The Dark Knight Rises (Spoilers inside, enter at own risk)

[Retro_Link]

Just thinking back over how much I loved Bane in this film. Tom Hardy was just immense!

 

 

The fact he had to deliver his performance through just his eyes!

And I think when his character shed a tear at the end of the film it just made it all the more powerful, that you were seeing this different emotion from the eyes.

 

And that voice!

Whilst a bit jaring at first... the fact it remains so calm whilst delivering these powerful monologues just makes it all the more terrifying and unnerving.

 

CIA Agent: At least you can talk! Who are you?

Bane: It doesn't matter who we are... what matters is our plan. No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.

CIA Agent: [Pulls hood off to reveal Bane] If I pull that off, will you die?

Bane: It would be extremely painful...

CIA Agent: You're a big guy.

Bane: ...for you.

*I just love how relaxed this last line is* then *BAM*

 

Bane: Calm down, Doctor! Now's not the time for fear. That comes later.

Bane: You only adopted the dark. I was born in it.

Bane: Torture? Yes. But not of your body, of your soul.

 

Dark and poetic.

 

I honestly hope he gets the recognition he deserve come awards time.

 

Edited July 24, 2012 by Retro_Link

[Fierce_LiNk]

Just thinking back over how much I loved Bane in this film. Tom Hardy was just immense!

 

I would contemplate putting that entire post in spoiler tags, dude.

 

But, yes. I totally agree. The person who wrote his lines deserves so much credit. So incredibly well written, and Hardy delivered them perfectly.

 

What I loved particularly is the tone in his voice. He changed it at just the right moments to make the character seem calm, yet tough. Intelligent, but also brutal in equal measure.

 

Ah, you think darkness is your ally. You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it - I didn’t see the light until I was already a man. By then, it was nothing to me but blinding. The shadows betray you because they belong to me.

 

 

That entire scene was just excellent viewing. Could watch it over and over again.

[Retro_Link]

Oh yeah shit. Sorry.

 

What I loved particularly is the tone in his voice. He changed it at just the right moments to make the character seem calm, yet tough. Intelligent, but also brutal in equal measure.

This!

 

And yeah that scene was incredible.

 

That all of Batmans advantages were pretty much taken away from him. Bane just grabbed him out of the darkness.

 

The fact Batman was caged with no where to hide, and after he'd just seen pretty much his last hope, the gadgetised hallucinogenic just casually explode in Banes face!... *gulp!*

 

 

---

 

Regarding Actors vs CGI...

 

I just watched this featurette/making/preview of the film, and it's incredible just how much of it isn't CGI!

 

 

 

Especially the plane sequence!!

Watching that in the cinema I had no idea! It's sad that we've become so used to CGI that you just assume it and therefore might miss incredible things like this that must take so much time, effort and money!

 

Also filling the stadium with real people.

 

It's also impressive how many full size sets they built!

I also thought they handled the design of the new Batcave beautifully well; simple and elegant.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Retro_Link

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

 

Exactly what I thought!

 

Ah, you think darkness is your ally. You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it - I didn’t see the light until I was already a man. By then, it was nothing to me but blinding. The shadows betray you because they belong to me.

 

One thing I'm wondering, though: Does that mean Bane was also born in the prison?

 

I also thought they handled the design of the new Batcave beautifully well.

 

So it was a new Batcave?

 

[Retro_Link]

 

One thing I'm wondering, though: Does that mean Bane was also born in the prison?

 

 

 

So it was a new Batcave?

I assumed he was yeah. And then rescued and trained by The League of Shadows.

 

By new Batcave, I just meant the newly remodelled one following the repair work. Although tbh the Batcave didn't really exist at all in Begins.

 

I thought the cube (with TV wall) and bridge that rose up from the water were a really nice design, that fitted perfectly; as opposed to past batcaves which have been quite flamboyant.

 

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Ah, I see. Yes, I agree! Loved the look of the Batcave.

