The Dark Knight Rises What do you not like about the movie?

[Batman jr.]

The weird thing about BB, is that all of Ra's decoys looked more like Ra's than Ra's did.

Gee, I wonder why.

 

[Travesty]

Gee, I wonder why.

Yeah, I actually do. I don't think it would've been that hard to put Neeson in a green suit and a cape at the very end reveal, but oh well. It's bad enough he wasn't immortal, it's even worse he looked nothing like Ra's. Weakest portrayal of Ra's that I've seen thus far.

 

[Sikri06]

I really hate that I accidently walked into the Letterman spoiler on Twitter. I should have deleted my account until the movie came out.

 

[Greens]

That was a joke.

 

[Slushy]

I think the green cape because they thought it would've looked silly.

Bane in B&R was super lame. He looked silly and was an idiot. And I can't believe anyone would want Bane to wear a luchidore(sp?) mask in Nolans film. What looks neat in the comic would/could look incredibly lame live action.

Kind of pointless to make a comic book movie if radical changes are being made to please non-comic books fans.

Executive: Superman's costume looks lame as fu**. Let's change it completely!

Executive 2: Brilliant!

I found DeVitos penguin to be far more interesting than his comic book counterpart.

Agreed.

 

[Naked Shia]

I wouldn't say Devito's Penguin is far more interesting, but he's at least as good IMO. It's a shame that the Penguin is not used anymore as a threat in the continuity.

 

[JAK®]

I think the green cape because they thought it would've looked silly.

It's a green cape. What's silly about it?

 

[Batman jr.]

It's a green cape. What's silly about it?

Why do you always ask questions that are redundant at times?

 

[JAK®]

Why do you always ask questions that are redundant at times?

I like it when people explain their opinions, especially when their reasoning is not immediately obvious.

 

[Batman jr.]

I like it when people explain their opinions, especially when their reasoning is not immediately obvious.

I c.

 

[Spuzz]

Decoy(S)?? Ra's had multiple decoys in BB? Also BB's Ra's was pitch perfect in my opinion. Costumes are meaningless. It's the characterization that makes the character and Neeson acted just like Ra's. Scarecrow wore a suit too and just had a burlap sack over his head yet he perfectly embodied everything that character's supposed to be too. This is what Nolan does. Visual re-invention but character accuracy.

 

[JAK®]

Decoy(S)?? Ra's had multiple decoys in BB? Also BB's Ra's was pitch perfect in my opinion. Costumes are meaningless. It's the characterization that makes the character and Neeson acted just like Ra's. Scarecrow wore a suit too and just had a burlap sack over his head yet he perfectly embodied everything that character's supposed to be too. This is what Nolan does. Visual re-invention but character accuracy.

This isn't about whether things should be accurate, it's about whether an accurate costume would look silly if it were done.

So, what is it about a green cape that is silly looking, specifically?

 

[Corey]

Yeah, I actually do. I don't think it would've been that hard to put Neeson in a green suit and a cape at the very end reveal. . . .

I've felt the same for quite some time. Adding a simple chained clasped cape/overcoat--regardless of color, really--would have fully inundated Liam's portrayal of the iconic visage of Ra's Al Ghul. The 3rd Act Reveal, where Ra's Al Ghul clashes with The Batman, would have been the perfect place to showcase it, and sadly I think it is a missed golden opportunity that would have been only too easy to achieve, and I feel it wouldn't have irked Nolan's filming sensibilities or required audiences to suspend their disbelief in order to execute it.






That being said, I loved Liam's portrayal of the character in Batman Begins (And Ra's Al Ghul is probably my second favorite Batman villain within a Rouges Gallery of fantastic A-list enemies).

If I close my eyes and just listen to Neeson as Ra's speaking to Bruce and Batman in the first film, he sounds just like I always imagined Ra's Al Ghul to sound. Granted, Neeson isn't really doing anything different with his voice to get into character or anything, it's just him speaking somewhat normally, but as either a happy coincidence or enlightened casting, it works perfectly.

Also, visually, I really feel like some of you are missing the things Nolan and team did right with Neeson's Ra's Al Ghul. You'll notice the hair has the classic and iconic silver streaks at the temples, and just look at that mustache...that screams Ra's Al Ghul. They could have wimped out on a simple and very safe trimmed goat-tee, but they didn't. They went pretty much full tilt toward his comic likeness with the beard and hair style. I loved the stately demeanor Liam portrayed. The very self possessed, erect, calm but stern countenance he exuded was very Ra's-like. He was a man on a mission, a mission bigger than himself and bigger than the any one person or group of persons in the world. He was radical, and believed in it at the cost to his life.

The posh and elegant cane he started to carry once his reveal started to unfold to the audience perhaps took the place of the cape, and it's something some of you are also forgetting. Not only is it fitting with something Al Ghul would carry on his person, we see in the Monorail fight sequence with Batman in the third act that it doubles as his sword.

