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RTTP: The Dark Knight Rises (Yes, It's Our Weekly TDKR Thread)

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foxtrot3d

Banned
Oh God it looks like a Jerry Springer catfight.

While on the subject of TDKR, can someone explain to me why Bruce wastes at least several hours pouring the gasoline all over that building to make the giant bat sign?

Theatricality and Deception.

But most importantly, he's giving the people of Gotham a symbol to rally behind. He's letting them all know that Batman has returned and it's time to set things right. Does this really need to be explained? Did you miss all those time Robin was drawing the Bat symbol everywhere so people wouldn't give a hope?
 

ElyrionX

Member
Wait, I thought it was a very mediocre movie but my impression was that the majority of people/GAF thought it was good. At least, going off the impressions thread when the movie first came out.
 

Kathian

Banned
Oh God it looks like a Jerry Springer catfight.

While on the subject of TDKR, can someone explain to me why Bruce wastes at least several hours pouring the gasoline all over that building to make the giant bat sign?

Batman uses fear to break his enemies ranks and to dissuade people from thinking organised crime can protect him. They however never really use this in the film; the henchmen are canon fodder and we never get an insight into true civilian life.

The closest we get is Gordon recruiting the other Police Officer but that's Gordon influencing him, not so much Batman. What Batman does is not nonsense, its just the film never makes much effort to do anything with it.
 

A_Gorilla

Banned
Theatricality and Deception.

But most importantly, he's giving the people of Gotham a symbol to rally behind. He's letting them all know that Batman has returned and it's time to set things right. Does this really need to be explained? Did you miss all those time Robin was drawing the Bat symbol everywhere so people wouldn't give a hope?

Problem is he completely wastes the element of surprise, and could have used those extra hours to assault Bane earlier and maybe even deactivated the nuke on time.
 

foxtrot3d

Banned
Problem is he completely wastes the element of surprise, and could have used those extra hours to assault Bane earlier and maybe even deactivated the nuke on time.

How? Bane is surrounded by an Army of League trained Assassins and the nuke is MOBILE with a mystery trigger man. The only plan that could work was an all out assault on Bane.
 

G.O.O.

Member
Funny, I just rewatched it for the first time last night.

I loved it the first time, but there was so much negativity around it that I held myself for the rewatch ever since. Well, this time the flaws got more apparent, but... you know what ? It still fucking impresses me - scale, depth, characters, themes, you name it. Other comic book movies don't even come close to that, and now I realize how Marvel can't do shit with their villains.
 

A_Gorilla

Banned
How? Bane is surrounded by an Army of League trained Assassins and the nuke is MOBILE with a mystery trigger man. The only plan that could work was an all out assault on Bane.

The assault on Bane was stupid as all hell. Every single cop once freed should have been dedicated to finding that Nuke. Because guess what? Without that thing, all they have to do is call the army and Bane and his goons get carpet bombed into oblivion.

No, instead we get the hilarious scene of cops charging STRAIGHT INTO AUTOMATIC GUNFIRE and barely any of them going down.

But lets be fair, people actually tried that in real life. They were called the Zulu. Three guesses how that worked out for them...
 
One of my favourite examples of the showing of the passage of time is Sherlock's Scandal in Belgravia - its set over a reasonably long period of time but the direction(helped strongly by the writing - which I feel is the biggest problem with DKRs passage of time) shows and tells it seamlessly. You feel time pass as much as the characters.

For some films its not too important, but when you divide your main characters apart over a long period of time its pretty essential to make the viewer feel the effect of having them removed. Its quite an essential idea, Bruce watching Gotham in need is to show this - his want to get back, the hurt the city is going through. But it really struggles to make the time clear (and is not helped by the frankly awful and lazy scene where he appears under a bridge - felt like second unit stuff on a very important moment).

There's an interview where Nolan talks quite a bit about this aspect of time and how hard it can be to show its passage without being bluntly explicit about it. His idea was to show time with very basic visual cues. Seasonly weather and how Gotham becomes an isolated place , with isolated streets , no life and everybody confined either at gatherings or their homes. Outside of the montage , there's really no dramatic outputs of the city , which i think is very much purposeful. The movie is really not about the fake revolution Bane tries to implement.

As for time in movies , just recently watching the Godfather , the span of the film is huge. Brando gets older in a section of the movie and Michael announces his comeback to Kate (saying how long he has been in America since the return) , but i firmly believe lots of people would have an hard time to know how long is the passage and especially where it splits.


While on the subject of TDKR, can someone explain to me why Bruce wastes at least several hours pouring the gasoline all over that building to make the giant bat sign?

