In my Memory the Late 00s and Early 2010s tend to blend together.

And I have a feeling I'm not alone in that.  As much as we love to by default correlate eras of modern history to Gregorian calendar Decades, including plenty of how I've talked on this blog, how quickly or slowly things change doesn't always line up that way.

For American political history the Gregorian decade changes work better for the 20th years which are also election years, and coincidentally usually not reelections, they have usually been the ascendency of a new President.  But for the period I'm talking about 2010 was merely mid-terms, Obama was elected in 2008 and reelected in 2012.  Of course for me personally that era of American politics was my Ron Paul phase.

The Dark Knight came out in 2008 and The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, then 2013 was the start of Man of Steel being the center of DC film discourse, and in the Comics this was also the era of Grant Morrison's Batman run.  The MCU started in 2008 and Phase 1 culminated in 2012 with The Avengers.  Star Wars: The Clone Wars started in 2008 and it's 6th and final season ended in 2013 after the Disney purchase of Star Wars in late 2012.  The first Twilight film came out in 2008 and then the last one came out in 2012, with The Host in 2013 serving as a coda of sorts to that era of YA Novel based films.  Nintendo released the Wii in 2006 and didn't replace it with the WiiU till 2012.  Also iCarly started in 2007 and ended in 2012.

Twitter started in 2007, or at least that's when I first recall hearing about it.  But what Twitter and Social Media in general was like changed drastically because of events around 2012, that's when MySpace fully died and when Video Essays began to replace Channel Awesome style angry reviews.

During this time period I wasn't yet into Anime nearly as much as I am now, yet in my observations about Anime history a similar pattern can be seen.  I think it can be said that there was an era of Anime that begins with some of the 2006 shows I talked about in my last posts on 2000s Anime and was capped off by Robotics;Notes and Accel World while the contemporary Sword Art Online gave birth to a lot of how Anime has looked since.  This era I would call the Golden Age of Visual Novel adaptations and the Silver Age of Light Novel adaptations, but it was by no means without interesting Manga adaptations and Original Anime.  

For Pokémon this was the era of the DS Games and their corresponding seasons of the Anime.

And for Detective Conan, the Clash of Red and Black saga from 2008 I do happen to consider the end of Classic Detective Conan, yet 2012 when Sera and Amuro are introduced is arguably the real beginning of modern Detective Conan.

"There's not gonna be any fireworks"

For 8 years I have held the position that The Dark Knight Rises is a great stand alone film but a crappy sequel to Nolan's first two Batman movies.  But that latter criticism was always expressed as merely nerdy whining that it contradicted what I felt The Dark Knight was saying was gonna happen next after the credits rolled.

However I have come to terms with having a deeper ideological issue with TDKR even as a stand alone film, that has also shown how it's in my eyes incongruity with Nolan's prior Batman films had more substance then I originally thought.

The Dark Knight Rises becoming it's endgame made the Nolanverse quite possibly the most Pro-Cop and Anti-Anarchist interpretation of Batman ever.  And perhaps that was always where it was destined to go, Batman Begins has all this Police Corruption stuff taken from Year One and The Long Halloween, but it was kind of always implying this is unique to Gotham and why Gotham uniquely needs The Batman.  And then TDK had the sonar plot that I've grown more conflicted on how it was handled.  But still the first two movies can be authorial intent or not read as pretty Anarchistic and here's why.

One of the problems with Ledger's Joker being called an "Anarchist" is that his view of Human nature is one actual philosophical Anarchists reject, when he says "when the chips are down, these civilized people, will eat each other" he is expressing a Hobbesian view of Human nature.  Watch the Jack Saint video on Post Apocalyptic fiction for a primer on what that term means.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwVN95XfOPM

BTW in this movie, of the scenes where The Joker is at least seemingly explaining his world view and motivations, what he says to Batman is where I think he's most honest, Batman is who he sees himself as making this argument with.  He lies to Batman about a basic statement of fact by switching Dent and Rachel's locations, but not about his goals and philosophy.  What he said to Dent was I think partly honest but also designed to "push" Dent where he wanted.

