Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises 263
Unless you've managed to not watch anything in the past three weeks, you're aware that Chris Nolan's final Batman movie is out. With Christian Bale as the low-talking caped crusader, The Dark Knight Rises is two hours and forty-five minutes of of fun. While it lacks a stand-out personal performance like Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight, it is still a decent ending to this round of Batman movies. There are plenty of familiar faces, and a few new ones as well. Read below for my take on the movie, but be warned: there might be a few spoilers.
The movie starts out eight years after The Dark Knight. Batman has taken the blame for the death of district attorney Harvey Dent, and has disappeared from the public eye. Thanks to the passing of "The Dent Act," organized crime has been wiped out in Gotham, and the police find themselves increasingly obsolete. That all changes with the arrival of the villains. Since it was decided at some point in the 90s that all comic book movies needed at least two villains, in The Dark Knight Rises we have Bane and Catwoman.
Bane is played by Tom Hardy. Despite what Rush Limbaugh suggests, Bane is not connected to Mitt Romney, but was introduced in January 1993 and is best known for breaking Batman's back during the Knighfall comic series. He was even played terribly by a professional wrestler in 1997's Batman & Robin. I must admit that I was worried after reading reviews about how hard it was to hear Bane speak that the movie would degenerate into a low-talking competition between Hardy and Bale. They must have fixed the audio issues, because Bane's voice is certainly loud, if not the clearest at all times. To get an idea of what Bane sounds like, imagine Bill Cosby speaking with an English accent through a Darth Vader filter. The Bane in the movie shares little with the Bane from the comics, so he might not be to the liking of the purists, but he does a decent enough job of being a moderately intelligent juggernaut, and is the main villain in the story.
Ann Hathaway dons the cat ears as Selina Kyle, better known as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises. All to often, female characters are little more than Kung-Fu cliched eye candy in comic movies. Nolan avoids this with Hathaway, but barely. Instead of a hot chick in a skin-tight, black leather outfit who is one bad fall from becoming the headliner at the local furry convention, Hathaway is a hot chick in a skin-tight, black leather outfit who plays a small but important role in the overall story arc.
Plenty of old characters reprise their roles, including Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, and Michael Caine as Alfred. Some old villains even show up for this final installment. New to the mix this time are Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Matthew Modine, who play the cop everyone likes to love and the cop that everyone loves to hate, respectively.
For those of you who like the military look of Nolan's Batman vehicles over the more stylized Bat-vehicles of past movies, this one does not disappoint. The Batbike gets plenty of air time, as well as multiple Batmobiles driving around the city. This time around, the Batcopter makes its debut. While I think it looks more like something the Space Marines would fly around while fighting Aliens, it is consistent with the franchise's aesthetics.
Overall, a large portion of the story reminds me of a post-apocalyptic movie, with a Gotham that has existed in anarchy for many months. There are some decent fight scenes, including a small army of mercenaries fighting thousands of police in the streets while Batman and Bane duke it out in front of City Hall. There aren't a lot of surprises, and there aren't any stand-out performances, but there isn't a lot to dislike either. This was supposed to be the last of Nolan's Batman movies, but the ending leaves the possibility of another wide open, and I would not be surprised if another was made (assuming Rises makes enough money). So many movies — comic movies in particular — degenerate quickly with each sequel, and having to exist in the shadow of Heath Ledger is a daunting task. The Dark Knight Rises does a good job of stepping out of that shadow, however, and delivers for me, the best story of the series.
Awesome (Score:2, Funny)
This was awesome clahbpah
The movie was too violent for me (Score:5, Funny)
too many guns and killings. I fear that some impressionable youth will try to imitate batman and get himself hurt. Or even worse, someone will imitate the villain and kill innocent bystanders will guns.
The government needs to step in and forbid such violent movies that glorify guns and violence. PG-13 ratings by MPAA isn't working. And guns need to be banned, period. Only military and police should have guns.
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Why stop with guns?
http://www.top10stop.com/lifestyle/top-10-most-common-murder-weapons [top10stop.com]
The third most common murder weapons are body parts such hands, feet, fists and head. Throwing a punch, a head-butt or a kick against another personâ(TM)s head usually has fatal consequences and unfortunately many people have been murdered as such. In 2008 it is reported that 861 lost their lives by fatal body blows in the US.
