Miranda Tate (SPOILERS)

[BatmAngelus]

Continuing Silver Nemesis's threads, I thought I'd open up a discussion on Miranda.  Or in this case, my rant on Miranda.

Miranda Tate/Talia is easily the weakest villain of the Nolan franchise, in my opinion.  I thought she was poorly written and stripped of the moral ambiguity that makes Talia interesting in the comics.

Even before the Talia reveal, I thought Bruce's relationship with Miranda was rushed.  I didn't believe he'd give her that much power over the company (Lucius Fox must've been wondering, "I'm standing right here, Bruce!"). 

I didn't believe he was in love with her, certainly not smitten enough with her to lead an army of cops to Bane's headquarters to rescue her. 

Her betrayal of Bruce had no emotional impact on me.  I spent most of the movie waiting for it, actually, so all I thought about when it happened was "It's about time."

It was also pretty obvious that she was in on it.  Even if I knew nothing about the Batman universe, it seemed odd for her to be in so little danger.  Bane kills the Special Forces Captain and captures Fox and Wayne Enterprises execs, but Blake and Miranda make it out alive. 
Bane asks his men to bring Miranda to him after the trial, but we never see her hurt or in danger and she shows up in the next scene with Lucius and Bruce.
Batman finds out she's been taken, but again, when we see her at Bane's place, she's not hurt or imprisoned or shown to be in any state of distress. 
And of course when Batman arrives to save her, she's switched clothes.  Didn't that seem weird at all to Bruce?  Maybe he thought Bane and Miranda reenacted the drinking scene with Belloq and Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Then there's the Talia twist.  The worst kept secret about this movie.  And as I expected, it played out like a rehash of Henri Ducard/Ra's.  Except this time it was a woman he slept with rather than his mentor and she barely had as much screentime in villain mode. 

Also disappointing that she never called him "Beloved" at this point.  It could've even worked as a mocking gesture in this evil version of Talia, but then again this was co-written and directed by the man who said "The source material is irrelevant."

Her plan with Bane made no sense to me.  They kept talking about finishing Ra's al Ghul's plan.  But Ra's wanted to strike Gotham in Batman Begins because it was ridden with crime.  The Gotham in Dark Knight Rises is strangely low on crime due to the Harvey Dent Act.  What's the point of striking now?  I guess this is what happens when you miss the League of Shadows meetings when your leader is still alive...

Another annoying element to this movie involving Talia- Batman telling Catwoman "no guns" in the beginning, but at the end, not criticizing Catwoman at all for shooting Bane to death and subsequently using The Bat's guns to shoot Talia's truck off the road, killing her (but of course, Gordon's safe in the back of the truck with a nuclear bomb and no seat belt 'cause he's a good guy).  What are we saying here?  That in Batman's last fight for Gotham, he became okay with using guns?

Of course, Talia's not completely dead.  She lives just long enough to tell them she's flooded the chambers that Fox is in (Why tell them at all?  She could've died duping them into thinking that disarming the bomb was going to work and Gotham would've blown to bits). 

And let's not talk about Marion Cotillard's version of a death sigh.

Overall, a disappointing, poorly written treatment of the character that was worse than I expected it to be.

[Silver Nemesis]

Talia was definitely the weakest of the film's main characters. She was underdeveloped and her romance with Bruce came out of nowhere, without sufficient build up. To be fair, a lot of scenes were apparently cut. So maybe their relationship was developed in more depth in the deleted footage. But in the final version of the film, it felt clumsy and contrived.

In addition to the points you made – which I agree with – there's one other aspect of the Talia plot which really disappointed me, and it relates to Bane.

I went into the movie expecting Bane to be nothing like the version from the comics. But by the end of his first fight with Batman, I'd become a believer. I didn't think they'd actually recreate the panels from Knightfall where Batman gets his back broken. Partly because I couldn't imagine Tom Hardy lifting Bale above his head, but also because I figured it might be a bit graphic for a PG-13 movie. But they did recreate that iconic moment, and they did it brilliantly. At that point I almost jumped out of my seat and cheered.

However, I still wasn't convinced it was the Bane from the comics. But then they explained his back story – his pregnant mother had been imprisoned, given birth to him and died, and he'd been forced to serve out the sentence for the offence his father had committed. That's exactly Bane's origin from Vengeance of Bane! Again, I really started to appreciate Nolan's take on the character. Ok, so he didn't have Venom. But other than that, he was pretty faithful to the comic version. They even managed to make Hardy – who was physically too small for the role – look big and intimidating on screen.

