The Dark Knight Rises thoughts...
 

So Warner Bros. just sent me an advance copy of The Dark Knight rises Blu-ray / DVD combo set and I watched just about everything on it and thought you might wanna hear my thoughts on both the film and the disc features.

*WARNING - POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW*

THE GOOD:

First off, I never really talked about the movie itself when it was first released in theaters, so here's my take on it. TDKR is a great movie - flawed with plot holes like any superhero movie for sure, and it had the nearly impossible task of living up to the success of TDK, but it's still great. What I really enjoyed about this one is that it focuses more on Bruce Wayne rather than on Batman. I always thought Bale's performance of Bruce Wayne was a lot better than his take on Batman. Well, there's a lot more Wayne in this movie than the other films, and I'm all about that.

I also really enjoyed Tom Hardy has Bane. Sure the voice was kinda funny since it sounded like a muffled Sean Connery, but Bane was just as badass as one could ever hope him to be. And man, I really enjoyed his fight with Batman. You expected it to be brutal, and Nolan doesn't let you down here at all. By the end of the fight, Batman is utterly exhausted and has his cowl practically caved in on his faced from repeated blows before having his back broken by Bane.

The music is also right on par with the previous films, only there's even more of a sense of panic and urgency to the music in TDKR. I dare say the score for this film is the best of the trilogy.

Lastly, the scale of the movie is incredible. If there's one thing they definitely did better with this one than in TDK, is they made the movie feel even bigger. The huge sweeping shots that are a Nolan trademark, the big football stadium, the big showdown on Wall Street between the cops and Bane's army, and the pit that Bruce has to climb out of... it all just feels so massive. I really wish more big films to advantage of IMAX cameras like Nolan does. Argue if you will, but The Dark Knight Rises feels WAY bigger than The Avengers, and it's not just because of how many real extras were used, but it's because of the way it was shot.

THE BAD:

First, I definitely thought they way that they killed off Bane was a cheap shot and an unceremonious end to a really entertaining villain. I would much rather see Batman break his one rule to finish off Bane than a blast from Catwoman.

Plot holes - yes, I can overlook them like most fans, but they're still annoying in any movie, and this one had plenty. What caused Bruce's leg to be injured so badly in the past 8 years when he hadn't done any crime fighting? How the hell do you fix somebody's broken back simply by punching it? How / why did Batman find the time to paint his logo in flammable liquids on the side of a huge building for Gordon to set ablaze when the city was about to be destroyed by a nuke!? I could go on and on...

I also hated the trailers, because they spoiled one of the biggest moments in the entire movie - the football stadium scene. That scene would've been so shocking to audiences had the entire cave-in not been shown in the trailers. I think it was a huge mistake on their part to show that in advance. People would've been caught completely off guard during the movie and talking about it a lot had that scene not been aired in advance.

Robin was also pointless to me. He barely has time to talk to Wayne in the entire movie, and yet Bruce basically retires and turns over the Batcave to him? Uh, let's not forget that Bruce is an extremely intelligent and highly trained ninja. While Robin is a smart cop, he's no Batman. So what, Bruce just expects him to learn all those martial arts moves on his own with no mentor? I get that he wanted to retire 'n all, but come on... at least train your replacement before you hand over the reigns.

THE BLU-RAY / DVD combo:



It goes without saying that the Blu-ray looks fantastic here, and while the movie is best seen on the big screen in IMAX, this is the next best thing. In terms of extras, it comes with a lot of featurettes (20 in total I believe) that show the making of some of the biggest scenes in the film. I enjoyed these more than anything, because you see just how many people and how much planning were put into the scenes. The football stadium, plane hijacking, Wall Street battle, and Batman vs. Bane featurettes were among my favorites here. There's also one that talks about the chant and music behind Bruce rising out of the pit, and I always love seeing how the sounds behind a film like this are put together. Again, the music in the film is absolutely stellar.

My only complaint about the DVD set is the lack of deleted scenes. Considering how much footage was shot for this film, it's disappointing that there's absolutely no extra footage from the cutting room floor. I was really hoping to see the rumored footage of Bane's origin - but no dice. So yeah, if you're hoping for deleted scenes, you may want to hold off, but there's no guarantee they'll ever release those I guess. Still, we know they're releasing an "Ultimate Trilogy" set next year too, so if you haven't purchased the other movies already, you may want to hold off until that one comes out anyway.

