The Dark Knight Rises - seen thread *SPOILERS WITHIN* See Mod Warning in first post

Andy!!

Fully agree, BB is the mutts nuts.

cloud493

It goes TDK > TDKR > BB

IncognitoMan

more like BB > TDK > TDKR

The King of Moo

I'd probably put The Dark Knight Rises at the top, if only for its satisfying conclusion to the overall story, followed by Batman Begins, then The Dark Knight.

But having watched them all in close succession, I see them now as parts of one long great story.

IncognitoMan

The King of Moo wrote: »

I'd probably put The Dark Knight Rises at the top, if only for its satisfying conclusion to the overall story, followed by Batman Begins, then The Dark Knight.

But having watched them all in close succession, I see them now as parts of one long great story.

This is probably the way we should look at this series instead of trying to pit them against each other. All are very good films

e_e

The King of Moo wrote: »

I'd probably put The Dark Knight Rises at the top, if only for its satisfying conclusion to the overall story, followed by Batman Begins, then The Dark Knight.

But having watched them all in close succession, I see them now as parts of one long great story.

You read my mind.

It even works on a basic three act level for the character:

Movie 1 = The Beginning
Movie 2 = The Fall
Movie 3 = The Rise.

Nermal

Rodin wrote: »

Actually they do.

The film ending would have been much better ending on Alfred's knowing look, rather than actually showing Selena and Bruce alive.

Indeed, I don't know what they were thinking with this, it's insulting, really.

Even when Alfred was explaining this earlier in the film: was it necessary to show us the cafe? To show us his glass of wine and his gazing at the table in front of him? Just so we would recognise it at the end? Spoonfeeding shows a low opinion of your audience.

IncognitoMan

Nermal wrote: »

Indeed, I don't know what they were thinking with this, it's insulting, really.

Even when Alfred was explaining this earlier in the film: was it necessary to show us the cafe? To show us his glass of wine and his gazing at the table in front of him? Just so we would recognise it at the end? Spoonfeeding shows a low opinion of your audience.

Did ya see the amount of people that were saying online that the ending was a dream by Alfred. Ive said it in this thread before, Im glad he showed us Bruce in the cafe. Its ties up the story no ifs, no buts.

FloatingVoter

I'd excuse the ending on the grounds that contractually Nolan probably had to leave room for a sequel. Therefore the Robin rubbish and the Michael Caine restaurant scene. Batman will return as surely as James Bond - just under different management.
Next time I want a better villain - maybe Keyser Soze is apt to come out of retirement. Or Gyp from Boardwalk Empire. Darth Vader is also unemployed at the moment. Oh dear, I must get into the movie biz.

cloud493

I liked the ending. Liked the robin thing less.

Niles

cloud493 wrote: »

I liked the ending. Liked the robin thing less.

I'm in two minds about the Robin thing. On the one hand it was a nice little reference, but on the other I guess I'm too traditionalist and Robin has to be Dick Grayson (or at least Tim Drake).

I know Levitt's character had little traits belonging to the main three Robins (and I suppose Batman Beyond to an extent), but I wonder was this deliberate or just co-incidence?

Armin_Tamzarian

FloatingVoter wrote: »

I'd excuse the ending on the grounds that contractually Nolan probably had to leave room for a sequel. Therefore the Robin rubbish and the Michael Caine restaurant scene. Batman will return as surely as James Bond - just under different management.
Next time I want a better villain - maybe Keyser Soze is apt to come out of retirement. Or Gyp from Boardwalk Empire. Darth Vader is also unemployed at the moment. Oh dear, I must get into the movie biz.

Bane is the ultimate Batman villain.
In the comics he was a much bigger challenge to Batman than the Joker and broke the Joker out of Arkham to provide a distraction.
I didn't like the way that Bane ended up being a henchman rather than the main villain.
That wasn't fair to him.

FloatingVoter

Armin_Tamzarian wrote: »

Bane is the ultimate Batman villain.
In the comics he was a much bigger challenge to Batman than the Joker and broke the Joker out of Arkham to provide a distraction.
I didn't like the way that Bane ended up being a henchman rather than the main villain.
That wasn't fair to him.

That sounds plausible. A lot of people in here don't read the comics, just download the movie. To use the Star wars analogy again, I would imagine that there would have been the Emperor (Bane) behind Darth Vader (the Joker). Had it played like that we'd have had a movie instead of an overblown bar fight.
It still wasn't bad, but for 3 hours of my time I have seen better.

areyawell

I thought the film sucked with a lot of nonsense in it. Its not half the film the The Dark Knight is. Bane is the worst character Ive ever seen in a Batman movie.

Scanlas The 2nd

areyawell wrote: »

I thought the film sucked with a lot of nonsense in it. Its not half the film the The Dark Knight is. Bane is the worst character Ive ever seen in a Batman movie.

Really I thought he was the best batman villain we've seen in a movie, marginally beating the Joker. The part during the first fight where he lifts batman by the throat and accuses him of betraying the league of shadows was briliant and terrifying.

Niles

areyawell wrote: »

Bane is the worst character Ive ever seen in a Batman movie.

Worse than Arnie's depiction of Mr Freeze? :eek:

cloud493

I think the dark knight is far more about batman than people think.

FloatingVoter

Niles wrote: »

Worse than Arnie's depiction of Mr Freeze? :eek:

That was a good comedy.....wasn't it ?

ancapailldorcha

cloud493 wrote: »

I think the dark knight is far more about batman than people think.

I don't know, aside from the fact that the Joker tries to push Batman to break his no killing rule it seemed like Batman was the guy who got in the Joker's way.

