The Dork Knight Rises
—by Nathan on August 26, 2012—
Recently, a friend showed me something called "The Evil Overlord List," which basically goes through all the stereotypes villains in stories follow and makes fun of them by turning them into rules an evil overlord should or should not follow (eg, "I will not have a son, because he will probably want to turn against me and claim the throne for himself by either killing me or stealing my power"). I've decided to do the same thing, but both with the hero and villain from The Dark Knight Rises (interestingly enough, my friend showed me the list after we just saw TDKR). I guess there are some holes and odd things in the movie. A video series called "How It Should Have Ended" parodied the movie, pointing out some issues, but those were mostly ones I didn't find. Hence this list, which I guess is a parody of the Evil Overlord List. Of course, I'm not saying TDKR wasn't a bad movie or that Bane was a bad villain. Tom Hardy was awesome. This is just for the sake of fun. As Hardy's Batman-movie villain predecessor said: "Here…we…go." (WARNING: Spoilers)
BATMAN:
I will have the world's greatest healing factor. Not so much that my back will heal, but that I'll be able to walk around and not die of blood loss after being stabbed.
Not only will I trust the cat burglar lady even after she betrayed me to Bane, I will pursue a romantic relationship with her. I will even kiss her when there's about ninety seconds left on a nuclear bomb that will turn Gotham to ashes.
After said kiss, I will spend another ten-to-fifteen seconds giving Commissioner Gordon a clue as to my secret identity. Why not? Every other major character in the movie knows who I am! Why not the old guy?
One other character who knows my secret identity, John Blake, will have figured out by looking at my face.
Bruce Wayne and Batman will seemingly die around the same time and no one will wonder at all about the similarity.
After being horribly defeated by Bane in hand-to-hand combat, I will return and try to beat him in the same style that I did before.
I will either somehow manage to survive a nuclear blast (the bomb going off three seconds after my face is shown in the cockpit of my plane) or be seen by Alfred in some really weird dream, showing me with Selina Kyle in Florence.
Speaking of Alfred, he will vanish after telling me about the letter he burned eight years ago and reappear at my "funeral." He will not tell me where he planned on going…he'll just up and disappear.
I will think Bane is Ra's al Ghul's child and not give a second thought to who the heck his protector will be. My fellow prisoners (more on that below) will either think the same thing or try to trick me.
While healing from my back injury, I will try climbing to the top of the prison. The first two attempts will end in my falling and being stopped suddenly by a rope tied around my waist. This will cause no further damage to my back.
BANE:
I will somehow manage to have complete control over day and night, being able to order the moon to rise at my whim even though it should still be the middle of the day. I prefer darkness when I'm being chased by cops who get on my tail five minutes after I illegally trade Wayne stock at the stock exchange in broad daylight.
When I hijack the stock exchange, I will sneak in motorcycles for both me and my henchmen. Of course, nobody will be able to see me entering the exchange with them and be unable to warn the police.
I will not kill my opponent after I break his body. Instead, I will give him the opportunity to recuperate as he watches me tear his city apart. And I will act very surprised when he returns.
I will stash said opponent in a "hell-on-earth" pit of a prison that does not live up to the "hell-on-earth" part. There will be no guards and an easily accessible exit will await those with rock-climbing abilities.
The prisoners of this prison shall be very congenial towards my opponent, fixing his back for him (by just punching his spine back into place), helping him survive, giving him tidbits on how to escape, and cheering him on as he makes the nearly impossible (but not totally impossible) climb to the top. I will not leave guards at the top to apprehend him if he makes the climb, or even to shoot him if he tries the climb because I am 110% positive he won't make it.
I will tell the people I am giving the city back to them, and then I will institute a dictatorship-like rule over them, cause I'm mean like that. In your face, Gotham!
The CIA agents I plan to dupe will conveniently allow three men who just tried to "kidnap" an important scientist onto their plane and not have radar equipment to detect my own plane, which will then attack them and catch them unawares. Why? Because any masked thug can outwit the Central Intelligence Agency. No big deal there.
I will make a deal with a cat burglar to double-cross Batman, without expecting her to double-cross me when Batman suddenly returns.
I will not be surprised when five months in a hole of a prison turns Batman into a better fighter than he's ever been before, thus managing to beat me. Maybe it's because we're surrounded by cops and crooks and I don't have enough elbow-room.
My incredible stock exchange caper will bring Batman out of eight years as a recluse.
Batman will know that I'm a part of the League of Shadows and that I'm also uber-dangerous because his butler told him. Where the butler got his information, I don't think Batman will ask.
My enemies will be so paranoid about the threat that I pose that they will be forced to send their ENTIRE police force down into the sewers to smoke me out. I will have anticipated this and will have bombs set up in preparation so as to trap them all down there. However, I will not have my army of crooks look for exits hard enough so I can leave one or two open.
I will send thugs to kill off Commissioner Gordon after I put my plan into motion, not before and thus remove the threat before anyone's suspicions are aroused. I will have even somehow learned which hospital he's at.
I will only open up Blackgate Prison and let the common crooks out. I will not care about the super criminals at Arkham, yet somehow Scarecrow will escape to be my sentencing hearing judge.
I will not be the main villain of the movie. I will be the pawn of some girl, proving once again that the female characters can take advantage of me. While this will be a really neat plot twist, it will degrade my importance greatly.
Degradation will come at the consequence of dying from a blast to the head by the cat burglar (who I was certain wouldn't cross me!).
Like I said, TDKR was a really good movie. There were various plot points and such that may not have made much sense, but they were little. While this list seems extensive, the holes and inconsistencies by no means ruined the movie for me. No movie can be as perfect as TDK was and, while it may be weird that I chose this movie to poke fun at, the opportunity was too good to pass up. No offense to Christopher Nolan or any of his wonderful cast. The movie was great. This was all for fun.