I should also note that there's a special edition version that comes with Batman's broken cowl. Nice display piece for sure, but my mantle is out of space, so I'm fine with just the standard Blu-ray which still comes with a nice lenticular art cover.

All in all, I thought this was a really solid ending to the Dark Knight trilogy. I'm sad to see the movies come to an end though, because I thought Nolan did more justice to the Batman mythology than any other director has in the past. Can't tell you how excited I was for the release of each film in theaters. Very curious to see what Nolan does next, because nobody does "big" movies quite like him, and whenever one of his works comes out, it feels like an event rather than just another movie coming out.

Alright, there you have it for my thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises. What did you guys think of the movie?

to be honest, i fucking hated it
which really got under my skin since i was really looking forward to it, and the previous two were so good

the generic bomb plot, the rehashing of the league of shadows,i hated how dumbed down everyone had to be for things to work in the movie

the characterisation was the worst aspect to me:
bane being nothing more than a dumb goon following orders (like schumacher's version), instead of the brilliant tactician he's supposed to be; in place of the venom angle, he's breathing pain killers because he has a cut on his face (making him look especially weak compared to two-face and joker, who had far worse injuries)...and yet he has super strength for no apparent reason
and his relationship to "talia" is straight out of that lame bond movie the world is not enough (which rises may just be a remake of)
his origin is stripped from him and given to talia, even though several times earlier in the movie this is said otherwise

next is bruce/batman-being some mopey, deadbeat quitter really pissed me off
he lets wayne enterprises go broke, lets all his money get stolen, and quits being batman because his would be girlfriend gets killed
he's supposed to be this brilliant guy, and he makes nothing but bad decisions in the movie:all but reveals himself as batman to selina in the dumbest of ways, trusting in selina despite all the shit she did to him, going head to head w/ bane in name only in such a sloppy manner, and quitting again and leaving his gadgets and whatnot to a beat cop
and the ending; he's supposed to be dead yet he's in europe, surrounded by thousands of people who know who he is and he's just supposed to blend in?

john blake-he saw bruce wayne once when he was a kid, so he knew he was batman...i'm supposed to buy this shit?
he's some jerk off beat cop, with no real experience in...anything, and he's the new batman? bullshit
oh, and his name's actually robin in some half assed attempt to work that character in
and to top it off, the schmuck wants to play batman in the justice league movie

the movie is just over loaded with flawed logic, and it came off as michael bay's attempt at a batman movie

I thought it was terrific. It's the Return of the Jedi of Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy: bigger in scope than it's predecessors and easier to nitpick.

First, down to brass tacks: TDKR is not the best Batman film/story ever. To me, though, the Nolan trilogy taken as a whole is among the best Batman material ever. Superhero stories, at heart, are tall tales. They're fables and morality plays. The basic premise of any superhero story is outside real world logic, thus rendering any critiques based on real world logic moot. One wouldn't expect an Aesop tale or a Bible story to adhere to the rules of reality, and the same should apply to superhero stories. They aren't about the details. They're about the viewer/reader walking away feeling that good does overcome evil; that a person's sacrifices will pay off in the end; that symbols aren't about to who's behind them, but what they stand for. So, on whatever levels the makers of this Batman trilogy failed, they succeeded at their core mission statement.

Now, about TDKR specifically- it's a Batman story by Christopher Nolan. Sure there are plot holes aplenty; I've read/watched/played enough Batman and seen enough Chris Nolan movies to know that that's more of a trope than an aberration, really. And yeah, there is flawed logic and moments where one has to suspend his disbelief. Again, this is par for the course. Personally, if I can buy into Batman, I can buy into Batman recovering from a broken back or any of the other nitpicks. If the premise is ludicrous, it should follow that the details will be ludicrous. Bane, Catwoman, and Miranda were exactly what they needed to be in service to the story. Were they 100% true to the comics? No. Was any character in any of these movies 100% true to the comics? No. Hell, I'm pretty sure some of the characters weren't even in the comics. Nolan attempted to take patently absurd ideas and bring them as close to reality as possible. I'd say he did as good a job as any filmmaker could to that effect.

And finally, the Robin thing. It was silly, and I understand why some people hated it. I personally don't begrudge it because at no point is it ever said that John Blake would take on the Batman mantle. He just has access to all of Batman's gadgets. So he puts on the cape and dies trying to glide for the first time. Who knows? Who cares? It was an out for Bruce Wayne, and if there's one character trait of Bruce's from the comics that this movie absolutely nailed, it's his reckless endangerment of inexperienced vigilantes named Robin.