[bob]

Most of what i thought has already been said, but:

 

It was absolutely incredible. I really enjoyed it.

 

I did find Bane a bit hard to understand at times, but like someone else mentioned, Oldman was a bit muffled at times too, so maybe it was just my cinema.

 

I like the way it ended. Batman actually dying i would have been happy with, but i like him staying alive even more. I'm a sucker for a happy ending.

 

I did get a bit confused about the whole 'trigger man' thing, but i think that was because Bane mumbled through the explanation. I wondered why a random guy with the trigger would choose to blow himself up. And then i assumed it was a proximity thing, and that if random man got too far away it would blow, but then it didn't matter in the end...

 

 

 

 

Incidently, i paid extra to sit in 'Premier' seats, since it was cheap tuesdays and only an extra pound. I thought those seats were special in that they had extra legroom, armrests, etc, but no. They are just slightly more in front of the screen. No extra legroom, no reclining coolness. Won't be paying for that again, what a ripoff.

[Retro_Link]

I'm not entirely sure I understood the trigger thing.

 

Also I wasn't entirely sure what was going on story wise during the first third of the movie, an who was working for who.

 

There was the plane scene which was for Bane (working for Talia) to capture the scientist.

 

Then who were the criminals/mob?... the ones Catwoman ran into a couple of times.

Then there was that 'clean slate' device. Who's was that?... these criminals?

 

Then there was the guy on the board who wanted control of Wayne enterprises... but was Bane ever working for him, or did he just think he'd hired Bane. And so the Stock Exchange scene was to lose all Bruce's money so that control would pass to this guy; but really it would go to Talia. So when Bane was at the Stock Exchange this was on Talia's behalf?

 

 

Think I need to see it again! :p

[Cube]

Bruce Wayne purchased the Clean Slate device in order to stop it getting misused, which is why Bane's group could not purchase it for Selina.

 

And the mob was working for Bane/Talia (I'm certain it was their plan, and not that Bane was a mindless henchman).

 

And the plan was to get Wayne Enterprises broke so they would select a new CEO, which is why Talia was trying to get close to Bruce - they probably knew that Bruce would want to convince the board to pick a recommendation of his. They just scammed the guy so he would help them.

 

[bob]

Bruce Wayne purchased the Clean Slate device in order to stop it getting misused, which is why Bane's group could not purchase it for Selina.

 

And the mob was working for Bane/Talia (I'm certain it was their plan, and not that Bane was a mindless henchman).

 

And the plan was to get Wayne Enterprises broke so they would select a new CEO, which is why Talia was trying to get close to Bruce - they probably knew that Bruce would want to convince the board to pick a recommendation of his. They just scammed the guy so he would help them.

 

INdeed, and they needed Bruce Wayne's fingerprints to clear him out, so they hired Kyle to get it for them, hence she meets with them at various points earlier on, with the Slate as payment.

 

[dwarf]

I want to watch it again just for Bane.

[Retro_Link]

Cheers. I think I pretty much knew what was going on then, just needed it clarifying! :p

 

---

 

Chris Nolan's Farewell Letter to The Dark Knight

 

Director Christopher Nolan wrote the foreword to the new book The Art and Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy, which is essentially his goodbye letter to the Batman franchise he revived. Check it out below (via Superhero Hype):

 

 

 

"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."

Edited July 25, 2012 by Retro_Link

[Jimbob]

Just got back from the cinema, all i can say is wow

 

When Bane was introduced, i was expecting something more sinistar and dark with his voice. But no, Tom Hardy played that to a tee. Certainly on par with Heath's Joker in Dark Knight. Didn't have an issue hearing him, except the stadium scene but that was it.

 

Definetly kept Bane true to the comics, having him break Batmans back and all that. All the references to the first two were indeed great. I was thinking that Commisoner Gordon was going to reveal the true Harvey Dent early on, but backed out. Catwoman was good, wasn't expecting to have her in the movie. Played a very good role indeed, can't argue with that.