At the climax of the movie comes the scene which provides the title of this post, where all of the sudden Batman of all people is the DC character who sounds like an Anime protagonist expressing faith in the innate goodness of humanity.  And he is proven right and The Joker is proven wrong just like in The Killing Joke.

However there is a frequent take that the fall of Harvey Dent means The Joker did win, which is how The Joker saw it, he wanted us to think he already had Batman in a no wins scenario.  But from an Anarchist perspective what does that actually prove?  The one person corruptible enough for him to corrupt was an agent of the state, Gotham's second highest ranked politician.  And he needed to vindicate Dent's distrust of two corrupt cops to do it.  Even The Joker's victory vindicates actual Anarchism more then it does Hobbesianism.

But then comes The Dark Knight Rises with it's Tale of Two Cities inspired plot, Bane's plan is a Statist's perception of Anarchism much more so then The Joker's was.  And thus this film suddenly is vindicating a Hobbesian view of the unwashed masses while glorifying The Police with a heroic last stand.

However let's return to the Sonar plot of The Dark Knight.  The common cynical reading of the film is that it's saying this was okay in this extreme circumstance since it did work.  First of all I think arguing an authoritarian measure shouldn't be done because it doesn't work is the cheap cop out.  You can argue all day long that the death penalty isn't a good deterrent and torture doesn't get people to tell the truth and I would not consider you wrong, but I also feel those methods are inherently amoral even if they did work.

The Sonar did work for Batman at first, but it also glitched out and caused him to lose the actual physical fight with The Joker.  The fact is the people on those ferries are who actually defeated The Joker and not just ideologically, since The Joker probably wouldn't have been so caught off guard by that glove trick if he hadn't been frustrated by there being no fireworks.

And while the Sonar worked for finding The Joker was it really necessary?  Fact is he wasn't particularity hiding at that point, once the Ferry situation started places overlooking them would naturally be the first place to look.  

The one thing that was always going to need to be a part of the third Nolan Bat-Film was for the truth about Harvey Dent to come out and for Gotham to move past it's idealization of a fallen idol.  However everything surrounding what TDKR did with that undermined what the prior two films had built.

I like Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online, or SAO for short, is a very flawed anime, some of it's flaws bug me more then others, some arcs are more flawed then others.

None the less I enjoy it, and I like it the most of everything I've watched within it's Sub-Genre, which is Anime about being trapped in a Virtual Reality MMO video game.  Digibro says Log Horizon aired in a time-slot usually devoted to educational programs, and frankly it shows. And .Hack was a show so boring even Yuki Kajura music couldn't save it.  The rest I've seen are just Isekai using Video Game references to pander to that demographic.

I'm a fan of Digibro, some of his criticisms I agree with and some I don't.  But in general his initial diatribe is one of his weakest videos, he's learned since then.

I already did a blog post where I explain that it's wrong to view SAO as a Death Game anime and thus Mother's Basement's objection to Yui offends me.  Now I'm going to break things down by Arc.

The Aincrad Arc I have very few issues with.  I wish there was less Anime Style Fanservice, especially seeing the show's youngest character in her underwear.   And in that older post I commented on the murder mystery two parter.

Besides that most of my issues are connected to the Kuradeel story-line.  Like Digibro I wish they'd stuck with Ausna killing Kuradeel as she did in the original Web Novel version.  Overlapping with the above complaint I wish the accidental Boob Grab wasn't there.  And I also don't like the image of Asuna cowering behind Kirito.

I mostly don't share people's issues with the ending.  I like Kaiba being a mystery.  The plot point with the resurrection device I view essentially as explaining why Kirito and Asuna could live at the end, because there is a 10 second delay before the Nerve gear fries your brain.  They should have just included a little more exposition explaining that.  I can again agree with Digibro that it would have been better if Kirito and Asuna had came back and finished off Heathcliff together.

