Cool It with all the Dark Knight Rises Criticism

Fanboys have been livid over leaked pics that basically are just snippets of something much bigger. We should wait until we get more information before we judge this movie.

To start things off, this is not one of those "I believe in Nolan" articles. Yes, Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite directors. I've loved everything he's made so far, and I'm very confident that The Dark Knight Rises will deliver. But nothing annoys me more than the fans with blind faith in Nolan that end all of their comments with "I believe in Nolan".



I'll admit it, I was underwhelmed when I saw the first pics of Catwoman. And yes, I wasn't impressed by Bane's voice either. This movie could very be Nolan's first dud, hell, no man is perfect. I believed that Sam Raimi would give us a great third Spider-Man movie, and I believed that Bryan Singer would deliver a great Superman movie...



So yes, Nolan could fail with TDKR, but am I condemning it yet? Not at all.



Officially, all we've seen of the movie has been two pictures and a brief trailer. As for unofficially... well, pics have been leaking almost daily from the Pittsburgh set. There has been tons of fanboy speculation and information leaks from supposed "sources" on set, but the truth is that we know very little about this movie.



What we've seen is just snippets from a much bigger picture. We've gotten word about an "Earthquake machine" and Bane feeling no pain, but all this is just hearsay. But of course, we're fans, we know all.



Fans have been complaining about Ann Hathaway's look as Catwoman, and like I said, I wasn't impressed either. There's rumors that she does have a full cat-mask in the movie, and I certainly hope those rumors are true. But lets look at why we got that picture. Firstly, I'm sure that Warner Brothers did not want to reveal a picture of Catwoman so soon, but they did. Why?



Because of us.



Catwoman was filming exterior shots, and they knew that eager fan boys would snap pictures and post them on the internet. So Warner Brothers hurried and released a picture so they could beat us to the punch. Catwoman may only look like this for one scene and have her cat-mask for the rest of the movie, but because we were stalking the set, they released a picture early to make us happy. And still we complained.



Fans are also complaining because of the scene set at Gotham City Hall, which apparently has Batman out during the day. Yes, I know Batman doesn't come out during the day, but what if it was something urgent? Something that needed Batman's presence immediately? Maybe someone Batman cared about was in trouble? Batman would be there. Batman isn't the type of character to sit around and watch something bad happen and go "Oh, too bad I can't help because the sun is out".



Also, time for a film school lesson! There's a thing called shooting day for night. It's when a scene is shot during the day, and through the magic of post production, a night filter is put on and voila! It looks like it was shot at night! Its a process done with blocking out existing light, over-exposing what light there is, etc. It's very possible that the city hall scene was being shot day for night, and if not, then oh well. Just as long as it makes sense in the movie, then I'm fine with it.



And then there's Bane. Ah Bane, yet another character causing controversy. People are complaining that he isn't big enough, that they hate his voice, etc. Now firstly, Nolan's Bat-movies are firmly planted in realism. If the Joker didn't have his skin and hair dyed by some magical appearance altering chemical, did you really think that Nolan would have a guy on a drug that makes you gain muscle mass in a period of seconds? I certainly didn't, and I still stand by my prediction that maybe he doesn't use Venom at all.



I think the approach with Bane in this is that he's more of an "anti-Batman". Bane is what would happen if Bruce stayed with the League of Shadows. Instead of being a hulking behemoth, I think Bane will instead be more of Batman's physical equal. A guy with the same muscle build, intelligence, and fighting skill. So yes, he's not a giant like in the comics, but still a scary character when you think about it.



Then there's his voice. I was present at the Stadium scene and I could barely make out what Bane was saying from where I was. What I could tell was that Tom Hardy's voice was extremely muffled by the mask as well as all of the noise pollution around him. But of course, a crappy cell phone recording leaks and fans get up in arms, complaining about how stupid Bane sounds.



Time for a film lesson kids! There's a thing called ADR, its very common on movie sets. Many times, if sound is bad on a movie, due to location or what not, the actors will be called back into a sound studio and basically re-record their dialogue for a scene. That dialogue is then re-dubbed over the existing dialogue. Now, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that all of Bane's dialogue is being re-dubbed via ADR because of the mask. I can tell you this: how Tom Hardy sounded in the stadium scene is not how he will sound in the final product. The sound in the stadium was terrible so I can almost guarantee ADR work.



So, overall, we have a year left until this movie comes out. Could it suck? Yes. But should we judge based on crappy cell phone pictures and videos? I've preached this many times in the past: fans need to cool off and wait to judge things. I remember a little movie called The Dark Knight, and how fans hated the new Joker. Fans hated the actor they cast to play the Joker and they hated how the Joker looked. Fans complained, saying how much The Dark Knight was going to suck based on what little evidence they had.



Then The Dark Knight came out, and now we say that it's the best comic book movie ever made. And that actor fans hated? He won an Oscar for his performance as the Joker. I understand why fans are so protective of their favorite characters, I really do, but there comes a time when we need to grow up and stop complaining. We'll sit there and nitpick at every little detail in a picture taken by some guy who was just hanging out watching filming, and then we sit and wonder why we can't get a date.

DISCLAIMER: ComicBookMovie.com is protected under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and... : ComicBookMovie.com is protected under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and... [MORE]

DISCLAIMER: ComicBookMovie.com is protected from liability under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and "Safe Harbor" provisions. This post was submitted by a volunteer contributor who has agreed to our [LESS] : ComicBookMovie.com is protected from liability under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and "Safe Harbor" provisions. This post was submitted by a volunteer contributor who has agreed to our Code of Conduct . CBM will disable users who knowingly commit plagiarism, piracy, trademark or copyright infringement. Please contact us for expeditious removal of copyrighted/trademarked content. Learn more about our copyright and trademark policies HERE

Related Headlines