Come anticipate "The Dark Knight Rises" with *BATSPOILERS*

If Elijah Wood took a fuckload of PCP or something... Shia LaBoeuf.

Bane! The terrifying destroyer of

http://gawker.com/5929675/heres-a-video-of-hollywood-heartthrob-tom-hardy-rapping-with-his-baby-boy

Never mind.

so i just saw this and while i didnt like hate it i was pretty ~meh~ for most of the film.

i guess i'll just list some thoughts in point form, sorry if i repeat anything anyone else has said:

- there were no really great set pieces. the best one was the airplane thing and i'd already seen that in a preview before MI4. and i remembered it being way better because i think i was lifted at the time
- dug bane's voice, dug him in general, but at some point they just ran out of character with him. he stopped being fascinating or scary, he was just a big bad guy. and the talia reveal really made him seem less impressive in retrospect. he didn't even die well
- too fucking long, goes without saying, but seriously did we really need stuff like the mean policeman's redemption
- i don't think the movie's 'politics' are particularly well-thought-out or intentional but having it be about batman & a million cops saving the rich people from the rag-tag revolutionaries was lame, the whole rush limbaugh thing is kinda funny when the movie is kinda 'romney', i mean let's not even mention how it's about an incredibly rich guy with a chip on his shoulder who goes into broken-down neighbourhoods and beats up poor people
- as a friend pointed out, WAY TOO MUCH DAYLIGHT for a batman movie, batman movies should take place mostly at night, this was like 90% in the daytime, lame
- how corny was it when batman was like 'no, i give YOU permission to die! ;)'
- feel like nolan just broke down this time and admitted that gotham is new york, but his idea of the city is really weird and doesnt feel real or even comic-book-real at all
- what is bane's whole plan anyway, esp for his reign of terror, which seemed p chill
- anne hathaway foxy
- all of nolan's batman movies end kind of the same don't they? is it just me or does wayne manor get destroyed or sold off at the end of each one? and batman disappears and its all BUT WILL A NEW HERO RISE

'no, i give YOU permission to die! ;)'

this is literally in the script.

;_;

- as a friend pointed out, WAY TOO MUCH DAYLIGHT for a batman movie, batman movies should take place mostly at night, this was like 90% in the daytime, lame

Coincidence or not that this movie is approximately 90% Batman-free, too?

"the dark knight rises" = "the dark night rises" = a robin is a morning bird DO YOU SEE it ends w. a thermonuclear sunrise over gotham

Batman:
Promise you won't go out
And get mugged and murdered on me

Robin:
I cross my heart!

Batman:
I'll never let that happen
We'll have each other's backs and...

Robin:
Listen to the Jackson Five
And dance the night away.

Batman:
Robin you parted the clouds!

Robin:
And by the light of the moon
We have found the sunrise!

Batman and Robin:
Never thought I'd find it
Truly blinded by it
So bright, so bright, so bright.

Robin:
You are my bright knight!

Batman:
And you're my morning bird!

Batman and Robin:
We're wingmen singing in thirds.
You bring spring to my winter
Flying on the friendship ship.

Batman:
You are my bright knight.

Robin:
You're my morning bird.

Batman and Robin:
We're wingmen, my vision is blurred
For the tears of joy, no more dark, sad, lonely knights.

Coincidence or not that this movie is approximately 90% Batman-free, too?

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, July 27, 2012 6:17 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this bothered me too

too much JGL investigating things and assembling a child army, too little batman

- what is bane's whole plan anyway, esp for his reign of terror, which seemed p chill

i guess he was planning to die in the nuclear explosion, right? no exit strategy.

bane died inside when he lost his adopted daughter just as bruce wayne died inside when he lost his parents

i kinda dug the lack of actual batman, esp since nolan batman looks and sounds kinda corny (very much 'yup it's a guy in a suit', which i guess is in keeping with his whole 'naturalism' thing).

