Comments on: Dark Knight Rises: the threequel we needed but not the threequel we deserved (SPOILERS)

By: Antony

Antony — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:44:49 +0000

When I say “kicking back” that was poor phrase to use. I mean he stops kicking back villains and just sits down and has a quiet pint with his mate.

By: Antony

Antony — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:42:09 +0000

I was struck that if the studio /really/ wanted to end the series they wouldn’t have had Wayne turn out to survive the nuclear explosion and wouldn’t have had Blake arrive in the Bat Cave. As someone unfamiliar with the comics I failed to see the Talia treachery coming but I saw Blake taking over from Wayne as the eventual ending pretty much from Blake’s first scene.

I thought the politics of the film were ambiguous. To me they portrayed Bain as the kind of person who pretends to lead a revolution for his own ends, ultimately stabbing the people on the back. It was very much Burke’s view on the French Revolution. But on the other hand the rich and powerful were not well presented either. Wayne has closed his eyes to the orphans and he observes the hypocrisy of the society fundraisers. I noticed also that while Bain purports to lead the working class against capitalism he uses the “take back our [city]” language of the Tea Party / Palin.

One geek point I noticed was the the President we saw on TV was Berryhill, the Secretary of State from the West Wing. Presumably Jimmy Smits was unavailable.

I’m not sure the ending of the film is so bad. It is a bit “they all lived happily ever after” but just because they are sitting down in a cafe doen’t mean life is boring. They could have just that moment finished some daredevil escapade. It seems to be a movie fashion though. The most recent MI film finishes with Ethan Hunt kicking back in a bar. Bond films usually finish with him sailing into the sunset with the heroine. But they do then make a point to tell us in the credits, “007 will return”. Hurt Locker runs against this trend. The point of the film being that the hero can’t ever stop.

By: Lee Griffin

Lee Griffin — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:27:45 +0000

it makes*

By: Lee Griffin

Lee Griffin — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:26:59 +0000

I think that it’s a little bit of a stretch to combine the “afraid of dying” revelation, the “fixing the autopilot” revelation and the fantasy (with Selina, no less, not just an ‘ordinary’ to hide away with) make it hard to believe it as a fantasy ending.

By: Jennie

Jennie — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:09:44 +0000

I still say the final scene, especially given the deliberate changes in colour palette etc, can be read as fantasy on Alfred’s part – the only other bit of the film which is remotely visually similar is explicitly explained as a fantasy of Alfred’s.