Then there was the plot twist that Bane was the son of Ra's al Ghul. I didn't mind this at all. In fact I thought it was a pretty neat twist. In the comics Ra's daughter is a supervillain, and Bane's dad is a supervillain. So it seemed like an appropriate amalgamation of the two narratives.

But then came the other twist – Miranda is Talia. And the origin story about the child being born and raised in prison was actually her origin, not Bane's. For me, this was one twist too many. The Talia in the comics was raised in luxury like a princess and trained from childhood in a variety of martial arts. The notion that she was raised in a prison like a common criminal totally contradicted that. But worse, this plot twist robbed Bane of his accuracy to the source material. Up until then he'd had the same origin as the Bane from the comics. But then we find out he's just a generic convict that Talia and Ra's took pity on. This revelation reduced him to henchmen status, little better than he was in Batman and Robin. And for me that was a real let down.

Overall, I liked Hardy's Bane. I just wish they'd left Talia out of the picture and made it so he was Ra's' son and the primary antagonist. The plot twist with Talia was too predictable and ultimately unnecessary. And aside from her name and parentage, she really didn't resemble the comic Talia anyway. So while I loved the movie as a whole, I felt Talia was definitely its weakest element.

[BatmAngelus]

I agree with you there.  I was loving that Vengeance of Bane was in this film, but started to get confused when they introduced the "protector of the child" who seemed very much like Bane himself in how he fought the other prisoners.

The fact that Talia was the child definitely became one twist too many.  Even if you forget about the comics and just look at the narrative, there's still problems.  If that's what really happened and that one doctor guy was there to whole time, how come there was all that confusion that Bane was the child who climbed out of the pit?  Were the prisoners' memories that hazy or was Bruce just misinterpreting everything (and the prisoners allowed him to misunderstand it)?  Plus, why was Bane in prison in the first place then?

Bane was robbed of his origins as well as his motivation in this movie.  The final twist here pretty much told me that Bane wants to tear apart Gotham because he fell in love with a ten year old.

[Silver Nemesis]

The final twist here pretty much told me that Bane wants to tear apart Gotham because he fell in love with a ten year old.

Exactly. As you say, it doesn't make any sense for him to want to destroy Gotham for the reasons Ra's did. The city was free of organised crime. It was no longer the cess pool of corruption it had been in the first film.

The only really logical motive for Bane's extreme fanaticism would be revenge for his father's death. Why else would he act like such a monster? Because of some kid he once protected in a fight? I've seen people bring this question up on other message boards, and no one seems to have a convincing answer. I'm not trying to nitpick at the movie or anything. I liked Hardy's Bane and I'd genuinely like to know. What was Bane's motivation to do the extreme things he did? 

[BatmAngelus]

To make things worse, Bane actually talks about being "born in darkness" and not seeing light until he was a man.  This supports the Vengeance of Bane origin presented in the prison flashbacks, but is completely contradicted later with the Talia reveal. 

So how was Bane "born in darkness?"  Maybe Bane's mother had the same exact fate as Talia's, but that's awfully contrived.  It was simply misdirection that made no sense once the twist was revealed.

Bane really had no motivations of his own in this movie.  Why would he want to carry on the legacy of Ra's Al Ghul after the man cast him out of the League of Shadows?  Even Talia's motivation was weak.  She wanted revenge on Bruce and avenge her father, but admits that she never forgave her father for casting Bane out.  So essentially, these two go to awfully great lengths to "finish the work" of a man who betrayed them. 

Why do these two believe in the League's ideals?  And, as I said before, since when did Ra's al Ghul's method of stopping injustice include nuking an already peaceful city?  It'd be one thing if the film covered how Bane and Talia distorted Ra's al Ghul's methods for their own warped purpose, but if that was the intention, it was never explored or conveyed very well.

As a side note, after Gotham getting covered in fear toxin in Begins and the two ferries-dilemma in Dark Knight, a nuclear bomb seemed awfully generic and anticlimactic for the final set piece of the trilogy.  Especially since they take the bomb with full intention of detonating it, but conveniently wait three months to pull the trigger, giving Bruce/Batman more than enough time to come back and stop them. 

The villains' plan in the movie is like the equivalent of the "talking killer" cliche where the villain talks big and stalls just long enough for the hero to figure out how to save the day.  But instead of a scene, it's stretched out through half the movie.

