DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... TDKR - The movie...not the tragedy

My heart goes out to all those affected by the tragedy in Colorado, which is being discussed in another thread. I'd like to actually talk about the movie though.

I thought this was an incredible movie. Slow at times, but very dark, very intense. A couple of twists and surprises. Didn't follow the comics verbatim, but it didn't have to.

Don't want to say too much for those who haven't seen it, but as an AVID Batman reader, I wanted to get some discussion going.

Thoughts?

I have not seen the movie yet but i was waiting on some feedback on if it would be worth seeing. I liked all the prior batman movies for the most part but sometimes the hype far outweighs the movie so anyone with out giving up the whole thing wants to say either thumbs up like you did or some other point of view I would be interested in hearing them.

I love how each film in this trilogy can tell it's own story, have wonderful strengths (along with weaknesses in all films), and remain connected to the whole themes of the series.

Pros
-This is totally Bruce's film. Would've loved to see more Bruce moments in The Dark Knight. Rises makes up for it.
-Surprising performance by Anne Hathaway as Catwoman/Selina Kyle. She adds a good amount of humanity to the character.
-The first big action sequence, given the circumstances at the time, will put a smile on your face. It was fun.
-The end game really put some stakes up for grabs. Much better than the stakes found in The Avengers. Really made me wonder what was going to happen.
-Bale fixed his horrible Batman voice.
-The last 35 minutes are wonderful. I'd say more but I really can't.

Cons
-In stark contrast to all the screen time on Bruce, Batman could have used a few more scenes. Maybe I feel this way due to how much Batman we got in The Dark Knight.
-Could've used a bit more character development from Officer Blake. I wish he would've gotten a bit more screen time. Same goes for Bane, too.
-I have a gripe about what happens in the middle of the film but it's a plot spoiler for those who haven't seen the film. It goes against something which happened towards the end of The Dark Knight.
-Bane's voice is horrible. I read they kept having problems with recording him which led to Tom Hardy, the actor who plays Bane, having to come in and overdub all his lines. I probably understood 80% of what he said.

I've sat on the series and now I feel that I can rank all the films. The Dark Knight>Batman Begins>The Dark Knight Rises.

The film, The Dark Knight Rises, is better than The Avengers. The Avengers may have great characters but The Dark Knight Rises instills the sense of doubt which The Avengers lacked.

Very astute.
I also hated Bane's voice...terrible job with that.

I too was surprised at how Anne Hathaway was able to portray the inner struggle that catwoman always had to battle. Very good job...the Heath Ledger performance of this movie.

I have a problem with Officer Blake's development in the end though

Two thumbs up from me

I didn't like it.

I wasn't impressed with the Batman Begins but it grew on me. It ended up being a 3 out of 5 (maybe a 4 on a good day). TDK was the best super hero movie I've ever seen....and it's probably in or near my top 10 of all time, that freaking good.

TDKR......right now, a 2. Let me explain why (BIG BIG SPOILERS! WARNING! WARNING):

- There was almost no Batman. It was all Bruce.
- Catwoman.....I don't really see the point of her being in the movie. She didn't really do anything other than steal Bruce's fingerprints, shoot Bane with the motorcycle gun (very Han Solo of her to come back) and then end up being his girlfriend. It was almost more like she was there for product placement....more catwoman action figures needed to be sold.
- Bane.....couldn't understand 25% of his words and I didn't like him as a villain. Sure, maybe he's cool in the comics but it fell flat for me. I would have liked Nolan to make him more "realistic"....without the goofy facemask. Near the end of the last fight between him and the Bat....he punches a 3 foot hole in a concrete pillar. Where in the Nolan movie universe did people start having super punching abilities? What, because he spent a lot of time in a jail?
- It was almost 3 freaking hours!
- Why did they have to occupy the city for almost 3 months if you're going to nuke it anyway? Dumb.
- And because they were there for so long....tearing apart the city, the lower and middle class sentencing the rich to death (exile or death....but exile was death), living under no freedom....why even save the city at that point? You can't go back. There's nothing to save. You think everyone just goes back to normal when Bane and the bomb are gone? Like the lawyer who survived is just going to forget his doorman tried killing him because he had a better job than him? Lame.
- The baddies took all of Bruce's toys and locked that city down......but somehow he sneaks on the island, puts on the suit and gets in the heli-plane thingy that was covered with a tarp....like that was enough to keep it out of their hands?
- EVERYONE knew Bane stormed the stock exchange....and the all of a sudden Bruce Wayne is broke? Nobody could figure out that the program he ran was what did that? I mean, check the freaking timestamp of all the trades. Right? Am I taking crazy pills?


