AppleQueso wrote:Phantom Menace comparison doesn't hold water.
Wait a year or two.
Here's the thing. You seem all pissy, finger pointy, and never provide a valid counter argument. I say "This makes absolutely no sense because...". You reply with "Whatever", or "Fuck you". That's very not the Apple Queso I thought I knew.
And I'm trying to joke around, have fun and discuss the movie, and you're just ill tempered which I hope doesn't become a thing. Hey, people like what they like, and I have no issues with but again you have no valid counter argument. I'm all ears too. Tell me how TDKR makes sense. Tell me why you think it is a good movie. Don't just say "Whatever", and don't say "it has action". What about it do you like?
The racketeers here who didn't like the movie have all explained why. The people who like it are just "I think it was great!".
And I'm being nice to the movie, because it wasn't bad. Just tell me why you think it is great and stop with the hostility.
You're still at it. "Just give it a few years and you people will all see how shitty it really is!"
You're the one who's been on the attack, and now I'm the one here put on some huge spotlight to attempt to convince you that the film wasn't a complete mess. Forgive me if I think it's completely futile because I know for a fact that absolutely anything I could say is going to be dismissed completely. You're convinced that it's a mess, and you're convinced that the only reason I like it is because I'm... blinded by something.
I am not a writer. I am not a critic. I do not have a blog or a fucking review website or any aspirations of journalism or anything like that. I can't articulate why I thought TDKR was good any more than I can articulate why I thought Back to the Future was good. I could try and find a reviewer who's POV I agree with and link that here or something, but you'd probably see that as some kind of copout.
Why have the people who haven't liked it been able to explain why so easily? Because it's a lot easier to explain why something doesn't work than it is to explain why it does. Do I need to address every single individual complaint and respond to it in depth?
I'm not a writer, I'm just going to try explain why I liked it here:
I like the characters, I find their arcs compelling and interesting. I don't feel that they're at odds with the versions of the characters that we've seen before. Bruce's reasons for wanting to become Batman in Begins make it all sound like it's a temporary idea. The Dark Knight goes on a lot about the idea of a time when Gotham not needing Batman anymore. Dent was his way out to a normal life in TDK, and his 'normal life' was with Rachel. She's dead. Bruce being a recluse at the beginning of the film is what I might imagine would happen to him in the wake of the Dent Act getting rid of the need for Batman. He has no other life to turn to. It's very much in line with the previous films. The entire film is about his arc. It's about him finding a purpose in life beyond Batman. I like this. I feel this movie executes that really well too. The ending is perfect for this, Bruce finally has a life outside of Batman.
The prison scenes, where Bruce learns to embrace the fear that drove him originally. I found those to be interesting too. I know some people thought they dragged, but I really liked them. The cool callback with Bruce falling down the well in Begins. He fell into the well, he learned to pick himself up in the Pit.
I like that Alfred's changed a bit over the 8 years between the films. He's not against the idea of Batman, he's against the idea of Bruce engaging in what he sees as destructive behavior. There's hints at this in both previous movies. The "Know your limits" bit in The Dark Knight is a good example. He wants to see his "son" move on. I find that to be interesting. His scenes are pretty much all very emotional. The deaths of Bruce's parents, Rachel and Harvey were interesting, sure, in the impact it had on other characters, but Bruce's relationship with Alfred has a lot more emotional investment. I actually care about these two characters.
Batman's little screen time doesn't bother me, because in this series, Batman is just Bruce in a costume to me. I actually care about Bruce.
John Blake works really well for me. He's likable. You can complain about Bruce handing the Batcave over to someone he seems to barely know, but I think the movie does a good job of demonstrating why he trusts this guy so much. They share a kinship, they're both orphans who witnessed the murder of their parents, they have similar worldviews. Bruce giving him the keys to the Batcave I can totally understand. It also completes a pretty big part of the whole trilogy: Batman is symbol. Enduring, everlasting, incorruptible. That symbol doesn't have to necessarily be Bruce.
...and the Robin name thing was just a wink-nudge. The character is obviously inspired by various Robins from the comics anyway. If Batman's not gonna have a partner, he might as well have an heir. It works better thematically too. '
It might've seemed a little silly/a bit of a stretch exactly how he figured it out, but I do like the fact that John Blake figured out who Batman is on his own like that. Every other character who knew Batman's identity either did so because they knew from the get go, he pretty much told them, or it was like Colman Reese where he just happened to stumble onto some incriminating evidence. Blake just put two and two together and figured it out on his own. I like that.