 

I loved the fight between the Police and the Prisoners. It was a "Yeah, we're out now so what you gonna do about it" situation. With Batman and Bane in the middle, was thinking Batman would break his "No kill" rule against Bane.

 

Lovely twist at the end, could see something happen like that early on. I guess they both clean-slated at the end, and gave Bruce Wayne a send off as well.

 

 

Film of 2012, yes.

[ReZourceman]

But no, Tom Hardy played that to a tee. Certainly on par with Heath's Joker in Dark Knight.

 

C'maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.

[Retro_Link]

I too think Tom Hardy's Bane was equal to Heath Ledger's Joker.

 

They're very different characters so you can't really go about comparing and contrasting, but they were both acted outstandingly.

Edited July 25, 2012 by Retro_Link

[Dog-amoto]

Mark Hamill is the best Joker anyway.

[Serebii]

Mark Hamill is the best Joker anyway.

Agreed.

 

Part of me wonders how people would have reacted to Heath Ledger's Joker if he hadn't passed on beforehand. Pretty sure the portrayal wouldn't be as highly acclaimed

[dwarf]

Heath Ledger was incredible. The opinions of others had no bearing on what I saw, all I know is that what I saw was stunning.

 

I loved Bane in different ways. They both had great lines, but there's no denying that, as a character, the Joker was afforded more depth. Hardy couldn't have done more, but Ledger could've done a hell of a lot less and still be considered good.

[Coolness Bears]

I need to see this movie again, the more I think about it the more I enjoyed it but want to look at it for its own merits.

 

Basically let down by The Dark Knight (for me) being the better film.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Heath Ledger was incredible. The opinions of others had no bearing on what I saw, all I know is that what I saw was stunning.

 

I loved Bane in different ways. They both had great lines, but there's no denying that, as a character, the Joker was afforded more depth. Hardy couldn't have done more, but Ledger could've done a hell of a lot less and still be considered good.

 

Pretty much this. There's not a lot more that Tom Hardy could have done to improve the character. Bane and the Joker are dangerous but in different ways. I also wondered if Heath Ledger received the plaudits because of his death, but after watching The Dark Knight again recently, I can safely say that this is not the case. Can't remember the last time I've been to the cinema and been completely absorbed by a performance like that. We will not see another one like it for a long time.

 

The quality of performances has been excellent in this trilogy. Particularly the villains.

Ra's, the Scarecrow, The Joker, Two-Face, Bane, Talia, I guess Selena, too? All have been excellent. Can't fault the acting one bit. It's been refreshing actually to go to the cinema and see a series of action films with a strong cast, tight scripting, great performances and just all-round good drama.

 

[bob]

Ra's, the Scarecrow, The Joker, Two-Face, Bane, Talia, I guess Selena, too? All have been excellent. Can't fault the acting one bit. It's been refreshing actually to go to the cinema and see a series of action films with a strong cast, tight scripting, great performances and just all-round good drama.

 

And also the music, don't forget the music.

 

 

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah-BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

[Fierce_LiNk]

And also the music, don't forget the music.

 

 

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah-BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

 

Hahahaha. I listened to TDKR soundtrack on youtube. Final song just feels so brilliant at the end.

 

Music is brilliant.

 

What is everyone's favourite scene or part from this trilogy?

[Shorty]

The magic trick with the pencil.

[ReZourceman]

"Here."

 

"Does it come in black?"

 

Opening to TDK

 

Pencil.

 

Sky hook.

 

Back break.

 

Catwoman's sex appeal.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Only tangentially related, but one of my friends (whom I coincidentally saw the film with) and I have been "casting" people we'd like to see in an Ace Attorney film, and we had cast Anne Hathaway as Mia Fey and Christian Bale as Godot. Those familiar with both Ace Attorney and The Dark Knight Rises will know why this is funny/peculiar.