so he was fighting from nihilism which was enough to beat batman but then batman came back with the caring and the baby bird leaving the policeman nest and loving his adopted dads alfred and gordon and gotham (it also made him what he is) and that was how beat the bane

- as a friend pointed out, WAY TOO MUCH DAYLIGHT for a batman movie, batman movies should take place mostly at night, this was like 90% in the daytime, lame

this is so otm, yes. which is bad because a couple of the first times that he was fighting in daylight in front of a building it was exciting & novel, but after that it just didn't fit. it really hinders the way we see him move.

if no sunlight was not enough to make dark city good then certainly sunlight should not be enough to make the dark night bad

ALSO did anyone find it a bit weird that there was like NO mention of the joker at all in this movie... they couldn't stop talking about harvey dent every 5 minutes but nobody remembers the j man??

Agreed, this was weird, especially since there are moments when it seems just really germane to the conversation someone's having, about Gotham's potential for good, or whether Batman stirs up crime, or who was responsible for Harvey Dent's fall, or Batman's retirement or whatever.

dug bane's voice, dug him in general, but at some point they just ran out of character with him. he stopped being fascinating or scary, he was just a big bad guy. and the talia reveal really made him seem less impressive in retrospect. he didn't even die well

this this this

i just wanted his mask to get ripped off and for him to have a really fucked up mouth or something.

instead catwoman kills him with a cannon.

Yeah, and after all that buildup at the start of the movie, and the central moment of him defeating Batman in their first matchup... just another reason why Talia should not have been in the movie, she totally derails Bane's centrality as a villain.

absolutely right. they really ruined Bane's character theme of being the anti-bruce wayne with that twist

- too fucking long, goes without saying, but seriously did we really need stuff like the mean policeman's redemption

lol the dude dying and the camera meaningfully lingering on his body was almost enough for an audible 'who cares' out of me

like i opened my mouth and then thought "no, you fool"

haha yeah some people were yelling out shit throughout my showing and at that point someone went "WAH WAAAAAAH"

more like wah waaah waaaaah but you get it

that was far and away the worst scene

"well now that you've been murdered by thugs and can't support your family you're finally a brave man"

I thought that was pretty much trumpeted from the start of the scene. Here's this guy who's been called on to act in the hour of need and refused and he's finally got it together to do something. So in a traditionally moralistic film he's inevitably going to die in the battle scene.
I think I was actually waiting for the moment he was shown to be killed.

What was he anyway, assistant police commissioner?

might hope for something not so traditionally moralistic though.
Really like some kind of 50s movie in that way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdYlaD6e84w

Wish Bane had rapped now instead.

This was probably the best - flaws and all - of the superhero trilogies by quite a distance. Simply because its trying on some level, however confusedly thought out to try and work out some of the politics and the adolescent guff behind this stuff, with some action and explosions -- but not too much, first plus, as I don't care for boring ballearic action in action movies at this point. Agreed with the whole 'where do you hear speeches in blockbusters at all' angle to this! Somehow the whole Must.Show.My.work. that makes these films nearly three hours long are worked up with a kineticism that means they often don't flag (this one probably did more than the others at times but overall I did't feel it), even if Bane isn't on the level of the Joker - but when was it ever going to be like that? The Joker in the last film felt like a very happy accident -- the stars aligned on some level.

And if this sounds like 'this was good...for a blockbuster' then that's probably true...but I also feel like its not that big of a deal that this thinks about anything. Probably on the fence as usual - worse than its supporters/better than its detractors think it is.

So yeah, how anti- light/action/ and the like, has a flavour to it. Gotta disagree that the films have to take place in the dark as long as there is some half-hearted justification for it, which is provided by a last round finale of Wayne coming out in the light and with the people -- letting them pretty much fight out and save themselves from the guy with the bomb so that they can do something about the rich at some point in the future, probably by the means of the ballot box (a far harder problem that not even Wayne can see from his mansion) -- which for a lot of the time they kind of do: Batman didn't stop Coitllard pushing the trigger. This falls in line with everyone knowing who the Bat was (almost means he wasn't needed), and his whole motivations/adolescent emotions being confronted by Alfred, his priviledge being questioned by Catwoman (as others here put it). His whole heroism is not all that, but by trying in his confused way he becomes something to aspire to: he tried, and the worst thing a person can do is not to try. And life is a box of chocolates, etc.