While I enjoyed The Dark Knight when I first watched it, between then and the time this movie rolled around I found myself completely hating Nolan's Batman universe. Batman can be realistic, but Nolan too it too far. You could watch these movies with any other characters besides Batman ones and it'd still be the same movies.

I hope the next Batman series can keep the superhero and real world aspects evened out. Marvel seems to be doing a pretty decent job of that with their movies.

When I took my friend to see it in the theater--on Imax no less--we were both impressed with a spectacular conclusion. However, since then I've become more aware of the plot holes (I tend to not notice them right away, probably because of my Asperger's).

The only parts of the movie I actually liked were with Joseph gordon-levitt. I barely remember Christian Bale even being in the movie.

X Men: Days of Future Past

:boob:boob

^
Marvel doesn't make the X-Men or Spider-Man movies.

i thought it was gay. for one maybe because i watched a ripped version the fightscenes all sucked and it looked poorly choreographed like they weren't even actually punching people most of the time
also the ending was gay. JST DRIVE THE BUMB OUT TO SEA that hasn't been done before :/
the broken back thing also angered me beyond all belief.

i think the thing that made me the most mad (besides the back scene) is when he had to have his leg fixed with that dumb device. i thought that was ironman's gimmick, but I don't know a lot about comic books.
for me batman was always just a regular nonmagic dude who was really rich and pretty smart with a bunch of gadgets from the sharper image, but with his miraculous back healing and shit that was pretty much gayed up.
also bane was kind of gay. i dont really get what was special about him all he did was not get hurt and get punched in the face on purpose. i thought he was part of some ninja league or something. the first time he punches someone on that plane didn't even look like he punched him very hard; i would've liked to see him punch people's heads off. maybe im just expecting epic fight scenes when really batman is all about one-two punches and shit. also in the cartoon bane was super buff and scary and not a ninja but i dont know if thats canon :( but that's what i think of when i think of bane. oh well i was just reading about bane on wikipedia out of curiosity and it says in one of the comics batman has his back broke and gets healed para-normally, so i guess that shows what i know.

also along time ago somebody told me this batman was actually supposed to be twoface and the joker coming back, but then heath ledger died.

haha i watched all of those honest trailers

my favorite one is paranormal activity.at the end when he says, "STARRINg, NOBODY"

I dug that one, too. All of the ones I've seen and also saw the movie for I liked, even when I enjoyed the movie. The butt-hurt responses on YouTube to this TDKR Honest Trailer are hilarious.

haha i wish in his next video at the end when he says stupid shit he would say something like,
"Fire Bat was dramatic symbolism, an obviously impossible feat (though more realistic than any BS in Avengers) like others in Nolan Bat films that are part of the hyper-realism of the world- used for dramatic effect, same with standing on buildings. U LEAVE ON hoods for interrogation, who hell expect mid air heist! How things discovered not important & easily be explained- Talia & Bane knew identity from Ras & with Talia inside & months of prep found R&D lab,"
or any of the other overly serious responses :(

That read like some spambot gibberish but I kind of think that is what you were going for?

basically, if by spambot gibberish you meant butthurt fanboys

U LEAVE ON hoods for interrogation, who hell expect mid air heist! How things discovered not important & easily be explained

i not speak english as firt language and even i undertand bane u need get better

SO I WAS WATCHING THOSE HONEST TRAILERS THEN I STARTED WATCHING RED LETTER MEDIA AND THEN I READ SOME YOUTUBE COMMENTS AND DISCOVERED THAT APPARENTLY BLADE RUNNER AND ALIEN ARE IN THE SAME STORYLINE/UNIVERSE AND BLADERUNNER 2 AND PROMETHEUS 2 W/E ARE GONNA EVENTUALLY BE CONNECTED.

WOW.

FUCK THIS RIDLEY SCOTT GUY CAN'T YOU JUST MAKE A FUCKING MOVIE

It's all in the "Ridleyverse," although I don't see how he's going to tie Legend together with Thelma & Louise.

Thats easy; after they die Sarandon comes back as Curry in a fantasy like afterlife. :rolleyes

maybe legend is some kind of post apocalyptic earth, and sarandon made a deal w/ darkness to save her life and was turned into meg mucklebones

*shrug*

am i really going to be able to understand the deep philosophical questions presented by prometheus if i havent watched thelma and louise?

