Detective Blake's real name was a little TOO much of a wink, methinks.
Yeah, "John Blake" is WAY too similar to "Tim Drake".
I caught on pretty much immediately and then the otherwise pointless clue drop that she was poor originally hammered it home. But I don't think it was "super obvious". For one thing, I heard in an early rumour back when they were still casting the movie that Talia was going to be in it. So as soon as this foreign sounding woman came on screen who acted like she had the hots for bats and then we learned unnecessary details about her for some no-name character it all clicked for me. However, I don't know if I would have been so fast to be like "TALIA, THAT'S TOTALLY TALIA" in my head without that rumour also bouncing around in there.
Well, I mean, if I didn't know going in that Ra's had a sexy daughter I might not have made the connection the second she came onscreen, but we can't really test that parallel universe where I didn't grow up watching Batman cartoons (and really, who would want to?). Yeah, I know Talia al Ghul when I see her and I knew who she was as soon as she spoke her first line.
I guess I just wasn't really thinking about it enough during the movie to put it all together "Oh right, child of Ra's, that's not Bain, that's Talia". But then in my defense again, he keeps her really out of sight a lot and doesn't dangle her around much and also, I really had no idea what he was keeping "accurate to the comics" and what he was changing. There was really no reason for me to doubt that he would just write Bain in as Ra's kid. I mean why not? He changed the location and nature of his prison to fit the movie better, why not change his father too?
Yeah, I didn't quite make the connection that she was the child; I spent a chunk of the movie going "So they're brother and sister, then?" And while I saw the obvious maneuvering -- Bane's fuckery with Bruce's accounts manipulated him directly into giving the bomb to Talia -- I wasn't immediately sure whether they were in cahoots or were leading rival factions of the League, City at War style.
Course Bruce couldn't code the auto-pilot, he got thrown in super jail.
Yeah, I DID come out with some question as to when exactly he coded up the patch and wrote his will. (Will would be the easier of the two; honestly he could have whipped that up on the way back to Gotham from the Pit. But the lady tells Fox that the patch was pushed months ago, meaning BEFORE the first confrontation with Bane. How quick is the timeline between when he first talks to Blake and when he goes to meet Bane? I'm thinking he pushed the patch before he went to the party as Bruce.)
Remember how before the Dark Knight, fans were saying that Heath Ledger was a bad choice for Joker? Then before this one everyone was saying Anne Hathaway would be a bad Catwoman? Well Nolan just did that with Robin without the fans even noticing.
Well, he'd already used Gordon Leavitt in Inception so I think Nolan fans already had a pretty good idea about him.
But man he's bulked up since then.
Anyhow yeah he did a great job making Robin fit into this universe. I'd be thrilled to see a new franchise with Blake as Batman, but yeah that's not gonna happen we're just gonna get another reboot.
Which I guess is okay in and of itself, because for once Batman gets not only an ending but a HAPPY ending.
I've said before that, much as I loved Batman Beyond Bruce, that's never been the ending I wanted for him; I always wanted him to slay his demons, retire, and finally find happiness. This movie managed to actually go from Batman Beyond Bruce to Happy Retired Bruce in the span of 3 hours, and that's fucking wonderful -- AND have him settle down with Catwoman in the end to boot.
