I was slightly disappointed by the movie. It was definitely good but not great. The worst of the trilogy for sure with TDK being the best
This was from the foreword of the The Art and Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy book: Alfred. Gordon. Lucius. Bruce . . . Wayne. Names that have come to mean so much to me. Today, I’m three weeks from saying a final good-bye to these characters and their world. It’s my son’s ninth birthday. He was born as the Tumbler was being glued together in my garage from random parts of model kits. Much time, many changes. A shift from sets where some gunplay or a helicopter were extraordinary events to working days where crowds of extras, building demolitions, or mayhem thousands of feet in the air have become familiar.People ask if we’d always planned a trilogy. This is like being asked whether you had planned on growing up, getting married, having kids. The answer is complicated. When David and I first started cracking open Bruce’s story, we flirted with what might come after, then backed away, not wanting to look too deep into the future. I didn’t want to know everything that Bruce couldn’t; I wanted to live it with him. I told David and Jonah to put everything they knew into each film as we made it. The entire cast and crew put all they had into the first film. Nothing held back. Nothing saved for next time. They built an entire city. Then Christian and Michael and Gary and Morgan and Liam and Cillian started living in it. Christian bit off a big chunk of Bruce Wayne’s life and made it utterly compelling. He took us into a pop icon’s mind and never let us notice for an instant the fanciful nature of Bruce’s methods.I never thought we’d do a second—how many good sequels are there? Why roll those dice? But once I knew where it would take Bruce, and when I started to see glimpses of the antagonist, it became essential. We re-assembled the team and went back to Gotham. It had changed in three years. Bigger. More real. More modern. And a new force of chaos was coming to the fore. The ultimate scary clown, as brought to terrifying life by Heath. We’d held nothing back, but there were things we hadn’t been able to do the first time out—a Batsuit with a flexible neck, shooting on Imax. And things we’d chickened out on—destroying the Batmobile, burning up the villain’s blood money to show a complete disregard for conventional motivation. We took the supposed security of a sequel as license to throw caution to the wind and headed for the darkest corners of Gotham.I never thought we’d do a third—are there any great second sequels? But I kept wondering about the end of Bruce’s journey, and once David and I discovered it, I had to see it for myself. We had come back to what we had barely dared whisper about in those first days in my garage. We had been making a trilogy. I called everyone back together for another tour of Gotham. Four years later, it was still there. It even seemed a little cleaner, a little more polished. Wayne Manor had been rebuilt. Familiar faces were back—a little older, a little wiser . . . but not all was as it seemed.Gotham was rotting away at its foundations. A new evil bubbling up from beneath. Bruce had thought Batman was not needed anymore, but Bruce was wrong, just as I had been wrong. The Batman had to come back. I suppose he always will.Michael, Morgan, Gary, Cillian, Liam, Heath, Christian . . . Bale. Names that have come to mean so much to me. My time in Gotham, looking after one of the greatest and most enduring figures in pop culture, has been the most challenging and rewarding experience a filmmaker could hope for. I will miss the Batman. I like to think that he’ll miss me, but he’s never been particularly sentimental.
I like all 3 movies a lot, BB being a notch below the other two. I'm split between TDK and TDKR. I like how much different this one was compared to the other 2.
Since I'm not 15 yrs old anymore, TDKR. No hesitation. The Avengers wasn't all that; I liked it, but too many superheroes actually bogged down the movie. And, if you wanna b**** about a script, the Avengers.....well, er.....you know....
That's the beauty of it to me though.... no one movie has a likeness to the other. They all have something unique about them. I honestly didn't like BB as much as some of you did, overall it just felt dull. TDK was amazing, the villian, action, the suspense. Then TDKR comes along and completely turns everything upside down on you, the bad guy wins, turns an entire city to hell, and Batman still somehow pulls through with more than a few plot twists here and there. I enjoyed the Trilogy even with it's flaws, overall just great entertainment. Tha's all.
? Spoiler Which board member? IIRC, Lucius is held by Bane pretty early on, and he does just try to let the outside world know (the agents are caught thanks to Talia and killed, their bodies hung off a bridge). Doubtful; they were only about a month apart in release, and no one knew how Avengers would do regardless. Also, Nolan's made them so much money I doubt he has to worry about being controlled by any studio. I don't really think the movie had any impact on rises.
Spoiler That extra board member guy who went down to the reactor with Talia and Fox and the rest of the bad guys. As it turned out, the only two people who knew the bomb was actually going to go off who were not bad guys were Fox and the Board Member guy. Seems awfully odd to me that Bane didn't just kill them both right then. The NO ONE would have known, and their plan would have gone off without a hitch. If I was Bane I would have just snapped both their necks then and there. Especially considering the 'no loose ends' notion for why that creepy lawyer-looking guy tried to kill Selena as soon as she delivered the fingerprints. But maybe that's just me. ** Hehehe I know it seems like I am crusading against this movie. I'm not. I liked it, I hope everyone goes to see it, I hope it makes a ton of money. Because that means more like it in the future. But deliberately overlooking such gaping flaws is how we make sure we continue to have them next time too. Why do that? You can enjoy a movie and still offer up criticism.