Just think of how many lives would be saved if we just cut off everyone's hands.
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"But please bear your arms only when you're properly organized in a militia "
I am, and so are you if you are male, the law is still a bit sexist;
"10 USC 311 - MILITIA: COMPOSITION AND CLASSES"
"(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are me
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Let me help you with 18th century english comprehension. "well-regulated" meant "properly functioning"; i.e. to have a properly functioning militia the citizens need to be armed. The Second Amendment says nothing about being in an oraganized militia to have arms. The militia was every able-bodied male. even my Illinois state constituion defines it that way.
Re:The movie was too violent for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Why stop with guns?
http://www.top10stop.com/lifestyle/top-10-most-common-murder-weapons [top10stop.com]
The third most common murder weapons are body parts such hands, feet, fists and head. Throwing a punch, a head-butt or a kick against another personâ(TM)s head usually has fatal consequences and unfortunately many people have been murdered as such. In 2008 it is reported that 861 lost their lives by fatal body blows in the US.
Just think of how many lives would be saved if we just cut off everyone's hands.
Good luck killing 12 people (so far) in one place with your hands and feet. A typical assault rifle clip holds 30 rounds, and he changed clips at least once according to early reports.
"It's the gun laws, stupid", (at least in large part).
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Just think of how many lives would be saved if we just cut off everyone's hands.
Because seriously, I can't think of how many times a maniac has broken into a crowded theater and kicked 12 people to death, amirite?
Why the fuck is this even an argument: do you have to hand your BRAIN in when you get an NRA membership, or is it just a self-selection effect?
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No, but if you cut off everyone's hands, all the top 10 weapons on that list are instantly outmoded
After that its Lord Vader Jedi mind tricks for you.
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Guns primary uses are hunting and then to defend against government oppression.
Guns still have that effect some with local police but have lost that benefit with the state or federal governments any more as both have vastly superior firepower and surveillance capabilities.
The powerful have set up a system where they were getting 98% of the benefits of society without revolution. As long as the powerful do not get too greedy and shoot for that last 2%, guns are pointless.
There have been some bad signs over t
Much to my surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't like it much.
It felt like the script needed another good once-over and a trim. It's a thematic mess and takes about twice as long as it ought to to introduce the characters and (poorly, repetitively) present their motivations. Some of the delivery was pretty wooden, especially in the first half, but that may have been the result of mediocre editing (there were also a couple awkward cuts, IMO, so maybe that was it) or the piss-poor dialog. Filled with painful talking-to-the-audience exposition that's so bad it was comical—again, a writing issue.
For the entire first half I was worried that I'd walk out hating the movie, but fortunately improved somewhat, nearer the end.
The audio was poor. A fair bit of the dialog (not just Bane's) was hard to pick up. Bane sounded like he wasn't even in the same room—more like a voiceover— an effect which, it seems to me, can only be called an outright mistake on the part of the filmmakers.
The ending's OK I guess?
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I didn't like it much.
It felt like the script needed another good once-over and a trim. It's a thematic mess and takes about twice as long as it ought to to introduce the characters and (poorly, repetitively) present their motivations.
I actually didn't like the last one: too long, too tedious, too overblown, too overhyped.
If I go see this one at all, it will only be to make sure I get the jokes when I read Cleolinda's send-up.
Re:Much to my surprise (Score:5, Informative)
I didn't like it much.
I went to see the movie with my kids last night, and liked it a lot less than I expected to.
SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS
My main gripe was the set up of how the city was held to ransom for an extended period of time, which simply didn't feel credible. We have a situation where the bad guys manage to hold a city of ~12 million people hostage for a period of about 6 months (not completely sure of the numbers here) by threatening to blow them up with the fusion reactor. The bad guys keep control by their initial army of outlaws who have been training in the city's sewers, augmented by the hundreds liberated from the Bastille - sorry, the prison. During this time no one is allowed to escape because of the threat to blow the nuke, a threat which is enforced from the outside, yet somehow the city manages to function after a fashion - food supplies are provided from the outside, and somehow enough order is maintained that the city doesn't simply collapse. I would expect plagues and famine and riots, not to mention fire after all the explosions at the start of the siege.