We have Ra's Al Ghul. Fighting The Batman. With a sword. That's just good stuff, and once again, very much in the mythos of comic Batman.


Lastly, Batman Begins's Ra's Al Ghul wasn't a straight incarnation of the character. He was blended, to me, 50/50 with Ducard--and both his words and his visage were plainly indicative of that. Regardless of whether you disagree with the decision to combine both those comic characters, you can't argue that Nolan's Ra's was at all times oozing traits of both Ducard and Ra's Al Ghul.

I've always felt that wherever Neeson's Ra's Al Ghul traits stopped, Ducard's traits started, and vise versa. This is both for his look, the duds he sports, and the things he believes and says.

 

[JAK®]

and I feel it wouldn't have irked Nolan's filming sensibilities or required audiences to suspend their disbelief to execute it.

"A green cape? I believed a guy dressing up as a bat, a microwave emitter, a fear toxin and unrealistic feats of strength, but a cape, a green cape no less, I just can't believe that!"

 

[The Guard]

Yeah, unless people have never actually read a story about Henri Ducard, there's really not much of Henri Ducard to be found in Ra's Al Ghul's character in BATMAN BEGINS, other than the idea of him training Bruce in some fashion (but comic book Ducard had little to nothing to do with Bruce Wayne's martial arts abilities), and Bruce not wanting to kill people, which is also found in his relationship with Ra's over the years.

I always kind of figured he didn't wear a cape because that would have given away their silly twist, which didn't matter anyway, because it was Neeson's character Bruce had the relationship with and who he would have felt betrayed by anyway, not "Grunty mc Fake Ra's". Would have liked to have seen him wear a cape upon his return to Gotham, but his coat sufficed.

I really like the adaption of Ra's, with the exception of no Talia.

Though I'm kind of biased, because about four years before BEGINS, Liam Neeson became my fan choice for Ra's Al Ghul after I wrote a fanscript about him, oddly titled THE DARK KNIGHT.

 

[Corey]

"A green cape? I believed a guy dressing up as a bat, a microwave emitter, a fear toxin and unrealistic feats of strength, but a cape, a green cape no less, I just can't believe that!"

Exactly. I agree, you just put a finer point on it, as you do.

Yeah, unless people have never actually read a story about Henri Ducard, there's really not much of Henri Ducard to be found in Ra's Al Ghul's character in BATMAN BEGINS, other than the idea of him training Bruce in some fashion (but comic book Ducard had little to nothing to do with Bruce Wayne's martial arts abilities), and Bruce not wanting to kill people, which is also found in his relationship with Ra's over the years.

I always kind of figured he didn't wear a cape because that would have given away their silly twist, which didn't matter anyway, because it was Neeson's character Bruce had the relationship with and who he would have felt betrayed by anyway, not "Grunty mc Fake Ra's". Would have liked to have seen him wear a cape upon his return to Gotham, but his coat sufficed.

I really like the adaption of Ra's, with the exception of no Talia.

Though I'm kind of biased, because about four years before BEGINS, Liam Neeson became my fan choice for Ra's Al Ghul after I wrote a fanscript about him, oddly titled THE DARK KNIGHT.

Yes, of course the Cape was not included from the outset because of the "twist". The Henri Ducard likeness isn't in true form, and both Ducard and Ra's Al Ghul are watered down a bit for Batman Begins, but they both are still evidently there. The role of Ducard felt more utilitarian to me and was meant to serve the story Nolan wanted to tell, while Ra's Al Ghul was the real character he wanted to at least try to portray. Ducard never really mattered; he was thoroughly a story-telling mechanism. Ra's Al Ghul did.

 

[The Guard]

Henri Ducard was a detective and manhunter who taught Bruce manhunting skills.

That is nowhere to be found in the film.

They used his name, and maybe a smidge from a storyline where Bruce and he part ways, and thats about it.

 

[Corey]

Henri Ducard was a detective and manhunter who taught Bruce manhunting skills.

That is nowhere to be found in the film.

They used his name, and maybe a smidge from a storyline where Bruce and he part ways, and thats about it.

I respect and understand where you're coming from. But Ducard was a person who trained Bruce at the genesis of his path to becoming Batman after Bruce had traveled the world, and even acted in part as a kind of mentor. He taught him deception and cunning. Bruce later uses many of these skills as Batman to terrorize criminals successfully and effectively. These things aren't absent from Batman Begins. Look at comic Henri. Look at Liam Neeson's "Henri" in the First Act of Batman Begins. They look remarkably alike. In fact, all throughout the movie, if you take in Neeson's character one way, you immediately see a type of Ducard. If you look another way, Ra's Al Ghul jumps out at you. They can both be seen at any given moment, and I don't think that was unintentional.

