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The Dark Knight Rises |OT2| The Legend... Continues

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Oh Heath, why did you have to leave us. :(
 
Just put on the BD. I only saw it once in the theatre, so I'm excited to watch it again!
 
Damn, this movie even better the second time on the mighty blu. Seriously though they need to shoot an entire fucking movie in IMAX those scenes look amazing.
 
Just watched it. The IMAX scenes on blu ray are stunning. Second half of the movie moves at such a breakneck pace that it hurts the pacing overall. Everything after the Bane-Bats fight needed more time to breathe. Everything involving Gotham under occupation, Bruce's rehab in the pit, Bruce's return and his plan to retake the city ...these events all needed proper development and build up. The movie has so many good ideas and tries to cram them all in in under 3 hours. The editing is all over the place, jumping from one plot line to another. This could have been a frigging masterpiece, all the elements are there but it doesn't come together in quite the way it should have. Still a good effort but comes up short of greatness. Should have been a two-parter
 
Ok, so I saw the movie again. I agree with sculli that it was written for the audience, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but hurts some of the dialogue on a rewatch. Some lines were straight out silly "whatever it is, it's nuclear". Dagget's explanation of the clean slate just gets harder to watch, and Foley's presence seems unnecessary. It's a little annoying how Nolan has to explain everything to the audience, yet the movie makes you ask too many questions more. Batman's voice is funny like before, Bane really gets denutted, the music was a bit intrusive (sometimes), and the bomb plot device is silly. However, the movie is entertaining, Alfred is very good (Caine did a great job during the time he was in), and catwoman's character remained my favorite. It's a solid 7/10. :P
 
The screenplay needed another draft. I think the general plot outline is fantastic. League of Shadows resurgent, Bane and Talis relationship, Bruce hanging up the cowl and needing a reason to rise again, passing on the mantle to an orphan boy and leaving his fortune to orphaned kids, Gotham city under occupation, Bruce rehabbing in the pit, coming to understand true despair, finding a reason to live and fight for something ...
 
Sort of wish this movie had just opened with Bruce still being Batman, but maybe a little rundown. He can still have conflicts with Alfred, but him not being Batman for that first hour of the film (in addition to the thirty minutes in the middle where he isn't either) is a little too much. It makes his first "return" silly - especially since he does effectively nothing during the police chase except allow Bane to escape - and it undercuts his second return, because the movie already fired that bullet. Not to mention, there's not enough reaction by the populace to his second return, so we don't quite feel the impact of it. I suppose Foley's supposed to stand-in for the rest of Gotham in that scene, but he's so unlikable it's difficult for him to be the surrogate.

There's a lot of intended "fuck yeah" crowd-pleasing moments like that in the movie, but they usually don't work as well as they should conceptually.

I also think excising Alfred from a good portion of the film and only reconciling the two of them at the end is a huge betrayal of the father-son relationship, which was the backbone of these films. They separate Bruce from all his support relationships (Alfred, Fox, Gordon) so much that it damages him as a character. I understand that was part of the point, but it goes too far.
 
Also, Blake could never be batman, those gadgets don't seem cheap and he's not rich. Anyone who didn't know Bruce was Batman was stupid. How many relatively young billionaires in shape did Gotham have?

How did Gordon know it was Bane in the Sewers when the police hadn't heard about him (because Blake said they mocked Gordon), and his name wasn't mentioned when he was there.

It's so much fun doing this, sorry :P
 
Also, Blake could never be batman, those gadgets don't seem cheap and he's not rich. Anyone who didn't know Bruce was Batman was stupid. How many relatively young people billionaires in shape did Gotham have?

Blake's going to get caught or killed in his first few outings. Where's he going to live? In the Batcave underneath the orphanage filled with children? How is he going to procure his weapons once the stuff Bruce left runs out?

He has no training. Bruce spent years with a bunch of ninjas.

The whole "anyone can be a hero/Batman" theme is a mess. It's true to an extent; anyone can be a hero. Gordon was one, Alfred, Fox, Blake, etc. But only Bruce could have been Batman. He had the will, the training, the rage that drove him, the father figures, etc. And the money. That's what makes him unique, that he took all that together and used it as a force for good. And those were qualities that set him apart from everybody else.

Furthermore, the fact that there even needs to be a Batman anymore seems to throw away Nolan's whole setup that Bruce was going to inspire the people of Gotham to rise up and take back their city. Average citizens did nothing in this film. Batman inspired some cops to fight. I thought the whole series was leading to a world where Batman wouldn't need to exist again, because Gothamites would be vigilant and fight corruption. The movie basically strips away any chance for the common person (the "anyone" Bruce was talking about) to fix Gotham.

This movie's themes are so confused it makes me concerned that Nolan missed both the points of Bruce as a character and his previously established motivation.
 
Just watched it. The IMAX scenes on blu ray are stunning. Second half of the movie moves at such a breakneck pace that it hurts the pacing overall. Everything after the Bane-Bats fight needed more time to breathe. Everything involving Gotham under occupation, Bruce's rehab in the pit, Bruce's return and his plan to retake the city ...these events all needed proper development and build up. The movie has so many good ideas and tries to cram them all in in under 3 hours. The editing is all over the place, jumping from one plot line to another. This could have been a frigging masterpiece, all the elements are there but it doesn't come together in quite the way it should have. Still a good effort but comes up short of greatness. Should have been a two-parter
Absolutely. It would've worked perfectly in two parts. End part 1 at Occupied Gotham and broken Bats in the pit.
 
