The Dark Knight Rises FX Second Screen App Feature Preview
Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 12.04.2012
The Dark Knight Rises is due out on Blu-ray and DVD this week. Now you can get even more comprehensive enjoyment from your home viewing experience with the comprehensive second screen app feature for the movie on your iOS devices...
Last week Warner Bros. Home Entertainment gave me a chance to personally visit the studio and get a live demonstration for the new second screen app feature for The Dark Knight Rises Blu-ray release. For those not in the know, "Second Screen" is an enhanced viewing mode that links up your Blu-ray movie to an app feature on your mobile devices. One was recently made and released for The Avengers. The Dark Knight Rises second screen app is currently live and available only on iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, etc.). Once you pop in the main movie disc of The Dark Knight Rises from you Blu-ray set you can sync it up to your iOS device to get a further behind-the-scenes look of Christopher Nolan's vision unlike anything you've ever seen before.
In past releases for the Nolan Batman trilogy, I've been rather disappointed with what has been provided for the DVD and Blu-ray extras. Christopher Nolan has been quite secretive of his productions especially where it concerns Batman and has been fairly restrictive with special feature content, and he's more often than not been reluctant to "pull back the curtain" as it were. That being said, there's a surprising amount of behind-the-scenes and in-depth content here unlike any Batman release before, and I hope that means that Nolan is adjusting to the times a little bit in this digital, 24/7 information age. I mean face it, the moment it was happening we saw Batman and Bane fighting Wall Street on YouTube. So for the second screen feature, the index is divided into several sections: Characters; Locations; Featurettes; Vehicles and Gadgets; and Scene Explorer.
The Second Screen feature allows you to run a timeline feature on your mobile device as the movie plays. The timeline feature provides additional production and behind-the-scenes photos, featurettes, and script page excerpts. Unfortunately you don't get any type of production or shooting script in full available on this app which would've been neat. In terms of featurettes for the app, all the video featurettes are the same available on the second disc for the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack release. So don't get too excited there. The timeline feature is highly interactive and you can scroll ahead or back in time with the movie. I think what the movie really could've used though is some sort of "Comic Callback" feature. Basically, there were some moments or obscure characters in the movie lifted right out of the comics that I think this app could've taken into account and show a corresponding moment in the Batman comics to when it happens in the movie (ie Bane breaking Batman's back, the prison breakout, the older cop telling the younger cop that they are in for a show tonight when Batman shows back up, Daggett, etc.).
The character sections provide some nice additional character profiles and concept artwork not on the DVD. You can get a good look at some of the early takes on Bane's make and how it was ultimately streamlined to what was in the movie. You also get a nice look at all the vehicles and gadgets such as the Bat and the EMP gun. I was also happy to see some animated models of the vehicles as well as Pre-visualization sequences as well.
Also this app is an update to the previously release Gotham's Most Wanted app that came out in conjunction with the movie in theaters. So all the original features from the Gotham's Most Wanted app are still included such mase your own Tumbler video and also putting your image in the movie poster. The app developers did talk about additional plans for releasing more
The 411: This is a nice, comprehensive and in-depth feature for the hardcore film and Batman fanatics. Hopefully it will be made available on other devices as well down the line other than iOS. I think while a few features were redundant and I would've liked to see a couple more ideas incorporated, I was overall incredibly satisfied with how in-depth the material gets.