Spoiler Is Bane a pedo? Lol didnt Talia say Ras didnt approve of Bane loving Talia & threw him out of League of Shadows. When we see Talia escape, she was a little child and Bane was a grownass man lol
Spoiler I think Lucius was kept alive on purpose - he knew the most about the reactor and in case they needed it again for whatever reason they would need him. Also they broke into his armory and stole his weapons - there could be something in there they needed him to know how to use. Also while they didnt know that Wayne was coming back it seemed like Bane would be a person that would want to kills Lucius in front of Wayne - further to 'break' his soul. I feel that Talia and Bane were going to be outside the blast radius and Bane would have gone back to the prison to have the last laugh with Wayne had their plan gone through successfully. the extra board member is likely dead though - they didn't have to show that but i dont recall seeing him again after that so chances are he was killed
Spoiler Sigh.... Bane told Bruce he wanted to terrorize the whole city of Gotham through a combination of hope and despair. So why should he kill Fox and anyone else who knows about the bomb? What could they even do in the first place? Bruce was in the pit (and probably thought of as dead by the Gotham folks), Bane (or Talia rather) had the detonator, anyone tries to tamper with the bomb or escape from Gotham takes the risk of having the blood of 12 million souls on his hands.... I mean, it is damn easy to nitpick. Heck, I nitpick on every girl that tries to date me. Even if she is a 9.9 out of 10. There is always always always something that makes her a slightly bigger loser than me.... maybe its the shape of her eyebrows, or I do not like the way she walks (if the butt doesn't sway in a certain way, for me its a no way), or she doesn't have as cute a smile as the Joker (she's too serious!).... she is never perfect! That's why I forever remain hunting for that perfect babe. And even if I meet one, I am scared that I may change my criteria and my mind the next day and no longer find her perfect again.... :grin:
Spoiler Anyway, I watched the movie again tonight. And I will forever be amazed with the breadth and vision of Christopher Nolan. Yes, the movie has its flaws (very very minor ones albeit), but what it gives out in return is so massive and so breathtaking, that I can only imagine the thought and effort that he and his brother must have put into writing the story. For me, the killer part was the little speech that Gordon read for Bruce at the grave... from the Tale of Two Cities.... the lines he chose to describe Bruce's vision of Gotham moving on from the Bastille type revolution that Bane tried to ignite.... that little part was one of many things that made the movie so special.... "I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long long to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." Truly a special touch, and only a special director could do it....
Yeah, I don't remember the exact sequence, I just knew they did try to get word out through the events mentioned. But yeah, flawed yet still highly enjoyable.
Spoiler Yeah it's edited weirdly so it seems like it's overnight, but Gordon tells the Obama looking special ops guy that there's 23 days to the nuke going off. That's followed by Bruce making 2 attempts and escaping on the 2nd attempt. So we don't know how many days it took him to get back to Gotham but it's probably at least a week or 2. Keep in mind that the immediate shot of Bruce after he leaves the pit is a clear shot of a large town including visible telephone poles. From there Bruce could wire anywhere in the world. As far as plot holes related to that scene I had no issue with Bruce getting to Gotham, Bruce probably has accounts all over the world for Batman's use. But... 1) how did TALIA find her father? a little kid find the leader of a secret terrorist organization? it's at least in the realm of possibility for the Nolan universe... a kid making it through the desert by sheer will and tracking down Osama Bin Laden who doesn't even know she exists... but it seems pretty hard. 2) assuming the timing of the movie as it appears to be in the movie, how could Bane not know that Bruce had escaped? he should know within hours at least of the escape. it's fine that Bane would allow Bruce to try to escape... he knew it was "impossible" and would only torture Bruce more... but once Bruce was gone it should have been manifest that Batman would come back to Gotham not that it bothered me a lot. it's a freaking movie. and I even saw plot holes in The Wrestler and Black Swan but the above seem more legitimate questions plotwise than how Bruce got back to Gotham however the thing I did like on a second viewing of the movie Spoiler were the clues that Nolan dropped during the movie about who Miranda was... if you had been paying very close attention even if you'd never read Son of the Demon or knew any of the Talia stuff you had hints about who she was... 1) no one in the prison ever confirms that Bane is the child who escaped. they always stop the story or change the subject when Bruce asks them straight "is Bane the child who escaped" 2) Miranda sabotages the mission to plant the bug on the radioactive trailer. she insists to Gordon to be the one to monitor the Geiger counter, but then she has him to mark the wrong one. if you're paying close attention at that point you'd think you'd spotted another supposed plot hole... why didn't the Geiger counter work? is Nolan getting sloppy with the story? is he adding unnecessary twists to extend the chase scene? in fact Miranda