The Dark Knight Rises

[Jemble Fred]

You've got a Batman? Is he to scale?

[Consignia]

So, I finally watched this last week. I really liked the first two. However, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it straight away, but after mulling it over for a few days, I've come to the conclusion that I didn't like it that much. I can't put my finger exactly what, but there were a few things.

The first thing is, it's too long. And not jam packed too long, it felt stretched. I'm sure they could have easily cut about 30 minutes from the run time without changing a thing. I'm not a fan of long films anyway, I prefer them to be terse, so others may not have felt this to be a problem.

Another thing is, I don't think Bane worked well at all. For a start he looked rubbish. I know it's about a guy who dress up in a bat themed suit, but it just stretched credulity a bit too far. And the voice was way too cartoony.

I also felt there were too many characters in general, some that didn't add enough to justify their presence.

And for a Batman film there wasn't enough Batman doing Batman things. I'd just come off the back playing the excellent Arkham City, the core of which is the stealthy Predater sections, and I would have loved so some of that type of stuff.

That said, there were things I liked about it. It was well shot, and looked lovely. And there were certain scenes that stood as out as brilliant, the kangaroo court sticks in my mind one such event. It wasn't a bad film in general, just a let down for me.

[Glebe]

Not a single Oscar nom, not even for FX work.

[Replies From View]

Not even a nomination for the "referencing earlier parts of a franchise" category?

[Thomas]

Nope, and not even for the 'not referencing earlier parts of a franchise out of respect for Heath Ledger' category.

[Kane Jones]

Nope, and not even for the 'not referencing earlier parts of a franchise out of respect for Heath Ledger' category.

For me that was the worst part of the film.  Talk about the elephant in the room.

[Replies From View]

"I liked the part where they didn't reference Heath Ledger," as they would say on youtube.

[Kane Jones]

Why was it considered respectful to not mention his character?  I just don't understand.  The Dark Knight is the most lauded of all three movies, largely because of Ledger's performance.  TDKR virtually ignores the whole film (apart from the Harvey Dent stuff) to the point where it's more of a sequel to Batman Begins.  It's almost as if they're pretending TDK doesn't exist, which is ludicrous considering its popularity.

[Thomas]

We're not addressing The Joker at all. That is something I felt very strongly about in terms of my relationship with Heath and the experience I went through with him on The Dark Knight. I didn't want to in any way try and account for a real-life tragedy. That seemed inappropriate to me. We just have a new set of characters and a continuation of Bruce Wayne's story. Not involving The Joker.

[Kane Jones]

Great.  I still think it's rubbish though.

[Thomas]

I agree that at least a very basic reference to the character wouldn't have gone amiss.[nb]or maybe it would have been too throwaway. We'll never know.[/nb] In fact, on first viewing, I'm sure I imagined hearing one.

Obviously lots of people avoid speculation as to how the Joker would have been used were Heath Ledger still with us, out of respect and all that, but there's an interestin' school of thought[nb]great phrase.[/nb] that the Joker would have been the one to kill Bane and save Batto's life. The 'You and I are destined to do this forever' idea from The Dark Knight would have fed into that beau'ifully.

Alas, Heath Ledger went and died.

The The Dark Knight Rises novelisation suggests that the Joker might be 'locked away as Arkham's sole remaining inmate', but that 'nobody was really sure.' Which is a lie, obviously. The staff at Arkham would definitely be sure.

[Kane Jones]

I agree that at least a very basic reference to the character wouldn't have gone amiss.

That's all it would've taken really.  Just an acknowledgement that some 'serious shit' went down with this Joker chap.  The way Nolan has pussy-footed around actually makes more of an issue out of it.  It sticks out like a sore thumb.

[Pepotamo1985]

TDKR...is more of a sequel to Batman Begins.

Completely. I think that might account for my disappointment in the movie - I was expecting something hard-hitting that operated within the realm of reality, like Dark Knight, and it was effectively the fantasy and the hocus pocus of Begins on steroids.

The 'You and I are destined to do this forever' idea from The Dark Knight.

This why Bane was shit, really - you never got the vaguest semblance of sense that he was remotely emotionally invested in what was going on around him, had any kind of agenda, or even really cared about Batman. Batman being a mere hurdle he had to clear en-route to completing some wider objective would be fine - but his wider objective was never articulated until the last 15 minutes (right before he died),  and his motivation was never adequately explained.

Admittedly Joker too was effectively 'motiveless' in that he just liked fucking shit up beyond recognition for the sake of it, but destruction and chaos were his entire raison d'etre. He loved that shit, and it was clear. Bane seemed like a guy who just did things for no discernible reason, and that removed most of the tension or intrigue from the story.

[Jemble Fred]

That's all it would've taken really.  Just an acknowledgement that some 'serious shit' went down with this Joker chap.  The way Nolan has pussy-footed around actually makes more of an issue out of it.  It sticks out like a sore thumb.

I saw the film twice, and never noticed the absence of any Joker reference. I'm not sure what the point would be really, anyone going to see it knows the reason for Wayne's state at the start of the film, and we're off into a new story. He's not missed at all, this is the first I've heard of it being an issue, in an old thread dug up several months later.

