The ending Nolan made is open-ended because Bruce Wayne is not dead.

the city takeover and Bruce in the pit seemed to drag on a bit too long, the twist of Miranda being Talia was extremely predictable, and that whole "Star Spangled Banner" sequence was so incredibly ham-fisted and shamelessly manipulative that I was struggling not to laugh out loud

JGL reprising his role as John Blake and becoming the new Batman

It's long because it's about 5 months (I think?) during the time of city take over and Bruce coming out of the pit. In fact, most people said that they should make the sequence longer because they didn't feel the time of 5 months passing that much.

Yeah, the Miranda twist shocked me but I thought it was weird. Should have been set up in the previous films more. About the song, I had no problem with it; anticipation and dread of what Bane would do next kinda eclipse any feeling from the song.

Agree with you about the new Batman. People complained that how could there be a Batman movie without Bruce Wayne. But storywise, Nolan took Bruce Wayne through so many personal turmoils, dilemmas, and changes that his character arc is as complete as any character's can be in a comic book movie. To simply start from scratch again would feel redundant. (AKA The Amazing Spiderman). Time for new blood and new path.

The kangaroo court. I mean, Cillian Murphy was very great in it and I heard the audience audibly expressing delight at him returning (he was like a very hilarious continuity), but imagine what delicious stuff Ledger would have done with the role.

"Death... by exile!"

I had goosebumps during the scenes where Bane declares martial law on the city and the climax. Also, how chilling was the scene where revolutionaries were hung from the bridge?

Why try to take over the city in order to completely destabilize the established power structure if Bane was just planning to ultimately burn it down? Was the point to "tell them lies and feed them hope?"

In most films, we'd jump straight to a boring chase where a nuclear bomb is being deactivated. Here, we have the really dark, and interesting sequences involving martial law leading up to the climax.

Wayne spent the majority of THE DARK KNIGHT trying to retire. His goal in that film was to pass the mantle of Gotham crime fighting to Harvey Dent. His actions in TDKR are entirely consistent with the Bruce Wayne in TDK. Also, it's not hard to accept that the ending of TDK essentially broke Wayne; I don't find the depiction of the character seen at the beginning of TDKR at variance with what I might expect eight years later.

Overall, this is a solid finale to Nolan's Batman trilogy. It's not perfect and I thought it took some time to get moving and understand the characters (like Daggett) and plot (clean slate and the fusion reactor thing). But those are minor quibbles compared to all that works which is everything else. Once the big city battle comes along, then it's high ground the rest of the way.

I like the ending and thought it was satisfying. Nice to see the torched passed on to Blake (nice Robin reference) and how Bruce can live a normal life in Paris by faking his and Batman's deaths. Also nice how his home now is used to help those orphaned boys.

I liked how there were references to the previous films and how a lot of this stuff tied together for this film (like the flashbacks with Gordon putting the coat on Bruce and Ras Al Guhl talking about his wife)

I didn't see the twist coming of Miranda Tate being Ras Al Guhl's daughter and Bane being her protector. Nice to see Liam Neeson return although it's by flashback. For a minute there, I thought he was really there when talking to Bruce in the cell. I was kind of disappointed when he disappered. I wouldn't have minded if he stayed since him and Talia working together would have made things come full circle in a way regarding their plan.

I know Blake said something about how he and Bruce Wayne/Batman met many years ago. I was kind of hoping it was someone small character from one of the previous films though that's never confirmed.

It was nice seeing Dr. Crane again pretending to be the judge. Would have been cool to see him participate a bit more, but his presence was welcome.

Bruce fakes Batman's death but how is he himself supposed to have died? I mean, in the eyes of the public?

It is assumed by everyone that Bruce Wayne died in the riots

The strong similarities between the villains in this film and the ones in the 007 flick, The World Is Not Enough — so similar that as soon as the Miranda Tate character was introduced, I knew what it would lead to.

Think about it: Bane is essentially Robert Carlyle's Renard: a single-named, intelligent anarchist terrorist with superhuman strength determined to destroy rather than rule. In both films you are led to believe that Bane/Renard is the mastermind.

Miranda Tate is similar to Sophie Marceau's Elektra King: a beautiful, foreign accented businesswoman who deals in global energy. Both women gain the trust of and become romantically involved with the hero, and both use that to manipulate the hero and company (MI6/Wayne Enterprises) for her own nefarious plans.

Both films reveal the evil businesswoman to be the true mastermind, and that the monster is helping her through devotion, rather than money or power.

Both women also have the same plan: use nuclear material to blow up a city (Istanbul/Gotham)

There's also a similar cadence to the two women's names, and if that's stretching things, then go to the next Bond movie, Die Another Day, where you'll find a good girl revealed to be a villain named Miranda Frost.

In each movie, each Gotham looks and feels different. Batman begins had the best interpretation of Gotham (in my mind) with Arkym Island. TDK's gotham was just Chicago, and TDKR's gotham was what?...Pittsburg. Each movie just seems like it takes place in a different city. (And I know they we're filmed in different locations, but greater care should have been taken to keep the same city vibe.

None of you mentioned the fact that Wayne was NOT in fact super-duper rich due to Daggett and Bane's scheme at the Gotham Stock Exchange. In fact, he was dead broke by the time of the riots.

You had thousands of police officers trapped underground, sealed off in the sewers for more than three months, surviving on smuggled rations. Yet when they come out, their uniforms are spotless and they are all in fighting form, ready to charge city hall. We all saw what the Chilean miners looked like after their ordeal, trapped for weeks without daylight, without a change of clothes. Unless I missed something, these cops looked like they weren't even trapped for three hours, let alone three months.