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The Dark Knight Rises

Totenkindly

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What perverse logic would dictate that he ought to be conciliatory at all?

My point was simply that if you throw a lit grenade into a crowd of rabid believers, what the hell do you EXPECT to have happen? :doh:

I don't have an opinion on whether he "should" be conciliatory.
 

Orangey

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My point was simply that if you throw a lit grenade into a crowd of rabid believers, what the hell do you EXPECT to have happen? :doh:

I don't have an opinion on whether he "should" be conciliatory.

I mean, he probably did expect that reaction for all we know, but what does that matter unless you're trying to pinpoint some hypocrisy on his part?

The important thing is, why are there 'believers' at all? They deserve to be provoked and then ridiculed for their reaction.
 

Totenkindly

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I mean, he probably did expect that reaction for all we know, but what does that matter unless you're trying to pinpoint some hypocrisy on his part?

I can't speak for this reviewer, but I definitely think there are those reviewers who overly criticize something just because it's popular. A movie has a 100% so far on the tally? Well, let's find some reasons to outright reject it to knock that score down a bit.

It's what happened with Inception as well -- people were getting down on it simply because a lot of people were up on it.

Why should it matter whether or not the "public" happens to like something? Judge a movie on its actual quality, not as a kneejerk reaction to a movie's popularity. The haters are as bad as the psycho-believers.

The important thing is, why are there 'believers' at all? They deserve to be provoked and then ridiculed for their reaction.

Anyone judging the movie based on anything other than its actual quality should be criticized. Audience and reviewers alike.
 

Totenkindly

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Here's a Tom Hardy article I just ran across....

http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie...ance-place-masked-villain-dark-190953552.html

Tom Hardy didn't need to see a script before he agreed to play the villainous Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises." All he needed was a phone call.

Hardy said that in their initial conversations, director Christopher Nolan "wouldn't tell me anything else about the character, except that he was a very bad guy."

...After agreeing to the role, Hardy set about transforming himself from the slick, well-dressed forger he played in "Inception" to the menacing bad guy. Hardy had some experience beefing up for earlier movies like "Bronson," where he played a notorious prison inmate, and "Warrior," in which he played an MMA fighter. For Bane, he put on 30 lbs. through months of rigorous training (and eating)

I think his height was mentioned earlier in the thread. According to IMDB, he's 5' 10" -- tall enough that I'd date him, ha...

(Bale is listed as 6'.)
 

Poindexter Arachnid

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I mean, he probably did expect that reaction for all we know, but what does that matter unless you're trying to pinpoint some hypocrisy on his part?

The important thing is, why are there 'believers' at all? They deserve to be provoked and then ridiculed for their reaction.

He did. Free publicity for him.
Did it not get yoir attention?.

And the "Nolanites" should be ridiculed.
The movie isnt even out yet.
 

Orangey

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I can't speak for this reviewer, but I definitely think there are those reviewers who overly criticize something just because it's popular. A movie has a 100% so far on the tally? Well, let's find some reasons to outright reject it to knock that score down a bit.

It's what happened with Inception as well -- people were getting down on it simply because a lot of people were up on it.

Why should it matter whether or not the "public" happens to like something? Judge a movie on its actual quality, not as a kneejerk reaction to a movie's popularity. The haters are as bad as the psycho-believers.



Anyone judging the movie based on anything other than its actual quality should be criticized. Audience and reviewers alike.

Sure, like Armond White (though I still think he's hilarious because he's a troll reviewer.) But TBH I was expecting (actually, waiting for) the type of criticism this one is getting because it's overdue from the last film, but everyone was so reverential about it that they didn't see any of its manifold flaws the first time.
 

Totenkindly

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I'm bored enough to Google through the last bit of lunch break...




Found this (Armand White's review of "The Dark Knight"):

http://nypress.com/knight-to-remember/


Comments over on Indiewire:

All this to say: don't get bogged down in (for lack of a better word) "statistics." Find a few reviewers you like and whose opinion you trust and read them regularly. Even more, read reviews that don't agree with your thoughts on a movie. But don't let a number or letter or star determine the value of a movie for you before you go see it, and learn to be critical even of movies you do like. And guess what? People are going to dislike movies you love. Someone is going to fucking hate "The Dark Knight Rises." Armond White will probably say "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" was much better. And that's okay. At the end of the day, your feelings on a movie shouldn't be swayed by an aggregated score, and if it is, then you're a fan of popular opinions, not of movies.

