This article has been republished with permission from Hypable. This opinion article may contain some spoilers. This is a long article, which has been split into 2 pages. You can continue onto Page 2 at the bottom of the post.



Yes, the film is still 10 months away. Be quiet. Anyway, the specifics of the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy are under tighter lock and key than America’s missile launch codes. From a cinematic standpoint however, a little analysis goes a long way. Sure, we don’t know what is actually going to happen in the movie (it might just feature a wind up monkey making its rounds for two hours) but if we know Nolan, he will tie up some loose ends like these. For example-

#8 The Return of Coleman Reese

Remember that awesome scene where Morgan Freeman delivered a not-so-thinly-veiled threat that Batman was going to beat Coleman Reese into a Coleman Reese themed pulp?Do you remember why?

Coleman Reese is the only person that knows who Batman is.

Coleman Reese is integral to the storyline of The Dark Knight and now that Batman is on the run (and being blamed for the death of Gotham’s white knight along with some cops) people aren’t just gonna forget about the guy who said on national television that he knows who’s face is under that cowl.

Now, there are plenty of ways we could go with this information. Either Coleman decides to use his knowledge for evil and become a super-villain himself (Mr. Reese…Mysteries…get it? It’s a Riddler joke), or he’s gonna be on Bane’s list of people to track down for information. What would Bane want with Reese you ask?

Reese’s entire plan behind revealing Batman’s identity involved having access to the plans for the Tumbler. He alerted the press to the fact that he knew Batman’s true identity, we can’t think that he will just disappear now.

This is only speculation of course, it’s not like we have proof that in the film, Bane will gain access to the technology needed to make his own set of Tumblers or anything…

Oh. Yeah. We definitely saw a team of Tumblers on the Pittsburgh set. Awkward. Not only that, but we have video of Batman chasing them in his new Batwing, so we know that they aren’t on his side.

There’s an old theatrical saying that goes something like “if we’re introduced to a gun in Act One, it’s gonna go off in Act Two.” Don’t forget that Nolan began his entire career in theater and has a devout understanding of storytelling that he has demonstrated in his first two installments of the Dark Knight franchise.

Nolan intentionally gave us a close-up of the Tumbler plans and made sure that we knew that someone besides Batman and Lucius Fox had access to them.

That looks like the face of someone who has been threatened by Batman (via Morgan “I’ve played God” Freeman) and has had a bounty placed on his head by a psychopathic clown.

Add a big beefy guy with what looks like a Saw contraption tied to his face milking him for information and you have all the ingredients of a Coleman “oh God I really wish I hadn’t drawn attention to myself in the first place” Reese cocktail.

We wish him all the best of luck in The Dark Knight Rises but we really don’t know if he’ll live long enough to see the ending. Unless of course he’s actually the villain behind it all (cue dramatic music).

We know that somehow the blue-prints for the tumbler are at stake, which means that either Reese is going to squeal under Bane’s fist or-

#7 Lucius Fox will be in serious danger

Okay, forget about the unsubstantiated rumors that try to “confirm” that Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox (spoiler) will bite the dust in Chris Nolan’s final installment to the Dark Knight legend. I’m just pointing out that Bane will find a way to get to the plans to the Tumbler, and it won’t be by asking nicely.

Now I’ll be the first guy to admit that I don’t really know what is going to happen in The Dark Knight Rises, but if we already know at this point that Bane will somehow get access to the Tumbler plans doesn’t it follow that the man protecting them will be a necessary expendable in the process?

Nolan has already proven that he has no qualms with killing off his characters (even if it means blowing them up in a gigantic explosion) so what would stop Bane from torturing Lucius Fox for information regarding Batman’s technology?

From a cinematic standpoint, it all comes down to “How can Bane’s actions top the Joker?” If Nolan is smart (which he is) he will make Bane even more diabolical and unhinged than his previous villains.

The Bane from the comics is known for being stronger than hell and aggressively intelligent. If he were to discover Bruce Wayne’s identity (something that comic-Bane was able to deduce very quickly) he would do everything in his power to obliterate everything important to Wayne and leave a trail of rubble behind him.

In the event that Coleman Reese doesn’t show up (hell, maybe he moved to Paraguay after every single person in Gotham was clamoring to kill him), my bet is on Bane to find and torture Lucius Fox for information only to have Fox look Bane right in the eye and defy him.

#6 We will see a Bats/Cats relationship

Now this one is a relatively new development. We’ve known since January that we would catch “Selina Kyle” in the film, but it wasn’t made clear exactly what that would entail. Would she be a villain? Would she be an ally? Would she even be Catwoman? All of these questions (and more) made their way around the blogosphere, but at this point there is no question left. Catwoman has entered The Dark Knight Rises, and recent video shows that there may more connecting her to Batman than their affinity with black utility costumes.