The city is completely lethargic. He is showing himself to Gotham. People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy.
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
As for time in movies , just recently watching the Godfather , the span of the film is huge. Brando gets older in a section of the movie and Michael announces his comeback to Kate (saying how long he has been in America since the return) , but i firmly believe lots of people would have an hard time to know how long is the passage and especially where it splits.

TDKR OBVIOUSLY isn't as good as The Godfather, but you're right in how both films use time and rely on the audience to pick up cues. But Nolan gets told off when he exposits and then told off when he doesn't, so I just think people like to complain in that regard.
 

jey_16

Banned
Wait, I thought it was a very mediocre movie but my impression was that the majority of people/GAF thought it was good. At least, going off the impressions thread when the movie first came out.

in the real world, it was very well recieved. 87% on RT and a $1.1b gross.

on GAF though, its the worst film ever made and Nolan is the biggest hack ever
 
This film is still decent, and I was super into it the first time I watched it. It falls apart a bit in later viewings though. I'd say it still holds up better than '89 which really only has the great atmosphere and Gotham design.


The ending, although a bit nonsensical, is awesome and provides a more satisfying conclusion than most. By ending, I don't mean the final battle. That kind of sucked. Everything that happens after the bomb detonates, I adore.

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Dimefan3

Member
I watched this movie for only the 2nd time the other week, the first being when it originally came out. I forgot how much this movie kicked ass.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Ben Affleck goes in the suit.

You're forgetting the other good thing that came out of this movie...

tumblr_mbpozw8Lnv1r75wpso1_500.png
 

Kathian

Banned
There's an interview where Nolan talks quite a bit about this aspect of time and how hard it can be to show its passage without being bluntly explicit about it. His idea was to show time with very basic visual cues. Seasonly weather and how Gotham becomes an isolated place , with isolated streets , no life and everybody confined either at gatherings or their homes. Outside of the montage , there's really no dramatic outputs of the city , which i think is very much purposeful. The movie is really not about the fake revolution Bane tries to implement.

As for time in movies , just recently watching the Godfather , the span of the film is huge. Brando gets older in a section of the movie and Michael announces his comeback to Kate (saying how long he has been in America since the return) , but i firmly believe lots of people would have an hard time to know how long is the passage and especially where it splits.

Maybe its the acting? In Godfather you see time move because quite clearly Michael changes as a character and forms into someone from well - nothing. In Batman, everyone is more or less the same at the end as they were at the start.

It is hard to show the passage of time and yes clearly the snow was a part of that, but even visual cues like the cops coming out - not in their uniform and shirts done up could begin to help. That was a big miss; along with most of the characters acting like it has been about a week (which is partly the directors responsibility). Even Bruce/Batman seems to return to Gotham like the well never happened and as if he'd been out for a week. Heck; even Talia acts like she saw him last week.

Its a bug bear and you might be right its something most viewers see in every film; it just really stood out to me. The Sherlock episode I mention uses events as well as weather - Christmas, New Year - but its backed up by acting, when someone leaves - you feel the lack of their presence on the characters and the feelings they have on their return. Even the end jumps forward in time (and uses flashbacks) but the actors and also the pacing somewhat really reflect we are in a different time period. Its so perfect that am not criticising DKR for not managing the same, just as an example of how it can be done and how it can't.
 

jelly

Member
It was very sloppy without a lot of care, that's what disappointed me along with truly terrible action scenes and parts that just didn't make sense or were too outrageous and silly to believe. Just a badly written and directed film. There is so many scenes were you think, how does that get the okay. The cops running into armed criminals, what the hell was that. Even that gif isn't the only bad part, catwomen and batman on the roof was terrible, Bane fight in the sewer was god awful. The fire symbol on the bridge, the daylight fight was cringe worthy especially if you focus for a second on the extras. Nolan had a bad script, directed many bad scenes, choreography woeful or badly filmed, bit of both?

I know this will get so much hate but the Dark Knight suffers a lot in similar ways but is elevated so much by the Joker.
 
Maybe its the acting? In Godfather you see time move because quite clearly Michael changes as a character and forms into someone from well - nothing. In Batman, everyone is more or less the same at the end as they were at the start.

It is hard to show the passage of time and yes clearly the snow was a part of that, but even visual cues like the cops coming out - not in their uniform and shirts done up could begin to help. That was a big miss; along with most of the characters acting like it has been about a week (which is partly the directors responsibility). Even Bruce/Batman seems to return to Gotham like the well never happened and as if he'd been out for a week. Heck; even Talia acts like she saw him last week.