Xoh is a YouTuber who's made a lot of videos responding to SAO critics.  Some of his points I agree with and some not so much.

When people talk about why SAO is inaccurate to what MMO RPGs are like, it largely reminds me why I wouldn't like to play them.  I would like the community aspect, but not being seemingly unable to play alone.  I would be more interested in something like a MMO Breath of The Wild.

Much of what I like about SAO is how especially the first two Arcs can be read as Gnostic allegories.  That's a subject that will some day be it's own post on my recently launched Comparative Mythology blog.

The Alfheim Arc I'm inclined to agree is the worst part of SAO, though even it I see value in.  Mother's Basement did a video on how to fix the arc, and I pretty much agree with that one.  But I can add a third option to Suguha's romantic resolution, since I ship her with Shinon.

Gungale Online aka the Phantom Bullet arc, is perhaps the most complicated to explain my feelings on.  It has enough stuff I like that I can maybe say I like it more then Aincrad even.  But it has issues including being the most gratuitous yet in it's Anime Style Fanservice.

With both Alfeim and Gungale people addressing the in-universe game designs of these games seem to assume from how Kirito gets his Avatar that there is no customization possible.  I just see it as Kirito being given a default Avatar pretty randomly and just sticking with it.  Frankly I don't feel his presumably Customized avatar from the first episode of Aincrad looked all that imaginative either, I think Kirito maybe usually just doesn't care much about that part.

Digibro expressed confusion at so many people in Gungale just hanging out at that in-game bar/nightclub or whatever you call it, and not actually playing the game.  And that just makes me think about how often I've turned on my N64 to "play" Ocarina of Time just to look at the Temple of Time and then turn it off.  Or put in Majora's Mask just to hang out in Clock Town, I've still completed only half of that game.  I've done similar things with Twilight Princess.

It is exactly that part of Gungale online where SAO started reminding me of the missed opportunities of Caprica, the BSG spin off series I really liked at first, and in-spite of how much it started to annoy me I was really upset it got canceled.

Digibro claims it's inherently bad to do exposition scenes in dinners or restaurants and such places.  But says it was tolerable in the first two arcs of SAO because of how Taverns like those are stables of the Fantasy genre.  Well such things are also staples of the Genres Gungale is referencing, Westerns with their Taverns and Brothels, and Film Noirs with their seedy Night Clubs and Casinos, like Rick's place in Casablanca.  Not to mention how this Arc draws on Star Wars.

Which leads me to a criticism I can agree with.  Giving Kirito a Light Saber so that he doesn't have to actually learn to use a new kind of weapon and fit in with the arc's actual theme.  And while I would not consider the mere idea of a Laser Sword plagiarism, using the exact same sound effects for it I think is.  Gundam has their Light Saber like weapons without recycling the exact same sound effects.

They could have at least given Kirito something like that Blaster/Light Saber hybrid Ezra created in Star Wars Rebels, that Canaan figured out how to use properly in the first season finale.

I'm fine mostly with Death Gun.  How obvious of a Vader Clone he is doesn't bother me.  The premise behind revealing he was two people I feel worked well.  But adding a third felt like nothing more then to have a sequel hook for future story-lines.

Once again I'm uncomfortable with the Rape aspect of the plot.  Ironically I feel it's handled a little better this time, but that they took that rout to make their new villain so evil twice in a row is really lazy.

Shinon should have won the Battle of the Bullets.

There is one aspect of my personal interest in Gungale that I'm going to save for it's own post.

I don't like Asuna (and to a lesser extent his other friends) being sidelined. I get why Kirito doesn't want to get them involved, that's a pretty common attitude for this kind of hero to have.  But usually the plot contrives a way to get them involved anyway.  Here however they find out about it, but still never get to actually help.