Hathaway was great (can't believe I forgot of her existence) but a shame Coitllard didn't have enough screen time, given the reveal.

Great discussion though. And all I was coming here to do was to report how I sat next to someone that shed a tear as the Bat went to his (near) death. That was fkn hilarious!! And you know I also don't think that Bane died (?) They didn't show his shattered body and Homer took a few shots of canon of his stomach in that one ep and it took him a few goes of that to become a risk-of-death scenario.

loads of people thought Harvey Dent didn't die. Nolan just seems to bungle those scenes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzhISE-r5ps

kinda wish they had sort of borrowed more from this version of bane, or maybe i just wish uma thurman had been in this movie

So yeah, how anti- light/action/ and the like, has a flavour to it. Gotta disagree that the films have to take place in the dark as long as there is some half-hearted justification for it, which is provided by a last round finale of Wayne coming out in the light and with the people -- letting them pretty much fight out and save themselves from the guy with the bomb so that they can do something about the rich at some point in the future, probably by the means of the ballot box (a far harder problem that not even Wayne can see from his mansion) -- which for a lot of the time they kind of do: Batman didn't stop Coitllard pushing the trigger. This falls in line with everyone knowing who the Bat was (almost means he wasn't needed), and his whole motivations/adolescent emotions being confronted by Alfred, his priviledge being questioned by Catwoman (as others here put it). His whole heroism is not all that, but by trying in his confused way he becomes something to aspire to: he tried, and the worst thing a person can do is not to try. And life is a box of chocolates, etc.

Yeah, I dig this basically - and let's not forget that Batman's ultimate choice in this thing is to retire. He may do that for personal reasons (he deserves to have a life, Alfred was right, etc.) but it seems more likely he does it because his quest is either complete or he's come to recognize the danger posed by vigilantism, after the Joker situation and then the lawlessness of the Bane Era, or something. It's not spelled out 100% and there are holes in it, but it seems weird to say the movies are a one-sided celebration of rich guys beating up on poor people when the rich guy's final choice is to stop doing that. (Also, I mean - - - is there a take on Batman that doesn't involve a rich guy taking the law into his own hands and fighting street crime hand to hand?)

- i don't think the movie's 'politics' are particularly well-thought-out or intentional but having it be about batman & a million cops saving the rich people from the rag-tag revolutionaries was lame, the whole rush limbaugh thing is kinda funny when the movie is kinda 'romney', i mean let's not even mention how it's about an incredibly rich guy with a chip on his shoulder who goes into broken-down neighbourhoods and beats up poor people

^^^

- feel like nolan just broke down this time and admitted that gotham is new york, but his idea of the city is really weird and doesnt feel real or even comic-book-real at all

this too, and i was fine with it - just rewatched batman begins the other night and i forgot how lame gotham was in that movie. kinda funny how he went from 'futuristic' to 'w/e, new york' in 3 films

Uma Thurman making me appreciate Anna Hathaway all the more.

Yeah, I dig this basically - and let's not forget that Batman's ultimate choice in this thing is to retire. He may do that for personal reasons (he deserves to have a life, Alfred was right, etc.) but it seems more likely he does it because his quest is either complete or he's come to recognize the danger posed by vigilantism, after the Joker situation and then the lawlessness of the Bane Era, or something. It's not spelled out 100% and there are holes in it, but it seems weird to say the movies are a one-sided celebration of rich guys beating up on poor people when the rich guy's final choice is to stop doing that. (Also, I mean - - - is there a take on Batman that doesn't involve a rich guy taking the law into his own hands and fighting street crime hand to hand?)

