The Dark Knight Rises

 



I have seen the movie The Dark Knight Rises and planed on giving it my full attention in the review. With the events of last night at the film’s opening in Aurora Colorado, a suburb of Denver, I now need to explain what I have been seeing around this movie’s release.

Friday night at 12:39 a.m at the Century 16 in Aurora, Colorado a lone gunman entered a crowded theater through the emergency exit and launched an incendiary devise into the theater and then entered and begin callously shooting into the crowd. There were 12 fatalities and 59 people wounded.

At the time of this article was written we still don’t know the reasons behind the attack, we have a name of the suspect in custody but he is not worth mentioning. His actions have made a hole in the lives of so many people that the reasons for his motivations are unimportant.

This has moved many people to think about what is important today. Political parties put away their barbs, Warner Bother studios has pulled all of the ads for the film and canceled a red carpet event. There has been an overwhelming feeling of respect for those suffering today. Everyone is re-examines the thing in their lives and it causes people to think. I want to look at this entire event from start to finish.

The move is great. It is an excellent end to this trilogy that paved the way for hero films to have a realistic feel and gave us a new model of how these films should be seen. I hope gone are the days of campy action and cartoonish imagery. This is a movie that is best viewed on an IMAX screen. It was filmed with that intent and to fully appreciate its scope and sweeping images anything smaller would diminish the feel. I have some more technical notes on the film but they have to take second place to what is a larger issue here.

Many have been waiting for this movie for a while; the success of the previous films gave the fans something to look forward to. People anticipated that this movie would leap past any previous box office record. Primarily because of the fans who love the character this movie was based on. There are a number of fans who have devoted a lot of time and energy into their passion for this character.

On July 16, 2012 a long time movie reviewer Eric d. Snider posed on Rotten Tomatoes (RT) the following review of the film. “The dark Knight Rises is easily the most disappointing batman film so far- and I’m including Schumacher’s Batman & Robin in that statement.” This comment started a tirade of rude, hateful and truly evil remarks from the fan base. Most of them were focused on Eric and his audacity to not like this film. It is odd that they immediately admonished him for stating his opinion of a move they have not seen.

The tricky part was he had not seen the movie either. He posed that on RT to prove a point. His point was that people have used the anonymity of the comment section of that and other websites to spew any vile, discussing, hatful thing that pops into their head. Movie critics who give a negative review of any film are often subject to much of this abuse. The link to his full review gave a full explanation that he was only posted to make a point.

Another reviewer gave an authentic review that was not glowing but also not overly negative; it was well written and had some legitimate gripes about the film. The hate comments and abuse came rolling in. So many abusive comments were posited that RT had to shut down the comments section for that movie. RT’s editor in chief Matt Atchity posted this letter in explanation. The Dark Knight Rises -- This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

The next observation I have is the attempt by some in the mainstream media to use this movie to try and angle their own personal agendas and siphon off attention from this big block buster movie. Rush Limbaugh tried to imply a correlation to the villain in the movie to a company that a political candidate Mitt Romney was once affiliated with and insinuated that the Obama campaign was using this as a tactic. "The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date has been known, summer 2012, for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, what-ever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane?"

He then went on to explain what he thinks of people who are fans of the batman franchise. "A lot of people are going to see the movie, and it's a lot of brain-dead people, entertaining the pop-culture crowd. And they're going to hear 'Bane' in the movie and they're going to associate 'Bain' and the thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, not Bain Capital, Romney and Bain that these people will think back to the bad man." Limbaugh later clarified his comments saying "I never said that the villain was created by the comic book character creator to be part of the 2012 campaign. I said that Democrats were going to use it, which they are." From the Telegraph

None of the examples I mentions above are the cause of one man’s horrific actions. No one is to blame for this incident other than the suspect. We need to never try and angle this tragedy to suit our own needs, or to further our own causes. This should never be used as example as to why this should be banned or that is what caused this. I never want to see this used as ammunition to prove that we all need to change our lives because of one man who is broken.

I think the biggest thing that saddens me is the fact that in a few weeks this will be a footnote in people’s minds and the news media will make this one other event to call back to if anything else happens like this anywhere else.

Once we have completed the due process of law, attended our wounds, paid homage to those who lost their lives, worked hard to put our lives back together we need to let this moment pass and be buried with those who tragically lost their lives. Don’t misunderstand me we will never forget, it will never be the same but we need to go on and continue to live.

My thoughts are with those who were directly affected by this tragedy.