The thing that really bugs me however, is how Kirito was in Gungale on an undercover mission but never actually reported anything he learned to the person who sent him in the first place.  We see him spend time back in the real world between qualifying for the Battle of the Bullets and entering it.  Yet when we meet up with his government contact during the BoB he clearly had not even been informed about there being a Laughing Coffin member in Gungale.  And given he was diving in a specially arranged hospital room, why wouldn't they set it up to record everything he was seeing and hearing?

The rest of season 2 I have no issues with at all, Mother's Rosario is absolutely SAO at it's best.  And that I can recall there was no what I would consider Anime Style Fanservice.

Ordinal Scale has turned out to be similar to how I feel about The Dark Knight Rises.  As a stand alone film I have no issues with it at all.  But as far as the on going SAO story goes, it's really annoying how after what had defined much of Kirito's motivations in season 2, he does not care that this AR technology allows them to basically interact with Yui in the real world.  And I think it's really going to show in time how it was written in 2016 to comment on things like Pokemon Go and Google Glasses, but is a Prequel to Light Novels written years before all of that.

Looking forward, I'm very curios about the Gungale based spin off.  And the next arc of the main story-line which it sounds like will start delving more into the A.I. theme of the story.

Anime Mash Up Trailers on YouTube

I talked about Fan Trailers last year.  Mash Up Trailers are something different, basically the Audio of a movie Trailer put over different visuals, usually from an Anime giving it a Pseudo Fan Dub quality.

I first discovered them years ago via some Mash Ups of The Dark Knight to Code Geass.  Then last year I found that Dual of The Fates Utena AMV, which was done to the Music Video giving it a trailer like quality.

The only one not to Animation I've really enjoyed is the Pretty Little Liars Suicide Squad one done by one of the BrosWatchPLLToo people.

Then I started seeking them out more regularly and found quite a few.  I watched some of Code Geass to The Dark Knight Rises, some Death Note to the Dark Knight films.  Some Code Geass to the Star Wars Prequels ones, as well as Evangelion to Star Wars.  And Some Mean Girls ones, mainly one to Lucky Star.  They are included on my Anime Playlist.

So I want to mention some Mash Up trailer ideas I'd like to see that haven't been done yet.  And that I'm not talented enough to do myself.

Smile Pretty Cure/Glitter Force to The Dark Knight.  With Joker as The Joker, that's obvious, that's where this idea starts.  Reika as Batman, since she's the one with a one on one confrontation with Joker.  Pop as Alfred, and Nao as Rachel Dawes since she's who Reika is usually shipped with, (according to TVTRopes anyway).

Returning to the subject of Code Geass and Star Wars, I'd like to see that Padme focused Phantom Menace trailer that has already been done to Code Geass once, done to Akito of the Exiled, with Leila as Padme.  And I'd love to see some Gundam/Star Wars mash ups, if they exist already I'm having trouble finding them.

Related to that would be doing Gundam to Star Wars, for me the most meaningful would be 00.  But it's an overdue idea since Gundam is called Japan's Star Wars.

And another Anime that could be fun to see done to Mean Girls would be Yuru Yuri.

And as I said before I'd like to see some using Noir and Madlax.

Update:  I’d really like to see Yuki Yuna is a Hero done to some Star Wars trailers, specially The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.  Those scenes of Karin practicing on the beast with her wooden swords particularly feel made for John Williams music to me.

I'm going to Backlash against the Madoka Backlash

Lately there's been a backlash against Madoka, one that reminds me of the Backlash against Nolan's Batman films from a few years ago.

Madoka is not an anime I'm certain I consider one of my top favorites, it probably was when I first watched it mainly because there was so much I hadn't seen yet way back then. There are two Anime pretty easy to write off as copying Madoka that I'd now say I possibly like more, Yuki Yuna is a Hero and Wixoss.  And there is an older Magical Girl show with some of the same people behind it I would now say I like more, Lyrical Nanoha seasons 1 and 2.

It's partly Rebellion's fault, for playing into a wrong perspective of the show.  People constantly saying it was Dark for the sake of being Dark, or "Tragedy Porn"

I now somewhat more strongly agree with those who say it's not a Deconstruction.  My post on the subject from late 2015 was kind of a bait and switch to begin with, ending by calling it a Reconstruction.

