The Dark Knight Rises Prologue: Brian Long Reports

By Brian Long

Growing up I had always been a comic book fan. In fact, I sometimes felt as though I was the only one. I had friends who enjoyed the Spider-Man and X-Men films, but I kept up with their monthly exploits and pointed out inconsistencies between the comics and their cinematic equivalents. In my sophomore year of high school, I first saw Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins. That film changed the way I looked at not just comics and comic book movies, but film in general. I saw the power of a storyteller who took the escapist fantasy of a man donning a garish costume to avenge his parent’s death into a meditation of justice which evolved into the morality play that is The Dark Knight. Tonight, after scouring the press section for the Wookiee Wednesday reserved seating, I saw what is being labeled as the prologue to The Dark Knight Rises. The footage was essentially the first 6 minutes of the film. In describing the footage I will try to be as vague as possible to avoid spoilers but I will give details to the trailer-like footage that followed the prologue. If you want to remain completely spoiler-free then get off this site and frankly the internet in general.

Nolan repeats his formula from The Dark Knight by introducing the film’s main villain in the most “holy crap that was nuts” way possible. While some may consider this a rehash, I thought it highlighted the fundamental differences between the Joker and the newest threat to Gotham City Bane. In The Dark Knight, the Joker used his cunning mind and his faith in the worst of humanity to pick apart his bank robbery crew person-by-person, while Bane uses the brute force of the League of Shadows at his command to literally take apart his enemies. This one scene shows us a villain that we rarely get to see Batman go against: one who is both his physical and mental equal.

Now, the quick trailer scenes:

-Bane walking across the steps of Gotham City Hall: This is one of the moments of the film I’m most excited for, simply because we get to see Batman fight in the daytime…that seems dumb, BUT THAT NEVER HAPPENS.

-Shot of the Bat-copter aka Money Shot pt. 1: Seriously. Everyone in the audience flipped out.

-Shot of Catwoman followed by a shot of Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I honestly keep forgetting these two are in the movie.

-Shot of Batman about to deck Bane on the steps of Gotham City Hall: HE’S FIGHTING IN THE DAY LIGHT YOU GUYS!

-A giant crowd of people charging down a Gotham City street: Holy crap, I love the way this shot mirrors the Commissioner Loeb funeral procession from the previous film. And for some reason there are three Tumblers littered across the street. THREE.

-Shot of Bane carrying half of a broken Batman mask: Money shot number 2. For those of you who don’t know, one time, Bane did this...so...yeah.