[Replies From View]

I personally think it's extraordinarily disrespectful that they put that joker "calling card" at the end of Batman Begins.  They should have known Heath Ledger would die.

[Replies From View]

I saw the film twice, and never noticed the absence of any Joker reference. I'm not sure what the point would be really, anyone going to see it knows the reason for Wayne's state at the start of the film, and we're off into a new story. He's not missed at all, this is the first I've heard of it being an issue, in an old thread dug up several months later.

I think it's fine that he isn't mentioned.  It implies that in the bigger scheme of things, the Joker came and went and didn't define Bruce Wayne's life eight years later or whenever it was.  It would have been gratuitous to mention him, and I think it's good they didn't.  As far as I remember he isn't mentioned in Burton's Batman Returns either.

[Consignia]

It didn't bother me much[nb]not compared to other things at least[/nb], but was a smidgen jarring that they harped on about bloody Ra's Al Ghul and Harvey Dent throughout the movie and didn't even mention that terrorist who bounced around Gotham during the same period.

[Replies From View]

But perhaps it suggests there were so many other big scale menaces that we haven't heard about.  Ra's Al Ghul essentially created Batman.  Harvey Dent was the city's real hope and everyone thinks Batman has killed him.  The Joker was ultimately just one of the villains that Batman ran into along the way.

[Noodle Lizard]

The Joker was ultimately just one of the villains that Batman ran into along the way.

(who killed his squeeze and made Harvey Dent go mental so was really the one responsible for his death)

[Kane Jones]

(who killed his squeeze and made Harvey Dent go mental so was really the one responsible for his death)

Exactly. I'm a fan of TDKR, I really am. People criticise it for many reasons, most of which I don't agree with or don't feel that strongly about. Not mentioning the Joker is one of the few things that sticks in my neck. Jem and RFV may not be bothered about it, but for a major player in a story arc that spans all three films, I think the Joker should've (at the very least) been mentioned.

[Custard]

But he's in the DVD extras!



(He's not)

[Mister Six]

Exactly. I'm a fan of TDKR, I really am. People criticise it for many reasons, most of which I don't agree with or don't feel that strongly about. Not mentioning the Joker is one of the few things that sticks in my neck. Jem and RFV may not be bothered about it, but for a major player in a story arc that spans all three films, I think the Joker should've (at the very least) been mentioned.

I think it would have been more distracting to mention him. The shadow that Ledger cast over the production of The Dark Knight was huge, and the popularity of the character enormous. To acknowledge that The Joker was running around somewhere in the background of this film would have irked on a diagetic (What's The Joker doing now, while Gotham's going to shit?) and non-diagetic (Will they get a different actor to cameo as The Joker?) level.

[Nuclear Optimism]

I don't see how they could mention him without it seeming contrived. It would be like having a throwaway line of dialogue about "remember that Scarecrow guy from ten years ago?" It would be clunky and everyone would groan.[nb]
Obviously the Scarecrow is in the film, which in a way is less distracting than just mentioning him. It gives him something to do.[/nb]

I just don't think people would bring it up just for the sake of it. Where would it fit in? If you can't have the Joker in it, there's no point making allusions to him.

[Noodle Lizard]

I don't see how they could mention him without it seeming contrived. It would be like having a throwaway line of dialogue about "remember that Scarecrow guy from ten years ago?" It would be clunky and everyone would groan.[nb]
Obviously the Scarecrow is in the film, which in a way is less distracting than just mentioning him. It gives him something to do.[/nb]

Well, a good screenwriter/storywriter could do it, but TDKR didn't have one of those.

[Replies From View]

I still don't understand why it would help to have the Joker mentioned in TDKR, though.  What would it help?

[Noodle Lizard]

I still don't understand why it would help to have the Joker mentioned in TDKR, though.  What would it help?

Not in the film as we know it, maybe, but then again the film as we know it isn't very good.  That's obviously not down to the fact that the Joker wasn't mentioned, although it did strike me as lazy writing that he was completely ignored.  I don't know if mentioning him would have "helped" anything else, but it would certainly have been a big plus point if they'd managed to think for a couple of hours and come up with a reasonable way to progress without pretending he never existed.

Of course everyone knows that Heath Ledger died, but this is a movie - if someone with no knowledge of Heath Ledger etc. watched the Batman trilogy, don't you think they'd be saying:  "Hang on, that's it?  The catalyst for the entire second act of the trilogy which informs the third act is just gone?  Even when all of Gotham's criminals are at large and running the city?"  It's not good storytelling.

[Paaaaul]

The problem isn't the lack of mention of The Joker in itself.
It is the fact that the film goes out of its way to reference nearly every single person or event that we saw in the first two films at some point but completely ignores The Joker.

[Replies From View]

without pretending he never existed.

They just don't mention him.  This is not the same as pretending he never existed.  The events of the film were eight years ago or thereabouts; what the Joker did was no longer a pressing concern.  The city could have had a devastating encounter with the Penguin since then, for all we know.

[Tiny Poster]

I hate it when things irk on both diagetic and non-diagetic levels.

[Nuclear Optimism]

The important things the Joker affected were Rachel's death and Dent becoming Two Face. Both of those events are mentioned in TDKR, which is all you need. The end result of his appearance carries through into the subsequent film, so the dramatic impact of the Joker on the story is maintained.