I found this all rather hard to buy. In terms of the story the extended siege is done to give Bruce Wayne time to heal up in his remote prison, and to make his spiritual journey that allows him to escape from it and return to Gotham. I find it hard to believe that such a siege with so many hostages could be maintained - this is a city after all, and would leak people like a sieve. Similarly, the maintenance of order would be a real problem in such circumstances. Least credible of all, I could not swallow that a thousand or so police offices could be trapped underground for six months, somehow supplied with food & such, then be busted out and run off to battle, fully fit and wearing clean uniforms. Really?
Did anyone else spot all the French Revolution/Tale of Two Cites references? I mean the conflict between aristocracy and underclass, the storming of the prison (the Bastille), the citizens' court against the oppressors, the final sacrifice and Bruce Wayne's epitaph, read from the close of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Interesting to see that put into a modern setting.
I wondered about some of the technology also. I thought the helicopter thing was pretty neat, though it was fortunate that the missiles fired at it were so slow that the copter could keep ahead while it outmanoeuvred them . Did Bane buy them from the lowest bidder, perhaps? I didn't really buy that the fusion core could be (a) so easily turned into a bomb, or (b) be removable from the reactor and still remain deadly without the need to keep it fuelled or maintained.
That said, there was a lot to like. I don't think I'll be in a hurry to watch this one again, though - unlike the first two movies in the series.
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Nolan cited using ATOTC as inspiration, so the similarities you note are not surprising.
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Wait, what?
Blow up the city with a fusion reactor?
(Morbo's voice): FISSION REACTORS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY
That's the same knumbskull mistake Aliens made.
Just call it a fission reactor and, while it isn't going to blow up in a giant fireball, it's still a credible threat. Yeesh.
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still waiting... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I want a Batman movie like "Sin City" or "Watchmen"
Batman with a big blue bent wiener? That'll scare the supervillians off.
Pretty Good, Not Outstanding (Score:4, Interesting)
Saw it yesterday after the the Citrix Wow to How 3 seminar (great job on that Brad Peterson, very informative and well done presentation!). (PS: To any Slashdot geeks support Citrix, sign-up for next year to get an early preview of whatever movie is going to come out then.)
The movie was pretty good. It had a nicely flowing narrative with the main story and plenty of other side stories to keep it flowing nicely. Christian Bale performed as expected with a top notch performance, Tom Hardy did a great job as Bain showing a completely calm and serene villain standing up to anything that Batman threw at him and then outmatching him. Great performance there, hope to see more of Tom Hardy in future movies. The audio from Bain's filtered voice mask was very loud and clear and fully understandable with a very nice English accent. The mask did cover a lot of Tom Hardy's face and you really had to look down at his neck to even notice that he was actually the one talking because you can't see any movement. The performances of the other cast members were also very good with great character play.
There were of course a few plot issues and unbelievable things that you had to ignore with the police being trapped underground for 3-months and then finding out that it was only 3,000 officers. I grew up in NYC and I know that the NYPD has 36,000 officers so it was very hard to imagine so few out there in Gotham as the GPD force. That didn't jive with me. Also if you're trapped underground for 3-months without light and no access to clean water and food things don't go very well for you. Also NYC (Gotham in the movie) has so many access tunnels into the underground that it seems far fetched to be stuck down there without a way out.
Anyway, like the movie overall and am looking forward to the next set of Batman movies in the future. I don't mind this franchine being remade every few years because it attracts a lot of money from the studios and talented actors. (Heath Ledger being the most memorable, damn those Olsen twins!)
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The trapped cops were getting plenty of food and water throughout the ordeal. They were essentially jailed...in the pit.
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Yes you have to remember that for the most part these comic book superhero's live in a very black and white world with nobody who is "basically a good guy but..."[1]. You don't have someone who likes a puff of weed occasionally, anyone into drugs is a major drug dealer. Nobody just speeds occasionally, you either stay under the limit or you are running a car racket. Unless there is a "bad guy of the week" on the scene, the cops have pretty much nothing to do. And even then they just waste their time until t
Other than that, Mrs Lincoln (Score:4, Funny)
How was the film?
spoilers? (Score:2, Redundant)
If you can't write a review without spoilers, why bother?
SPOILER ALERT (Score:2)
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Every time Bane spoke (Score:2)
So... (Score:2)
What'd y'all think of the Lazaras Pit?
