Oh no! The Dark Knight Rises is ending the Nolan Batman Trilogy! But wait, why end with Bane? Christopher Nolan recently talked with the LA Times and explained why he chose Bane, why there’s an 8 year gap in between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, and how sad he was when they concluded filming.

First, Bane:

I didn’t know him very well. David Goyer got me a bunch of stuff on him and we looked into him. I only knew him by name, I wasn’t familiar with his back story. He’s a very cool character. And getting an actor like Tom to take it on, you know you’re going to get something very special. Tom is somebody who really knows how to put character into every gesture, every aspect of his physicality in the way that great actors can… With Bane, the physicality is the thing. With a good villain you need an archetype, you know, you need the extreme of some type of villainy. The Joker is obviously a particular archetype of diabolical, chaotic anarchy and has a devilish sense of humor. Bane, to me, is something we haven’t dealt with in the films. We wanted to do something very different in this film. He’s a primarily physical villain, he’s a classic movie monster in a way — but with a terrific brain. I think he’s a fascinating character. I think people are going to get a kick out of what we’ve done with him.

Why there’s an 8 year gap:

It will make a lot more sense to people when they see the film. But it’s not a great mystery — it’s the jumping-off point for the film — but it’s hard for me to articulate it. I think the mood at the beginning of the film will make a lot of sense. If I had to express it thematically, I think what we’re saying is that for Batman and Commissioner Gordon, there’s a big sacrifice, a big compromise, at the end of the ‘The Dark Knight’ and for that to mean something, that sacrifice has to work and Gotham has to get better in a sense. They have to achieve something for the ending of that film — and the feeling at the end of that film — to have validity. Their sacrifice has to have meaning and it takes time to establish that and to show that, and that’s the primary reason we did that. It’s a time period that is not so far ahead that we would have to do crazy makeup or anything — which I think would be distracting — but it gave them something to get their teeth into, particularly Christian in terms of [portraying] this guy who has been frozen in this moment in time with nowhere to go. He really has done an incredible job figuring out how to characterize that and express that.

How he felt after concluding filming:

It was pretty emotional as we would finish these characters and say goodbye to Alfred for the last time and say goodbye to Commissioner Gordon and eventually, with Christian, fairly close to the end, saying goodbye to Batman … it was a big deal. And with these newer characters too, finishing with Anne and all these guys. It was quite touching, I must say.

Nolan still has some work to do on the film. There have been many complaints that Bane was hard to understand in the prologue, but Nolan is a perfectionist so if there’s anything he can do to clear that up it’ll be done. Also, it’s awesome to hear that Bane gets the physicality of the role down, because he is a bit short so people don’t necessarily expect that from him (you should see Warrior if you don’t).

The 8 year gap stuff is classic Nolan. Not many filmmakers would think about a small detail like that. Or at least thing about how that change would affect the audience. As for the end of Nolan’s Batman trilogy, it was expected. The man invested at least 5 years of his life into these characters and actors. There’s no way he wasn’t going to be even a bit emotional about it. [LA Times via Movies.com]

christopher nolan, the dark knight rises