A couple of days ago I was graciously invited to an advance screening of the Dark Knight Rises Prologue at the IMAX in downtown Spokane, WA. I, of course, accepted and was able to take my girlfriend to the event. The six or seven minutes of Christopher Nolan’s film was to be shown at 10pm, so we hightailed it over to the theater about forty-five minutes early where we were pleasantly surprised by a pair of free t-shirts (featured in the slideshow). Both have logos depicted in an echo location style of print—one has an image of bat with the word “Legend” below it and the other a picture of Bane’s mask with the word “End” below it. Definitely a nice perk for attending the event.
The theater was packed and before the film reel rolled one of the attendants gave an announcement detailing out the dos and don’ts of the event. Obviously no cell phones or recording devices were allowed during the showing. As an aside, Spokane was one of only thirteen cities premiering the prologue; I found this particularly surprising and it sparked a deep sense of pride in my little hometown.
The prologue begins with Commissioner Gordon giving a press conference and eulogy for the late-Harvey Dent. Afterwards the footage segues to the next scene, which depicts a plane readying for take off. Aidan Gillen (portraying an undercover CIA Agent)is standing in front of a plane, with several of his henchmen, leading Liam Neeson’s character,Ra’s Al Ghul, with two other hooded figures. The two-cloaked hostages are ‘not apart of the deal,’ but they are allowed to board the plane at the behest of Ra’s. Once on the plane the two masked figures are interrogated by shoving their heads out the door of the plane, whilst being threatened with a gun by Aiden Gillen’s character. During the interrogation with the second, hooded individual the first begins to speak and the title’s main villain, Bane (played by Tom Hardy) is revealed to the audience. Aidan Gillen and Bane quip back and forth about the seemingly foolishness of Bane’s actions, but toGillen’s surprise their plane is quickly and efficiently taken out of commission by Bane’s special commandos residing in plane of his own. During their conversation a much larger plane had flown above Gillen’s plane and several commandos rappel down to the plane below and proceed to shoot out the windows killing most of Gillen’s men. They then attach a number of cables to the body of the aircraft and the plane above ascends ripping the smaller plane upwards, which tears the wings off and sends the remaining passengers of the plane plummeting to the nose of the destroyed aircraft. The special ops team then blows the tail of the plane off leaving the body of the plane exposed to the sky. A cadaver is lowered and ostensibly resuscitated by one of Bane’s loyalists via blood transfusion. Another one ofBane’s fanatics remains behind and it is conveyed between the two that this event and the destruction of the plane, with the cadaver and other passengers, will be the “fire” that starts a new chain of events. The scene concludes with Bane and his bloodletting loyalist being parachuted out of the plane as it is released from Bane’s larger plane. The smaller aircraft begins to free fall back towards the ground. From here the screening concludes by showing various snippets of the Dark Knight Rises including: mobs of Gothamites swarming the city, varying scenes highlighting Bane, Catwoman, and finallyBatman holding a cracked cowl (similar to the newly released poster.)
Overall, I thought that the footage was amazing. The action sequences were tight and it made me went to see the film, even more so than before. The only complaint that I heard from my fellow patrons was the fact that Bane’s voice was near unintelligible. His words were garbled, due to the mask, and without context the dialogue, or lack thereof, would be indecipherable. I overheard some moviegoers liken it theStatler & Waldorf Muppets laughter as they mock the other’sMuppets from their balcony. Christopher Nolan has already stated that Bane’s indecipherable dialogue was done purposefully and they he is not going to alter it. However, with enough complaints I believe that Nolan might reconsider and re-mix the sound in the editing process. Personally I could see how this style could be advantageous to the characters—it adds an aura mystery. But if this ‘style’ persists I could see it becoming quite distracting from the rest of the film.
Nevertheless, I am quite excited to see the last of Nolan’s Batman trilogy. We will see how it pans it in the coming months leading up to its summer release!
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