Give me the script and I could shave off 45 minutes and make it more "believable". Instead of a 90-day occupation.....make it about the same day. Lucious has the core of the bomb and its a race to see who finds him first. You could still have locked the city down to make the same level of fear.

TDK had a believability that TDKR forgot to follow. Joker wanted to play with Batman and society, to cause fear and he got some kicks out of that. He only had to kill one mayor to prove to everyone he could get them too if he wanted. But he didn't....why? The game would be over then. So Joker walked a fine line of causing terror but knowing Gotham has to survive in most of the same way for his gaming to continue. IN TDKR....they went right to the "I'm an evil guy with a bomb that wants to destroy the world"...you know, the billionth time that character has been in a movie.

It wasn't horrible, I only paid $6.50 and I was "entertained" for close to three hours. So, the day wasn't a total loss. Still, I think they tried too hard to top TDK.

Just got back from seeing it - I loved it.

I don't know diddly about the comics or anything, I just know that this trilogy has been among the absolute best superhero movies I've ever seen. Very fun, very enjoyable, and I like that it neatly sets up more movies.


Oh, and.... umm..... Anne Hathaway in clingy leather... oh, yeah

I liked it. They had a big act to follow after the last outing w/ Ledger's Joker and I think they did well. Wrapped up the trilogy nicely.

Christopher Nolan's take on Batman, to me, has been phenominal. He just took it so seriously and slapped the story into this real-world setting. It's hard to classify them as mere comic book flicks.

My only beef really was at the beginning when there seemed to be a BIG lull w/ a bunch of talky-talky between the action scenes. Not to say it was bad or boring, just kind of felt like it made things uneven.

There seemed to be more preview before it than I've ever seen. One was a teaser for next year's go at the flying boy scout w/ the red cape. Got me really intrigued.

Too Soon....

Not cool. Absolutely NOT funny.

I love the comic movies, but MArvel over DC. This is a high caliber movie, very entertaining. We glossed some cool stuff like the motorcycle and I wanted to see the heli more closely before it went crazy. Kewl gear.

A bit too much Alfred. I dug Hathaway and "her" take on Catwoman a bunch. The HArvey Dent schtick was probably not as necessary as the length it was given. This was more effort than the others, IMO; it just didn't work as well as a whole for me. But it was epic, I had a romp watching this, and my theatre had popcorn! It's all good.

Batman may be the only DC character i really enjoy...

But this trilogy is far superior to anything Marvel can put out.

Batman has the edge, he's "more realistic" than The Avengers, which makes getting emotionally involved into the story 10 times easier.

Add the dark and grittiness that Nolan put into it. and TDK and TDKR both blow The Avengers (which I loved) out of the water...

Can't wait for the box set...

I thought it was good in it's own way. Didn't feel like a batman movie though. Bane was pretty understandable. There were some scenes where the sound effects and the music drowned out the dialogue.

I was entertained. That's all I can ask for from a movie.

Bane was definitely one of the things I had an issue with. Mainly the mask and not understanding what he was saying.

I liked that there was less Batman, mainly because in the beginning, he was still on the run.

I liked that Alfred left, it was a realistic response to the situation.

I don't like the comparisons to The Avengers. Two different types of movies.

All in all, was a great trilogy, and was ended well...but I hate how they tried to bring Robin into it...John Blake...are you kidding, and Robin is his real name...Boo

Thanks Loki, a lot of that helped.

I'm not familiar with Bane so I didn't know he was like Captain America (super strength).