Its a bug bear and you might be right its something most viewers see in every film; it just really stood out to me. The Sherlock episode I mention uses events as well as weather - Christmas, New Year - but its backed up by acting, when someone leaves - you feel the lack of their presence on the characters and the feelings they have on their return. Even the end jumps forward in time (and uses flashbacks) but the actors and also the pacing somewhat really reflect we are in a different time period. Its so perfect that am not criticising DKR for not managing the same, just as an example of how it can be done and how it can't.

I dont think its just the acting -. It's also easier to show long passages of time. Going back to the example i gave , seeing children be born and growing up immediately characterizes the timeframe , which is something harder to do when that window is shorter. But its also very elastic because there's sections where its very hard to pin point how long has it been between scenes. 1 week or 1 year ? I do understand your point is more about how time seems to lack influence in the characters , albeit i would oppose with the Selina Kyle example and she voices some input to what they have been through. Time seems more absolute when he is in the pit because we can see him fail and fail which gives a sense of progression.

I haven't seen the Sherlock episode you mentioned.
 

bob_arctor

Tough_Smooth
Great flick. The most comic book Nolan Batman movie.

Bats meeting Bane in the sewers that very first time--no other encounter in any other super hero movie has that gravitas. None.
 

hal9001

Banned
I honestly believe that if this film had been split up into 2 parts people would be hailing it as a masterpiece. Nolan just tried to cram too much inside.
 
Great flick. The most comic book Nolan Batman movie.

Bats meeting Bane in the sewers that very first time--no other encounter in any other super hero movie has that gravitas. None.

Rubbish. Even Nolan's own scene with Dent holding Gordon's kids trumps it in TDK. Thanks largely in part to James Newton Howard's dire as fuck score in that scene.
 
How does it perfectly wrap up the series? By giving a guy with no real training of how to be Batman the keys to the cowl? Or that Bruce just up and quit, something any other incarnation of the character could not do strictly on his own accord? Like I just can't help but think JGL goes out the first night and dies because he has literally no real understanding of what he's doing lol

And then the villains were bad. Bane wasn't even the main villain, just an overpaid henchman. The opening sequence with him was badass though.
 

nortonff

Hi, I'm nortonff. I spend my life going into threads to say that I don't care about the topic of the thread. It's a really good use of my time.
I think the editing is really one of the things that ruined the movie.
Many great things in it fall apart due to no sense of time at all. There was no despair, no chaos. I wanted to see the city suffair and cry for help before Batman arrives.

Also, the Bane X Batman sewer fight deserved ALOT more.

I agree with Marion casting. Really poor choice.

Still a great movie anyway. After TDK, I understand the criticism.
 
The editing is so bad, worse than any plot hole in the movie. The movie is too long yet scenes have no time to breathe, and many individual shots IN the scenes even feel weirdly truncated. Yet you also have time being wasted on extraneous subplots that don't go anywhere or really add to the theme or story in any meaningful way, like Matthew Modine's painfully cliche dick cop who gets killed in the battle. Like cut all that shit out so the other scenes don't feel like we're edited by someone with ADD on 3 cups of espresso. The Dark Knight did the whole fast paced editing style really well, because it felt like the film was in this constant state of climax and tension but it was very focused and there was still time to breathe in between. The sound mix kinda sucked too.

Also, after coming from the dark knight, it was really dissapointing how silly this movie was. Robin's orphan vision to tell how Wayne is Batman (maybe the script is rushing to get to the point as much as the editing and any reasonable way to find out would have taken precious time from our friend the dick cop), the robin reveal, everything involving talia, the goofy fly away with the bomb, every logical leap they Nolan had to make in order to get his conceit of Bane taking over Gotham to have massive fistfights in the streets (every cop trapped underground, the bridges etc), Wayne suddenly losing all his money after a known terrorist makes illegal stock transactions, Batman making jokes to himself in gravely voice, the giant burning bat symbol, catwoman, magic healing spine punch, and seemingly all the cheesy side characters that no one liked of the last two films, previously relegated to irksome one liners for the most part, are riddled throughout this and given tons of awful dialogue, the super cheesey ending with Wayne shacking up with catwoman...UGH there are so many eye rolling moments in this movie, it's soooo goofy. I just wanted another dark contemplative thriller after The Dark Knight with Batman forced to deal with the fallout of his new role as Gotham's bad guy and instead I got the cop from Reno 911 making jokes about old man Wayne.

Here's what I liked about the movie:
-Wally Pfister's cinematography
-The scale and ambition (tons of extras, the plane scene, the underground set)
-Tom Hardy
-the first Bane vs Batman fight

And that's it.
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
Robin's orphan vision to tell how Wayne is Batman (maybe the script is rushing to get to the point as much as the editing and any reasonable way to find out would have taken precious time from our friend the dick cop)

I'm going to quote MightyGodKing here...