[Paul (ral)]

Why was there a remote detonation device? Wasn't it a time bomb? Wasn't its explosion only capable due to the breakdown of the core?

Why did Bana and Talia want to die with the city? In BB the League wore masks so as not to be affected by the fear toxin. Surely the League had work to do in other cities?

[The Joker]

Miranda Tate/Talia is easily the weakest villain of the Nolan franchise, in my opinion.  I thought she was poorly written and stripped of the moral ambiguity that makes Talia interesting in the comics.

I think that award would go to Zsasz from Batman Begins. As I felt he was extremely lackluster back in '05, and here we are in 2012 and I STILL feel that way. Though the comic book character isn't anything I would call lackluster. Actually, I find him to be one of the better Batman villains created in the past 20 years. Though you certainly wouldn't get any indication of that with how he was presented in said film.

Her betrayal of Bruce had no emotional impact on me.  I spent most of the movie waiting for it, actually, so all I thought about when it happened was "It's about time."

Pretty much my thoughts on the big Ducard being Ra's reveal in Begins. Felt it was pretty obvious misdirection, and the whole Miranda reveal did feel very similar. Personally, I didn't feel it was done any better or worse. Just not very surprising.

Also disappointing that she never called him "Beloved" at this point.  It could've even worked as a mocking gesture in this evil version of Talia, but then again this was co-written and directed by the man who said "The source material is irrelevant."

Each interpretation seems to go off and do their own thing so the lack of her referring to Bats as "Beloved" wasn't especially missed by me due to things being changed around quite often with comics-to-screen adaptations. For instance, my favorite Spider-Man film is Spider-Man 2, but at no time do we get any sort of indication that Doc Ock has any sort of feelings for Aunt May in the film. Hell, he even nonchalant drops her from several stories just for a distraction. I'm sure there's many more examples, but my point is that even if something is firmly established in comic book canon, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be the case in a big budget adaptation. TDK featured a Joker who wore makeup rather than being bleached white. That's a big departure from the source material itself.

Her plan with Bane made no sense to me.  They kept talking about finishing Ra's al Ghul's plan.  But Ra's wanted to strike Gotham in Batman Begins because it was ridden with crime.  The Gotham in Dark Knight Rises is strangely low on crime due to the Harvey Dent Act.  What's the point of striking now?  I guess this is what happens when you miss the League of Shadows meetings when your leader is still alive...

I thought the film did a decent job in conveying that Talia held alot of resentment as well as anger towards Batman for essentially, especially in her mind, killing her father. It's also evident that she was estranged from her father as well for not accepting Bane into the League, and subsequently left with him. From my viewpoint, Talia's plan was more about her father's legacy than it was about the plan Ra's was trying to implement in Begins. I think Talia could have cared less what the low crime rate was in Gotham. It wasn't about that. It was about a legacy, and one that she would willingly die for to achieve.

Another annoying element to this movie involving Talia- Batman telling Catwoman "no guns" in the beginning, but at the end, not criticizing Catwoman at all for shooting Bane to death and subsequently using The Bat's guns to shoot Talia's truck off the road, killing her (but of course, Gordon's safe in the back of the truck with a nuclear bomb and no seat belt 'cause he's a good guy).  What are we saying here?  That in Batman's last fight for Gotham, he became okay with using guns?

Now with this, I agree that the "no guns" line was completely unnecessary. Especially in light of the points you illustrate that transpire later in the film. If anything, this should lessen to a degree the hardcore Nolan fans often overtly harsh criticism of Batman's actions in the Burton films since there seems to be this inaccurate perception that Batman has never killed anyone with a gun in the funny books.

The only really logical motive for Bane's extreme fanaticism would be revenge for his father's death. Why else would he act like such a monster? Because of some kid he once protected in a fight? I've seen people bring this question up on other message boards, and no one seems to have a convincing answer. I'm not trying to nitpick at the movie or anything. I liked Hardy's Bane and I'd genuinely like to know. What was Bane's motivation to do the extreme things he did?

I found Bane's motive to be that of being directly tied to Talia's back story. As was stated in the film, "The protector saw this child's innocence as the redemption for those in this hell." After all, if I am not mistaken, Bane starts tearing up in the scene where Talia gives her big reveal speech. Perhaps reminiscing in his mind the extreme pain and disfigurement he had to endure to ensure Talia's safety as a child. It's pretty evident that this version of the League is more than willing to sacrifice themselves to achieve goals (opening plane sequence makes that clear), which includes Bane and Talia. In short, Bane in the Nolanverse is a mysterious, intelligent, and monstrous individual that is a loyal Sgt. in the Talia led League. The only human side to his character that is evident in the film, is his unconditional devotion to Talia. I don't think it has to be more complicated than that.

