Thespian said:
If I sounded overly harsh I guess I was just trying to condense my opinion. But I do think that that moment should have been the pinnacle of Bane's character, revealing and affirming things about him that would add some depth and understanding to his character. Instead, it needlessly over-complicated things. I have no idea what Bane's motivation actually was. I find it really hard to believe that he cares for Tali so much that he's willing to let her kill herself, and Bane, to accomplish the goal of her father who not only condemned Talia and her mother to the Pit but exiled Bane after he saved Talia's life. But that is what Bane is doing. For anyone to do that, they'd have to be some sort of automaton.
He always believed in the cause of the League of Shadows, but was excommunicated for the whole being a monster thing. Being in love with Talia wasn't his sole motivation, it was also finishing the job that Ra's started. I mean I know everyone retorts this with "Gotham was fine until he showed up though" but was it really? The Dent act was just a new form of evil in which the government had the control, and the League needed to make an example of it. I mean the whole drawing it out thing was definitely just to fuck with Bruce for Talia, but he definitely believed in the cause of the League of Shadows. You need to read between the lines but it's all there.
I also don't think the pit at all invalidates Bane's character. Judging by Talia's general attitude of being a revenge-obsessed ***** it seems like Bane was the one who came up with most of the plan and raised the army. It's not made explicit who did all the planning but given that Bane has been established as the bad-ass while Talia was just sort of yanking at Bruce's chain for a while I have no doubt in my mind that it was almost all Bane.
I don't agree here at all. I cringed when it looked like Bane would be Ra's son, that'd be rather weak. And I just think that Talia should have been properly built up as a villain from the start. I found it really flow-breaking when I suddenly had to forget about the villain who had been developed from the beginning, watch him get discarded like any random grunt, and then rapidly get invested in this new villain so close to the end. It sucks because Talia is a cool character, and Marion Cotillard is a great actress. I just feel like the character's potential was wasted.
To be fair, I didn't see that twist coming. I think it was pretty cheap, but still. I totally should have seen it coming, too.
The whole point of Talia's character was that she became so obsessed with revenge that she lost her own identity and became her mask. This is meant to contrast with Bruce and show him where and inability to get over the death of his parents will get him. Definitely wasn't a cool way for Bane to go down but Talia's meaning was pretty clear and strong imo. Fitting villain for what the trilogy was really all about, which leads us to the next thing...
Well yes, that's what I'm saying. I know it was established in Batman Begins and TDK. And I really, really don't like it. I'm not saying that it's an internal inconsistency on Nolan's part, I'm saying that I think it's a crappy choice for the character and I don't like the direction it goes in. Though, I guess you're right - It's not a flaw in the movie so much as just being something about the series I don't like.
Go watch the trilogy again. Go on, I'll wait.
*waits 7ish hours*
The psychosis was there throughout all three. First let's go through Batman begins. Bruce likes to tell himself and Alfred and Ra's that the reason for the Batman is to fight injustice, but under that it is made explicit that it's really because he can't move on from the death of his parents. In scenes like this it's made clear.
Note how outright pissed he gets as soon as Ra's starts talking about his parents. Hence we see that the reason for his hatred of injustice is because of his own helplessness in front of Chill. Also note the "you have learned to bury your anger, we will teach you to confront it" line. This makes it clear that the Batman, while a symbol, is really a means of expressing his own emotions. And at the end of the movie it's clear through talking about the mansion that he has learned how to confront it, though the anger is certainly not gone.
Then there's the car chase after the asylum. Note how the maneuvers he's doing could have easily killed a bunch of cops (yet he somehow didn't). The significance of this was that it showed Batman really was originally about thrill seeking to him. As soon as he is faced with the last bastion of his humanity (Rachel) being threatened he drops all pretenses of his code of ethics and does whatever is necessary for her to not die. Meaning that his identity and Batman begin to converge. Take note of that because it becomes a big thing in TDK.
Anyway this post is getting a bit long so I'm going to condense the other two movies a bit. The most important part of TDK is Rachel's death.
Note how he's wearing his batsuit during the day in his armchair. That's emblematic of Bruce becoming completely losing himself and only really being able to define himself as Batman. Rachel was his last tie to humanity and with her gone he is just Batman. Hence we see that these anger and psychological issues become the sole defining characteristics of Bruce Wayne.
Then in TDKR we see Bruce finally get over all of this. The most important scene was climbing out of the pit. Prior to it we hear Bruce say "I fear dying in here while my city burns." This shows that he's totally cool with death, but only if he dies as Batman. So basically he's still only Batman, cool. But the significance of climbing without the rope is not only rediscovering what it means to be Batman, but also that he has his own life outside Batman. With that jump he was humanised again - he finally accepted that he can't change his parents' or Rachel's death and just needs to move on. Then Selina gives him an out and he finally goes to live his normal life. Then he leaves the identity of Batman to John Blake in hopes that he'll embrace his issues and eventually overcome them, in addition to bringing hope to the city.
I could write pages upon pages about this, but literally the entire theme of the trilogy is Bruce overcoming his deep psychological issues. Batman wasn't just some day job, it was who he was, which was why he became a recluse for 8 years after not being able to be Batman anymore. But the idea of the trilogy is that despite how far gone he is, he can still come back and live a normal life (why do we fall?). So yeah, no idea how you missed all this.
I know, right? I mean, Bane kept giving out about upper class corruption and stuff but he didn't seem to care much about it personally. Shrug.
The class struggle thing was a front to torture Bruce for Talia and fulfill the goals of the League of Shadows. If he was really trying to make Gotham take back their city then he wouldn't have killed the one guy who knows how to disarm the bomb which was invariably going to blow up.
Thank god, that could have been so bad >_<
Though I woooould like to see Robin in a movie at some point. If done well. Jason Todd is a story begging to be told on the big screen.
Think the Robin thing was thrown in so that the normies would recognise the reference.
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