John Blake (SPOILERS)

[Silver Nemesis]

Everyone who's seen the film now knows that John Blake is Nolan's version of Robin. So what are your thoughts on the matter? I've browsed a few message boards and it seems like this is one of the major criticisms a lot of people have with the film. That the Robin twist was cheesy or unnecessary, and that Robin should never have appeared in Nolan's universe in any form whatsoever.

Personally, I loved this aspect of the movie. Blake was one of my favourite characters in the film and words cannot convey how thrilled I was that Nolan had the balls to go against the grain and include his own version of Batman's sidekick. The mythology wouldn't have been complete without him. I liked the way the character was written, and I liked the way Joseph Gordon-Levitt played him. It referenced the comics, but also managed to fit within the stylistic confines of the Nolanverse.

The approach was similar to what Burton was planning with Batman Returns – to take the concept of Batman's sidekick and construct a totally original version from the ground up. But I think Nolan's approach was better than what Burton and Waters were planning and ultimately had more of a basis in the source material (more on that in the comic influences thread).

What did everyone else think? I'm guessing most people will hate the Robin twist, but I loved it.

[bttfbat]

I at first thought I wasn't going to like where things were going to end up, but after seeing the final film and the way that Nolan tied it in with the past films, I thought it worked as a story arc.  I felt the way I did when I saw Batman in 1989 and Batman Returns in 1992.  Yes Tim Burton did follow the motif of the characters a little bit more in terms of a comic book character versus a real life person in the real world, but Tim put his own spin on things. Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent, the Penguin being a creature from the sewers and Selina Kyle's origin story all were Burton's twists, but I couldn't wait to see how it all played out.

  As a kid I remember hearing the rumors about there being a Robin who was a street mechanic, I couldn't wait to see if Tim was really going to do something like this.  Yes the true die hard comic book fans hate when Tim would go off tangent like that, but you can't please everyone. I totally agree with you that Nolan's approach to Robin really isn't that much different than Burton's would have been and is actually stronger. Watching this and I did see some spoilers, knowing what role John Blake actually had, I felt like I was reading a Lonely Place to Die story arc,  for a modern real world "Robin" this idea works for Nolan.  It was a little cheesy when they said his name was Robin, but I get that for the general film going audience the film makers had to do it, had to sit there and tell the audience yes this is our Robin. 

At the end of the day, Robin is a part of the Batman comic universe and clearly they had to leave the ending open enough if they decide to carry on this Batman universe on film so I didn't have a real problem with it. 

[riddler]

well the thing is that all signs point to Nolan being finished with the series, so there is no sequel in the plans. It's fairly obvious if this series were to continue we wouldn't have batman and robin fighting side by side the way they have so many times before; bruces secret is out, not much point for him to don the cape and cowl.

I think it was just an inside nod and somewhat befitting in the sense that you could argue that if any character got deemed the sidekick in this film it would be Blake; Selina worked with him but she was also an antagonist to him early in the film. And of course Blake is also an orphan.

Interesting to note though that in Burtons plans for the character, he also would have made his real name Robin. I definitely wouldnt be happy if they picked it up with Joseph Gordon Lovitt as Robin (great actor but way too old).

[BatmAngelus]

After the movie ended, one of my friends said, "Who's ready for the Robin movie, guys?!!"

I thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt and John Blake were one of the better aspects of the film.  He was smart (almost too smart) and proactive.  Arguably more proactive than Bruce in the first half.

His backstory with Bruce was shoehorned in and his explanation for knowing Bruce was Batman has got to be one of the weakest explanations ever.  This is in a movie where Ra's al Ghul, Bane, Talia, and Catwoman are featured- all people who found out about the secret identity in the comics and in these movies (and in more logical ways than the way presented here).  And John Blake's way of figuring it out is Bruce Wayne's smile?

It would've been more organic if Blake's detective work into the events of the previous movies gave him all the clues (i.e. The Tumbler's connection to Wayne Enterprises, Bruce's mysterious disappearance at the Harvey Dent party followed by Batman's appearance, Bruce having the money and the resources to be Batman).  Still would've kept Blake smart, but also would've fit with the trilogy much better.