Well, look at it this way. Blake (not “Robin” – come on, a one-line off-joke to get the cheap recognition laugh does not a Robin make) suffered the same sort of tragedy as Bruce did, and when he saw Bruce, he saw that Bruce was doing the same thing. Then when Batman shows up, Blake thinks “well, you’d need a lot of money to do Batman stuff, like having YOUR OWN SUPER-TANK and stuff, and who do I know who has both a lot of money and the same burning desire to Stop Crime that I do?” And there you go.

As others have noted often enough: it is not terribly hard to figure out Batman’s identity if you are not willfully blind. I mean, fuck, Egghead managed to do it (almost) during the 60s TV series. And he was Egghead.

In any case, if during Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s speech about how he was traumatized for life by the deaths of his parents and how it changes you, your first reaction was “well how did he figure out Batman’s secret identity,” I would kindly suggest maybe you were concentrating on the wrong bit of the movie.
 
Guys, do you realize stunt men don't actually punch each other, and if you slow every fight scene down you'll notice this?

And take away the sound effects.

Some of the DKR stunt choreography is pretty awful, but I think it gets more shit than it deserves, especially the Bane fight.

But the fights scenes are the last thing to be worried about concerning this movie,
 

Nibel

Member
The movie has very short moments of brilliance, but overall I couldn't shake off the feeling that Nolan never wanted to make this movie since it has so many holes and even directing-issues. Some of the stuff works pretty good though, like the first scene with the plane or the first fight against Bane.

But for each good scene you get a bunch of dumbass scenes like every cop of Gotham being suddenly kept in a hole or them fighting against criminals with guns with their fists. Like come on lmao
 

nortonff

Hi, I'm nortonff. I spend my life going into threads to say that I don't care about the topic of the thread. It's a really good use of my time.
From IMDB:

"Had Heath Ledger not died, the film would have involved the Joker going on trial while Two-Face (who survived the last film) went on a rampage across Gotham."

It would be a completely different movie. We would probably se a Joker's riot like in the Arkham games.
 

Rogan

Banned
From IMDB:

"Had Heath Ledger not died, the film would have involved the Joker going on trial while Two-Face (who survived the last film) went on a rampage across Gotham."

It would be a completely different movie. We would probably se a Joker's riot like in the Arkham games.

Can you imagene another film with Heath as the Joker?

Hopefully in a few years we can get a digital Heath as the Joker. Pretty sure this will happen somewhere down the line.
 

nortonff

Hi, I'm nortonff. I spend my life going into threads to say that I don't care about the topic of the thread. It's a really good use of my time.
Can you imagene another film with Heath as the Joker?

Hopefully in a few years we can get a digital Heath as the Joker. Pretty sure this will happen somewhere down the line.

Yeah, him locked up -> Harley Quinn > Two Face trying to set him free to kill the Bats.
It would have been like an Arkham game.
 
Honestly, the only thing I truly dislike about the film is how he magically heals from having a broken back.

Also, some of the fight scenes are a little ehhhh..
 
"Had Heath Ledger not died, the film would have involved the Joker going on trial while Two-Face (who survived the last film) went on a rampage across Gotham."

It would be a completely different movie. We would probably se a Joker's riot like in the Arkham games.

Pure internet fabrication.

Honestly, the only thing I truly dislike about the film is how he magically heals from having a broken back.

So Batman is hanging from the ceiling. Hypothetically, if he did that for a few months, could he align himself?
That's just going to depend on what damage occurred — if the spinal cord tore, if the vertebrae shattered, if arteries were severed. If everything else in his body remained intact except for the shape of the spine, then the shape of the spine could absolutely shift with gravity. But it's never one thing. Generally, it's fourteen things happening all at once. But if his bones were intact and they just moved out of place, gravity could do the job.

Gravity bro.
 

OSHAN

Member
Did you miss the part where Two Face died?

They could have just gone with a coma or something, but I do believe that is just something someone posted on the internet. Like a lot of things.

Anyway, I’m not really looking forward to Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (what a title) for a lot of reasons, and one in particular is I had this hope that, 15 years from now, when Nolan is supreme ruler, he would return to the Batman films to do his version of The Dark Knight Returns, with an older Bruce Wayne (Bale) coming back to Gotham incognito to see Robin. The Joker, having been locked up for 15 years, escapes, and Joker is too dangerous for Robin alone. So, The Dark Knight Returns.

The chances of that happening, with or without Batman V Superman being made, are zero, but I enjoy thinking about it. I also enjoy iced coffee, which I’m drinking now.
 
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