Nolan Discusses 'The Dark Knight Rises' 8 Years Later Premise

Christopher Nolan dropped a juicy bombshell during an interview with Empire Magazine that many of us may not have known about The Dark Knight Rises: the film takes place eight years after The Dark Knight.  I think my brain just exploded!  Does this mean Gotham City citizens are over the tragic death of Harvey Dent and Batman is no longer in hiding from the law?

Nolan explained why there's a time jump a little more in a recent interview with Hero Complex.  Here's what he had to say.

“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," Nolan said.  "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.”

That makes sense, so it's all about feel and emotions we can expect to see from the characters in Batman (Christian Bale) and Comissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and bridging the two films together.  Oh I can't wait to see this movie!  It stands a top my movies to see list all alone.  

Speaking of which GTBP should have a report on The Dark Knight Rises prologue showing before Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol's IMAX release soon, so be on the look out for that.