What's really interesting to remember is how SFDebris.com in his reviews of the original series said he didn't even find the show that dark.

I still haven't seen Raising Project yet, from what I've heard it's more like what people keep writing off Madoka as.

I of course cited Madoka as an example in my The Night is Darkest Just Before The Dawn post.  And Mentioned Madoka in my Yuki Kajiura post.

The Show hasn't been at the top of my radar as much as I've discovered more Anime to watch.  But every time I look back on it I remember it fondly.  The characters were pretty well developed, not as one note as Digibro tries to write them off as.  And it's 12 episodes were perfectly structured to tell their story.

Much of the Backlash comes from my fellow Feminists.  The show isn't seeking to send a Feminist Message in the same way Sailor Moon is.  But the perception that it is rejecting the empowering Magical Girl message is tied to the wrong perception that it's a Deconstruction.  I have trouble being critical of Magical Girl shows on Feminist grounds since the least of them I still feel does better then Western Superhero Comics, even female lead ones.  Maybe it's just because Japan's gender issues are different so they quite unintentionally give Western Feminists what we're looking for, but I'll still take it.

Amalgam characters in Comic Book Movies

I used to complain when a Comic Book movie would have some character who really combines the roles of two or three or more characters from the Comics long history.  Feeling like it's just lost opportunities.

Thing is, I've been putting more and more thought into how Comic Cook characters to begin with are an amalgamations of older character archetypes.  The Batman was basically a combining of The Shadow and Zorro, with a little bit of Sherlock Holmes and Dick Tracey.  And the visual motif coming from an old Silent Film, The Bat.

In that context, I realize it's another natural part of how mythology develops, and how stories are retold.

People complain about how different Bane is in The Dark Knight Rises.  Thing is that character is also an Amalgam.  He is partly Bane with direct references to Knightfall,  I've also observed aspects of Deathstroke in him.  But in the way TDKR draws on DKR he is very much the Mutant Leader, with Alfred giving a similar speech to Bruce about how he's in his prime and Bruce isn't.  And then Bruce loses but later beats him in the rematch by using his head more.  And it works for the story that TDKR tells.  And also to go outside the Batman universe he's an admitted Vader Clone.

I may edit this post in the future discussing more examples.

Harvey Dent can have a happy ending.

We're used to thinking of Harvey Dent as having no hope for redemption. This starts with what Frank Miller did in Dark Knight Returns, which was a very powerful scene.  Then continues with BTAS consistently making sure every villain's attempts at redemption fail, and then it's clear Nolan wants us to think Harvey Dent died at the end of TDK, I still choose to imagine otherwise however.

But it wasn't always this way.  The Golden Age Two-Face, the Harvey Dent of Earth-Two (sometimes called Harvey Kent) did find redemption and a happy ending.

He was introduced in Detective Comics 66 in August 1942 "The Crimes of Two-Face".  The origin story part really isn't drawn out how modern re-imaginings do it, he's scarred at the start of the story.  His second appearance is in Detective Comics 68 where he is still conflicted.  His third story was in October of 1943, Detective Comics 80 and in it he's redeemed, and the Earth-Two Two-Face never relapsed or reverted.

He appeared in three stories involving other people taking on the Two-Face mantle, the most interesting one being Paul Salone in Batman 68, he was the middle one of the three.

Then in Superman Family 211 we see him attend Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle's wedding. in 1955

So the original version of the character was never meant to be hopeless.

The Golden Age Batman comics are often alleged to be what most inspired Tim Burton.  Lately I started imagining in my head a version of Batman Beyond that followed the Burton films with Michael Keaton as Batman.  And figured It'd be cool to do an episode with Billy Dee Williams to show he had became Two Face but also found redemption.

With that animated Batman Return of the Caped Crusaders cartoon coming out starting Adam West, Burt Ward and Julie Newmare.  It has me thinking about similar things you could do, an animated return for the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman I think would be fitting next year.

