The Dark Knight Rises Prologue and Poster

Operation Early Bird, the mysterious website associated with The Dark Knight Rises, finally hit its countdown to zero and crashed. That’s right –  a whole lot of people must have been waiting to see what it would reveal. After it was back up, it was a geo-tagged display of IMAX theaters that would be screening The Dark Knight Rises Prologue.

The Prologue was screened early for bloggers and journalists in Universal City, California and was personally introduced by Christopher Nolan himself.  He joked about not knowing the ending because he had just begun editing the film. He also confirmed that the preview will be shown in front of select viewings of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol later this month.

This is what you’re missing out on. The screening will show six minutes of The Dark Knight Rises, and will primarily focus on a scene with the villain Bane that leads into various clips of the movie.  For those of us who aren’t reporters and lucky enough to snag a seat through Operation Early Bird, or for those who weren’t early bird enough to have grabbed a seat, this is what you can expect to see. More details and SPOILERS after the jump.

SPOILER ALERT, ahead is a very detailed almost word for word account of the prologue which has major spoilers, and is followed by the new poster for The Dark Knight Rises. Read on at your own discretion.

WB logo

Ice. Cold. Crystallized imagery and a very familiar logo of a Bat.
Jim Gordon at Harvey Dents funeral gives a eulogy, a few words about inspiring others…
CUT—An unnamed mountainous region.

A jeep rides along the landscape. Hooded men in the back of a jeep are driven to a small plane… the jeep is met by an armed CIA agent who takes into custody a political VIP, who is traveling with these hooded men… or is he?

The CIA AGENT learns that one of the hooded men is BANE?!
The hooded men, along with the political VIP are loaded onto the plane.
The plane takes to the air as the CIA AGENT  interrogates those taken on board. One of the hooded men is dangled outside the plane and questioned/threatened and when the CIA AGENT doesn’t get what he wants, he fires his weapon (next to the hooded man’s ear, he is not killed) and then begins to question the other hooded man.

That hooded man is unmasked and revealed to be, Bane!
CIA AGENT: Was it your plan all along to be captured?
Suddenly, a much larger plane overtakes the smaller plane occupied by CIA AGENT, Bane and hostages. Operatives from the larger plane descend onto the smaller one–
Bane is fully revealed….

CIA AGENT: If I take this off, will you die?

BANE: No. But I will be in a lot of pain.
BAM!
Operatives from the larger plane fire upon the interior of the plane interrupting the interrogation.
The larger plane has a hold of the smaller one as it pulls it by wires throwing all the passengers downward in a disorienting fashion.
After quickly overtaking the plane, Bane’s operatives bring in a man with inside a body bag. This man is dead or looks barely alive. Bane then takes the VIP political prisoner and inserts a tube and transfers blood from the body bag man.

AND THEN… in a scene that no words will be able to do justice, a hole is cut from the smaller plane and a wire takes Bane and the VIP politico through the rear of the plane as the smaller plane is ripped apart and is destroyed while members of Bane’s team sacrifice their lives going down with the small plane.

The chant can be heard at the end… Deh-Shay! Bah-Sah-Ra!

The scene is followed by a montage that includes many images we’ve seen, the most striking includes the Bat-copter chasing down fatigued Batmobiles down the streets of Gotham, and a final shocking image of Bane tossing away a shattered and torn Batman mask into rubble… The only complaint about the 7 minute prologue was echoed by all in attendance: Bane’s dialog is very difficult to understand. Imagine Darth Vader with a very thick accent. Hopefully this will be fixed in the final film. Overall this opening scene is confusing, epic, and will leave audiences speechless. All in a good way.

(Source: Perez Hilton)