sabotaged the mission 3) the story the doctor tells is of patching up Bane from his wounds. but the child who escapes has no wounds. if you're paying attention you must realize that Bane cannot be the child who escaped I actually missed all 3 of these points the first time around. but if someone was paying really close attention, he could have spoilered the ending. Since I already knew that Miranda was Talia and the only child of Ras maybe I just didn't really pay attention to that part since I already knew the kid wasn't Bane but it seems like I missed some important stuff the first time Spoiler This movie was in the can before Avengers came out. They had finished pickups long before... like a year before. It's not like Avengers comes out and WB works on Batman really hard for 3 months and they release it. Typically a movie is in pre production 2-3 years before release. It's shot the year before. And in post production for a year. You can't do **** in a couple of months. The GI Joe movie, which is being reworked got pushed back like 10 months so they could change some stuff. So your theory is just really clueless about how things work, not to mention all the nitpicks you seem to find, but are simply not paying attention. First of all the "anonymous board member" isn't anonymous. He is Thomas Wayne's friend from Batman Begins who told Bruce the apple had fallen far from the tree. (The other exec is US Senator Patrick Leahy who had a confrontation with the Joker in movie 2) Second, the scene RIGHT before Bane takes them hostage has Miranda clearly tell Fox that none of the board members knew about the success of the fusion project (let alone that the core had been removed and thus was going to blow) Third, how did you miss that they did try to get the word out through the Ops guys? It's clear in the movie that it's the first time the Feds have been able to get into the city to make contact with the resistance. The General is told "we have boots on the ground" and it's very clear that it's the first time Gordon has met these men because they ask for ID and do introductions. All that indicates that it took that long (months) for the US government to infiltrate, recon, identify and then make contact with the right people in Gotham. In that first meeting, Gordon specifically sends the men with Blake to get the intel on the bomb from Fox at the first opportunity. How can you even have the impression that they sat on this information?
I think there is no way you don't make a fourth movie. Amazing, and I thought it was an improvement from the Dark Knight. Ledgers death added to the hype and it came through. But this movie went and delivered past my expectations. The end obviously shows that Bruce is still alive, as well as annointing the cop as Robin. You have foundation for another movie. Nolan has another high grossing film right in his pocket, so why not make it?Is Nolan that in to his self that he will leave it open for another director to fail? I say there is about a 70% chance another Nolan movie (batman) will be made. It's not the first time a director claimed he was done with a franchise to end up returning. Money talks.
Spoiler Yeah that was a good catch. Supposedly Nolan's brother got much of the original idea for the middle part of the movie from the Tale of Two Cities. The scenes with the rioting and looting, and the kangaroo courts being very reminiscent of the French Revolution and 20th century Communist massacres with people being dragged from their homes, raped and executed etc. I know that Harry from AICN was very upset that more things didn't get blowed up to show how bad things were but I think he just missed the reference. To your point that thing that I really respected about the DKR is how Nolan unexpectedly used the Tale of Two Cities theme to foil Bane in the last movie with Bruce in the first movie. The posters for DKR all say RISE and Bane mocks Bruce's attempts in the first movie to get the people of Gotham to rise up against crime by telling Gotham to rise and take back their city from the corrupt system, basically instituted by Batman and Gordon. There are just a lot of parallels between Bane and Bruce... which I posted about earlier in this thread... that show the attention to detail and flourishes that Nolan adds. Very few directors working today pay that much attention to the stitching, as it were, of their movies. Let alone directors who make action movies. Of course the other part of the movie was based heavily on TDKR (just as the first movie was on Batman Year One). Personally I like how he mixes it up, so that even comic book geeks find something familiar yet unpredictable in his movies. Unfortunately I think that's also that's why a lot of people are unhappy with aspects of his movies... people like something predictable and by the numbers like Avengers. They basically go to movies to see what they've read in comics on the screen like they expect it. That's probably why Avengers did such huge box office... nothing new but done well as people expect. That said I can understand people preferring Avengers. I'm the type of kid who liked the the Batman animated series much better than the Xmen which was on during the same period but to me just seemed like a watered down version of Jim Lee's Xmen run... I had read the comics what's the point of seeing a dumber shorter version on TV? But my GF found both TDK and DKR really boring... basically guys hand wringing about macho stuff about saving stuff which had absolutely no relevance to her. There's a type of movie goer who just prefers straight action and simple plots. Especially from a comic book movie