God, Ghost Rider was a dog....

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayl...regated-movie-scores-are-meaningless-20120717


And the RT response to the "hubbub":
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the...ises_--_this_is_why_we_cant_have_nice_things/

EDIT:
whitearmondstartrekcritic.jpg
 

Orangey

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Totenkindly

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He was pretty brutal on TDK. Like, wow.

If he didn't get much response, it's probably because many of the Gen Y fanboys didn't understand what he was saying. :smile:
 

KDude

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I don't know. I think you have to really be not even remotely part of the target demographic to hate this series that much. From a general point of view, they're still passable entertainment at worst. Not the big deal fanboys make out of them, but not the Toxic Avenger or some shit either. To make it out like it's that bad is trying too hard. Kind of like how people say Starbucks is the shittiest coffee on earth. It isn't even close.
 

MacGuffin

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I hope Nolan pulls it off, series with more than one sequel (trilogy or not) can rarely sustain a high quality for three movies.

Will be interesting to see if the weak point in the trilogy is the first film, which is usually the strongest in a trilogy.
 

Poindexter Arachnid

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I don't know. I think you have to really be not even remotely part of the target demographic to hate this series that much. From a general point of view, they're still passable entertainment at worst. Not the big deal fanboys make out of them, but not the Toxic Avenger or some shit either. To make it out like it's that bad is trying too hard. Kind of like how people say Starbucks is the shittiest coffee on earth. It isn't even close.

In a group of lemmings, always be the contrarian.
You'll stand out more.

Here's a Tom Hardy article I just ran across....

http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie...ance-place-masked-villain-dark-190953552.html



I think his height was mentioned earlier in the thread. According to IMDB, he's 5' 10" -- tall enough that I'd date him, ha...

(Bale is listed as 6'.)

Hollywood actors are always listed as taller than their actual height.

In the BTS footage where the two stand side by side, Bale dwarfs Hardy.
In fact, Bale makes him look like a child.

The camera angles and blocking will make him appear bigger in the picture I'm sure.

But no way is he 5' 10'. Bale has a good 4-6 inches on him easy.
 

Orangey

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He was pretty brutal on TDK. Like, wow.

If he didn't get much response, it's probably because many of the Gen Y fanboys didn't understand what he was saying. :smile:

I agreed with some of the more concrete things he had to say about the film, but otherwise his critiques (as they always do) tend to devolve into psychobabble and intellectually impoverished cultural critique.
 

Poindexter Arachnid

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Except that time he did (specifically, in Hush). Eventually Batman neutralized the threat by playing on Riddler's neuroses: Riddler could never willingly give away the answer to the greatest riddle of all. He might have gotten some kind of amnesia later, I don't remember.

Additionally, a lot of Batman's more intelligent villains don't have any interest in his real identity. To people like Freeze, Batman's a nuisance, not a goal. Others, like Scarecrow or Joker, don't actually care about who he is, they are only interested in the Batman as the Batman (in the Joker's case, he probably rightly asserts Batman is his true identity). Hugo Stange and Ra's Al Ghul are a couple other villains who know Batman's secret.

Bane's no dunce, though I do consider him a boring Batman villain thematically. Most others have some kind of clear point of reference that relate to the Batman's mind (to me, a lot of Batman's villains represent baggage, fears or insecurities he personally possesses, or in the Joker's case an absolute psychological shadow, even those that aren't that at least have empathetic and interesting motivations like Freeze or Harley Quinn), while Bane's just a pretty by the numbers bad guy.

Truth be told, I never liked the character much.
It is bold that they would choose him as the big bad this time around.

But you have to give it to him: His superpower is ruthlessness.
He ain't the smartest of the bunch, but he is dangerously intelligent.
And a blunt, devastating force of nature.

Nonetheless, this isn't a villain I would prefer.
Where is the bad guy that would require Batman to hone his non-existent detective skills?
To Nolan, Bats is the ultra tech ninja that goes around and blows shit up with his tanks.

Lame.
 

The Ü™

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I hope Nolan pulls it off, series with more than one sequel (trilogy or not) can rarely sustain a high quality for three movies.

Will be interesting to see if the weak point in the trilogy is the first film, which is usually the strongest in a trilogy.

