A blog about general entertainment, fashion, and movies. And some random stuff too.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Addressing a The Dark Knight Rises "plot hole" ...


I don't know how many of you guys follow the film blog culture, but the most recent trend has been to try to poke holes in The Dark Knight Rises. Most of these things boil down to the fact that the writer wrote his/her blog after seeing the movie only once (or just didn't pay attention) and didn't fully understand the plot. Because of this, they aren't worth responding to because the answer to their condescending questions about the film can be answered by a second viewing of the film. 

However, there is one "plot hole" I did ended up addressing in conversation with some of my friends so I decided to go ahead and post it anyways. 

Obviously this will be spoilery in nature, so read at your own risk.

It has to do with Bruce Wayne and the Miranda character. Check it out if you are interested:

One of the points an entry tried to make was this:
Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard Have Sex – On the one hand, yes these are two very attractive individuals. Why shouldn’t they give in to their carnal desires? On the other, more reasonable hand, there is virtually no development in the relationship between these two. They’re running in the rain, then they start making out, then in the next scene they’re naked. If only real-life romance worked like this. 
Seriously though, with no emotional attachment to this relationship, Talia’s eventual betrayal is nothing more than a Shyamalan-style twist with no impact behind it. A missed opportunity.
So condescending... good lord...

So is the argument against the TDKR sex scene being "out of the blue" based on Batman's reaction to Miranda/Talia's betrayal?  I understand why someone would question Batman's reaction to the Talia reveal if the Bruce/Miranda thing is viewed as only a one-night stand, but I think to view what happens between Bruce and Miranda as a one-night stand is a really shallow interpretation of what is actually going on with Bruce at the time. 

The way I see it is, emotionally, Bruce is really vulnerable at that time, he just lost everything (almost literally) but -especially- he lost Alfred, someone who has always been there for him his entire life. I see him finally opening himself up to someone new as a way of him trying to forgive Alfred and move forward in his life for the first time in 8 years. That one night with Miranda meant a lot to Bruce because it was the first person he allowed to be close to him -the first woman he allowed himself to trust and feel for- since Rachel died. From that point on it wasn't just a one-nighter to him. She meant a new future and a new Bruce.

So Batman's reaction when Miranda/Talia turned out to be behind everything he's fighting against is actually pretty accurate. Especially because I don't think he's only reacting to the betrayal, but also to the fact that Bane and Talia have worked for so long to bring him down on BOTH fronts (the Batman and the Bruce front), that he was wrong about the League of Shadows/Bane/Ras/etc, and the fact that he just got flipping stabbed so is probably going to lose this fight, too.

The only understandable comment on the Bruce/Miranda relationship that I've heard is that there didn't seem to be a lot of chemistry between the two of them...

I disagree. I think there was a good bit of chemistry between them (especially in the scene at the party where she kind of shut him down for assuming the party $$ wasn't going to the charity; cute moments like that between them).

But also, I think if there was chemistry lacking, it worked for the story because we find out that Miranda/Talia actually hates Bruce... so if it felt forced, it could still work for the characters.
Bruce was trying to be open to the possibility of a future with a new lady that everyone around him was pushing on him even though he may not have been emotionally ready, and Talia was only hitting that to drive the knife in deeper for later when she reveals the betrayal. 
You can't look at this scene without also taking into consideration everything happening around it.

If you watch a movie and evaluate scenes in a shallow way then OF COURSE you are going to only see something shallow. So just shut up already with your "plot hole" bull until you actually take a deeper approach to what you're doing rather than just trying to sound smarter than Nolan.


1 comment:

  1. I'm glad you posted this. I totally agree. My view of this was maybe Bruce and Miranda even had a relationship prior to all of this. After all, 8 years had passed. So his betrayal didn't seem out of the blue at all. I just assumed they had something deeper that possibly was built over time.

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