(This article contains heavy spoilers and we DO NOT RECOMMEND that you read it before seeing the movie)
I loved The Dark Knight Rises. I don’t feel it is the best of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films so much as the film that makes them a trilogy. I’m not being silly, what I mean is that they are a proper trilogy, not just a film with two sequels. TDKR unites the drastically different Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and makes the whole package work. If it wasn’t for the slight hiccup with Katie Holmes you could cut the three movies into one uber-film and it would work. So don’t think this is someone picking holes to find fault. I was happy, I was totally satisfied. Any niggles I had were lost in my appreciation of the film.
That said, there are a few quite drastic differences between Nolan’s epic and the source material and I would like to highlight and discuss them. Some of these differences I wasn’t keen on and some I agreed with, after all this is Nolan’s Batman. It has its own canon. I would like to point out now though that none of these things break TDKR. They are what they are and for the most part it works just fine.
5. The Non-Return of The Scarecrow
I thought The Scarecrow was pants in The Dark Knight. After his fiery horse antics in Batman Begins I had high hopes for The Scarecrow but it seems all he has ended up becoming is a petty drug dealer and a rather pointless judge. He only has one question to ask; death or exile? Surely he could have been more?
The Scarecrow persona was diluted in TDK and completely lost in TDKR. This is a shame because, while he was never a physical threat to Batman, The Scarecrow is an adept trouble maker. I would have loved a small but pivotal role where, as an ex-collaborator with the League of Shadows, he uses his fear toxin to further demoralise Gotham city.
The real disservice to Jonathan Crane is the total abandonment of his obsession with fear. He isn’t The Scarecrow, just an excuse to bring Cillian Murphy back and why bother? Murphy was fine (if a little inconsistent) as crane but surely we aren’t desperate to see him do something totally unrelated to the character? If nothing else they could have at least written his lines to include the word fear……
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11 Comments
Godawful fanboy tosh. As a fanboy myself I know this. However, a lover of film I know fully that any comic book movie has to be respectful of the source material but not just make a shot-for-shot remark of the books. TDKR does this, as much as either of the first two. This is just a rubbish article trying yo illicit some response to all the positive hype surrounding the film. It is quite irrelevant whether or not it mirrors the characters from the books exactly, what is important is does it stand up as a film? Yes, it does. This is why Watchmen didn’t have a giant alien squid rather than the a-bomb.
So did you read what I wrote or just the headings and decided that this was a negative article? It’s a completely neutral article that just discusses these facts. They are indisputable. Yes I can tell you are a fanboy because you jumped to a conclusion and defended the film without taking the time to read the first line; “I loved The Dark Knight”. I don’t have a bad word to say about it. You fanboys just love to rise to the bait and can’t even tell the difference between an article trying to illicit a response to all the positive hype and an article that is just discussing an interesting subject from the view of a fan. As a fanboy myself I know this.
I thought what Batman meant when he said he had not given Gotham everything was his life.
Connor that’s what I thought too and it probably is but while I was discussing the whole killing issue it occurred to me that it could be taken another way.
you’re also forgetting that ra’s's name was butchered through out the whole franchise. episodes of the animated series and batman beyond have touched on the fact that his name isn’t pronounced “raz” or “rez” it’s “raysh.”
at first i didn’t like the inclusion of “robin,” but then i started to see parallels with john blake and all of the robins that have existed in the batman universe
he’s an orphan ala dick grayson/jason todd/and later tim drake
he’s a cop which grayson was for a while when he moved to bludhaven as nightwing.
he’s a bit brash and irresponsible as first – todd
the way his dad died was kinda how tim drake’s dad died in the animated series
and he deduces batman’s identity which is exactly what tim drake did and how he eventually became robin.
Bane trained under Ra’s Al Ghul, don’t you remember that he was excommunicated? Even Talia said that the league trained her and Bane
Dribble
I was honestly really disappointed Arkham Asylum didn’t get any play in this movie. One of my favorite interpretations of Batman is the game ‘Arkham Asylum’ so i had hoped to see Nolan’s version of it!
The Scarecrow´s cameo in TDKR is not that bad, and i don´t think is insonsistent with his character. Even without the fear gas, Crane makes people litteraly kill themselves walking in frozen ice, cause the point is making them walk with fear and die with it. This is the reason he gave the sentence “death by exile” (die with fear in other words) cause just killing Gordon was to easy and not interesting. Sadly he is not seen again, but his scene is way more exciting than his cameo in TDK.
The Scarecrow´s cameo in TDKR was not that bad. And i don´t think is inconsistent with his character. Even without the fear gas, he makes people litteraly kill themselves walking through frozen ice, showing his sadism and need to cause fear to others, because just killing them was to easy and not interesting. This is why he gave Gordon the sentence “Death by Exile” (Death by fear in other words).
Its fantastic as your other articles : D, thankyou for posting . “Reason is the substance of the universe. The design of the world is absolutely rational.” by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.