While watching the movie, I couldn't help think of The Incredibles and Austin Powers.

In the The Incredibles, they were poking fun at how super villains are always monologuing their plans. The hereos either know how to stop them because of this and/or the villain is caught off guard while monologuing. In TDKR it felt like the woman was doing that with Batman near the end. I was kind of rolling my eyes and saying, "Just stab him a few more times and be done with this. Why are you talking to him? Stop explaining why you're doing this....just kill him if you want him dead!"

And then in Austin Powers, Dr. Evil locks up Austin in a room with laser sharks, closes the door and assumes he'll die. Dr. Evils son, Scott, starts freaking out, "Wait, I have a gun. Just let me shoot him and we'll win. Don't you at least want a few guards watching to make sure he doesn't escape?" And that felt like when Bane leaves Wayne in the dungeon. He leaves him in an unlocked cell with no guards or people just watching his actions. If a guy is watching he calls Bane to say, "Hey dude, that guy you dropped off, he's not in bed anymore. He's actually walking around and doing pushups. He'll be climbing soon. Do you want me to shoot him in the leg to hault his progress? Oh yeah, he broke your TV too."

As if the both of them are Villain 101 mistakes in any other film.

It seemed like the Joker never screwed up like that. And if he did talk, it was more of a "go see what I did to Harvey. You can't fix it because he's already gone mad....but you gotta go see it"

As for the way Bruce Wayne is broke, that one just still irks me. I know Lucious says it'll take months and that's more about what the director is saying to make us believe it can't be fixed......but still. One day he's rich, the next day dudes break into the stock exchange and do a bunch of bad stuff and then the next day Bruce is broke and NOBODY connects the two? Even if it would take months to correct.....nobody says, "wait a second, this smells fishy"

Sorry, maybe I'm nitpicking. I was re-watching TDK and couldn't really find many problems with it.

No problem I love discussing movies and in particular comic book movies.

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And then in Austin Powers, Dr. Evil locks up Austin in a room with laser sharks, closes the door and assumes he'll die. Dr. Evils son, Scott, starts freaking out, "Wait, I have a gun. Just let me shoot him and we'll win. Don't you at least want a few guards watching to make sure he doesn't escape?" And that felt like when Bane leaves Wayne in the dungeon. He leaves him in an unlocked cell with no guards or people just watching his actions. If a guy is watching he calls Bane to say, "Hey dude, that guy you dropped off, he's not in bed anymore. He's actually walking around and doing pushups. He'll be climbing soon. Do you want me to shoot him in the leg to hault his progress? Oh yeah, he broke your TV too."

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One of my favorite scenes back when Meyes was good...so funny. Yeah i get your point but really its a plot device. In a movie and in stories there has to be what people call a "straight man". Think of Fry in Futrama is a perfect example. Just a normal dude who is suppose to represent the audience, in that when the characters are explaining the rules of the universe to that person the characters are actually explaining the rules to the audience. An example of this is in an Sci-Fi movie one of the character says we need to go here and the straight man asks "how" and the character tells them in the future they have faster than light travel. The character just explained the rules of travel to the audience and straight man. Its a device which keeps your audience informed and so they don't get lost. So whenever you see a villain or whoever explain their plans theyre really not explaining to that character but t0 you the audience. Here is an article which discusses the straight man's role (Watch out there's foul language):

http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-realizations-that-will-ruin-science-fiction-you/

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It seemed like the Joker never screwed up like that. And if he did talk, it was more of a "go see what I did to Harvey. You can't fix it because he's already gone mad....but you gotta go see it"

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They didn't need to explain Joker's actions as much because he's pure chaos. He doesn't set up grand schemes with ulterior motives, he just does it to show the world is a joke. Joker is by far the best villain in any medium and he requires good writing but not as much back story. Look at the differences in TDK and TDKR for Joker we never get any idea who he was for Bane there is a lot of time setting up who he was and what his motives are. 2 completely different characters who require 2 different writing styles.