Whatever happened to Zsasz? (Score:2)
At the end of Batman Begins, Zsasz (Tim Booth) was shown walking out of the opened jail, and is (for all we know) still at large, doing unspeakable things to the children of Gotham. Won't somebody think of the children?
Not Post Apocalyptic (Score:2)
For Nolan, Gotham City looks like one of those maps of LA or NY that shows the rest of the World as being about the same size. Some dude is in Hong Kong that has information you need, that's like a day trip for Batman. If you were to squeeze the events going on globally into a city, and scale down the wars being fought, it would be just like a Batman movie.
I have lived in 5 countries and visited even more. In every single placed I've lived and visited, there were bad parts of town you knew were not sa
Re:Too soon? (Score:5, Funny)
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The MPAA might send in somebody to shoot you during the movie!
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Yeah, I bet they'd get years in jail once the MPAA got involved.
The mass murderer, or the bootlegger? Since you mentioned the MPAA, I'm going to guess you meant the bootlegger. The shooter would probably get out of jail decades before the guy filming the movie.
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We were never ready for frank and open discussions.
Where the hell do you think you are?
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Too soon, why?
This is a horrible tragedy, but it's not like the movie is to blame.
Rottentomatoes.com contains 200-odd reviews (mostly positive), quite a few of them posted after the shooting. Another question, of course, is whether a movie review belongs on Slashdot's front page, and not even on the Idle section.
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Considering the incident occurred at the midnight showing, what they hell did the other reviewers watch?
Batman dies in the end (Score:2)
Probably because I made it up of course.
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Re:Too soon? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are we ready for frank discussions of people getting shot at the theatre, and the likelihood that their traumatized kids will turn into becaped vigilantes?
I never thought of that - the irony of this whole incident.
Usually when shit like that happens, people blame the object of the killing and not the individual.
Kid dies from a drunk driver? Not the driver's irresponsibility! It's the fact that drunk driving laws aren't strict enough and we need to search everyone randomly at checkpoints regardless of probable cause. And if you protest then you approve of drunk driving!
More than likely, those kids who lost their parents or other loved ones in that ridiculous incident will make them life long proponents of gun control and even the elimination of our Second Amendment right here in the US. They won't blame that individual - they'll blame our gun laws and our gun "culture".
I'm sure if the nut case used molotov cocktails, they would be screaming at the ease of getting gasoline or some such.
We always want to blame the one thing that "caused" the problem. The trouble is that there are always a multitude of reasons and causes. Time will tell if the killer was mentally ill, a member of some sort of anti-movie militia, neo-NAZI, or just some very angry person that needed to "get back at society" or any combination of those and then some. And then there is the issue of why he felt that way. What primed the pump? Was he abused as a child? Did he grow up in an alcoholic family? And so on.
It's easy to blame an individual or his methods but we should really ask ourselves why is our society producing these people? Or why aren't we discovering ill folks and getting them the help they need or if necessary confining them? We can eliminate the methods (guns, gas, fertilizer, CO2, car exhaust) but these disturbed folks will find a way. And some folks in the past of convinced their countrymen and their military to do it for them.
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Kid dies from a drunk driver? Not the driver's irresponsibility! It's the fact that drunk driving laws aren't strict enough and we need to search everyone randomly at checkpoints regardless of probable cause. And if you protest then you approve of drunk driving!
One of the problems with drunk driving deaths, in the past, was that prosecution wasn't strict enough. They'd just say, "the alcohol made him do it, it wasn't his fault" and the killer would walk free. Our (USA) culture used to be extremely toleran
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Used to be?
Most people I know still don't think twice about having some drinks and hitting the road....maybe what you describe is more regional in the US...?
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I don't know, it might be. But one big difference I see, at least in my region and in other regions I've lived in, is that enforcement is very strict these days. Back in Virginia, they even used to have checkpoints on certain roads at late hours. Here in Arizona, cops are very zealous about arresting people for DUI, and then they go to the infamous Sheriff Joe's "Tent City" and spend a weekend there in the sweltering heat. It seems to be a pretty big money-maker too from what I've heard from people who'
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I don't know that I've ever SEEN a dwi checkpoint. Good thing too...