Impossible.

i hope they release a box set then

At the very least, Geena Davis' bizarre, overly-gummy smile provides some insight on how the addition of human DNA could lead to creating a xenomorph.

one day i might comment here. I saw this movie in the theater. :puke

a lot of peoples posts here are too long for me to read as I am sick with a fever, coming down from a month long construction project, and tired of people.

but yeah this movie sucked

I would have saved a lot of time at the chiropractors if I had known getting punched in the spine would fix my back.

Exactly. Sony owns Spider-Man, Fox owns X-Men and Fantastic Four.

Sony did a pretty good job on Amazing Spider-Man and while I liked X-men: First Class, I read that they've got the people who worked on X-Men 2 & 3 on this new one.

I have no hopes for it. Why can't they just make a decent goddamn ensemble movie with all the X-Men team from the late 80's/early 90's? We don't need anymore goddamn Hugh Jackman. Wolverine was only interesting when he was in a group dynamic, alone he bores the shit out of me.

Idk what you are all bitching about, it wasnt that bad. For a superhero movie, it was perfectly fine.

Yeah, fuck all of you. I enjoyed it quite a bit. That's pretty much all I have to say on the subject, because it's always such a pain in the ass debating this movie with people.

i think if it had cool fight scenes or cool gadgets or cool villains or cool memorable lines i would've liked it more

i loved it i went to see it twice at the theater and i think i'm getting the blu ray for christmas from my brother

I think it is mainly the lack of cool villains for me. You go from Scarecrow to the Joker to Bane? :/

i mentioned this before but somebody told me the third one was actually supposed to be the return of two face. but after heath ledger died they couldn't do it
i dunno if its true but they are comicbook and movie jerks so im sure they'd probably know

initially the 3rd movie was supposed to be all about two-face
tdk ends w/ the joker getting caught,3 was to start w/ dent prosecuting him, and joker throws acid in his face, and so on

that was how goyer wrote it, nolan took that and put it into tdk

I fail to see why they couldnt do two face without the Joker.

Yeah, I can totally see why Bane is the best way out.

oh
cuz in tdk two face does like two things then is gone forever
kind of anti-climatical

I see what you mean kahl. If his name would have been three-face he would have been in the third movie. since it isn't he was only able to be tdk.

:lol

The name of this movie still bugs me. You go from Batman Begins to The Dark Knight to The Dark Knight Rises?

Did they just get lazy naming the last one?

Batman does it again

they got lazy with everything

rehashed league of shadows plot (except it's a hell of a lot lamer)
rehashed plot of bruce being a prisoner/ finding a cop buddy and whatever the hell else

I hope they make Bearman next and have him talk like a bat.

Rumors: Joseph gordon-levitt might play batman in the jla movie.

^ spoilers

he's not though, thankfully

You ungrateful bastard.

:)

They probably won't ever be a JLA movie. If Man of Steel doesn't do well it's definitely not going to happen.

DC just can't seem to get their other superhero movie franchises out the door.

what he fuck is jla

Justice League America


Dont worry its gay. Just like 90% of DC comics. Which is why their movies suck.

That's pretty dumb, man. A lot of their comics suck, but that's because there are so fucking many titles. There are plenty worth reading right now, and some are downright great, and it's exactly the same with Marvel. Also, the first two Spider-Man and X-Men movies were great, but everything else was shit up until Iron Man--or did Ghost Rider, Hulk, Electra, Daredevil, Blade 3, Spider-Man 3, X-Men 3, Fantastic Four 1 and 2 all slip your mind?

Oh, and because DC churned out fewer movies and their flagship franchise was The Dark Knight series, they come out ahead anyway. The first few Superman movies are fun, albeit dated, the first couple Burton Batman movies are good, Watchmen was alright, and plenty of people liked Superman Returns. Then, if you factor in the imprints, it just adds a few more decent to good movies.

Aaaaand let's not forget the animated stuff, which DC absolutely destroys Marvel in, both with animated movies and TV shows.

I liked ghost rider 1, 2 and punisher war zone because they were ridiculous.

I liked punisher with tom jane as an actual movie though.

Was going to argue about how great animated x-men/spider man shows were but still not as good as dcu.

I can agree with just about all of this.

I was more trying to say that out of their flagship franchises, Marvel probably has more to work with that a modern movie-going audience would be interested in while most of DC is a bit dated.

Well, I can agree with that, to an extent, but ultimately it's going to come down to how the material is handled. Green Lantern and others could be good, but they botched that one pretty severely. Same goes for Ghost Rider, the Fantastic Four, etc. There's a lot to work with from either company, though.