He was also the calmest person to be dubbed a "hothead" I've ever seen.  I'd hate Matthew Modine's character to ever meet Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon.

I didn't mind that he was called Robin at the end.  This was Nolan's version of the end of the Batman saga and Blake was the closest equivalent to being Robin to Bale's Batman.

The reveal didn't work for me.  "You should use your full name.  Robin."  I was half-expecting Blake to reply, "Um, okay, lady.  Thanks for the advice."  It was a pretty forced way of doing it and it would've been more organic if we just saw his full name on the ID.

While I liked his discovery of the Batcave at the end (like swinging through the waterfall and encountering the bats like Bruce did in Begins), I feel uneasy about Bruce leaving him the map and essentially handing him the keys to the Batcave. 

It'd be one thing if Bruce really did die and Blake discovered the cave on his own.  But here, it seemed as if Bruce gave up being Batman and left Gotham so he could hook up with Selina and dumped the responsibility of Batman on Blake.

[Silver Nemesis]

Those are all fair criticisms, BatmAngelus. But in spite of them, I still really liked this character.

An obvious twist would have been to reveal his real name was Grayson. But if they'd done that, then he would've come across as an unfaithful representation of Dick Grayson from the comics. And people would've been disappointed that he didn't become Robin. By only using the name Robin, they circumvented the need to adhere to Dick Grayson's story arc and instead just focused on the basic concept: namely that Batman has a sidekick called Robin. Admittedly it's a little tenuous, but I felt it worked in the context of Nolan's universe.

Here are a few similarities between Blake and the Dick Grayson in the comics that I noticed. I'll post these again once the comic influences thread is up (which might not be for a while yet – the movie has a lot of references to the comics). But for now, here're a few things on Blake/Robin/Grayson.

First of all he's an orphan. Obviously so was Dick Grayson.

Secondly, he grew up in a Catholic orphanage. Prior to being taken in by Bruce Wayne, the Post-Crisis Dick Grayson also lived in a Catholic orphanage for a while. The unnamed priest in the movie can be seen as a parallel to Sister Mary Elizabeth, the kindly nun who took care of him in Batman: Year Three (1989).



Thirdly, Blake is a cop. So was Dick Grayson for a while. He began training to become a policeman in 'Bad Night in Bludhaven' (Nightwing #31, May 1999) and was accepted onto the force in 'The Sylph, Part One: Slender Thread' (Nightwing #48, October 2000). He continued to serve with the Bludhaven Police Department for almost half a decade before handing in his badge.



And finally, the movie implies that Blake will assume the role of Batman following Bruce Wayne's death/retirement. Dick Grayson has always been the logical choice to replace Bruce in the comics too. We've seen this in recent years following the Batman R.I.P. storyline. And it also happened in the Earth Two timeline, when Dick briefly became Batman to capture the Joker following Bruce Wayne's death.



So while on the surface Blake was an original character, he still had a few key traits in common with the Dick Grayson from the comics. I understand that a lot of people won't like this aspect of the film, but for me it was a gutsy move on Nolan's part – one that I honestly didn't expect – and I felt it worked.

Would I want to see Blake take centre stage as Batman in a fourth movie? No. The trilogy ended on a fitting note and that should cap off the Nolanverse for good. I wouldn't mind some spin off comics or videogames set between the events of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but I wouldn't want to see a fourth entry in the movie series. Nolan's Bat-saga ended on the right note, and now it's time for a change.

[BatmAngelus]

^ Good work.  I had forgotten about the orphanage in Year Three.

As previously mentioned by bttfbat, the part where Blake reveals he knows Bruce Wayne is Batman was probably inspired by Tim Drake's role in the comics when he revealed he knew the truth and became Robin later.

In terms of his name, well, Blake rhymes with Drake.  Loose connection, I know, but the only one I could think of.