― Doctor Casino, Saturday, July 28, 2012 10:13 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lot less meaningful when he already did that at the end of the last movie imo

Gotta disagree that the films have to take place in the dark as long as there is some half-hearted justification for it, which is provided by a last round finale of Wayne coming out in the light and with the people -- letting them pretty much fight out and save themselves from the guy with the bomb so that they can do something about the rich at some point in the future, probably by the means of the ballot box (a far harder problem that not even Wayne can see from his mansion)

actually he comes out in the light and fights alongside the cops, and i dont see how this lets them "do something about the rich at some point in the future"??

also... way too much harvey dent stuff, i don't know why they kept hammering at that when in the end it didn't really affect the plot at all, even the whole dubious "bane reads a confession letter to the football stadium" thing was sort of a dead-end.

Cops aren't people? Or at least people pay their salaries.

I don't see the whole he is a rich guy beating the poor either. He is defending the city he loves (and the people in it) against people who want to destroy it, who barely disguise it it as a fight against corruption.

well the movie distinctly set up bane's posse as "the people" vs "rich people and the cops," so in that (admittedly hazy and poorly-conceived) dichotomy, batman is on the side of the powers that be, not the people

The politics of the films aren't all too clear (suits the makers I guess). There seems to be a taste for nihilism with a distate for what it ultimately could lead to: a state of complete and utter anarchy.

Anarchy is beaten off -- violence and a 'final' confrontation are kept at bay so what you have are elections and laws and order. Corruption is for bankers etc. only.

xp = not really: Bane says that one person in the stadium has the finger on the trigger and could lead the people to take control of their own lives. But they are terrorised, frightened to lock their homes (one of them is that cop, Gordon's deputy). And it was the terrorists who had control of the bomb at all times.

Batman is not wholly on the side of the people because he doesn't play by the laws they make; he plays the means to an end card. But in the end he feels he is helping them by protecting them, believing them to be essentially good and will make the right decisions.

If only someone would explore the internal conflict between Bruce Wayne and Batman.

i don't think the politics are thought-through enough beyond some general hand-waving, tbh. there's no real "takeaway" imho

i dont think movies need political "takeaways" or even need to be "thought-through" in terms of politics. that's kinda the whole advantage of making a movie rather than, you know, writing political philosophy.

neither do i?

i was rebutting this sentiment:

Gotta disagree that the films have to take place in the dark as long as there is some half-hearted justification for it, which is provided by a last round finale of Wayne coming out in the light and with the people -- letting them pretty much fight out and save themselves from the guy with the bomb so that they can do something about the rich at some point in the future, probably by the means of the ballot box (a far harder problem that not even Wayne can see from his mansion)

which seemed to imply that it DID

Sorry! I misread you.

well the movie distinctly set up bane's posse as "the people" vs "rich people and the cops," so in that (admittedly hazy and poorly-conceived) dichotomy, batman is on the side of the powers that be, not the people

― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Saturday, July 28, 2012 12:03 PM Bookmark

Yeah, except that it's the movie that sets up Bane's posse as "the people," it's Bane, the supervillain, who makes all these statements about the PEE-POLL but nobody seems remotely interested and his revolution just amounts to his thugs messing with people. The movie doesn't make any effort to show people signing up en masse for Bane's gang or anything like that; the lessons Gotham learned in the second movie have apparently stayed learned, which I guess is why Batman feels it's time for him to ride off into the atomic sunset once the super-criminals are taken down.

That's still politically dicey, I agree, since it suggests that we should put our faith in those who ask for extralegal power "temporarily" to "take down the big threats." But I don't think the movie sides with "capital" against "people," it sides with civil institutions against vigilantes. The open question is to what extent it includes Batman as one of the vigilantes being sided against. I appreciate that Nolan even bothers to make that a gray area, and the grayness a central theme. Compare to, uh, every other superhero movie ever, not to mention every "cop takes law into his own hands" type movie, and he looks way way more serious about opening the political questions than anybody in the room.

should be a NOT in my first sentence there