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Well, this is all conjecture of course, but I'm thinking if someone threw a handful of molotov cocktails into a crowded theater, people would run for the exit; it would take a minute or two for the room to be engulfed in flames most likely, so most people would escape. Of course, some people would get burns, and some people might get injured in the stampede, there might even be a couple deaths from those two factors, but I'm thinking the death toll would be lower than with guns. Also, I'm not sure how wel
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Yes, explosives would probably be move devastating. As for modifying the bottle, I don't know if I'd expect some moron like this to try that. People who pull these things off usually aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer; just look at this guy, he had 4 guns and a bunch of ammo and he only managed to kill 12. Obviously, he wasn't the best shot (thankfully).
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As for modifying the bottle, I don't know if I'd expect some moron like this to try that.
Well, he did seem to spend some time preparing - and put enough thought into it to don a ballistic vest, helmet and a gas mask, and use gas to disorient the crowd.
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Maybe, but it doesn't look like he spent any time at the shooting range (thankfully).
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True, 15 kills in 15 minutes is really bad. That said, if he was really shooting as fast as he could, I find it hard to believe that this could be a result - rifles (unlike handguns) are pretty easy to use efficiently even with minimal skill. Most people, even shooting for the first time in their life, can group bullets within a couple inches at 10-15 yards, which is quite enough to kill. I think it's more likely that he was deliberately taking his time picking specific targets based on some obscure criteri
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Hmm, that is a possibility. You're right, long guns are a lot easier to shoot accurately than handguns, even for people with relatively little skill.
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So you're suggesting that what we have now is working so well that we don't need to look any further for a better solution?
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So if there's anything you want to change to what you have now, maybe start there.
It's perhaps a technicality but assault rifles are a specific class of weapons that are highly illegal and nearly impossible to buy legally here in the US. That said, I can see why you'd find it unbelievable. As much as gun-control opponents would like to deny it (and I'm one of them) the logic here is pretty unassailable: someone with a semiautomatic weapon will typically do a lot more damage before being brought under control than will someone with just about any other type of legal weapon. The other
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For me, the villian is the most important part of a batman comic. Joker & Bane have been portrayed really well, that I cant complain about anything else.
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Nooo..... Joker was portrayed excellently.
Say what you will about the first movie, but Heath Ledger made the 2nd movie stand out all on its own with his performance. It was eerily good.
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Jack.. is that you?
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Personally of all the batman movies, batman returns is my favorite
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Bruce Wayne is the mask
That's the most important thing you could say about it. The big failing of the Nolan movies for me is that Bruce Wayne is toying around with the idea of being Batman, and he thinks he likes it.
That said, I enjoyed the second one as a good film, if not good Batman.
Ah, well - maybe they'll get JMS to pen the next reboot.
Re:Slashdot incredibly tone deaf for posting this (Score:5, Insightful)
100 people die per day on our roads.
We cannot review cars?
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And why not? It's just a movie. Do you refuse to listen to Led Zeppelin I because there's a picture of the Hindeburg on the front?
Re:Slashdot incredibly tone deaf for posting this (Score:5, Funny)
I am intrigued by your comment and wish to mail-order your Asperger's Handbook.
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Most "neurotypicals", as you call them, realise that this review is badly timed and shows insensitivity. Sure, it may not make logical sense to those with no emotional intuition, but the air needs to be cleaned about this piece of shit killer before discussing the movie. Especially as it's only been one day.
And once the "air is clean", people with "emotional intuition" will find a review here that, quite conveniently, has already been written. Or to put in other words, the time period in which this review will be useful to people without emotional baggage (many years) will be much longer than the period in which overly touchy (*) people will bicker, so why wait?
. . . . . .
(*) Some of us, i.e. so-called "people without emotional intuition", do in fact realize that those who haven't been there actually aren't hu
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Most "neurotypicals", as you call them, realise that this review is badly timed and shows insensitivity.
Huh? Do you really think nobody is going to go see Batman this weekend out of some sort of twisted feeling of moral obligation to societal guilt?
Plenty of people will appropriately separate the movie from the atrocity and go see it because they've been wanting to.
Actually, if I were WB, I'd pledge all of Sunday's profits to a victims' fund, just to keep the ball rolling.
Re:Slashdot incredibly tone deaf for posting this (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, don't call people mate if they are not your friends.
Second, don't assume someone who doesn't share your view of mandatory empathy has Asperger's.
Most people can discuss a movie and not let a tragic event control their life or prevent them from enjoying something they have been waiting for.
Asshat.