John, on the other hand, has a couple connections.  Dick's full name is Richard John Grayson and, of course, there was Jean (pronounced John) Paul Valley, who wasn't Robin but, as all Batfans know, took over the mantle of the Bat for a bit and inherited the Batcave after Bane defeated Batman.

Of course, as pointed out by Silver Nemesis in the other thread, maybe it was just a reference to this: http://gotchamovies.com/news/john-blake-character-origins-in-batman 

Also, this is the movie of the Johns apparently.  John Blake.  John Daggett.  Jonathan Crane.

[Silver Nemesis]

Great analysis there! I hadn't even considered there might be some meaning behind the name. But now you've pointed out those connections, it seems likely at least one of them was intentional.

It looks like we're going to have our work cut out for us finding all the hidden references in this film.

[BatmAngelus]

Might as well add these from the comic book influences article:
- But Dick Grayson isn't the only Robin connected to the Dark Knight Rises character. Throughout the movie, Blake is dubbed as a "hothead" by Deputy Commissioner Foley.  This was a notorious trait of the second Robin, Jason Todd.

- In addition to this, the idea of Bruce Wayne selecting a younger man to replace him as Batman is the premise of the Batman Beyond series. In that sense, John Blake can be seen as a variation of the Terry McGinnis character.

And from the thread:
- Blake mentions that his mother died when he was young, of a car accident.  His father later was killed over a gambling debt, which implies he hung out with the wrong crowd.  This is similar to the Post-Crisis Jason Todd origin in which Jason's mother died of a drug overdose when he was younger (later retconned to find out that his biological mother was someone else, but that's beside the point) and his father was one of Two-Face's men who was killed.

And one that was posted at SHH that I hadn't thought about:
- John Blake is promoted to Detective.  One of the old school slang words for Detective is "Dick" so technically he's Dick Robin John Blake.   

Anyways, JGL recently spoke about playing the character on Jimmy Kimmel Live:

When asked about continuing his character in another movie, he simply says that the decision's out of his hands and that the character's journey was more about ending Bruce Wayne's story than setting up a potential spin-off.

At the same time, Dan Didio of DC Comics recently hinted at the possibility of Blake being in the comics.  When asked about a series of books on Blake's term as Batman, Didio responded, "A series of books?  Let's see how he does on his first mission."
http://comicbook.com/blog/2012/08/12/the-dark-knight-rises-john-blake-to-join-the-comics/

Lastly, I felt I had to post this here:

[greggbray]

This is all great material.

To be honest, I would have preferred if his name were John Drake, connecting to both Dick and Tim.  I know, small potatoes, but still.

My biggest issue with this character is simply this:  if you're going to do a Robin origin story (which, in part, one may argue this is)  why not just...do a Robin origin story?

I understand there are connections between Blake and the comics, and I certainly understand that Nolan was giving his own spin to the character as he had with his previous films, as Burton had, as Dozier had, etc.  But at the end of the day I felt like Nolan made Robin an 'easter egg' as opposed to a fleshed out character.  And as a replacement, not as a sidekick.

I'll have to admit total personal bias here, so I certainly don't begrudge anyone for digging this interpretation:  I will certainly fess up that they had a terrific actor, a personal favorite in fact (if you have yet to see The Lookout  or Brick, drop what you're doing and rent them).  To me it felt like a missed opportunity to bring Dick Grayson to the screen.  As though Nolan had to hide his identity to have one more twist in there.  I wasn't in the mood for a twist, here.  I had hoped for a more direct adaptation of the source material in terms of this character.  Ah, well.

Whatever the case, what Nolan did do, perhaps, is plant an idea in the audience's head: that Robin can be more than a brightly colored campy character.  That he is more than 'holey fill-in-the-blank' puns.    In that respect, I do hope the next filmmaker is paying attention. 

[BatmAngelus]

This thread wouldn't be complete without a link to ItsAllTrue.Net's reinactment of John Blake's brief comic book appearance in 1942:
http://www.itsalltrue.net/?p=19870