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As for the way Bruce Wayne is broke, that one just still irks me. I know Lucious says it'll take months and that's more about what the director is saying to make us believe it can't be fixed......but still. One day he's rich, the next day dudes break into the stock exchange and do a bunch of bad stuff and then the next day Bruce is broke and NOBODY connects the two? Even if it would take months to correct.....nobody says, "wait a second, this smells fishy"

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Yeah its a little smelly and they tried to cover it up with Fox's line. In the end sometimes you just have to take things on faith.

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Sorry, maybe I'm nitpicking. I was re-watching TDK and couldn't really find many problems with it.

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TDK is one of my favorite movies and is the superior Batman movie for me but largely because it feels like batman should. Like the Happy ending doesn't happen for Bruce Wayne because Batman is the dominant personality. Wayne is the cover while Batman is the real person. Bruce Wayne can never be separated from Bats. That's why i think TDKR is flawed. TDK got it right because even after all that crap happened to Bats he still wanted to keep going, he wanted to accept the blame and protect his city..etc No matter the odds Bats never gives up and no matter what happens he accepts it and keeps going for example Batman is on his like 4th Robin First one quit on him, 2nd one Joker killed, 3rd came back as a villian..etc. TDKR is too happy for me. I would rather Wayne died.

Director Christopher Nolan wrote the foreword to the new book The Art and Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy, which is essentially his goodbye letter to the Batman franchise he revived. Check it out below (via Superhero Hype):

"Alfred. Gordon. Lucius. Bruce . . . Wayne. Names that have come to mean so much to me. Today, I’m three weeks from saying a final good-bye to these characters and their world. It’s my son’s ninth birthday. He was born as the Tumbler was being glued together in my garage from random parts of model kits. Much time, many changes. A shift from sets where some gunplay or a helicopter were extraordinary events to working days where crowds of extras, building demolitions, or mayhem thousands of feet in the air have become familiar.


People ask if we’d always planned a trilogy. This is like being asked whether you had planned on growing up, getting married, having kids. The answer is complicated. When David and I first started cracking open Bruce’s story, we flirted with what might come after, then backed away, not wanting to look too deep into the future. I didn’t want to know everything that Bruce couldn’t; I wanted to live it with him. I told David and Jonah to put everything they knew into each film as we made it. The entire cast and crew put all they had into the first film. Nothing held back. Nothing saved for next time. They built an entire city. Then Christian and Michael and Gary and Morgan and Liam and Cillian started living in it.

Christian bit off a big chunk of Bruce Wayne’s life and made it utterly compelling. He took us into a pop icon’s mind and never let us notice for an instant the fanciful nature of Bruce’s methods. I never thought we’d do a second—how many good sequels are there? Why roll those dice? But once I knew where it would take Bruce, and when I started to see glimpses of the antagonist, it became essential. We re-assembled the team and went back to Gotham. It had changed in three years. Bigger. More real. More modern. And a new force of chaos was coming to the fore. The ultimate scary clown, as brought to terrifying life by Heath. We’d held nothing back, but there were things we hadn’t been able to do the first time out—a Batsuit with a flexible neck, shooting on Imax. And things we’d chickened out on—destroying the Batmobile, burning up the villain’s blood money to show a complete disregard for conventional motivation. We took the supposed security of a sequel as license to throw caution to the wind and headed for the darkest corners of Gotham.



I never thought we’d do a third — are there any great second sequels? But I kept wondering about the end of Bruce’s journey, and once David and I discovered it, I had to see it for myself. We had come back to what we had barely dared whisper about in those first days in my garage. We had been making a trilogy. I called everyone back together for another tour of Gotham. Four years later, it was still there. It even seemed a little cleaner, a little more polished. Wayne Manor had been rebuilt. Familiar faces were back—a little older, a little wiser . . . but not all was as it seemed. Gotham was rotting away at its foundations. A new evil bubbling up from beneath. Bruce had thought Batman was not needed anymore, but Bruce was wrong, just as I had been wrong. The Batman had to come back. I suppose he always will.

