging Rises makes zero sense to me. It falls in line with all the other examples you listed.

 

[Ryan]

Perhaps he was viewing it like "I am going to accomplish what Ra's failed to achieve and wasn't up to the task for to prove my superiority and that he was wrong to excommunicate me".

Ha, I suppose so. I think it would have been good for him to say something along those lines, but then again, it might have made the whole Talia character a moot point as that kinda sounds like her motive. At least about the part to accomplish what Ra's failed.

 

[BatLobster]

Yeah, if anything Rises feeling a bit more sophisticated is just a result of Jonah and Chris tackling the screenplay rather than Goyer. Their writing just has a more literary influence to it, it shows up in the dialogue. A bit more of that British influence. But Rises tells a pretty simple story, whereas TDK has all these interconnecting subplots.

Not that Rises and Begins don't have subplots. The first act of Rises kind of mirrors the second act of Begins in that the LoS has infiltrated Gotham and there's some shady stuff going on which Bruce hasn't gotten to the bottom of yet.

But yeah, to me it seems like there was a conscious effort to not be TDK 2.0. Maybe it tries to be as smart as TDK, but it's pretty clearly going for an entirely different type of movie. And it's not like BB didn't have some socially conscious, post 9-11 ideas floating about too, despite being more on the comic booky side.

I also always got the impression Bane's motive was pretty much what Slade W is talking about. With an added element of wanting to punish Bruce for being handed what he wanted on a silver platter and then rejecting it. Kind of like the good and bad sons of Ra's. One rejected by the father but wanted to serve by his side, the other who rejects the father. I also like how none of this stuff is spelled out too bluntly in the movie and it's there for you to read into. Makes it more epic for me. You get the sense that Bane and Talia's story could've had its own movie that would've been entirely compelling in its own right.

 

[Shikamaru]

I couldn't disagree more with this. Rises was trying not to be TDK. There's a reason why they moved away from Joker, from the crime thriller. It's not trying to recapture anything. Begins, Knight and Rises were all sophisticated in ways, with some grounded realism. But that's not all. Each film was trying to be something, whether it's a specific genre or what kind of story it's trying to tell. And Rises in my opinion succeeded at what it was trying to do. Nolan has described what Rises was meant to do, and none of that sounded like what he was trying to do with TDK. You don't have to like every detail of the film but the way you're judging Rises makes zero sense to me. It falls in line with all the other examples you listed.

No, what you're talking about are themes and story elements. By that logic, none of the knockoffs I brought up can be considered knockoffs. I'm specifically referring to the style TDK had going for it. It tries recapturing that style, much like how Green Lantern tried capturing Iron Man's style despite them being two completely separate films. Obviously Rises isn't as bad as Green Lantern, but I digress.

 

[shauner111]

It's a sequel. It's the same story continuing. So what do you mean by trying to recapture the style? It's a different movie, a different genre, different stakes. So for that, we know it's different. But style? Green Lantern tried to be Iron Man, yes. But you can slap the hand of Green Lantern, it's a separate franchise. You're basically saying that a sequel is trying to recapture the "style" of a previous film within the same story/franchise. Is it supposed to suddenly change in style? That would be awkward.

I see it like this, the story changed, the genre changed, but all three movies had the same style and tone. The only difference is possibly the final act of Batman Begins on a visual level. So stylistically, if you're blaming Rises for trying to do what TDK did, i dont know what to say other than...bravo to TDKR. It's not really about recapturing, as if it's trying to repeat the same thing or be a "knock-off". You're saying that TDK knew what it wanted to be and succeeded, while Rises didn't. But how? That was the basis of your argument. So I still don't understand where you're coming from. I can't stress enough that it's a sequel that continues the story so it's completely unfair to list Green Lantern biting Iron Man as an example.

 

[Ryan]

With an added element of wanting to punish Bruce for being handed what he wanted on a silver platter and then rejecting it. Kind of like the good and bad sons of Ra's. One rejected by the father but wanted to serve by his side, the other who rejects the father. I also like how none of this stuff is spelled out too bluntly in the movie and it's there for you to read into. Makes it more epic for me. You get the sense that Bane and Talia's story could've had its own movie that would've been entirely compelling in its own right.

