The Dark Knight Rises

(Most DC maps put Metropolis in Delaware, south of Gotham City, which is in New Jersey.)

I wonder where they will be shooting 'Man Of Steel'?

Metropolis should have a different look to it than Gotham City.

If you go by the TV show Smallville, Metropolis is somewhere in Kansas a few hours from Clark's hometown...

This explains everything about Gotham

I think the best quote from this movie is also the best quote from the trilogy:

I liked it fine for what it was, but I'm still waiting for a definative live action Batman movie. Hell, during at least half of this one, Batman seemed to be just another character, secondary in story importance to Bane, Lucius Fox, Gordon, Blake (don't get me started on the royal screwing of the mythos that was) and Talia / Miranda.

Isn't that an oxymoron?

I kind of like Blake's character. Robin has always been optional for me in the Batman mythos, and sort of does nothing but take away from the darker and broodier aspects of Batman, which I prefer.

The one thing with Blake, though, is that in order to become either Batman 2, Robin, or Nightwing, he's going to need some serious physical training to develop those ninja-like, building-scaling, and flying sort of skills that Bats has.

Well, so did Batman.

True, and I don't think it's going to be an issue in the Nolanverse anyway. We can speculate on it all we want but Nolan Batman is in the can.

As an alternate-universe self-containted Batman mythos, it works really well.

Trying to integrate it into the larger Bat-verse seems virtually impractical to do.

Having watched it last night via alternative means, one thought not already mentioned jumped out at me:

Bane says to Bruce that he "spent years" fighting crime as Batman, as one might expect. And yet, at the very end of the first movie (which wouldn't have covered him "in costume" more than several weeks tops) Gordon hands him a playing card which signifies the Joker is already in play.

So "Returns" would logically have happened fairly quickly after "Begins"

Even at the most generous the time span contained in the first two films can't amount to more than several months.

And then he went off the map - so when did he "spend years" as an active Batman?

Dark knight takes place one year after begins

I assume it took some time for the Gotham PD to round up and lock up all those criminals in the prison.

And I assume there was a period of time before the Dent Act and after TDK where Batman was still active in some capacity. I doubt he gave up the costume immediately following the events in the second movie.

He was probably just helping to mop up some of the minor criminals and gangsters who were still around. He probably didn't fight any other supervillains like Ra's or the Joker.

There's got to be some room in there to wedge in the animated "Gotham Knight".

While there's maybe SOME wiggle-room there, TDKR makes it clear (in some of Blake's dialog) that the night Dent died was the last CONFIRMED sighting of the Batman. Also, the injuries Bruce receives at the end of TDK seem likely to have kept him out of the Batman business.

It's not rock solid how much time passes between BB and TDK, but the Joker has dialog about "winding the clock back a YEAR" to a time when law enforcement in Gotham City would not take on the mob, a time before the Batman. That would indicate that a year (more or less) has passed.

THe DC animated movies have been largely shit so far (especially the Superman ones, which are the ones I primarily check out, despite my lack of interest for superhero cartoons generally). All Star Superman was the only half decent one.

But this I will most definately be looking forward to. Don't read many comics, but the ones I do have are Superman and Batman graphics novels and DKR remains one of my favourites.

I tell you which one they should do, Batman: The Cult. Man that was one dark book. Another of my favourites.

Not to derail, but I made a little discovery recently: I hosed myself by buying a movie on Blu-ray (now that I have a Blu-ray player). Why? Because my computers don't do Blu-ray, only DVD. So when I was contemplating taking the AWESOMENESS that is Lone Wolf McQuade on the road with me to watch during a boring couple hours in the hotel, guess what?

Couldn't do it.

So when Avengers and DKR come out in the stores, I'll be buying them- ON DVD.

You just became my new best friend.

Most big releases on BD include a DVD or digital copy for smart mobile devices.... a lot of the time, both are included. I bet you Avengers and DKR will come with both.

I just saw it again. I'm feeling the bridge scene with John Blake and the bus of kids is purposeless - they were just trying to find a way to write him into the finale but had no where to stick him. A bus of kids? Come on. He doesn't even accomplish anything but waste his time.

Why are we still spoilering this?

I don't know. If you haven't seen it already, fuck you.