And also, since Billy Dee Williams seems to like to do animated work as Lando Calrissian.  Perhaps he'd be up to returning to the role of Harvey Dent?  Even if he's the only actor from the films to return it'd still be worth it to me.  Two-Face is the main Batman villain to not get a spotlight in an animated film yet.

So, who agrees?

I respond to a review of The Winter Solider, and it's website in general

The Fanboy Perspective is a website I've been following for awhile.  I agree with much of what is said there, but he's one of those internet bloggers who can't handle dissenting things being said in comments, so I got blocked from leaving comments.

Like him I consider The Dark Knight the best Comic Book Superhero movie, and love all 3 of Nolan's Batman movies.  And like him I love Man of Steel and am excited for DC's upcoming movies.  And like me he defends Sucker Punch and points out why it's better then Inception.

On The Dark Knight I go further probably in saying it's my favorite movie period.

But I can't agree with how much he hates on the MCU films (though I'm also getting a little fatigued with their approach).  And he's one of those people who worships the R rating and has no respect for how what you don't see can be more impactful then what you do see.

To him Watchmen is the second best Superhero movie.  While I like that movie, it fails at capturing what it could have from the Comics way too often for me to truly praise it on a level remotely worthy of being along side the Nolan Batman or MCU films.  And compared to other Snyder films, I like MOS and Sucker Punch both far more, and probably feel even 300 was handled better, but 300's premise has limited appeal to me to start with so it's not a movie I watch as often.

The Dark Knight is perceived as being "legitimate artistic cinema" in ways other Superhero movies never have been.  To Fanboy Perspective that is all the more reason to look down on other Superhero movies when they are "shallow" and mere "Popcorn movies".  To me The Dark Knight should be viewed as vindicating the less "Respectable" Superhero stories, as proof they were never worthy of being looked down on in the first place.

I want to remind everyone of one of my favorite Paul Feval quotes

"That insignificant literature sometimes has higher aspiration, but it never declares them, and that is the secret of its power."

See I disagree with this attitude of looking down on what seems like less "legitimate" and "respectable" literature to begin with.  To me it is far more rewarding to find the deeper thought provoking material in what seems like superficial shallow popcorn action films like Guardians of The Galaxy, or soapy teen girl dramas like Pretty Little Liars, then it is to notice it in a pretentious art-house film that is doing everything it can to make sure you don't miss it, yet still thinks it can qualify as subtle just because it didn't have a narrator spell it out to the viewer.  As much as I love The Dark Knight, it usually leans towards the latter.

What prompted me to finally address him here is his recent Winter Soldier Editorial.

He makes a lot of valid points, yes Winter Solider is simplistic in a lot of ways, but still far less simplistic then the original Star Wars Trilogy (The Prequels are hated on by certain morons for being more complex and ambiguous).

But his suggestion that it would have improved the film to fridge Peggy Carter, the MCU's only truly strong female character, is offensive to me.

And I disagree with calling Munich an Action film in any way, Munich is an example of what happens when a director is trying as hard as he can not to make an action film even though the plot requires action to happen.

Here is the thing, one can do the same thing he does to undermine the suggestion that The Dark Knight deals with any true moral ambiguity.

In the last year or so I've become more willing to accept the flaws of The Dark Knight (I always accepted that "five dead, two of them cops" was a plot hole, most likely a carry over from an earlier draft where Ramirez wasn't left alive).  It's still my favorite movie, and will probably never leave my top ten.  But it does have failures.  Something many people who fell in love with Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back in 77-80 haven't been able to do in far more time even though they have far more flaws.

The key grey area is the sonar plot.  When I first saw the movie I was so in awe of seeing a movie have Batman do something that ever so slightly alludes the side of Batman that results in things like Tower of Babel, War Games and Brother Eye/OMAC Project.