Michael, Morgan, Gary, Cillian, Liam, Heath, Christian . . . Bale. Names that have come to mean so much to me. My time in Gotham, looking after one of the greatest and most enduring figures in pop culture, has been the most challenging and rewarding experience a filmmaker could hope for. I will miss the Batman. I like to think that he’ll miss me, but he’s never been particularly sentimental."

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/24/chris-nolans-farewell-letter-to-the-dark-knight

jc

Anyone see this in imax? I'm wondering if it's worth the money.

Was there a point to taking those guys up on the plane for interrogation or was it just something thrown in to introduce Bane?

They took the guys into custody and decided to interrogate them on the way.

I was thinking, how can the prisoners possibly hear the questions the guy was yelling at them?

And a tidbit that I'm sure any fan of Game of Thrones probably already noticed, that guy asking the questions was whoever plays Littlefinger.

I also noticed the head guard from Prison Break and Quinn from Dexter in there. Lot of noticeable actors in tiny, bit parts.

I feel like a lot of these plot holes everyone has mentioned just come with thinking too deep.

Look at Bruce being broke. If youre everyone that wasnt at that stock market takeover, or someone who didnt pay a great deal of attention to the stock market, you would see that Bruce Wayne made a bunch of bad trades. Also, this is a man who has been a recluse for 8 years. Perhaps this was something he organized, or just more bad luck for Wayne enterprises. I mean either way...even if we knew that Bane was the reason...which most reasonable people would, the trades still happened, the money went down the drain and it would conceivably take months to fix. If you have an insurance issue, or some issue with your money...think of how long it would take to fix.

As for the time that they occupied the city...even if they were going to blow it up, according to Bane's plan as he dropped Batman into that cell, he said that he wanted to use hope in the people to truly crush them. If you give the bulk of the people, the lower class, the majority of the population hope that things will even out, or will work out for you, then it blows up (literally in this case) it hurts all the more. If youre broke and it blows up...eh, theres less hope involved and more resignation. There were many people in that situation that felt invigorated or reinvented by the new occupation, this helped to lead to the situation where the bombing would take more away from EVERYONE than just the rich or those with everything...or at least somet things...to lose.

As for the new Robin...I am less down on it than anyone else seems to be. Yea he got himself in trouble, but didnt Robin just get himself in trouble in most everything hes been in? Chris ODonnells character did, the guy aside Adam West did...Robin has always been a bumbler on film...but this guy had everything a Robin needed, a stout admiration for the man, a willingness to go to bat for him, and an adoration for everything he stood for.

My one confusion was how he got back on the island...I get that he got out of the thing but like...really? he was just back? I could see them not finding his heli-car thing because it was on the rooftops and Banes group stayed to the ground and underground...not likely as it was used directly during an earlier Bane related issue, youd think hed make a point to find it, especially after finding his armory and not seeing it there, however, seeing that he'd banished batman, there was no need for it?


I thought the movie was amazing...and knowing everything that we knew from past movies made it that much better.

The Sandman as the sentencing committee was perfect...he went crazy and his sentences were crazy...beautiful.

Bane being EVERYTHING that he was was perfect. The setup for what you think he was was amazing...all of it. Fantastic, and the scene where everything comes together makes him all the more real, and really makes you feel for him. Almost makes you want him to come out on top because he is an incredibly loyal person who happens to be backing someone with plans you dont want to see succeed. For a short moment there...I wanted him to win.

This movie did so much for me. In the first two movies i loved Batman but hated Bruce, because he was so arrogant and showy and anti-Batman, and while I understand why the contrast was so stark, it didnt make me like Bruce as a person any more...I get the contrast, just still annoyed by him. This movie I came to like him much more, as it just showed a more human side...it showed a side of him that just made me feel like being Batman showed him what was important, or brought out a good in him. In the first two it felt like being Batman was more for his own personal need for adoration, this it felt like there was a real altruistic purpose that is so necessary for a good superhero. That choice...in 100% of your being...made him so endearing this time.


I like the hero
I like the villain
I like the storyline
I like the execution of it.