Often, I find that if the second movie is the best of a trilogy, then the third one is the worst, and the first is in the middle, Like the Godfather trilogy or the first three Alien movies (Alien 3 was apparently so bad to some, that it was the reason they went ahead and made Alien Resurrection, and though Alien 3 is a guilty pleasure for me, I think it's still the weakest of the first three). The Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy also fell in this category -- Spider-Man 2 was a masterpiece, and the high expectations led Spider-Man 3 to be a letdown.

The other category is when the first movie is the strongest, and the second movie is the weakest, third is in the middle. The Men in Black movies are probably the best recent examples, but also consider the Indiana Jones trilogy, in which Raiders was the best and Temple of Doom was the weakest. (I don't count KotKS for these purposes, but personally, I found it to be every bit as good as Raiders and Last Crusade.)

And I'm pretty sure this all has to do with expectations. I'll use Spider-Man as an example -- the first one was good, the second one was great, but after how great the second one was, the third was a bit of a letdown that would've otherwise been decent when put up against the first movie, albeit weaker because of its bloated story and excessive melodrama, not to mention the multiple villain syndrome, which tends to be what causes superhero movies to fall apart.

And then there's the Men in Black trilogy, where the first movie was excellent and the second was very weak, especially by comparison. By the third film, expectations are much lower after the first sequel, so that it ends up being much better than the second but not quite as good as the first.

But I've actually rarely seen a movie trilogy in which the movies get progressively worse.

And in the case of the Nolan Batman movies, so far, TDKR is the weakest, but some have said that it has more in common with Batman Begins than The Dark Knight. For most people, The Dark Knight is the best, so they're likely to be disappointed by the third film. For me, I personally loved Batman Begins but didn't much care for The Dark Knight (it was okay, but not great), so maybe The Dark Knight Rises will be a step up. And it likely will be for the Pittsburgh Steelers stadium imploding alone.
 

MacGuffin

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But I've actually rarely seen a movie trilogy in which the movies get progressively worse.
Don't forget the Matrix trilogy and the Pirates of the Caribbean (ignore the 4th one, as the first three have a proper trilogy story/characters).

I actually prefer Alien to Aliens now.
 

The Ü™

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Don't forget the Matrix trilogy and the Pirates of the Caribbean (ignore the 4th one, as the first three have a proper trilogy story/characters).

I actually prefer Alien to Aliens now.

I thought The Matrix Revolutions was marginally better than Reloaded. At least the gimmicks were not throwbacks to the first film like Reloaded (it had new ones), though I'm not particularly a fan of any of the movies.

As for Pirates, the only one I liked a lot was the second. I guess it's partly because of my creature animation fetish (Davy Jones was every bit as mindblowing as the T-Rex in Jurassic Park), but I found it to be more engaging than either 1 or 3. Pirates 3 was the worst -- it was beyond bloated in a way that reminded me of Spielberg's 1941, except it wasn't funny -- and Pirates 1 was in the middle.

The only movie trilogy I can think of off hand in which the films got progressively worse was Back to the Future, although I enjoyed them all.
 

KDude

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Nonetheless, this isn't a villain I would prefer.
Where is the bad guy that would require Batman to hone his non-existent detective skills?
To Nolan, Bats is the ultra tech ninja that goes around and blows shit up with his tanks.

Lame.

I don't think that was Nolan's main message in the last film. Joker represented Chaos, and Batman order. Batman's "detective" skills were painted as going down a slippery slope.. resembling something akin to Homeland Security. Then towards the end, he's considered the Dark Knight and rides off running away from cops, like a criminal himself. The guy who bends the rules for the sake of order. I thought Nolan said more with all this than typical action movie shit.
 
G

Ginkgo

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I don't think that was Nolan's main message in the last film. Joker represented Chaos, and Batman order. Batman's "detective" skills were painted as going down a slippery slope.. resembling something akin to Homeland Security. Then towards the end, he's considered the Dark Knight and rides off running away from cops, like a criminal himself. The guy who bends the rules for the sake of order. I thought Nolan said more with all this than typical action movie shit.

Oddly, order maintained his true nature by not killing chaos. :p
 

Totenkindly

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Don't forget the Matrix trilogy and the Pirates of the Caribbean (ignore the 4th one, as the first three have a proper trilogy story/characters).

It was too bad about the Matrix. I really wanted to like the last movie. But... oh well.
 
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