One of the things that I really didn’t like about The Dark Knight Rises is that it skimped on a deep origin/backstory for the main villain, Bane. We got a bit, but not nearly enough and I, like many others, was left wanting more.
Apparently though, according to costume designer Lindy Hemming who recently spoke with GQ, this wasn’t always the case. There actually was some backstory that they filmed but unfortunately, it was cut.
Check out what she had to say below:
The thing that you should have seen during that sequence is [Bane] being injured in his youth. So one of the fundamental things about his costume is that he has this scar from the back injury. Even if he hasn’t got the bulletproof vest on, he still has to wear the waist belt and the braces. In that scene in the prison, where he’s learning to fight the same way Batman learned to fight, he’s wearing an early version of his waist belt. It’s showing support, but it’s not the finished one he eventually wears. He’s also wearing an early version of his gas mask, all glued together … If you look at the film, unless they’ve cut it—and I’m sure they haven’t—there’s a whole early section for Tom Hardy where he’s fighting and being taunted by people. He’s got chains on him, and he’s standing on a wooden thing while people are attacking him. And in that scene, he’s wearing a much more ragged, primitive version of the mask.
She then went onto say that there was also another scene the shows why Bane wore his mask and where it came from. Again, that’s another thing that would have been interesting to see in the film.
Some say Bane was written perfectly and that the lack of backstory didn’t hurt the character at all. Unfortunately, I can’t say I agree. While I think Tom Hardy was excellent in the role, I didn’t care for the character all that much.
I actually thought he was handled pretty poorly and when compared to the villain from the last film, The Joker, Bane was quite underwhelming. In fact, on the whole, I wasn’t terribly impressed with Nolan’s ending to the trilogy and with all the hype surrounding the character of Bane, I really felt like they could have done a much better job.
What about you? Were you satisfied with Bane or would you have liked to of seen more backstory in The Dark Knight Rises?