Yes, I have successfully left the paying job and now am watching to commercials at the movie theater for the Dark Knight Rises. What happened in Aurora, Colorado this morning didn't change my plans, but I am watching the people entering the theater and really took notice of the exits. It's a different world again.
Next week, I'll probably be staying late again so I deserve this treat. And getting in for a 4:30 feature was the best plan; no fighting for a seat.
After the movie: Wow, just wow. Do not wait to see this movie! I don't see any way of continuing without spoilers, so SPOILERS!
My inner Cat/Bat shipper is purring like a kitten. Bruce does show his legendary trait of picking the wrong woman, but in his defense, I think he picked up on a resemblance between Bane and Ra's al Ghul. Tom Hardy in the mask looked like Liam Neason a few time for me. And let us rejoice that there is no Damian in the Nolan Bat-verse!
Sticking with Bruce for a bit, the whole hermit/recluse thing was the one wrong note in the whole shebang. Problem one, he gives up on life because Rachel is dead. Ugh, too much power to an OC. Problem two, didn't Bruce gain an appreciation for what Wayne Enterprises meant at the end of Batman Begins? That's what I took away from him retaking control of the company.
The fanon explanation I'm building in my head: Batman vanished 8 years ago, taking the blame for Two-Face's murders. Bruce channeled money and energy into building the fusion power McGuffin, and then up pops the scientific paper that turns it into a nuclear warhead. Damnit, Gotham doesn't need Batman with the Dent Act and all he managed to do was build another weapon instead of anything useful like his father had done (the elevated train system), and that is what triggers the full recluse state a few years after Batman retires.
Anne Hathaway was brilliant as Selina Kyle! ChrisDee's Cat Tales are my favorite portrayals of Selina Kyle, but Anne was a better blend of the Frank Miller goggle-whore with the classy feline grace fans prefer than we could have gotten. Her character arc growing from a taker from the Have-Too-Much to a hero who rescues her man is pitch-perfect. THIS is the Catwoman that travesty of a Halle Berry film didn't even try to be.
Detective work unfortunately took a back seat and then was dropped by the wayside as the plot built up from the first two movies with graceful shout-outs to Knightfall and No Man's Land. But it did manage to lurk in the backstory, namely John Blake figures Batman's secret out. Then he figures out a lot more but not in time to do anything about it.
Now to talk about John Blake, the character the Internet couldn't figure out (maybe someone did guess successfully, I was avoiding spoilers). Kudos to the writers and Joseph Gordon-Levitt for pulling off a combination of traits from all the Robins: Dick Grayson's work as a cop, moral compass, and wise-ass nature; Jason Todd's anger at his orphan state, and the detective skills from Tim Drake. This is a great example of an OC done right, sorry poor dead Rachel. What I kept waiting for them to do was to tie Blake back to the kid Batman and Rachel saved in the Narrows, but they didn't.
Fanon exercise: If the timeline supports that kid being Blake, he is Blake. After all, Gordon went from having an infant in Batman Begins to two kids 10 or slightly under by the Dark Knight. If the timeline doesn't, that kid is going to become Nightwing's Robin.
Alfred, oh my god, Alfred. If you don't get teary eyes and sniffles when he breaks down at Thomas and Matha's graves saying how he failed them, you have no heart.
Which leads me to what I overheard in the theater during the credits. A couple down the row from me brought up the possibility that the last scene was a fantasy constructed by Alfred. While eating supper after the movie, I came up with an outline of why I thought it was real. Then when I got home and poked around the movie's IMDB page, I found out that Nolan constructed the ending so that both meanings could be read into it. And that was okay, because my outline of support became the basis for a fanfic expanding on what we didn't see.
Have a taste of what I came up with for the opening:
The bastard. Selina's fingers manipulated the lock picks automatically and left her mind free to run on the same track it had been running on for the past few days. The man she had mocked as a parasite, the man who gave Gotham everything he had, the man she had betrayed, the man who forgave her and trusted her to follow his path, the man she saved, the man who got past her claws and walls, the man she kissed without any ulterior motive, the man who died so a city might live.
Calling him the bastard was the trick to keeping her tears at bay.
Trust me, I have a lot more than that already. Which relieves me terribly, for it proves that all this overtime hasn't killed off all creativity.
Read Free!The BookWorm
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