[BatmAngelus]

Why was there a remote detonation device? Wasn't it a time bomb? Wasn't its explosion only capable due to the breakdown of the core?

Speaking of time bomb, why was there a timer counting down on it when the machine's original purpose was to provide energy, not to be a bomb.

I think that award would go to Zsasz from Batman Begins. As I felt he was extremely lackluster back in '05, and here we are in 2012 and I STILL feel that way. Though the comic book character isn't anything I would call lackluster. Actually, I find him to be one of the better Batman villains created in the past 20 years. Though you certainly wouldn't get any indication of that with how he was presented in said film.

He was pretty lackluster compared to the comic book counterpart, but since it was never meant to be more than a small part (rather than a main villain), it hasn't bothered me.  They needed a character on trial to show that Crane was getting people off to Arkham and it was only natural for that character to be seen again when the League breaks open the asylum and for Zsasz to go after Rachel in revenge in the Narrows.  It wasn't a great version of Zsasz, but judging Begins's narrative apart from the source material, he served his purpose in the story well enough for me.  In Miranda/Talia's case, I expected much more from one of the main villains.

Pretty much my thoughts on the big Ducard being Ra's reveal in Begins. Felt it was pretty obvious misdirection, and the whole Miranda reveal did feel very similar. Personally, I didn't feel it was done any better or worse. Just not very surprising.

I'll give the Miranda twist one thing- it was actually a twist.  Having a seemingly innocent Wayne Enterprises exec turn out to be Ra's al Ghul's daughter and the leader of a terrorist organization is a much bigger twist than having a second-in-command disciple of the League of Shadows turn out to have be the actual leader of the League of Shadows.  If you miss the dialogue when Neeson returns onscreen, you'd think that Ducard just got promoted.

I personally thought the Ra's twist worked better, though, because of how well they established the Ducard-Bruce mentor relationship earlier on, so I could see the impact on Bruce in discovering he has to battle the man who trained him and the final battle was appropriately filled with references to the lessons Ra's taught him as they went head to head in the monorail.

I didn't feel the same betrayal for Bruce in this movie because I didn't buy the Miranda-Bruce relationship or his feelings for her in the first place.  There was the opportunity for some inner conflict/drama in Bruce having to take down the woman he loved, but they didn't go for it and the final battle amounted to all the Batvehicles of the Nolan franchise firing at each other.

Each interpretation seems to go off and do their own thing so the lack of her referring to Bats as "Beloved" wasn't especially missed by me due to things being changed around quite often with comics-to-screen adaptations. For instance, my favorite Spider-Man film is Spider-Man 2, but at no time do we get any sort of indication that Doc Ock has any sort of feelings for Aunt May in the film. Hell, he even nonchalant drops her from several stories just for a distraction. I'm sure there's many more examples, but my point is that even if something is firmly established in comic book canon, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be the case in a big budget adaptation. TDK featured a Joker who wore makeup rather than being bleached white. That's a big departure from the source material itself.

That's why I wasn't too annoyed about Zsasz's role in Begins and why the lack of "Beloved" is on the bottom of my list of issues with this character in the movie.  It wasn't necessary to the story at all, but it's something that could've fit, could've acknowledged the comics, and wouldn't have taken up much screentime.  Its absence was annoying, but it wasn't what broke this interpretation for me and I acknowledge that it's not a script problem so much as a fan expectation that never got reached.

I thought the film did a decent job in conveying that Talia held alot of resentment as well as anger towards Batman for essentially, especially in her mind, killing her father. It's also evident that she was estranged from her father as well for not accepting Bane into the League, and subsequently left with him. From my viewpoint, Talia's plan was more about her father's legacy than it was about the plan Ra's was trying to implement in Begins. I think Talia could have cared less what the low crime rate was in Gotham. It wasn't about that. It was about a legacy, and one that she would willingly die for to achieve.

I agree about Talia's resentment towards Bruce.  In fact, I completely understand the first half where they want revenge on Batman for killing Ra's, so they bankrupt him and Bane breaks him.

