Like a young, national anthem singing child sitting in the dust of a destroyed football stadium; the audiences for The Dark Knight Rises are still comprehending what on Earth happened in the near three hour destruction of Gotham.
Yet as the dust settles and more and more come forward to talk about how Christopher Nolan’s film trilogy ended; more and more are expressing dissatisfaction with its conclusion.
These issues mainly surround Bruce Wayne still breathing by the end, him running off with Selina Kyle, a new Batman being teased and and my simple response is; why so serious?
The Dark Knight Rises has quite a few problems, but its ending is not one of them; the ending is in fact a perfect completion of Nolan’s trilogy and the ambition it set out with in Begins; and here’s why….
As aforementioned, one of the issues people had with this ending is the fact that Bruce Wayne lived. Whether it is the impracticality of him out-jumping a nuclear blast zone or the fact his characterisation as Gotham’s great protector meant he should have died; people seemed to have not liked the fact that Bruce Wayne lived at the end of The Dark Knight Rises.
Though it may be more practical in terms of how he escapes Gotham (like, seriously, who could out jump a nuclear blast?), it’s never a necessity for him to die and the fact he lives is the perfect conclusion to the emotional journey Bruce Wayne undergoes. He begins with wanting to stand up for the ideals his parents did whilst inspiring people to believe in hope and good, which he does at the films conclusion.
As for Wayne leaving Gotham, it’s quite obviously predetermined by an emotional confrontation with Alfred early on, but the point remains Alfred is correct; Bruce didn’t stay in Gotham because he wanted to be there. He stayed because he had a legacy to install and when that happened and Gotham had a new protector he was right to leave the city that caused him so much pain.
Negative I may be, but I’m not morbid enough to wish death upon Gotham’s protector.
Click “next” below for part 2…
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17 Comments
I think you mean sole.
That was beautiful!!!
I don’t think people had a problem with the character of Bruce Wayne “not dying”, but the fact that Bruce Wayne LIVED and just left Gotham in ruins so he could run away and make babies with Selina. The Bruce Wayne i know (from comics, not personally :P) could never tear himself away in such a time of desperate need.
And to leave it in the hands of a ROOKIE cop who Wayne has NO idea would even stick to his ideals is silly. Besides making a silly face after shooting someone with a gun, Wayne wouldn’t have a clue if Blake’s ideology is to kill the bad guys or not. This kid would get himself killed in minutes he came up against his own Bane.
His escape was clear, he jumped into the building he destroyed, otherwise there was no point in destroying the building, he’s saving the city from a bomb, he’s not going to destroy it for funsies. the bat heli was designed to be easy to manoeuvre through small alleyways, so he blows up the building for cover jumps out and makes his way out that way.
Granted I only watched the movie once; but I’m pretty darn certain I didn’t see any giant buildings in the middle of the ocean… Or are we talking about something different?
To luke stevenson:
Yes he flies the bat thru a building right before heading out to sea, and then the engineers tell lucious fox that the auto pilot was patched by BRUCE WAYNE. He didnt jump in the ocean, mr nolan wouldnt end the saga like that. Please watch any chris nolan movie three times before reviewing it. And please pay attention at the end instead of already constructing a negative review of a clearly brilliant movie before the credits role.
Ok, I will do that if you read anything properly once an realise this is a defence of the ending; not a criticism.
Cool, take a little step off your high horse and take your own advice. Instead of reading this three times just read it once and realise this is a defence against the criticisms levelled at the ending, not a criticism about it.
Apologies for two comments, posted one before and it didn’t appear, posted another one and they both did. Typical.
So called “flaws” = nitpicks. AND they are extremely annoying. This movie was incredible. Especially coming off the ridiculously, un-human like, high expecations from TDK. SO stop nitpicking (which you can do with any movie) and enjoy a wonderfully made film with excellent filmmaking that we just don’t get enough of these days.
Why is this article taking the ending that he lived as a definite fact? The ending works the same as the spinning top in Inception. Sure there is aspects he did escape through the idea of the auto pilot being enabled and Alfred’s vision. However I’m fairly sure that Alfred said he had a dream that he would look over and see Wayne sitting across the cafe, so it could easily have been just his dream (we know how Nolan is fond of dreams) and his way of keeping the idea of Bruce alive in his head. Simply a fragment of his imagination rather than a definite fact We also see Batman in the cockpit of the Bat, and two cuts later we see 5 seconds left on the bomb timer, as it says in the article this is unlikely, another way you can see him as now dead. In a more tenuous point Nolan managed to kill off Rachel in TDK showing he likes to redefine franchises by breaking the norms of comic book movies, normally the hero would find a way to save both. With such genre defying ways of making films it is very likely that if anyone Nolan would have the ability and balls to kill off Batman at the end of his contribution to franchise. Not to mention the tagline ‘the legend ends’ to the film as a further point. Now I’m not saying everything I’ve put here is fact and he definitely did die or survive, I have my own opinion and I’ll discuss that another place, I’m just saying that this article should have a broader view and it seems to have taken, instead it to me seems to have missed the deliberately ambiguous ending that Nolan has given TDKR.
