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

Maybe that's why only that one guy could defuse such a bomb.

holy shit at the cops triumphantly marching out to savagely beat the poor people's revolutionary army and restore gotham's elite to their rightful penthouses

― adam, Sunday, July 29, 2012 10:08 PM

brought a tear to my eye. cops being as oppressed as they are in this country nice to finally see them get theirs

it really blew me away that the example of gotham's ultimate chaos and degeneration was park ave ppl getting kicked out of their homes

i mean not that i'm in favour of that but

i guess they were really going for the Tale of Two Cities thing but urm...yeah I did not feel right watching that

more like a tale of two shitties imo

that was beneath even you, bro

i only call em like i see em

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d5/Garfield_A_Tail_of_Two_Kitties.jpg/220px-Garfield_A_Tail_of_Two_Kitties.jpg

also did anyone find it a bit weak that the un-escapable prison of death provided a safety rope for its potential escapees

i also LOLed at the rope at the top that dude threw down after he got out

the prison was ridiculous in every respect

ask and ye shall receive: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/07/30/the_dark_knight_rises_climbing_scenes_don_t_make_any_sense_at_all.html

as i said upthread, its a prison filled with greek pensioners drinking tea

and doing physiotherapy

"it's not so bad, this prison" makes me LOL every time i think of the movie basically.

ayo is that slate piece by an ex-ilxer

i also LOLed at the rope at the top that dude threw down after he got out

that was ridic. i imagined it getting added after some note from the studio about 'but doesn't it make batman look like an asshole if he leaves all those nice prisoners down in the hole?'

sorry, misquote that sort of loses the casual, laid-back vibe of the hell pit:

i liked how the guys in the worst prison on earth are just like greek pensioners or something... making batman tea on a hot plate... ehh this prison...its not so bad

― Black_vegeta (Hungry4Ass), Friday, July 20, 2012 3:45 PM Bookmark

Would sort of like it if this aspect was played up more deliberately, like the point is that it WAS the worst prison on earth, which is what made Bane so tough, but since taking over running it, it operates really differently, dude doesn't tolerate random prisoner-on-prisoner violence, etc etc...so it's basically just a holding tank for anybody Bane has a grudge against, or that he's not using on a project right this second. Kind of expected Bruce to rescue everybody else from down there and recruit them in his fight against Bane or something, oh well, I'm sure they're probably doing okay down there...may have had to make do with powdered non-dairy creamer but otherwise life goes on.

ugh my pronouns are all messed up in that post, sorry

Yup, that's an ex-ilxor/ILG mod

They did mention "This is Bane's prison now."

"it's not so bad, this prison" makes me LOL every time i think of the movie basically.

― Doctor Casino, Monday, July 30, 2012 2:47 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

http://i.imgur.com/KeUPt.gif

Would sort of like it if this aspect was played up more deliberately, like the point is that it WAS the worst prison on earth, which is what made Bane so tough, but since taking over running it, it operates really differently, dude doesn't tolerate random prisoner-on-prisoner violence, etc etc

what a terrifying place for batman to get thrown into... I CONDEMN YOU TO THIS HUMANE, FAIR HELLHOLE

HERE YOU WILL DIE SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY, IN PROBABLY THIRTY TO FORTY YEARS, ASSUMING YOU LET YOURSELF INDULGE AT THE DESSERT BAR TOO OFTEN

WHEN YOU HAVE UNDERGONE PHYSIOTHERAPY... YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO DIE

Would sort of like it if this aspect was played up more deliberately, like the point is that it WAS the worst prison on earth, which is what made Bane so tough, but since taking over running it, it operates really differently, dude doesn't tolerate random prisoner-on-prisoner violence, etc etc...so it's basically just a holding tank for anybody Bane has a grudge against, or that he's not using on a project right this second.

what we didn't see of BANE'S GOTHAM was that everybody just hung out playing chess and making each other cups of tea.

I think Bane's argument was that it was the worst prison in the world because seeing the light above you constantly taunted with you with the hope of getting out. This is the kind of an opposing psychological theory to every other prison movie ever, where hope is the only thing that keeps people going. I'll let you know which is right if I ever get thrown in prison.

Maybe it makes more sense as a metaphor for capitalist society, in which people are fed the lie of social mobility but ultimately it's all awful.

and since Bane is an evil communist, he just doesn't get it, that you have to STRIVE to the light to succeed

Maybe it makes more sense as a metaphor for capitalist society, in which people are fed the lie of social mobility but ultimately it's all awful.

― Alba, Monday, July 30, 2012 3:20 PM Bookmark

Now that you say this, I definitely think it's in there, although underdeveloped, similar to how Catwoman's speech to Bruce while they dance doesn't ever really go anywhere. Say what you want about the unsubtlety of BB and TDK's themes, at least the movie seemed consistently aware that those were the themes. DKR keeps falling in and out of focus with that stuff.