Blake's going to get caught or killed in his first few outings. Where's he going to live? In the Batcave underneath the orphanage filled with children? How is he going to procure his weapons once the stuff Bruce left runs out?

He has no training. Bruce spent years and trained with a bunch of ninjas.

Is Blake allowed any time to prepare himself, or is he supposed to go out as Batman an hour after he found the cave?

Absolutely. It would've worked perfectly in two parts. End part 1 at Occupied Gotham and broken Bats in the pit.

Has any movie, ever, "worked perfectly in two parts"? When has the split alternative ever resulted in a two-part masterpiece?
 
Blake's unemployed now too.

My fanwank is that he becomes the Chief of Security for Wayne Enterprises. This allows Fox to continue to provide him with equipment and some funding.
 
Is Blake allowed any time to prepare himself, or is he supposed to go out as Batman an hour after he found the cave?

Death does not wait for you to be ready!

(Look, he can get better, but I still have huge thematic problems with him being Batman and there being a need for Batman in the first place.)
 
Is Blake allowed any time to prepare himself, or is he supposed to go out as Batman an hour after he found the cave?

Even if he was allowed time, it's not like he has any money; he even quit the force. How much gas does "the bat" eat? And the other stuff Tookay said about Ninja training. All I see is him going in the suit and once he runs out of gadgets he gives up and starts facing a midlife crisis.
 
The Bat's have auto pilot now, so maybe Blake will become the new Oracle and just sit in the bat cave controlling them from his computer and fighting crime with robots.
 
Death does not wait for you to be ready!

(Look, he can get better, but I still have huge thematic problems with him being Batman and there being a need for Batman in the first place.)

Well, it does tie back into that conversation with Alfred in the plane in BB. There needs to be an everlasting symbol. The Batman is that symbol. Doesn't matter who is under the mask, but the idea, that symbol has to live on to give hope. Blake doesn't need to run out every night to find criminals and beat them to a pulp. But the Batman is there for the big events (Attack on the Narrows, Reign of Terror, Siege of Gotham). Something for people to rally around in times of great crisis.

Even if he was allowed time, it's not like he has any money; he even quit the force. How much gas does "the bat" eat? And the other stuff Tookay said about Ninja training. All I see is him going in the suit and once he runs out of gadgets he gives up and starts facing a midlife crisis.

Well, Fox and Gordon are still in Gotham. For all we know, Bruce could have left him some money in some secret account.

The Bat's have auto pilot now, so maybe Blake will become the new Oracle and just sit in the bat cave controlling them from his computer and fighting crime with robots.

The future is drone warfare. Believe it.
 
Death does not wait for you to be ready!

(Look, he can get better, but I still have huge thematic problems with him being Batman and there being a need for Batman in the first place.)

Which was the whole point of TDK: that the hero Gotham needs has to be Batman, has to be that symbol and not just any otherwise normal person doing the right thing. Unless you had this issue in 2008, this is nothing new.
 
Oh jesus, now you guys want to drag that bullshit out to a two-parter?

All that needed to happen pacing wise to fix the film was to cut out both Catwoman and Blake and dedicate all their screen time to Bruce. Shit is plain as fucking day.

Movie so obviously needed and wanted to be Bruce Wayne's film, but instead smothers him in extraneous characters for the sake of fan service payoffs.
 
Oh jesus, now you guys want to drag that bullshit out to a two-parter?

All that needed to happen pacing wise to fix the film was to cut out both Catwoman and Blake and dedicate all their screen time to Bruce. Shit is plain as fucking day.

Movie so obviously needed and wanted to be Bruce Wayne's film, but instead smothers him in extraneous characters for the sake of fan service payoffs.

I liked Catwoman and Blake.
 
Well, it does tie back into that conversation with Alfred in the plane in BB. There needs to be an everlasting symbol. The Batman is that symbol. Doesn't matter who is under the mask, but the idea, that symbol has to live on to give hope. Blake doesn't need to run out every night to find criminals and beat them to a pulp. But the Batman is there for the big events (Attack on the Narrows, Reign of Terror, Siege of Gotham). Something for people to rally around in times of great crisis.

But I don't think symbols need to be alive to be everlasting. He could have made an impact by killing off the Batman, just like how his parents dying inspired people to action.

I'll grant you that Batman was needed for the big events, as depicted in this film (though ironically they might have caught Bane in the bike chase had Batman not shown up), but if Gotham/the US gov had been shown itself to have a little more backbone as a result of being inspired, then maybe not.

Which was the whole point of TDK: that the hero Gotham needs has to be Batman, has to be that symbol and not just any otherwise normal person doing the right thing. Unless you had this issue in 2008, this is nothing new.

Maybe I should clarify: "I have a problem with the fact that there needs to be a Batman after Bruce." I think the movie doesn't make a good argument that anyone could be Batman, but Bruce. Therefore, him leaving it to somebody else - who is inexperienced, not financially connected, and that he barely even knows as a person - is sort of irresponsible. The passing of the baton doesn't work for me.

And I still think it's a betrayal of the other theme in TDK that regular Gothamites were taking back their city. What happened on the ferries was evidence of that. Then it's completely dropped in TDKR, where they just sit on the sidelines.
 
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