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I'm autistic. Autism has no inherent relation to lack of empathic response.
Psychopaths don't feel at all, and so don't express it. We feel, but we generally don't know how to express it in ways which are consistent with social norms, and so end up offending/upsetting people as a result.
There's a big difference.
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Ah, the self-righteous defender of all that is noble and proper by lecturing others about how to socialize on the blogs. Welcome!
When you're done with your self-imposed vicarious victimhood, I sincerely hope you enjoy the movie.
Then again, something like 300 people died today in Syria, and I'm sure there'll be more tomorrow, so, remain vigilante against anyone having any fun.
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Naw, it's a great time. There's a whole other thread for you to angst in.
actually its the BEST TIME (Score:2)
Okay so one of the theaters got shot up by an unnamed WhackADoodle killing 12 and wounding 50 (some of whom may be dead later). Life Must Go On (for those that survived).
If we downplay His Name (focus on his victims and the recovery of the wounded sure) then the next guy might not think this is a good idea.
otherwise
[putting on a green wig and purple suit] WHY SO SERIOUS???
and besides how many folks in that theature did NOT get injured??
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Define "injured". I suspect that even those that didn't get shot are suffering some serious PTSD.
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Except that according to some of the "interviews" some of them thought that the smoke and gun shots where special effects added for the movie.
so while some will be stressed by this others can't tell the difference between a movie and real life, to be honest i'm not at all surprised.
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okay so lets see to make this fair
count actual physical injuries and then add 5/9s of the number of folks with more than "stiff drink" level PTSD
now subtract that number from the number of folks there.
I would bet you The Joker could have done better DRUNK
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No, we're acting like the world has come to an end because one lunatic committed a heinous crime. We need to stop living in a climate of unnecessary fear. I've read stuff on twitter today where people are saying things like "Who knew there were so many crazies out there?" There aren't so many. There was one. In a country with 300 million people. One. Others saying what a terrible world it is where you can't even go to the movies in safety. You can. Nearly everyone did. Nearly everyone does, every
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No, we're acting like the world has come to an end because one lunatic committed a heinous crime. We need to stop living in a climate of unnecessary fear. I've read stuff on twitter today where people are saying things like "Who knew there were so many crazies out there?" There aren't so many. There was one. In a country with 300 million people. One. Others saying what a terrible world it is where you can't even go to the movies in safety. You can. Nearly everyone did. Nearly everyone does, every day.
This is not to say this wasn't a heinous crime. It was.
It's not to say this isn't a horrible tragedy for anyone who knew the victims. It was.
It's not to say we don't all share their sadness. We do. Well, most of us do. I do. I considered seeing this movie last night. I've taken my kids to midnight shows. As they say, there but for the grace of God go I.
It is to say we need to continue living our lives.
For sure. When stuff like this stops being a major story then we'll have a problem. Even in countries i'd be too terrified to visit mass shootings still make the news. I think the fact that this stuff happens so rarely means we are doing something right.
It's entirely inappropriate to make jokes about the shooting. It's fine to like the movie, and it's fine to talk about the movie.
It's a terrible thing that happened. Making jokes is one way that people deal with it. Making the joke in front of someone directly affected by the issue would be inappropriate, but otherwise it's just one of the ways people cope with stuff like this and sto
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You have just repeated the same mistake that liberals have been making since the 60's, that somehow making it harder for criminals to get guns is going to affect this. First, he wasn't a criminal until he did this. Second, there are over 250 million guns in American society, so trying to prevent access to them is about like trying to prevent access to acorns in an oak forest. Not happening.
The REAL way to keep this from happening is EXACTLY the opposite. What you do is to make it EASIER for the LAW ABID
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I have nothing against guns myself... but picture yourself there:
Dark theater, loud sounds from the movie itself is playing, smoke suddenly appears out of nowhere, then someone dressed up like a good percentage of the other patrons starts going on a rampage.
Now people are panicking, you still can't see shit and aren't sure what's going on, and your response is to whip out your firearm out your firearm and start shooting in a room full of innocents. Puh-leeeze...
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If you don't have a shot, then you don't have a shot, and you don't fire. But if you can identify the target, then you take it out. Nobody that knows what they're doing fires wildly.
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An old Chinese saying... (Score:2)
Use poison to attack poison, use evil to fight evil.