I think this is the best of them all because the villain had a plan that wasnt entirely clear, but at the same time was. Much like the Sandman, Bane had (well was following) a plan that would let Gotham tear itself apart.

As for how the city could go back to being itself...It doesnt just go back to where it was...and that is a good thing for the city. While the rich man may not care for his doorman any longer...The vast majority may have just been given that hope that things can in fact work out. Perhaps they were given that mentality that if you put forth the effort, things can work out...They almost did at the hands of one person who designated power to everyone. These empowered people may go out and make something of themselves that they may never have. and at the same time...motivated people are going to stay motivated to succeed and unmotivated people are going to go back to whatever existance they had...but, some, a select some, may turn their lives into something more with this new lease on life. Everyone was days/minutes/seconds from it all coming to an end...now its not, now its back to business as usual, but with that new outlook that i couldve died and i didnt...



I loved this movie. While I really enjoyed TDK, TDKR i think is better because of everything you know coming in. In a stand alone situation, TDK i think it more entertaining, but what I liked about Bane's bad guy status was that he had an army...I love when bad guys get people to back them up...The Joker was alone for the most part...yea he had that group of crazies that worked for him but everything was his and he did everything on his own, and thats amazing all the damage he did...but I have an affinity for bad guys that get an army of people. In addition, he also went back to the original premise and that was awesome.

Now looking at the trilogy as a whole...TDK strays from the plan as a whole...perfectly done though.

Nolan did this trilogy amazingly...and I am on the bandwagon and will see anything he does...I loved these 3, and Inception, and the other things hes done. Im in, the guy is amazing.

hahahahaha...

oops, thats what i meant. dummy

Watching The Dark Knight.

I love the contrast between the villians.

Joker mocks Batman while Batman is beating the crap out of him...

Bane mocks Batman while he is beating the crap out of Batman!

Ugh. So good.

I loved Bane. I had no problems understanding what he said, I thought his character was better than the joker. Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was better, but as a characer, I thought Bane was pure evil. There was nothing funny about that guy. He was creepy. I also think the Joker/Ledger benefits from what I like to call Kurt Cobain syndrome, where people think the person is somehow enhanced, simply because they died. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Joker, but he's put up on a pretty big pedestal.

I enjoyed the movie. I still think Batman Begins is my favorite.

As far as Dark Knight rises...

- coulda done without Catwoman, Anne Hathaway did well but her part was unnecassary

- I thought Blake as a character was good, he had his own thing going on (obviously at end you find that out) but he didn't take away too much from the whole main point of the movie

- the chick who played miranda was incredibly hot

- I thought the ending was fitting, I could see a few spin off movies with other characters, but as far as Batman goes, they did a good job closing the book on him.

- Pittsburgh did well as a city depicting Gotham

- I kinda agree with the others who said there wasn't enough Batman. I know someone said the story was about Bruce Wayne, but Batman is the selling point of the whole series.

- I love how Scarecrow just won't go away

I'm not going to give this any kind of rating, but if you're a fan of the first two, you obviously need to see this one.

It's been my opinion that Heath's death added a "mystery" to the role..

There weren't a hundred different interviews with him about it, what he did to prepare, etc. You almost knew nothing going in, and then BOOM. It was awesome.

The thing is, everyone knows the Joker. They kind of know what to expect.

But Bane? The casual fan has nothing to go off of, he's a really strong dude with a mask.

But he's MUCH more than that. I still feel bad for Tom Hardy. You can tell he's trying to act through the mask, but it won't let him. I'll give him credit, he tells alot of story with his eyes at certain points. (And I got over the voice quickly, because, i wish I had that accent.)

Cillian Murphy rules.

Anybody else but me think his eyes were enough to make Hardy look like Peyton Hillis w/ a shaved head?

I just saw it in Imax and loved it! I thoroughly enjoyed the way the story had it's shared references to the first two films. There really is a sense of closure to the Nolan films. This kind of saddens me because he and the entire cast from the actors to the writers did such a phenomenal job. I grew up with the cartoon series and the comics. This is the silver screen Batman I want to remember.

well...the george clooney goods have to be shared with the world...batman suit or not