The Dark Knight Rises - What To Expect

What can be said about The Dark Knight that hasn’t been said already? It’s the most successful comic book derived movie in history. It turned Heath Ledger into a DC legend. Christopher Nolan is probably one of the most innovative directors in the last ten years, and The Dark Knight has set the bar for every other superhero movie made before and after it. Like I’ve mentioned in the previous blog regarding the Spiderman reboot, Dark Knight is far more relatable than its flashy Tim Burton counterparts. Nolan found a way to separate Batman Begins and The Dark Knight so that they could operate completely autonomous of each other. Their titles, their stories, and their plots are fully understandable without dependence of each other. But the reason you are probably reading this is because you’re expecting to read something you didn’t know, so I hope to offer you an estimated guess into the elements of the Dark Knight Rises.

First of all, I am not crazy about the name. The most obvious contrast between Dark Knight and Batman Begins were their varying names. Hell, a lot of people didn’t even know that the two movies were written and directed by the same people. So I feel like the Dark Knight Rises plays more like a sequel rather than a new chapter or story. I feel like its going to correlate a lot closer to The Dark Knight than everyone may of hoped. In fact Christopher Nolan was quoted saying “We use many of the same characters as we have all along, and we’ll be introducing some new ones”. In comparison with BB (Batman Begins) to Dark Knight, you only saw a cameo of the first film’s villain Scarecrow, and he didn’t play much of a role at all.

Next, is new casting. Tom Hardy was the only confirmed new talent added to the project as of now. Tom Hardy was recently seen in Christopher Nolan’s last blockbuster hit “Inception” which is currently nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Director. Christopher Nolan is known for carrying over his talent from one movie to the next. Michael Caine was used in Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and Inception. And the same goes for Christian Bale minus Inception. With that being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if he favored bringing in previous actors/actresses including Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, 500 Days of Summer).

News has hit that several actresses were trying out for unknown roles in the movie. The actresses were Katie Mara, Anne Hathaway, Keira Knightley, Kate Mara, Charlotte Riley, and Jessica Biel. Why mention of these female actresses? It has strongly confirmed that the Dark Knight Rises villain is going to be a female. No one knows the roles that are being cast but when you eliminate male villains the list becomes shorter. Here are the most likely villains and the reason for them.

Harley Quinn: A mental patient, who without the Joker is kind of a hard villain angle to run with because she normally accepted as a secondary villain rather than the primary. However, it would certainly tie this movie to the last, and seeing as I’ve heard that Nolan had filmed extra scenes with Ledger before he died it’s a strong possibility.

Talia al-Ghul: The daughter of Ra’s al-Ghul (played by Liam Neeson in the first movie). This would make sense because it would bring the trilogy to a full 360, and it would bring Bruce Wayne back to the beginning where he started. It also leaves a lot of room for Christopher Nolan to storytell which he loves to do in all of his films.

Dark Knight Rises is set to be released in July 2012. With it approaching closer and closer to the date, more information is being revealed, and I will keep you updated on the latest news regarding the movie. One hope is that this third and final movie done by Nolan doesn’t fall to the same fate as Spiderman 3, where the movie plot is terrible, and its overcrowded with character development.