Not really like Batman Beyond and very much like what they actually did in the books they were publishing at the time. Remember Jean Paul Valley? And, now that I think about it, they just got through a storyline in which Bruce Wayne is sent on a time-traveling odyssey and Dick takes over as Batman for the second time.

That said, I doubt WB's going to trust even the almighty Nolan to deliver a big budget Batman of any kind who isn't Bruce Wayne. They've shown no compunction at any point over swapping actors in and out of established roles.

I'm no fan of Bane myself*, but there is one aspect of the Knightfall storyline--his attempt to psychologically erode Batman--that could make for compelling cinema.




(*All the early/mid-90s flagship superheroes were beset with really horrible gimmick storylines that seemed to go on forever. Bane broke Batman's back. Doomsday killed Superman, who was subsequently replaced by four imperfect claimants to his role. Spider-Man had the clone saga. It was all so godawful, and it had to be at the time that I was most susceptible to reading them.)

Oh shit. This photo changes my opinion of Nolan and the film's prospects completely. Can't wait to see Spy Kids 5; I mean...uh, uh...looks awesome! Yeah, great stuff....

Pre-Batman Begins, when the Tumbler was revealed: "Hahaha, Batman's gone redneck! VROOOM"

Pre-Dark Knight: "Hahaha, it's going to be Brokeback Batman!"

That looks completely stupid.

Still...



Good point.

Question: Has another movie ever been so analysed during filming? Long-winded discussions have broken out over every little detail including casting decisions. Now there's comment on every still or leaked story.

Geeks + the Internet. That's the basic formula.

Actually, concerned fans nationwide circulated a petition to stop Tim Burton from making Batman way back in 1988, so the Internet isn't even really necessary.

Okay, here we go. The first full-length trailer for The Dark Knight Rises:

http://www.slashfilm.com/the-dark-knigh ... t=FaceBook

Looks solid. The only "off" moment for me is the explosions in the football stadium, which seemed fairly silly, although it could be that the effects work isn't quite completed. Other than that, it's certainly enough to get me excited.

What do you think?

Here's my thoughts:

- The scenes with Gordon look drab.

- The scenes with Bane look bland.

- The catwoman thing is EXACTLY what we saw in Burton's film 20 years ago.

- Marion Cotillard...who knows.

- Gordon Levitt...whatever.

- Alfred is a drunken bum...who knows.

- The courthouse battle looks very much like the final 20 minutes of HP8: a dawn apocalypse type atmosphere.

- What's with the cyberpunk in the last shot?

- Most importantly: where the hell is Batman? This movie seems like it's going to be about everything except Batman himself, taking one of the Dark Knight weaknesses to the maximum.

- The football thing looks a bit silly.

^^ ok....


anyways it's looking good.

Maybe I will finally have a movie to upseat my number one movie, the Dark Knight. I know some people don't like the Dark Knight, but it is one of my favorite movies of all time, and one of the closest to perfect movies I've ever seen. I think the Dark Knight Rises looks like an improvement on its predecessor because it's capitalizing on the strengths and weaknesses of the Dark Knight. The best thing about the Dark Knight were the action scenes mixed with the fact it was actually about something so deep, and it looks like Dark Knight Rises has even more action scenes and even more impressive themes. The worst part of Dark Knight was the characters and the acting, and it looks like Dark Knight Rises will be an improvement because the characters might be less realistic but they are 100 times more interesting, and there will be more action scenes so it won't be AS important as in Dark Knight.

I thought April Fool's day only comes once a year.

Sometimes, you say things like "can we just discuss the movie" or "I honestly want to hear opinions."

Other times (like here) you just choose to be a dick.

It makes it awfully hard to believe you come around for the former when the latter comes up so often.

No one listens or cares to your usually legitimate opinions when you're such a massive, pretentious prick for no real reason about them.

Play nice, everyone. In the end, each of us knows which opinion is the correct one: our own.

P.S.: You lost points if you guessed the word "mine" as the correct opinion. Happy holidays.

P.P.S.: I am going to see this film. Nolan's earned that much trust from me with his work thus far.

But see how this got a rise out of you when the previous posts you refer too did not?



And what exactly are those themes?

If a guy comes up to you in a bar and spits in your face, he might get a rise out of you. That doesn't mean he's made a compelling argument.

The themes are obvious. Too obvious, in fact, which is one of the things I dislike about the movie.

I was referring to the Rises trailer. Frogster stated that the themes were even more impressive, so I'm wondering what they are. I see a hint of a theme related to mob mentality, but then there's also Catwoman's speech about sharing power equally. But I don't see how you can tie her speech into the mob aspect, because mob mentality has nothing to do with power envy.

So the goal is to get a rise, not to incite good discussion?

There's plenty of legitimate discussion going on all over these parts. It's not like we're in need of you (or anyone else) simply being bitchy to get things going. As has been said (often by me), your opinions and actual points are valued here. But more than once you've talked about "getting a rise" as being a good thing. I think that's garbage.

Have you heard of this "occupy" movement?

I would argue that there isn't a lot of thematic depth to the first two Batman movies, there are themes and to be fair, I think they do have a certain amount of power to them. But "depth" is not the first descriptor that comes to mind (nor would the term "subtle" but that's a different matter.
-Jeremy

I think it's too early to call the themes in The Dark Knight Rises "impressive," but yeah, it looks like they're there. Bane seems to be leading an army of the socially disenfranchised (prisoners, terrorists, etc...) against the socially privileged (Bruce Wayne and friends). People have pointed out the connections to the Occupy movement and I agree with them. It's a more violent version of the Occupy movement, sure, but this is an action movie. Catwoman lays it on pretty thick: "You're all gonna wonder how you lived so large and left so little for the rest of us." It looks like the movie takes the phrase "class warfare" pretty literally.

I also agree that the themes aren't particularly subtle. But I don't care. At least they're present, which is more than can be said of most movies. The Dark Knight was thematically upfront too. Good Lord, the Joker came right out and said that he was an agent of chaos. It doesn't get much more obvious than that, but it was still interesting. When you have characters as larger-than-life than these, it probably doesn't pay to be subtle. Why not use the built-in iconography? Batman is Order. The Joker is Chaos. Bane is the vengeance of the disenfranchised. Catwoman is... I dunno, hot; we'll see. The themes in these movies may not be particularly deep, but they're meaty enough to hold my interest. I expect that to continue.