Here's what it's about.

Batman comes out of retirement to fight Bane, a supervillian from Barbados who holds Gotham for ransom and kills catwoman in the first act of the movie after she threatens to expose Batman's identity. Bane quickly breaks Batman's back, imprisons him in Madagascar, and kills Gordon. John Blake becomes the new Commissioner and Morgan Freeman is the new mayor - after mayor Pirate blows up at a football game (he was the running back).

Batman escapes from the prison in Madagascar using a jet powered wheel chair, uses the batplane to escape, and rescues Alfred from Bane - who turns out to be Liam Neesom (Ras Al Ghul) in disguise! Spoiler alert - Batman dies rescuing Alfred and Bane dumps his body into the river only to die himself of old age a minute later. Nolan was apparently on crack when he wrote this screenplay because at the very end it turns out - Spoiler alert - John Blake was batman all along and Bruce Wayne never even left the mansion in the film!

And the West 7th St. sign was clearly from LA.

Saw it Saturday. Enjoyed it, generally. I felt Batman wasn't central enough to the story, but it's a pretty big story. And the bad blood between Ras (sp?) and Bane... well, I don't see how that made even a lick of sense.

Finally watched this. Definitely not as good as Dark Knight partly because the character of the Joker elevated that one but also because TDK was a much more tightly told story - even with the final bit that some people complained about as tacked on. Whereas this when for the grand and epic and just about pulled it off. But when you do that there are more opportunities for failure and few bits grated on me.

- the prison bit I found a bit... meh. Had the shit beaten out of him and got back on the horse a little too quickly. Also, Bane wouldn't want you to tell Bruce the story of the child (and thus give something away) but he'd be cool with you helping Wayne to fix his back, recover his strength and escape? No.

- A couple of times they moved the plot on very quickly (which they had to in roder to cram it all in) via massive leaps, eg I didn't like the 'I know you are Batman from looking at your eyes' guff from Blake and also the fact that he just happens to spot Selina Kyle in the street at EXACTLY the right time - and intuites enough to know she is involved and knows about Bruce. Jarred.

- the politics is a bit... odd. I've no problem with whether I disagree with it or not but it didn't feel very consistent.

However, it does have some great moments and looks good. I actually liked Bane's voice! Hathaway was good with what she was given to do. I didn't see Talia until about 3 seconds before the reveal and I was convinced they'd killed him off at the end (and I agree with others that a smile from Alfred would have been enough). Enjoyed the foreshadowing of Blake as a new Bat.

I have forgotten most of them now but there were loads of visual cues back to the previous two, most of which I assume were deliberate - I even took the yellow school bus that way (although that might just be a general Nolan meme).

I'm keen to see it again without having to worry about bouncing around in the hurried plotting.

Not to nit-pick, but the walking on thin ice segments? Maybe only Wisconsinites and Canucks would catch this:
If the ice is dangerously thin you lay down to spread/distribute your weight out over a larger surface area. It's pretty much the principle of how a snowshoe works.

Yes but with men behind with guns they may not let you lie down.

Just saw the movie on Monday. It was great. TDK, then this one then the first one.

Banes voice was ok. Understood everything.

They didn't do a good job of explaining the time while Bruce was in the prison. I had a WTF moment when I realized it was more then a few days.

They messed up the time of the bomb. No way the Bat plane (which looks more like a roach to me) gets far enough away that the city is not in some way feeling some effects.

I knew Batman survived as soon as I saw the building blow up that the Bat Plane flew through while carrying the bomb.

It's all about the distractions.

The Auto-pilot fix and of course showing Bruce at the end were just icing on the cake.

We had some idiot come into the therater wearing a hoodie, look around, and sit down in the front row where no one else was (matinee time) and then get up and leave. Needless to say everyone took notice. Wife got scared she went to the bathroom for like 20 minutes. I guess she was waiting to see if I got shot.

I loved that part! I also like when Catwoman pointed to a spot over the center-field wall before she punched Bane so hard his head flew and she hit a home-run. The icing on the cake was the guy catching the head.....the original Batman Adam West in a quick cameo! I can't believe I'm the only one who saw that.

BTW Banes voice was AWESOME.