A sad statement on American culture

[Hippo_Tron]

70. I had some issues with the Dark Knight

And mainly it was due to the fact that I was a huge fan of Batman Begins. My main problem with the Dark Knight was that there wasn't a single reference to Ra's Al Ghul or anything that had happened in Batman Begins. The fact that Wayne ended up having to kill his former mentor had to have a huge impact on him in the long run, and yet we don't see that explored in the least bit. Further more, Ra's Al Ghul wanted to burn the world just like the Joker did. He had ostensibly rational reasons for wanting to do so, which was different, but their objectives were similar.

The formula for doing an ideal first sequel the Empire Strikes back formula. You take the characters you introduced in the first one, raise the stakes quite a bit, and learn new things about these characters by running them through these raised stakes. The Dark Knight raised the stakes, but it was almost a different story. You really could watch it without ever having seen Batman Begins. Thus, all of that development of Bruce Wayne's character in the first movie, couldn't be built on in the second movie.

Now here's the caveat. The Empire Strikes back formula usually leaves for a mediocre third movie, because all that's left is an epic final battle (that everyone knows how it will end) and tying up the loose ends, making the romance come to fruition, etc.

The Dark Knight Rises may find a way to tie these two somewhat separate stories together in a way that reveals quite a bit more to the audience than a third sequel usually does. But if this is just going to be The Dark Knight over again, with some new villains and the cops being against Batman, I'm going to be pretty disappointed.