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It’s the 8th anniversary of Christopher Nolan's divisive The Dark Knight Rises.

Many still feel this is a broken, anti-climactic film. I want to explore why I think they do and the extent to which I think it's worth another look.

This is going to be a long thread.

The 1st noticeable thing about Rises is that it’s more about Batman than TDK. Losing Joker’s on-screen energy means that Nolan’s Batman – the weird voice, the posturing, the tech, etc. – has to carry Rises. If you only take one thing from this thread, it should be this:

the *possibility* that the problem people have w/ Rises could be their problem w/ Nolan’s vision of Batman, which Joker hid from audiences w/ his charisma in TDK. It’s in the open now and it seems like not everyone is satisfied w/ the aesthetic, when it's a BATMAN film.

It inherits some of TDK’s problems, such as Nolan’s habit of communicating themes by saying them literally, in dramatic closeups. But Rises often turns these themes into demonstrations of character – Caine gives a career-ranking performance here, don’t know if anyone noticed.

Bane is also a phenomenal contrast to Batman. Whereas Joker was Batman’s opposite, Bane is Batman’s extreme: he’s who Batman *could* be. Hardy’s brutality is definitive - it’s truly tense when Batman takes his beatdown from him and Hardy's presence is suffocatingly intense.

The choreography of the fighting is the best of the series by FAR. Rises fixes the shaky cam and inconsistent editing that plagued the other 2 films.

Catwoman doesn’t fair quite as well – Hathaway auditioned as Harley Quinn and that makes more sense in terms of the themes.

The anarchy, the "end-times" attitude ... Quinn would’ve done WONDERS to tie the series together rather than seemingly forget about TDK completely. And wouldn’t it have been nice for Batman and Joker to … complete each other in the end after all? Might've been interesting.

Talia’s inclusion … I don’t really get. The worst part of these movies (it’s bad in ALL of them) is the romance. Batman’s “one last job and then I’m yours, baby” attitude in TDK was awkward, the childhood friend aesthetic was awkward in Begins, and Talia is awkward too.

It ties to Begins, but Batman's love life seems hard to figure out.

The conclusion is NOT the time to pull crap like the switcheroo w/ Bane and then have Cat kill him w/ a shotgun: are they saying Batman’s “no guns” rule is problematic? That he could get more done if he gave in?

I also think the ending should have been more ambiguous. Don’t show the dream dradle fall over! It should have hung on Caine’s face, us wondering whether he’s seeing Bruce, and it should have ended there, sort of an open bracket. Imo.

But that's the end of my criticism.

I love how revealing knowledge about public figures turns a metropolis into a dystopia, emphasizing the relationship between police and people w/o taking a side. Oldman comes into his own as Gordon and Batman's place in the legal structure is a great continuation of TDK.

I love seeing Murphy, even in the role meant for “Judge” Joker (could Murphy have been Batman?).

I hate Nolan’s psychology that makes him “reveal” Robin in a REVEAL scene w/ dramatic music, but I think the character is fine; people "on the ground" are appropriately emphasized.

And for all I’ve never cared too much for Bat-lips, Bale gives his best performance in the series here and plays off Caine and Oldman to wonderful effect. He's an actor of extremes, and Rises uses that.

So why, if all this is even partially observable, is this movie so hated?

First of all, I think it was disorienting for people to go from a Michael Mann-lite crime film to another Batman film.

Rises is a true sequel to Begins and doesn’t need TDK for much besides plot. I think it’s impossible not to miss Ledger and this had a huge impact.

HOWEVER, I’d like to remind everyone that Ledger wouldn’t have been the focus here anyway and the main complaint would’ve been: not enough Heath.

I also think that age is a factor: people who were in middle and high school in 2008 were not the same people in college in 2012.

That's just speculation.

But my speculation comes from the grueling nitpicking I see, that pummels Rises while TDK seems exempt. The complaints I hear like how the distances and travel times are unrealistic in Rises is a RESULT of people’s disappointment, not a cause.

No one nitpicks for instance about the trip to China in TDK, which slows the film’s pacing, isn't that important, and feels 100% like a deleted scene.

No, I think more than anything the necessity of an ending is what hurts Rises for people, as most 3rd entries are hurt.

It's SO hard to conclude stories that are better in action, in medias res, than in “finale.” As it’s weird to go back to another Death Star in Return of the Jedi, it’s weird to “up the supervillain ante” in Rises. We want stories to LAST.

Conclusions make us confront them.

Getting past this limitation of the medium, Rises is a superhero film, silly on paper but played 100% straight, and lives up to that promise. Along the way, great character actors give the film true brutality and warmth. It’s preferable to me than *most any superhero film since.

Nolan for all his writing flaws is brave enough to say: this is the story's ending. It’s closure Disney cannot bear, knowing it would mean moving on to other projects and marketing them from scratch. That alone is proof that Nolan’s first love is the storytelling medium of film.

This is why Rises stands above cinematic universes. Its characters are allowed to grow, breathe, and confront the ending of their story, flaws and all.

We've grown to expect spectacle, but we should cherish rest as well. The willingness to end stories is what gives them meaning.