However at the end of the day, it was okay for Batman to cross this line just once because he always planned to fry the system after using it.  The same way so many other movies and cop shows have hand waved having their heroes doing questionable things, it's okay in this fictional context because we know these characters can be trusted.

It's not quite so simple when Batman does these kinds of things in The Comics.  He stood by his decision to create contingency plans for the League.  Even after War Games he was unwilling to fully admit he'd crossed some dangerous lines.  Yet the writers were clearly criticizing Batman for crossing those lines.  In the comics Batman pulling those kinds of things has negative consequences, in TDK it didn't.

As far as it being wrong to lie about what Harvey Dent did. That is only even really suggested in the sequel.  And I'd be less bothered by it taking a sequel to address that if other things about that Sequel didn't completely undermine why I loved TDK's ending.  To me Rises is a great stand alone film, but a horrible sequel and why I can't consider the Nolan films a True Trilogy.

Back to Winter Soldier.  Does putting all the villainy on HYDRA really undermine the questions it brings up?  To me HYDRA is only a slightly more cookbooky version of how I view the real Military Industrial Complex, (the not as direct as people make it sound Nazi connection included) in fact I probably feel more sympathy for HYDRA.  To me what undermines things is how for the sake of a climax with immediately high stakes HYDRA had to be planning to do something horrific right away, even though they had been patiently biding their time for 70 some years.

And some HYDRA villains including Alexander Perice, are presented as villains who honestly believe they are doing what's best for the world on some level, but like Light Yagami have been corrupted by power.  People fail to see this in HYDRA simply because Red Skull was such a textbook Supervillian in a different movie, and because of the Nazi connection, because people forget Nazis were real people with real beliefs behind what they did.

My Revenge of The Joker fan trailer

This is a Fan Trailer I wrote but that SolyentBrak1 edited

I wrote this years ago, long before The Dark Knight Rises came out.

The Premise is The Joker breaking out fo Arkham a decade after the events of The Dark Knight.

The source materiel is The Dark Knight and it's Soundtrack, a deleted scene form Batman Forever and a scene from Halloween 4.

The Conflict in my reaction to The Dark Knight Rises

As a Stand Alone film it is Great, it exceeded my expectations.  As a Batman’s final adventure type story I feel it can compete with The Dark Knight Returns very well.  In fact it's better in my personal opinion.

But as a sequel to Begins and The Dark Knight I actually feel cheated.

What I had wanted was for Nolan’s entire trilogy to still be only the Beginning of The Batman’s legend.  To allow the next director to loosely follow his continuity but still do their own new thing, with the Escalation leading to less of a need for the heightened realism.

I wanted Crane’s experiments and the Arkham breakout/loosing of the Narrows to set the stage for potentially multiple villain origins.

I liked that Ra’s and Dent’s “Deaths” where left ambiguous, so they could still return for a future saga with only a loose connection.

The Joker’s final scene with Batman was clearly to me foreshadowing future Batman-Joker Battles, as well as the escalation of more eccentric villains being made.

I assumed the ending of The Dark Knight would lead to Batman still doing what he did but on the run from the Cops officially until the time came for that to end.

And I was hoping Gordon’s Daughter’s involvement in that final drama would lead to her becoming Batgirl.

Even if all those things never had happened in Nolan’s actual Trilogy, they could have at least been still in the cards for the future, at least in the Fan’s imaginations.

I don’t like that now after Rises clearly none of that happened or will happen, no matter how much Fan Films like The Joker Blogs want to make it still fit.

I don’t like Batman only being active for 1 year and then a few weeks out of another year nearly a decade latter.  I don’t like Robin being demoted to a mere Meta-Gag.  I don’t like Catwoman being someone who doesn’t feature into the Batman’s adventures until they're almost over.  And I really don’t like Batman having only dueled The Joker for a grand total of 5 days.

If I ever write my own Batman Fan Fiction, it’ll be set in a world where Begins and TDK are at least in a basic sense that Batman universes' origin story.  But Rises will not be canon at all, and I’ll find something to do very early on to make Rises incompatible.