"The Dark Knight Rises" Prologue

"The Dark Knight Rises" Prologue

Warner Brothers held a sneak preview of the TDKR prologue, basically the first scene, on December 13th, 2011, at select IMAX theaters. I was at clinic when tickets went up for grabs, and I was able to procure two of them. A close friend of mine came with me, and we went to the IMAX at the Palisades mall. Although we were there by 9PM, there was already a significant line. I showed them my passes, and we were able to get decent seats. Before entering, though, we were given free batman TDKR shirts with a batman symbol and the word "LEGEND" underneath.

The TKDR prologue started a few minutes later, after people were warned to turn off their phones, camera, iPads, etc. Here are my thoughts from that day:

I was first disappointed, but in hindsight its a scene that sticks with you. That voice is just insane. A foreign accent (Russian? German?) with that crazy mask muffling it, being lost in the scene because of only understanding 50% of Bane's dialogue. Weird stuff. And was that our friend Ra's al Ghul in the bag, perhaps receiving some lazarus style treatments? What's up w Dr. Pavan? The Joker bank scene was more fun and cool, but didn't have a lotta impact later in the film aside from knowing he stole mob money. This scene i think will have much more far reaching consequences. It has been compare online to a bond scene and I agree. Can't wait. nice foil between batman's suave capture on a plane of Lao and Bane's raw capture of the doctor, brutal and messy and so raw. And "crashing this plane" is so ripe for parody. If I had the time and skills I'd try to make an auto tune song of it!

Thinking about it afterwards, the body in the bag probably wasn't Ra's. It's probably just a decoy body, with some of Dr. Pavel's blood put into it, to make it seem like he died. Bane's dialogue is actually rather interesting, as the script of the first scene came out. Once you know what he's saying, it's obviously more understandable. There was an uproar over the voice, and apparently WB wanted the voice to change. I hope Nolan sticks to his guns and keeps it. Bane is much creepier when you only know part of what he's saying.

Some reviews online of the prologue were very positive, and one I recall even said, "Joker who?" I think that's a bit extreme. Bane seems interesting, but from that one scene, he does not have the screen presence that Ledger's Joker had. Joker just drew all attention to him, with his bizarre appearance, distinctive voice, and vibe of utter unpredictability. Bane has potential, but we need to see more of him. Another review online said that Bane needed to have a unique voice to contrast with Joker, and I agree. Having Bane with a normal voice would be rather dull, so having him muffled makes him much more interesting.

It was totally worth going to see this 5-6 minutes prologue, and I can't wait for TDKR in July!