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Re:To bad heath ledger died he was real good in th (Score:4, Funny)
And you should have been in your English classes.
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I hear the special effects in Colorado were killer.
I am so going to hell for that one.
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There's only like three people in Heaven.
Didn't they say it's 144k?
Only catch is, they're all Jews...
Re:12 Killed in Shooting at Colorado Theater (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the whole world have to stop every time some crazy person snaps? If you knew the victims, I'm sorry for your loss. I didn't, so I'm more interested in the review.
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I dont understand this logic. Where you trying to punish yourselves by not going to the movies? Or where you trying to help someone who was affected by 9/11. Or where you trying to help prevent another 9/11? If not why would you not go to the movies?
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But isn't a tragedy about some inevitable fate such as Oedipus fucking his mother and then becomes blind as a punishment, whereas this shooting could have been easily prevented by investigating why an ordinary guy needs to purchase 4 guns and 6000 rounds of amunition within 60 days?
Except (Score:3, Insightful)
Batman is probably the biggest anti-gun superhero around. He knows the dangers. His parents were killed by a gun. And he beats the people with the guns. Does he use violence? Sure, but it's only when he has no other choice.
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Make a violent movie where people shoot each other, advertise it 24/7.
It hasn't yet been established that the fact that it was a Batman movie was relevant.
Maybe it was circumstantial, e.g. he knew the guy that stole his girl would be there, or something.
Maybe it was coincidental: e.g. he wanted to kill some random people, and noticed from the media buzz that a full house was expected for opening night.
And even if the movies batmanness was relevant, his acts might not have had anything to do with the movie's violence. Maybe he's just a member of a cult that thinks movies and
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Make it legal for weirdos to buy assault rifle and tear gas.
An assault rifle is a weapon that is capable of firing more than one bullet while the trigger is held (also known as "burst"). Those are illegal in many states, and where legal they are incredibly hard and expensive to obtain.
The rifle used by the murderer was your average civilian legal semi-auto rifle. A semi-auto rifle is not an assault rifle by definition, even if it looks like one.
As for tear gas, it or some rough equivalent (like pepper spray) can be legally purchased in most countries - in those coun
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Stay away from any movie theater I attend, Mr. Rambo Q. Sociopath.
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The thought of sitting next to some mentally deficient maniac who might just as quickly draw fire from police as from the shooter fills me with some dread. I'd hope I had the presence of mind to beat you into unconsciousness before you did much more harm than good.
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I don't know whether or not I believe you. Why?
This guy would would be dead at my hand simple as that
You repeated this phrase twice. To me, that implies someone who still attaches some importance to the idea of killing people, and/or is trying to impress others, with how badass they supposedly are.
Psychopaths often can try and impress people, of course; the psychopathic modus operandi is all about justification for viewing yourself as superior to everyone else around you. The World of Warcraft forums tau
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Also slashdot is mostly pro-guns. So I would advise you to avoid slashdot until gun nuts are under control.
And I would like a source for the statements "He apparently thought he was the Joker" and "disarming the booby traps in his apartment".
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I would like a source for the statements "He apparently thought he was the Joker" and "disarming the booby traps in his apartment".
CNN: [cnn.com] "The suspect in the mass shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater screening of the new Batman film early Friday had colored his hair red and told police he was "the Joker," according to a federal law enforcement source with detailed knowledge of the investigation."
Denver Post via Mercury News -- "Aurora shooting suspect left apartment "booby trapped," music blaring" [mercurynews.com]: "Oates said Holmes made a statement to officers about possible explosives in his home. That prompted police to evacuate five bui
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Do you read news? The release was headlines on google news.
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There are programs that I actually want to watch, but I get caught up in doing other things, mostly net-related, and I forget. I don't have a DVR and refuse to use the one Comcast "provides", plus I would forget to watch things that got recorded anyway, so I end up watching on Hulu or iTunes or YouTube. Watching TV is a habit, and like other habits I've kind of gotten out of it, not deliberately but just because other habits took its place.
So, I don't watch TV, not because I'm a TV snob, but because I'm a
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If you expected people to conform to strange norms where 100 people dying from unnatural causes every day is business as usual so long as it's not reported in mass media, while 15 people dying is a national tradegy because it's on every front page, you probably shouldn't be reading Slashdot. At least on these kinds of days.