I don’t know, I didn’t see it as that ambiguous. Your point about Alfred’s dream is fair, but earlier in the film his daydream in the same spot is shown to be a different person completely..it’s ‘will it be him?..No’, whereas at the end it definitely is shown to be Bruce. And why would Alfred have dreamed him being with Selina Kyle? I didn’t get the impression that he knew an awful lot about her and Bruce, that they were working so closely.
I prefer to think the comment about the autopilot is definitely meant to be seen as an escape for Bruce. He’s finally able to leave Gotham, having provided it with the lasting legacy of Batman. He fixes up the bat-signal and leaves the bag for Blake to find the bat-cave and become Batman/Nightwing/whatever. Like Bruce discussed with Alfred earlier, he didn’t want to stay in Gotham, so he can now leave to start a new life, ‘Bruce Wayne’ being officially dead (has a burial etc.), with Catwoman who uses the Clean Sweep to start afresh as well.
But sure, I get that a lot of fans will hate such a positive interpretation of the ending, because Nolan and Inception and ambiguity blah blah. This isn’t Inception..granted, that was a film all about questioning what’s real and what isn’t, but this is a different film with different meanings entirely.
DrDojo, there’s little (if anything) ambiguous. Nolan leaves enough informational tidbits to tell us that it all happened. He tells us that the autopilot was fixed and signed off on by Bruce Wayne, the pearl necklace is missing and has a tracer, and then there’s Alfred’s wish (not dream) to see Bruce Wayne living life, having a nice time with a woman at the cafe that Alfred visits each time he went on vacation over the past several years.
If such events happened in Inception, then one could question whether it’s all real or not.
I think that if Nolan was going for a more ambiguous ending, he would have not shown us who or what Alfred saw at the end. But by showing it, he really ended the movie with an exclamation point and lets it be known that Alfred’s wish had come true.
Dr. Dojo–kudos for being one of the very, very few who seems to have a grasp on the ending of DKR. I have searched through numerous reviews hoping to find another with whom I can agree. I have come to much the same conclusion and believe DKR to be a very worthy addition to the Christopher Nolan filmography. Nolan was clear in the run up to the release that this was the end of the story; there could be no further Batman sequels past a trilogy. Yet, most are unwilling to moving forward from this truth. As you have stated, Batman was on the Bat five seconds prior to detonation. There was no way for him to survive the blast. Despite the not-so-subtle decoys, primarily Wayne’s repair of the autopilot, the five seconds to detonation is an overwhelming obstacle to the “happy ending.”
The true method of Nolan’s message is in the character of Alfred, the man who raised Bruce Wayne from a boy and firmly expressed his inability to deal with the likely outcome of Bruce taking up the cape once again. What we see at the very end is one man’s mechanism of dealing with an exceedingly deep sadness. The cafe scene is a beautiful and touching way of expressing this overwhelming grief. Notice, however, the number of reviewers who are willing to suspend disbelief across so many improbabilities: Alfred and Bruce coincidentally occupying tables at the same cafe in Italy, the lack of any communication or even eye contact, and with the swirling of the crowd, the moment is gone. Michael Caine, one of the foremost actors of his generation has been overwhelming in his praise for Nolan’s script and thankful for the opportunity to play the role. Not a likely reaction if he bought into the nonsensical conclusion advocated by so many. The ending of DKR is absolutely on the level of the ending of Inception. They both impacted me in much the same way.
I know nothing about Christopher Nolan personally, and he may be a very cheerful and happy person, but throughout all of his films he expresses an understanding of the dark side of the human condition and an ability to convey it that puts him above all others save Hitchcock, perhaps. It seems the genius of Nolan in this film is that while being exceedingly candid about his intentions, he still managed to head fake 99% of viewers.
In addition to all this, there seems to be a lack of discussion concerning other themes in the film. . .particularly the Paradise Lost aspect of Bruce Wayne’s time in, and escape from, the prison pit . . . “Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to the light.” Yeah, Chris Nolan has devoted a lot of time to introspection and I thank him for sharing his conclusions.
I think that if Nolan had full control of such a big project it would have ended with batman dying but Warners probably are looking to keep their options open for the possibility of a sequel, and the ending we got was possibly the compromise. I think the film was great, my only issues were with how bane was dispatched also I didn’t see any real need for the Foley or Jen characters. They didn’t really serve a purpose, other than that great film and trilogy, its a tough call to make three great films. I hope Nolan doesn’t do a Lucas to the trilogy and realise it needs countless edits, re editions and slap on some 3d
Loved the film. I agree with the article, I thought the ending was good – I liked it when I thought he was dead, and I was pleased when it turned out he was alive. It works either way, because Wayne’s ideal still lives on, the idea of Batman only being a symbol..and the symbol lives on even without Bruce Wayne (hence the introduction of Robin, which I was hoping for all the way through with JG-L!). For people who think he should have died..maybe I’m sad but I always prefer a more positive ending when it’s possible.
RE: how he could have survived…did everyone miss the section discussing the plane’s autopilot being fixed?? –>Batman wasn’t even ON the plane when the bomb detonated, so his survival is completely possible.
I don’t want more sequels though. I know it’s all about money with these huge franchises (so we get a pointless new Spiderman, yawn) but this film rounds the trilogy off so well, and I really don’t want to see a ‘new’ Batman played by JG-L however much I like him as an actor! Just the final hint of him taking on the mantle of Batman is enough.
Ahhhhgreed. Took the words right out of my mouth. Well said.