I literally just finished watching The Dark Knight Rises again, and I can't help but think that it's not big and dumb enough for most people. I fucking loved it and, yeah, it has faults, but nearly every movie does. A lot of the complaints seem to stem from people not realizing that the trilogy is an actual cohesive series with a story, and it's not just a trio of blockbusters to showcase explosions and witty banter. I mean, it has those things, but there's more to it than that and there has been since the first movie. Something like The Avengers is going to be more enjoyable for a breezy, colorful movie where you don't really care too much about what's going on and can miss minutes at a time to go take a shit and not really miss anything. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, but because these movies came out in the same year, the comparisons happen, even if they shouldn't.

To whatever dumb fuck said that it's a rehash because the League of Shadows shows up: do you just, like, not recognize how stories work? The series started with them, and Batman beginning his crusade and having a future as Batman ahead of him, and it ends with the League and his time as Batman coming to an end. The phrase "coming full circle" just never made it to your part of the trailer park?

blow it out your ass
it's lazy because they couldn't think of something new so they just redid the villain storyline of the first movie, but made it worse

as for the "coming full circle" thing-he's batman for less than a year, quits, suits up maybe 3 more times and quits permanently so he can live the rest of his days as a selfish ass
that's full circle? or is it that he left all his gear to some unqualified, untrained beat cop doofus to become the new batman, although realistically he'd be dead awfully quick

maybe my expectations were a little high, i was hoping for some kind of cross between the dark knight and knightfall, where in the end batman defeats bane, clears his name and continues to be the selfless "hero" watching over gotham
and what i got was quitman and friends in some mangled mess fighting the villains from the world is not enough

So you wanted the typical ending?

Guys! Every Bond movie that had SPECTRE after Thunderball was dumb and lazy.

And here I was wondering if you'd live up to that stupid name by quoting directly.

Your criticism doesn't even make sense. The enemy that he defeated when he was new came back with a vengeance, and it was the thing that drove him back into the suit and gave him a way to essentially kill himself after a life of pain. That's not so much "redoing the villain storyline of the first, but making it worse" as going back to his roots to find a legitimate threat that caused him to actually want to live, abandon his self-destructive quest for revenge, and leave people with a legacy. It was established in the first movie that The League of Shadows is pretty dangerous and it only makes sense that someone trained like he was who went down the path that he rejected would be the one to bring him closest to death.

I don't know the timeline for Batman Begins up to the end of The Dark Knight, but I'm guessing that it's more than a year, and he had plenty of time to get all of those injuries and become disillusioned before the catalyst of TDK causes him to quit in order to get the city to become a better place. It's not living the rest of his life as a selfish ass; did you miss the part where they explicitly said that Gotham has never been safer, as a direct result of the Dent act, which only happened because of Batman going into hiding? You seem to be forgetting that part, along with the fact that this trilogy has always been significantly darker than other movies of its type, and after the woman that he loved got blown up, he'd become just a wee bit depressed.

That whole untrained Robin criticism is definitely understandable, but I think it signifies than the Batman legacy will live on more than a really explicit Robin is going to be the new Batman sort of thing. Obviously Robin can take care of himself, and Bruce had a ton of training, but I don't think we're supposed to conclude that he's going to pick up exactly where Bruce left off and do the exact same things. We can probably also assume that he'd be left some sort of tips, at the very least, and would try to get his own training if he were to go down that path. Even in the comics, none of the Robins are ever as good as Batman; No one is--that's why he's Batman.

Edit: Uh, just to clarify, that first thing is aimed at Duke.

I've always hated that! Why are you here again, Blofeld? Plus, it's like, another villain bent on world domination? Boooooring.

now that ive seen it a second time i have to agree with you its definitely too intellectual for most people


:lol

also my favorite scene in the entire movie is when "robin" shoots the truck and the bullet ricochets and kills that guy

so what did you think of godfather 3

It's not intellectual, but it's not as big, dumb and loud as most movies of that size. YOU SHUT UP.

For the dark knight being the conclusion it felt too condensed. Where you can see where he is trying to go with it storywise but if there was more time to flesh everything out.....maybe turned it into a five hour movie.

Marvel Studios doesn't own the movie rights to those films/characters. That's all Fox and Sony's fault for making shitty movies.

All the movies Marvel Studios have done themselves are pretty good, and always make a profit for them. Only clear cut profitable movies DC's put out are the Nolan Batman films and Superman Returns, to a much smaller degree.

Yeah, I wanted to see Robin more instead of fucking catwoman.