The Dark Knight Rises was finally released, and James was so excited to do this podcast that he actually had a dream about podcasting. Alex explains why he felt the movie was lacking the smaller, more personal moments of the previous two films, James explains why he didn’t care for Bane, and we talk about Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s magic orphan powers. We also discuss Hans Zimmer’s career and how the score of this film is emblematic of the trilogy, and we wonder if filmmakers have finally figured out how to make a third installment in a movie series. Then Travis stops by to share his thoughts and explain what comics influenced the film’s story.
Episode 84: The Dark Knight Rises
Also, the mp3 version can be found here.
CORRECTION: The financial crisis obviously did not begin in 2010, as Alex states here. In Alex’s defence, he has no money and therefore has no idea when he would have lost it.
Comments
On the off chance anyone is reading this before seeing the movie… SPOILERS!!!!
I’m about to disagree with you guys a bunch, so let me preface it by saying that I really enjoyed the podcast and I think you bring up a lot of excellent points that made me reconsider how I saw the movie. That said, onto the disagreements!
This one is minor but really nagged at me. I don’t think Blake is becoming the next Batman, I think he is simply becoming the next Dark Knight. Gotham believes that Batman died saving them from the bomb, and they kind of have to remain believing that. We already saw what happens in Gotham when people find out that they’ve been deceived about the death of a hero. I thought it was pretty clear that what they were showing was the rise of the new dark knight, but not the new Batman.
I think in your comparison of Bane to the Joker you miss that the driving point of Bane is to be something that Batman can’t physically dominate. He is less cerebral than the Joker, but he is also far more dangerous. In Dark Knight, Batman knows that all he has to do get to The Joker and he can stop him, that’s not really the case for Bane. Even going into that last fight, there is still the real possibility that Batman can lose that fight.
James made an interesting point about how he would have had the Joker be the finale and had Bane be in the second movie. I think this is an interesting idea, but I think it would have hurt the narrative overall. A lot of the cleverness of the Dark Knight Rises is in the ties to the first movie (Though I completely agree that the many flashback scene were unnecessary and should have been cut). Since this is the last Batman story, and we know that, it only makes sense that the threat of his end comes from where he began. If the League of Shadows had just come back in the very next movie, it would have felt pretty tiresome. “Oh, the League again? Is this all we are ever going to get?” Even the X-Men bucked the trend of having the same bad guy in back to back to movies by having Magento work with the X-Men. Batman’s end has everything to do with his beginning and I think that’s a strong point of the movie.
As well, you see the Joker push Batman past to his mental breaking point, whereas Bane pushes him past both his mental breaking point and physical breaking point. Different tools for different narrative necessities. All that said, it’s entirely possible that they could have presented it differently and had Joker do something like that as well and had it work out, but I think the story as it was presented makes the most narrative sense.
When Bane initially died, I was pretty choked about it. It seemed an unfortunate way to kill the character that Batman had essentially lost to already, but then it occurred to me, that he was already beaten. Batman had found his weakness and exposed it, and another scene of Batman finding a way to remove the mask would have just been silly. Sure, it’s still not at all poetic or anything, but you see that Batman has beaten Bane and it’s not just Catwoman with a rocket launcher.
What Alex said about Catwoman rung true to me as well, she’s a great character and then she kisses Batman which is really, really odd. At first I wrote it off as her thinking he’s going to die, which didn’t make it GOOD but did make it better. Then apparently the only person he reveals that he is alive to is her? It just seemed odd as a whole.
Finally, I have decided that I am okay with Bruce not dying at the end for several reason, but honestly, it made the scene with Alfred and the gravestones feel really cheap to me. I feel like that is one of the more powerful scenes in the entire movie and all the emotion of it is erased soon after, especially as we have no idea how much time has passed between the “death” and the scene in France.
Anyway, those are the incoherent ramblings of me reading from notes I made as I listened to the podcast. Keep up the good work, guys!
Thanks for the comment. I don’t totally agree with the switching the villains of TDK and TDKR, if only because the filmmakers simply wanted to do the Joker more, and regardless of what made sense for the story, there was no guarantee they would get a third movie. Particularly given the fact it seemed it was 50/50 as to whether they would get a second Batman movie anyway. Plus, as we pointed out in our previous TDK podcast, I think the Joker was so good that he distracted people from the actual movie. This movie it’s all about Batman, and that’s how the finale should be as far as I’m concerned. I generally don’t agree with James’ complaints about Bane, but that’s his opinion.
I think Bruce’s return at the very end is better because of the death scene. I think the funeral works, and then we think he’s really dead, and then OH SHIT HE’S BACK HURRAH! And then I high five strangers.
My main thing about Blake is that I don’t see a way for him to have the money necessary to do anything other than be the next Batman. He’s lead to the place where all Bruce’s gear and costume is, so it only makes sense to me if he becomes Batman. Plus, that’s why Bruce fixes that bat symbol for Gordon.
Anyway, thanks for listening!