Selina Kyle stole pretty much every scene she was in. She's a bit of a comic relief character, but it's done so well that it feels like a put down to call her that. Hathaway also had good chemistry with Bale, which is probably why I'm okay with them ending up together in the end. Forced romance? Eh, it's less forced than his relationship with Miranda Tate.
I love Bane. Bane's very intimidating and commands every scene he's in. There's a ton of memorable moments with him. I like his parallels with Bruce, both of them being excommunicated from the league of shadows, both of them living much of their lives in 'darkness' (Bruce's being metaphorical, what with his parent's death).
Talia I don't really care much for, but I actually like the Talia twist, because it suddenly makes Bane this other neat parallel. He's not in love with Talia, he's Talia's Alfred. Bane and Alfred are both essentially adoptive parents to a child who's parents were murdered.
And of course there's the whole spectacle. The action scenes are really well done. That first fight between Batman and Bane in the sewers was probably the best fight scene Nolan's ever done. It's made all the better by the total lack of music. The second fight is really awesome too. You also gotta love Nolan's huge reliance on practical effects
Really, it's all about those characters for me. Their arcs, the way they interact, the fact that they're backed by fantastic performances from a stellar cast.
The movie isn't perfect, I do have issues with it, but they're very easy to ignore when i'm that interested in the characters and what's going on with them. Besides, you just wanted to know why I thought the movie was good, so... yeah.
There. You probably will think it's a load of crap or something, but I liked the movie. There's some big reasons why.
AppleQueso wrote:
There. You probably will think it's a load of crap or something, but I liked the movie. There's some big reasons why.
You assume a lot about me. You did the finger pointing and went as far as saying "fuck you", I just stated my opinion and asked you for yours. Never did I belittle anyone.
*Ahh. Deep breath*
I disagree with very little of what you wrote. Much of what you said correlates with what I said was good about the movie the entire time. And for fans of Bruce Wayne, yes, the movie does have a decent story arc for him
(although after my second viewing, I'm fairly certain Wayne is dead and Alfred is fantasizing as he said earlier in the film to clear his conscious)
AppleQueso wrote:
There. You probably will think it's a load of crap or something, but I liked the movie. There's some big reasons why.
You assume a lot about me. You did the finger pointing and went as far as saying "fuck you", I just stated my opinion and asked you for yours. Never did I belittle anyone.
*Ahh. Deep breath*
I disagree with very little of what you wrote. Much of what you said correlates with what I said was good about the movie the entire time. And for fans of Bruce Wayne, yes, the movie does have a decent story arc for him
(although after my second viewing, I'm fairly certain Wayne is dead and Alfred is fantasizing as he said earlier in the film to clear his conscious)
and everything Catwoman was a bonus.
And JGL was great. No doubt.
That post was written over two hours or so. I apologize for flipping out like that. I'm kinda a little tense lately I guess. Maybe that shooting got to me idk. Don't really want to make excuses.
The good simply far outweighs the bad for me. I've said it before, it's not perfect, but I have minor issues with the other two movies too. Nothing is perfect really.
AppleQueso wrote:
That post was written over two hours or so. I apologize for flipping out like that. I'm kinda a little tense lately I guess. Maybe that shooting got to me idk. Don't really want to make excuses.
The good simply far outweighs the bad for me. I've said it before, it's not perfect, but I have minor issues with the other two movies too. Nothing is perfect really.
No worries.
And yeah, both Begins and TDK have some dumb stuff in it too (well every Batman movie). We just don't see eye to eye on which movie has the most dumb stuff in it. That's certainly fine with me. Some movies cover up dumb stuff better than others.
And nothing is perfect, but off the top of my head I'll say that RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, THE ARTIST, ET, JAWS, UP, HARVEY, PLATOON, come pretty near perfect.
just watched DKR again, this time with the wife (her first viewing). She feels the same as me. Bane was an awful choice for a villain, especially considering hes
little more than a pedophile henchman/hired thug.
And that voice. To quote my wife: "Sounds like Tom Hardy is trying to do his best Sean Connery impression. And failing."
BLOOBIDY BLOBBIDY BLABBIDY GOTHAM IS BLOOBIDY YOURS!
Even if the Black Gate prisoners were in there because of the Dent Fiasco - um... they're still criminals. Why would Bane think Gotham would want them released? Idiot.
The fact is that this film is the weakest of the Nolan Batverse. Begins was excellent, Dark Knight was comic/cinema perfection, and this one is literally a longer length step down from both of those films. It's what Return of the Jedi was to the Star Wars series.
You can't beat Empire Strikes Back. You can like Jedi more, or have it be your favorite (as it is with me because of nostalgia, likely) but you can't deny that Empire is the baddest assest of the trilogy.
