Teaser Trailer 2: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

 Teaser Trailer 2, The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

So, because I'm super excited about it, and I want to make sure everyone's informed about what's going on, I'm basically writing an informative post about what we know about The Dark Knight Rises as a companion to the brand new teaser trailer which introduces us, for the first time, to several characters we've previously only heard about.

Warning: if you planned on going into the final installment in Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise not knowing anything about it, well... I'd suggest you stop reading here.

First of all, on the character of Bane. By now, it should be known that Bane is the primary villain in Nolan's final venture into Gotham City, and he looks intense in the new trailer. He's supposedly played with a new ferocity by Tom Hardy, harkening back to Bane's original character from the comic books, and less so to the campy, brutish version that served as Poison Ivy's lap dog in the shame that is Batman and Robin. No; what's important to know about the real Bane is that he isn't some big, dumb brute. No, he's actually one of Batman's most fearsome villains, both physically and intellectually, and therefore it makes sense for him to be the ultimate baddie in the conclusion of Nolan's trilogy.

One of the most iconic moments for Bane, in fact, is that he is one of the few villains who have ever actually taken Batman out of commission almost completely. There is a sequence in the nineties comic series, Knightfall, where Bane actually breaks Batman's back. Pretty nasty guy, eh?

But we got a glimpse of Bane in the first teaser trailer. We saw the ferocious mask, and even a two-second clip of what has been speculated as a battle between the caped crusader and his hulking nemesis. But there are plenty of faces in this trailer that have never been seen before -- most notably, Anne Hathaway's turn as Selina Kyle. Sure, there aren't any obvious shots of her jumping around the roofs of Gotham in a Catwoman suit, but she's got the attitude, that's for sure:

"There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, 'cause when it hits, you're gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large, and leave so little for the rest of us."

And there it is, and there it goes. The trailer also hints that Selina Kyle's normal occupation as a thief isn't going to be left out of the installment; the clip with the pearls is enough to give us that assumption. But beyond that, Hathaway's quote serves as the most obvious form of setup for a story that is also outlined through several other hints in the trailer.

We know, firstly, that the story of The Dark Knight Rises is set eight or so years after The Dark Knight. If you can't recall, at the end of the second movie, Batman went into a retirement of sort. He became a fugitive because "that's what Gotham needed him to be." They needed him to be Harvey Dent's murderer, and so he served that role. And Bruce Wayne went on living his life. In this film, it seems like they're really aiming for a conclusion -- and no, that doesn't just come from 'the legend ends' tagline.

From the looks of it, we can guess with some certainty two of the central plotlines of this film. Firstly, it's heavily hinted that there's going to be some sort of uprising from the lower classes, the prisoners, and all of that type. The breakout shown in that one clip, combined with Hathaway's quote, combined with the talk of the sacking of Commissioner Gordon (who, apparently, has helped steer Gotham into 'peace time') all show signs of things falling apart inside Gotham. The idea of it being a revolution against oppression is supported by the fact that the accompanying song to most of the trailer is 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' written during the War of 1812, when the United States was fighting against Great Britain, who was trying to gain control of them again.

It seems like Bane's major objective is to use this conflict to destroy the city for reasons we don't know ("When Gotham is in ashes, you have my permission to die") and that right alongside it will be playing the other plotline, which will be how Bruce Wayne himself is falling apart. It became clear in the first teaser trailer that Wayne was reluctant to bring Batman back to life; and now, even moreso, it seems like something (presumably Batman) is eating away at Wayne, illustrated through Alfred's small speech.

However, as grim as this trailer looks, the inclusion of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' does point, to me at least, to a happy ending. I don't think that Bruce will walk out of this unscathed, or that all the characters will survive, because dear Jesus, there are a lot of them, and the vital signs are already not looking good for several of them (Gary Oldman's Jim Gordon was seen in a hospital bed for the majority of the first teaser trailer) but the inclusion of a song that screams hope is obviously meant to give us some sort of light into the darkness. Perhaps, if we're looking this deep, the fact that it's sung by a child has a purpose other than to make the song sound extremely creepy when used as the background to several of those shots. There is hope for the future of Gotham. I believe that's what this trailer is trying to portray.

At the end of the dark tunnel, there is hope. The Dark Knight will rise again, as the title says, and we've just got to wait until next summer to see if we're going to get our happy ending or not.