Armin_Tamzarian

FloatingVoter wrote: »

That sounds plausible. A lot of people in here don't read the comics, just download the movie. To use the Star wars analogy again, I would imagine that there would have been the Emperor (Bane) behind Darth Vader (the Joker). Had it played like that we'd have had a movie instead of an overblown bar fight.
It still wasn't bad, but for 3 hours of my time I have seen better.

DK and Ledger's performance was always going to be next to impossible to top.
I've seen DKR twice in IMAX and will no doubt watch it several times on BR, I really liked it.
I think it's the weakest of the three and could have been better but was still good for all that.
It would have been great to have had the Joker back in it, if it was done right but obviously that was a non-starter.

Niles

FloatingVoter wrote: »

That was a good comedy.....wasn't it ?

Not sure it even worked on that level tbh!

Not really the criteria you'd expect to rate a Batman film on though...

cloud493

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I don't know, aside from the fact that the Joker tries to push Batman to break his no killing rule it seemed like Batman was the guy who got in the Joker's way.

In the sense it showed us batmans limits. He could have ended it, by killing the joker in the apartment, or in the police station, but he didn't. 'An unstoppable force meets an immovable object'

sticker

Watched it for the 2nd time last night and whereas I thought it was quite disappointing and drawn out the first screening, I really enjoyed it as a return visit...

Gamb!t

e_e wrote: »

You read my mind.

It even works on a basic three act level for the character:

Movie 1 = The Beginning
Movie 2 = The Fall
Movie 3 = The Rise.

Or perhaps
Fear
Anger
Pain

Gamb!t

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Really I thought he was the best batman villain we've seen in a movie, marginally beating the Joker. The part during the first fight where he lifts batman by the throat and accuses him of betraying the league of shadows was briliant and terrifying.

I thought he was brilliant up until he put Bruce in prison(his lines were class too) but after that he lost his way a bit.

Roar

sticker wrote: »

Watched it for the 2nd time last night and whereas I thought it was quite disappointing and drawn out the first screening, I really enjoyed it as a return visit...

This. Second time around I thought the time just flew by. Enjoyed it much much more second time around.

ancapailldorcha

cloud493 wrote: »

In the sense it showed us batmans limits. He could have ended it, by killing the joker in the apartment, or in the police station, but he didn't. 'An unstoppable force meets an immovable object'

It worked pretty well in that sense, I was more referring to the fact that the Joker stole the show and detracted a lot of my attention from Batman.

cloud493

No thats true, I wouldn't argue with you there. Still the best one of three though I think.

ancapailldorcha

Might have been better if I'd just said that at the start.

PaulB1984

The King of Moo wrote: »

You can't have liked any of Nolan's films then. One of the main themes of them was that Batman serves more purpose as a symbol to inspire others, rather than a fighter who could single-handedly take down the League of Shadows with all of Wayne Enterprises' weapons at their disposal.
That's why, in contrast to the comics, for example, we never see Batman beating up random muggers and so on. That can only achieve so much.
If he were able to kill Bane and Talia, kill all of their heavily-armed goons, rescue the orphans and defuse the bomb or detonate it at a safe distance all by himself, it would've been absurd beyond belief.

Even in the previous two films he's not alone. In Batman Begins he needs Alfred to rouse him to go stop Rhas al Ghul, and Gordon to help him stop the train.
In The Dark Knight, the decisions of the people on the ferries not to give in and kill each other is arguably more important narratively and thematically than Batman rescuing the hostages and catching The Joker. Batman's most important act in that film is to take responsibility for Dent's crimes: acting as a symbol, but a negative one for the citizens of Gotham to rally against.
That's why I love the end of The Dark Knight Rises: he once more uses Batman as a symbol, resonating with his decision at the end of The Dark Knight. Only this time it's a symbol of heroism and self-sacrifice for the people of Gotham to get behind, as he'd originally planned.

Oh i agree, Batman should be a symbol, but not even that shone through for me. With Christopher Nolan, he's always found a perfect balance between story and action with these kind of movies. Even Inception, which i love, there's a movie that strikes the balance between fantastic characters, a genius story and truly amazing visuals and action sequences. Just like he did with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. And with the story of TDK, he found a way to have a piece of everything, the moral dillemas, the test of will, the want for revenge, everything he could use he did and with huge success, but he never wavered on his promise to deliver thrilling action sequences and plenty of wonderful screentime with the Joker. That's what i wanted from Dark Knight Rises. There are people in this country alone who have been quite negative about the movie. Was it the Irish Times reviewer who gave it 2 stars, called it a "Self-indulgent mess, a bum-numbing movie with a boring villian and horrible narrative"? And then there's the wonderful Lisa Cannon from Xpose who reviewed it for TV3 on it's release, she did give it 4 stars, but also called it dull, overly long and disappointing. Gordon Hayden, another very popular TV3 critic also said it was overrated and he was disappointed by it. As someone said here somewhere, their favourite thing from the whole trilogy is the first hour of Batman Begins, and in a way i'm inclined to agree somewhat, as it weaved a perfect story, it covered important ground to build the movie upon, it left out nothing and yet did it with a thrill and epic feel like no other comic book movie has ever done. DKR did not do that, instead it tried to rely on the previous movies by copying huge chunks from them (Including a really bad Raz Al Ghul cameo from Liam Neeson). And Bane? In all honesty, and you really seem to know your stuff, can you tell me that Bane really does match up to the Joker, Harvey Dent or Raz Al Ghul? For me, he's nowhere near the level of those characters. Again, by all means, this is a movie i want to love, i really want to see in it what others have, and perhaps it may happen one day. But to sit in a cinema watching Batman Begins and then 3 years later The Dark Knight, and be so thrilled by them that they end up in my top 10 favourite movies ever? I wish people could see what i'm so let down by DKR.