But once Bane gets into discussion about finishing Ra's al Ghul's plan, it lost me.  How do Bane and Talia view Ra's al Ghul's legacy?  What do they believe in?  From the film, I gathered it was blowing up Gotham, but if they didn't care about the reasons why Ra's was trying to destroy the city in the first place and just want Gotham to explode, that's a pretty weak motivation for me.  It makes it seem like Bane and Talia planned and waited more than eight years from Ra's's death to essentially nuke themselves in a city that neither of them had much of a reason to hate, just in the name of "Ra's al Ghul's legacy."

Now with this, I agree that the "no guns" line was completely unnecessary. Especially in light of the points you illustrate that transpire later in the film. If anything, this should lessen to a degree the hardcore Nolan fans often overtly harsh criticism of Batman's actions in the Burton films since there seems to be this inaccurate perception that Batman has never killed anyone with a gun in the funny books.

If anything, I think Nolan should be regarded as worse than Burton simply because Burton's Batman never vowed against killing.  The fact that he killed didn't contradict anything that Burton's Batman said or promised beforehand.

In Nolan's case, Batman did refuse to kill and yet, he had a direct role in the temple fire that killed the decoy Ra's and several League of Shadows members, deliberately left the real Ra's al Ghul to die on the train, tackled Two-Face off of a building to his death, and, in this movie, shot at Talia's truck, causing it to crash and kill her.  At no point was it ever explored that Batman broke his "one rule" or betrayed his own beliefs in doing these things.  It would've been far more interesting if these movies did.

In fact, the only instance of Bruce feeling shame was in the beginning of Batman Begins when he throws the gun in the river (which, ironically, was when he didn't have anything to do with Joe Chill's death).

Nolan's Batman essentially starts out vowing against guns...then ends the trilogy by shooting down the main villain's truck.

[Silver Nemesis]

I found Bane's motive to be that of being directly tied to Talia's back story. As was stated in the film, "The protector saw this child's innocence as the redemption for those in this hell." After all, if I am not mistaken, Bane starts tearing up in the scene where Talia gives her big reveal speech. Perhaps reminiscing in his mind the extreme pain and disfigurement he had to endure to ensure Talia's safety as a child. It's pretty evident that this version of the League is more than willing to sacrifice themselves to achieve goals (opening plane sequence makes that clear), which includes Bane and Talia. In short, Bane in the Nolanverse is a mysterious, intelligent, and monstrous individual that is a loyal Sgt. in the Talia led League. The only human side to his character that is evident in the film, is his unconditional devotion to Talia. I don't think it has to be more complicated than that.

That's the best explanation I've heard so far. But it doesn't gel with the Bane from the comics. Agents of the League of Assassins have often been shown to sacrifice themselves when commanded to do so. But Bane would never be so subservient. He would never display that level of obedience to anyone, not even for love. He was romantically attached to Talia in the comics at one point. And he treated her as though she were a trophy to be won by conquest.





Bane only knows how to dominate others, and is in turn indomitable. The plot twist that he's Talia's pawn makes him seem less like Bane and more like Ubu, Ra's al Ghul's loyal bodyguard and right hand man.



Ubu was even disfigured and wore a mask in later appearances, not unlike Bane in the movie. Hardy's character almost seems to be Ubu masquerading as Bane.



Just to reiterate, I really do like Hardy's Bane. At first I was a doubter, but after seeing the movie I changed my mind. I thought he was terrific in the role. I just wish they hadn't undermined his characterisation with that last plot twist. I guess I'm just going to have to accept that the movie Bane and the comic version are two different beasts. I don't usually have a problem with changes to the source material, provided they function within the context of the movie. What I find so frustrating here though is that Bane was faithful to the comics, right up until his last scene. Then they ruined it. And all for a plot twist which, in my opinion, was detrimental to the film anyway.

[BatmAngelus]

^ I was really hoping for something along the lines of Bane of the Demon and Legacy.

Comic book fidelity aside, I think Bane's main motivation as loyalty to Talia weakens the movie's character and makes him a glorified henchman in the vein of Begins's Scarecrow (complete with the female lead taking him out at the end, though lethally this time).  His extreme acts, such as breaking Batman's back, now stem more from what Talia wants than any personal hatred towards Batman.

I realize it seems that he wants revenge on Batman for killing Ra's and stopping the League years ago, but I don't think it holds up when the film also says he got cast out/excommunicated by Ra's al Ghul, despite saving and nearly sacrificing his life for the man's daughter.  Ra's obviously betrayed him and I'd think Bane would be pissed about that, so why would he want to avenge this man and strike Batman and Gotham? 

The only reason seems to be because that's what Talia wants.