Much as I enjoyed the movie, I think I'd like it better if it were 30-45 minutes shorter (cutting the superfluous subplots and characters, especially Talia)... OR if it were 30-45 minutes LONGER, adding back in some of the missing plot-transition stuff, and fleshing out Bane and Catwoman a bit more.

the sorrow and the pit-climb

sorry, what were the themes?

Climbing. Ageing. Cats.

weird i didnt like it more

The prison pit escaped bugged me, too, for a different reason. I thought, especially once the bats flew by, that savvy Bruce would see a small crevasse he could then escape through, thus avoiding the jump. The lesson being that most arrogant prisoners go for the leap and die, but clever observers (like the child) would see the easy way out if they simply paid attention.

But no, he made the stupid jump.

those scenes really could've used a rockin' joe esposito song to juice things up

Say what you want about the unsubtlety of BB and TDK's themes, at least the movie seemed consistently aware that those were the themes.

I watched TDK again the other day. The theme that seems clearly put across is human capacity for evil. My problem with the film is that the two big showpieces for that (the dilemma over blowing up the other boat, and Dent's transformation into 2-Face) were the two clunking failures of the film – neither felt psychologically true. So I was left feeling like the film was a failure.

Are there other big TDK themes that I'm missing? I guess the theme of deception and symbolism is something that unites the whole trilogy.

I agree that TDKR's themes are less clearly brought out, but neither did I feel like it made a hash of them, so it was the more satisfying film to me. Even though I concede that a ticking bomb is a disappointingly corny device to end on.

The war of escalation with a big theme in TDK, with the Joker himself being a response to the year of Batman cleaning up Gotham. "What am I gonna do, go back to rippin' off mob dealers?" Which does nicely lead into Bruce finally retiring in this film, though the revenge plot superceded everything in TDKR, since eight years on it seems that Gotham is generally cleaned up - no corrupt cops, Gordon as commissioner - to the point that the remaining criminals are more legitimate businessmen

I mean, you can accuse Nolan & Goyer of a lot of things, but not thinking through their scripts really isn't one of them.

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 26 July 2012 11:27 (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol you cannot seriously believe this

I get what he's saying - every on-screen plot point is meticulously placed, though they tend to handwave away lots of things

I mean it's not prometheus-level random unconnected scenes of stupidity, but so many holes already pointed out on this thread (not that I noticed so many of them at the time).

those scenes really could've used a rockin' joe esposito song to juice things up

I was thinking the same thing, there were a lot of elements of this movie that reminded me of different 80s action movies. Bane is basically Clubber Lang.

anne hathaway as apollo creed. halfway thru this i went from lolling 'o this is basically rocky III' to sighing 'o this is nowhere near as good as rocky III'.

No way, it's totally Die Hard With A Vengeance:

* formerly "nighttime" series is suddenly in broad daylight
* things are blowing up all over the city and there's a lot of commuting
* villain's scheme involves phony 'construction' projects
* villain speaks largely in riddles, nobody really is clear what his actual plan is (1)
* but definitely the plan involves bomb(s) whose location in the city is not always clear
* way way longer and more episodic/rambling than previous two movies
* unlike previous two movies, long sequences are devoted to non-lead characters pursuing subplots and tracking the bomb(s)
* hero previously seen as a loner (though sometimes connected by radio links to ground personnel) now has a partner with whom to butt heads
* said partner calls into question hero's assumptions about himself, suggesting he may be a privileged insider to the system
* hero spends most of the movie recovering from a serious physical disadvantage
* also, hero is recovering from loss of his major love interest, a key character in previous two movies but not seen here
* an underground locale is flooded catastrophically by river water
* new villain has family connection to first movie's villain, second movie's villain is not mentioned
* new villain claims to be motivated by revenge re: dead family member, although sometimes they don't really seem to give a shit about that
* villain is actually a villain-pair, male and female, one brains and one brawn (2)
* staggered multi-ending, with final coda at considerable geographic remove from climax
* etc.?

(1) though, to be fair, Joker's schoolbus heist in TDK is a lot closer to the DHWAV heist
(2) DHWAV makes the woman the brawn, somewhat refreshingly

Oh, and

* villain answers mainly to an adopted name which makes him more sinister
* villain speaks in a crisp, somewhat hard to place Euro-accent
* villain constructs elaborate scenarios designed to torment the hero as a sideshow to his REAL plan

I don't see a lot of holes as much as people just rolling their eyes at why is this here? Like, the assistant police commissioner is a waste of every second he's in, but still in his scenes he's acting like he should.

xp Doctor Casino you are the true mad genius here.

wow

Haha that is amazing.

what would be the equivalent of bruce willis forced by the villain to walk into a black neighborhood wearing a racist sandwich sign?

Dr. Morbius being forced to watch this movie