I could have seen them going with something like that. For example, he could have been a los member that survived the blast from bruce, and I wouldn't have minded that idea, but again, I don't find any allusion to that in the movie. Pretty well every movie has a speech by the bad guy that explains there motives. The closest answer I can find is in the sewer fight when he says "I'm here to fufill Ras Al Ghul destiny" and again when he puts Bruce in the pit when he says "We will fufill Ras Al Ghul destiny'. Again, all of that is fine, but the question is why if not for Talia.

 

[Shikamaru]

It's a sequel. It's the same story continuing. So what do you mean by trying to recapture the style? It's a different movie, a different genre, different stakes. So for that, we know it's different. But style? Green Lantern tried to be Iron Man, yes. But you can slap the hand of Green Lantern, it's a separate franchise. You're basically saying that a sequel is trying to recapture the "style" of a previous film within the same story/franchise. Is it supposed to suddenly change in style? That would be awkward.

I see it like this, the story changed, the genre changed, but all three movies had the same style and tone. The only difference is possibly the final act of Batman Begins on a visual level. So stylistically, if you're blaming Rises for trying to do what TDK did, i dont know what to say other than...bravo to TDKR. It's not really about recapturing, as if it's trying to repeat the same thing or be a "knock-off". You're saying that TDK knew what it wanted to be and succeeded, while Rises didn't. But how? That was the basis of your argument. So I still don't understand where you're coming from. I can't stress enough that it's a sequel that continues the story so it's completely unfair to list Green Lantern biting Iron Man as an example.

It's a film that tries and wants to have that same ballpark of impact and social relevance that TDK had, only not as good. Every single one of the films I brought up amped up what the original foundation had going for it but stripping it of the substance. This aimed to amp up the realism aspect*, the political commentary aspect, the "force of nature" villain aspect, the grandiose scale...and it all falls apart at the same time.

The best example of this would be the dialogue. TDK was known for its in-depth "speech" dialogue which would probably sound weird in everyday life but worked great in the context of the film. Rises tries doing the same thing, and it feels like someone saw TDK and said "Wow, look how cool it is! Let's try doing the same!" It's just like when the FF films tried copying Raimi's cheesy dialogue, GL tried going for the same snarky ***hole attitude Downey has, etc. In Rises' case the substance is all gone and the result is a film which thinks it's more important than it really is. That's probably the best way I could describe the film. It's essentially too self-important.

 

[Ryan]

GL tried going for the same snarky ***hole attitude Downey has, etc. .

Ha, I thought I was the only one that thought that about GL. I always felt that the brains behind that movie figured "Hey, this can't be too tough. We get a wise guy like Downey, change the suit, and boom instant money". It truly seemed like they studied the Iron man movie, much more than any Green Lantern comic book.

 

[BatLobster]

I don't think TDKR had too much self-importance, so much as it bore the weight of being a conclusion to a trilogy that was full of big themes and societal concerns and had to bring all of that to a head. It's not like BB was just some light popcorn flick and then TDK was some heavy Oscar drama. TDK didn't invent the idea of this series having reflections of our real world. So why should BB get a pass for having a somewhat cliche finale with a big "stop the McGuffin" sequence, when the film is essentially dealing with terrorism and post-9/11 fears? I mean how much did the film bludgeon us over the head with the fear theme anyway?

It really wasn't trying to be TDK 2.0, so much as it was just trying to be an epic conclusion to both movies, like the marketing said. The thing I don't get Shika is, are you saying if you take the same exact movie and put it through a filter where there was less "self-importance" (however you define that) but still the same essential story, it would be a better movie? I mean I understand judging a movie for not living up to its aspirations, but I don't really get where one would draw the line and say "this is where the movie should've been aspiring for less". I also not sure what you'd define substance as, because to me TDKR had plllennnty of it, especially compared to most blockbuster films.

To me me I feel the Nolans' hands all over it, so the last thing I would think to call the movie is a knock-off. Any similarities that are there to me are from the same people working on it and working in the same universe that the previous two films were in. The only thing I'd say maybe stood out as being a little on the nose was Selina's "everything sticks" speech, or maybe the cop's "my money's under my mattress" line.

Then again in TDK, we have the completely unsubtle..."THIS. IS. WRONG." moment. There are definitely plenty of very on the nose moments throughout the trilogy.

 

[DACrowe]

I wish the film had the atmosphere of those posters.

Honestly, Batman v Superman will. We shall see if it works.