I'm not at all saying Ducard was fully developed, or developed at all for that matter. It didn't matter, it wasn't his purpose for BB. The point mainly is, I don't think there is any denying that the spirit of both characters are there in the amalgamation of Batman Begins's Ra's Al Ghul. The peppering of Ducard likeness isn't blatant and showcased in the film, but the "comic-ness" of the things I've pointed out certainly aren't tenuous either.

 

[The Guard]

I respect and understand where you're coming from. But Ducard was a person who trained Bruce at the genesis of his path to becoming Batman after Bruce had traveled the world, and even acted in part as a kind of mentor. He taught him deception and cunning. Bruce later uses many of these skills as Batman to terrorize criminals successfully and effectively. These things aren't absent from Batman Begins. Look at comic Henri. Look at Liam Neeson's "Henri" in the First Act of Batman Begins. They look remarkably alike. In fact, all throughout the movie, if you take in Neeson's character one way, you immediately see a type of Ducard. If you look another way, Ra's Al Ghul jumps out at you. They can both be seen at any given moment, and I don't think that was unintentional.

Here's the thing...what you just said...about using cunning and deception, describes almost every single one of Batman's mentors. Not just Ducard.

Yes, you can see a type of Ducard in the film's portryal...one who never existed. And because he's named "Ducard" in the film at one point.

The point mainly is, I don't think there is any denying that the spirit of both characters are there in the amalgamation of Batman Begins's Ra's Al Ghul.

Except that the spirit of Ducard encompasses what he is, who he is and what he does in the comics. Not just the fact that he betrayed Bruce Wayne. Thats such a broad concept it applies to almost every character Bruce has ever encountered...including most/all of his allies at one point or another.

I'm not at all saying Ducard was fully developed, or developed at all for that matter. It didn't matter, it wasn't his purpose for BB. The point mainly is, I don't think there is any denying that the spirit of both characters are there in the amalgamation of Batman Begins's Ra's Al Ghul. The peppering of Ducard likeness isn't blatant and showcased in the film, but the "comic-ness" of the things I've pointed out certainly aren't tenuous either.

They used the name, the fact that he helped train Bruce, the fact that he betrayed him/disappointed him, and the fact that he has a similar mustache to Ra's Al Ghul, which "helped" in the twist, and that's about it. These are incredibly tenuous connections to his role in the comic book mythology.

 

[Pauluz]

SPOILERS!

Spoiler

1. I didn't like Bane's voice, it was good in certain scenes ("...my permission to die!") and it's a good character but ruined by the voice. In some scenes it was clear that the audio didn't match Hardy's movements.

2. Not enough Batman.

3. I wanted to see Batman truly RISE in full revenge, we got Bruce Wayne but when he got out, it was kinda eh. And by the way, how the hell did he get back to Gotham?

4. The score is brilliant but not well used in the film.

5. I wanted to see Bruce (in Batman gear)standing and reminiscing at his parents grave but instead we got something else.

6. The overall sense of fear and urgency was a bit flat. Yes, we had an atomic bomb but kinda been there, done that don't you think?

The film is good but to me, it didn't meet its full potential. Though, the ending is fitting and great! There is probably more but this is all I can think of at the moment, I need to let the film sink in a bit.

P.S. This is coming from a big Nolan and Batman fan so don't flame me fanboys, just being honest here. I want to see more of THE GODDAMN BATMAN!

 

[Golgo-13]

Batman was hardly in it.

 

[Doc Samson]

My biggest gripes are the tone and the pace. I feel for what Nolan established previously, this film felt wildly out of place. It almost felt like he should've just made Ras immortal, Joker permawhite and so on, if he was going to ramp things up to such a degree in the final installment. I liked the Arkham City type narrative, but it just felt so much more..."comic-y." That being said, it also allowed for some better action, so it's a catch-22 for me.

The worst culprit however is the pace of the movie. Too much, too quick without any room for scenes to breath. I feel like there's a much longer cut to this film somewhere, and I believe it would improve it immensely.

 

[Pauluz]

I feel like there's a much longer cut to this film somewhere, and I believe it would improve it immensely.

Wasn't there a report a few months ago that there was a cut that was almost 4 hours long? Nolan always says that there isn't any additional material but we know there is more even if it's just alternate takes.

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

my only real complaints are Bane's voice in certain scenes because I couldn't really make out what he said. also, I wish Miranda/Talia was expanded more upon. other than that, I thought the film was excellent!

 

[Juicy J]

Banes voice was terrible.
What little humor was in the film fell flat more times than not. "Call me", was the worst offender, there were audible groans in my theatre.
I also don't understand how JGL just happened across Gordon as he came out of the sewer. Was there a reason he was right there or was it just a coincidence? If it was just a happy accident that's dang near inexcusable. I can suspend reality only to a certain point.
Other than those and a few other tiny gripes, great movie.