I know it’s hard to make out, but if you look closely (that damned boom mic guy is exactly in the way) you can see two pairs of arms wrapping passionately around each-other. This isn’t a normal hug, and Batman doesn’t hug many people in the first place.

Even with Rachel, he kept his affection minimal to ensure her safety. I think we all know how that turned out. With Rachel off the radar, that brings Batman’s list of huggable people back down to zero.

This makes for a truly lonely masked hero. If only there was someone in the world that would accept his ass-kicking super-vigilante alter-ego. Even Rachel said that she would only settle down with Bruce once he stopped being Batman.

We’ve seen photos of Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle fighting apple thieves, and even though we’re 99 percent positive that Selina will begin the film as cat-burglar (GET IT?!) we see no reason why a Bat/Cat relationship wouldn’t pan out.

At least for a little while.

Selina wouldn’t mind having a vigilante boy-toy (hell, I’m sure she would get a thrill out of it) and the dynamic of their relationship would make for an excellent source of constant drama, and drama is something that every good film needs. Even Batman.

The main question is how far their relationship will go. I highly doubt that it will be strictly plutonic given that their comic relationship is defined by mutual attraction and that’s only gonna be amplified by Catwoman’s possible role as a stripper. What can we expect to see then? Will The Dark Knight Rises feature the series’ first sex scene?

Obviously Catwoman is a master of deception so we wouldn’t be surprised if their relationship will be illustrated by Facebook’s “it’s complicated” button, but it seems like too rich of a source of drama to not be used by the film-makers. If not a sexual relationship, how else could Batman and Catwoman get close?

I mean hell, there are already rumors that Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman mask is crafted from one of the many Batman masks that Bruce Wayne ordered in Batman Begins.

If this is true it could mean that Selina Kyle will be taken under Wayne’s Bat-wing at some point in the film. Could Batman function as a mentor for Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises?

Of course, we are laboring under the idea that Selina Kyle will be on Batman’s side and not Bane’s. It is very much like Catwoman to play both sides of the fence and we wouldn’t doubt that she just made her crude mask out of a cowl she stole from Batman. What we know however is that at some point, she and Batman will be close to one another.

Could this mean that we’ll see another betrayal of an integral mentor?

I guess that’s what we would call “full circle.” Also, speaking of Ra’s Al Ghul…

#5 I Don’t Care What Marion Cotillard says, she’s playing Talia Al Ghul, Dammit

So this is a theory that has been pushing itself into our bat-radars ever since Marion Cotillard’s name was first attached to the project. At first, these claims were purely unsubstantiated. Then we started to see more and more signs that Cotillard’s Wayne Enterprises executive Miranda Tate might be hiding something.

First came these pictures of Cotillard being flanked by what appear to be mercenaries.

Okay, so I guess if we look hard enough we’ll find any executive of a major company being protected by mercenaries…or driving Bane’s truck.

Yeah, that was Marion Cotillard behind the wheel of Bane’s giant truck that we’ve seen being chased by the Batman and Catwoman on several occaisions.

It would seem that the cat had been let out of the bag, but then Cotillard told an interviewer that her character is not from the comics.

A whole league of internet theorists stopped in their tracks as Marion Cotillard seemingly crashed all of their ideas into the ground.

But wait, her official character is listed as Miranda Tate, an executive at Wayne Enterprises. That character certainly isn’t from the comics, she’s just one of the many characters that Nolan added to the legend in order to make his stories work. Could this be the character that Cotillard was talking about?

Is Cotillard intentionally playing thick so that she won’t get the Michael Caine treatment from director Christopher Nolan?Just because a reporter asked doesn’t mean that she has to tell the truth, and we already know that Marion Cotillard is a pretty good actress.

Yeah, she’s O.K. at acting I guess.

So the above links and photos pretty much confirm that we’ll see Marion as some sort of villain. Maybe she’ll end up on the rotten end of a Batman/Catwoman/ Miranda Tate love triangle, or maybe she’s just been in-cahoots with Bane the whole time.

We almost want to say that her villain might be a brand new Nolan creation, but then news that a child actress had been cast as young Talia Al Ghul pretty much confirmed Talia’s attendance in Nolan’s universe.

Now, of course there is the possibility that we’ll just see a flashback of a young Talia Al Ghul just for shits and giggles, but it makes much more sense to assume that it will be there to lay the groundwork for an emerging new character. All that vengeance isn’t gonna claim itself.

If you need any more proof, here’s a side by side of Joey King (young Talia Al Ghul) and Marion Cotillard.

Yeah. That just happened. It’s like looking into a weird french time travelling mirror isn’t it? Besides, if there’s one character in the entire DC universe that is known for wearing all white to a fight-

It’s Talia.

Due to the heavy amount of images and videos in this post, we’ve had to split the article into two pages. Click over to Page 2 to continue reading…