The Dark Knight Rises (the spoiler-free thread)

[Shorty]

Shiny and Shorty were obviously dropped too hard on their heads as kids. Batman Begins was packed with awesome: Christian Bale, Morgan Freemon, Liam Neeson, Scarecrow, among others.

I still feel DKR will be a great film and I am happy Bane was chosen cause he is an underrated villain in the series and his portrayal in Batman and Robin was just criminal.

Seriously. I can only assume that the people bitching about Bane have only experienced him through Batman & Robin, where he was a comically mindless brute (just one of a great number of travesties that movie committed). Bane is otherwise a very dark and menacing villain, so I think he is perfect for a Nolan film.

Listen, I have no problem with Neeson. I quite enjoy some of his movies. I hated him as Wayne's mentor, though. I hated that character. I won't deny that Morgan Freeman was awesome and god, I wish I could have seen more of Scarecrow more than anything. But the first half of the movie was utterly terrible.

I don't know how anyone can deny that TDK is a better film Heath Ledger's portayal of The Joker will go down in the history of film forever. He made that movie his. Christian Bale was the sideshow, as far as I'm concerned.

What people need to keep in mind is that Bane is a character who is not only more than a physical match for Batman, he matches him intellectually as well. Despite the art from when he was originally designed making him look like a Mexican wrestler, he is an intelligent villain, and strong tactician, and, oh yeah, he beat Batman. And I mean we're not just talking about beating him in a fist fight. He figured out Batman's identity, made Batman push himself over the limits of his physical and mental endurance, capturing every villain in Arkham, then finished him off when he was as battered and broken as he'd ever been.

This. And I am so smurfing excited for it.