Dark Knight Saga Recut, The - Part III

My personal impression of Nolan's final entry in the Dark Knight trilogy is that it is an excellent film, but a very bad Batman movie. After loving the first two movies, I left the theatre after watching RISES feeling very frustrated. On one level, blown away at the craftsmanship and artistic nature of the film. On another level, completely blown away at how out of character everyone was from not only the last two movies, but from the iconic source material too. Thus, RISE is my least favourite of all the Batman films (yes, I even like Batman and Robin better...LOL-- I really need to see a therapist)

But now I have NJVC's version of RISES to enjoy. And enjoy it I did. While the film still suffers imo from many inherent character development/motivation issues that can not be altered, I loved how njvc has cut away all the excess baggage, and streamline the story so it is now moving like a runaway train.

This may sound odd, but I really loved that njvc cut out Mathew Modiene as much as he did, as I have always loved the actor's work, and by removing all his smarmy scenes, he really redeemed the character and made his death more tragic to me.

I will not repeat all the praises that others have posted, as they are much more eloquent than I could ever be.... Technically, it is solid edit with great cut and audio work. If I am to nitpick, I wish njvc had taken the time to dial down all of Bane's dialogue, as I was constantly adjusting my volume control on the remote during and after every single Bane scene. I also thought the Gordon hospital scenes where Blake is promoted to detective felt a bit choppy.

For me, this cut is a definite improvement from the original, though still my least fave of the Nolan trilogy. NJVC is to commended for his great work. Thumbs Up. :)

Wow. This edit is everything I expected it to be and more. I really don't know where to begin, but first of all the visual cuts are amazingly done and are practically invisible. Audio wise this edit was also strong, but not as strong as the visual editing. The choice to remove the Harvey Dent storyline in favor of having all of the criminals run rampant without the whole revolution thing going on greatly enhanced the sense of dread the original film sewed in and should have been in the original movie to begin with. The pacing is great since you trimmed all the unnecessary fat. But the thing that had me was that ending. Simply amazing. I have my own personal edit of TDKR and I pondered having Bruce die at the end, but concluded it would be impossible to pull off in a convincing way due to the shifts from Gordon, Blake and Alfred, but you did it perfectly. And the last scene....was awesome. The only thing I didn't like was you kept in the Talia death scene. What you could have done is after she says "There's no way this bomb can be stopped." you could have cut the scene her actually dying on screen. Trust me it works. Also removing the "Where's the trigger" scene is a bad idea because at that time it shows how desperate Batman was at the moment. Anyways, this is definitely the definitive edition.

I have been a vocal opponent of TDKR since I saw it in theaters. I was upset at the sense of slowdown in the story right from the beginning. Its a tough film to enjoy in some ways. This edit has addressed much of the problems with it and streamlined the story. There were a few noticeable audio issues, mostly in scenes cutting from one to the next, but I LOVED the addition of the score during Bane vs Batman fight. I also really enjoyed the ending of the film. Personally I would have liked to see more of the "clean slate" cut out, but it works well in this context. For now this will replace my original copy, I just wish some narrative and audio issues were addressed. You have some brilliant ideas here. Overall, very well done!