Four Years In The Making

Tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day. Twenty four hours from now I will be sitting in a movie theater at the Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia, two hours into my nine hour Batman Trilogy experience. During this marathon I will witness Bruce Wayne’s transformation into the caped crusader, his fall from Gotham’s good graces and his return from seclusion to triumph over a new foe. Or maybe, just maybe, his tragic death. Only time will tell.

The Coug Nook

I apologize for the recent lack of posts. It looks like I’ll be doing about a post a week instead of one every other day. I just don’t seem have the spare time due to my recent employment! Yup, that’s right. I’m a working Coug now. Last Monday I began my career in social media and honestly, I couldn’t be happier. Originally I was frustrated, thinking that my social media manager duties would take a back seat as I learned the ins and outs of the coin business. But seeing that I was basically given free reign over whatever accounts I would run for them, I actually haven’t even had enough time to get everything accomplished. You’d be surprised how much time building community bases and driving engagement takes up out of an 8(+) hour day. In less than two weeks I already have our Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest accounts up and running, with a modest follower base. I even launched our first social media campaign yesterday, trading a free coin submission for a Facebook like, Twitter follow, or Google+ add. And a big thank you to all my friends who have followed our accounts. I can’t give you any rare coins, but I can give you a kick ass high five.

I love the feeling of being productive all day and actually getting paid to do something I love. The idea still blows my mind. I’m getting paid to do this! I’ve already become a regular at the Bedminster Starbucks and Bedminster Pizza and Subs (and foursquare Mayor of course haha). I’ve always wanted to go to a place so often that I can just order “the usual.” Because, you know, I’m a nerd.

I was hoping this post title would have a dual meaning so I could make some awesome link between The Dark Knight Rises being four years in the making since The Dark Knight and my love of social media also being four years in the making, but then I realized that I created my Twitter account in 2009 and not 2008. Oh well. This post is more about Batman anyway. There was only a three year gap between 2005’s Batman Begins and 2008’s The Dark Knight (both of which I saw in theaters multiple times), while The Dark Knight Rises has been four years in the making due to the filming of Inception (seriously though, I don’t think Nolan could make a bad film even if he tried. Insomnia was his worst and even that wasn’t that bad.)

As I give Hans Zimmer’s masterful The Dark Knight Rises Soundtrack a listen while writing this (leading up to another
screening of The Dark Knight later), I get hints of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, as well as a little Sherlock Holmes and even The Rock, which was also scored by Hans Zimmer. My favorite tracks so far are “Mind If I Cut In?”, “The Fire Rises”, “Nothing Out There”, and “No Stone Unturned” from the Bonus Digital Edition…which I….paid…for……. Overall this might be my second favorite of the three Hans Zimmer Batman scores, with Batman Begins being the undisputed masterpiece. I still owe this one a few more listens, but it looks like The Dark Knight will be a close third. The Batman Begins soundtrack was just so much more orchestral. It flowed together like a sweeping symphony that could easily be listened to on its own. TDK and TDKR are very obviously tied to individual scenes. Still Batman. Still Zimmer. Still amazing. No complaints.

So, after learning a bit more about The Dark Knight Rises’ plot since my last post. I think I can safely say that most of my predictions were way off base (though I’m sticking with my R’as & Talia ones). But I caught flak for not even mentioning Joseph Gordon Levitt’s character. The reason for this was that I just don’t think he’s going to be anything mindblowing or some big reveal. I actually thought he’d make a pretty good Riddler when we were all speculating about who the villains would be. After watching the previews over and over, I’m thinking that because Commissioner Gordon is tagged as a “War Time Hero” and “this is peace time,” that JGL’s character, John Blake, might be the choice to supplant Gordon as commish. Also while he does seem like a good fit for Robin, Nolan has said numerous times that there would be no Robin in his Batman films.

But here’s what I’m thinking. On Nolan’s IMDB page, it had previously said he was on board as producer for an untitled Batman reboot project. Do you remember the WB series Batman Beyond? Where an elderly Bruce Wayne mentors the next Batman? Well it was freaking awesome and you should check it out if you’ve never seen it. But either way, I believe Bruce is going to be riddled with injuries through most of this film and probably even more so after he takes down Bane (if he doesn’t die). The possibility is there for Bruce Wayne to hang up his cape and cowl and pass them on to a younger successor, John Blake.

Obviously this is all speculation, but I think it’d be pretty damn cool. But for those of you seeing The Dark Knight Rises tomorrow at midnight, you and your friends better batten down the hatches, because there’s a storm coming Mr. Wayne.