After a week of bootlegs and crowded Harry Potter screenings, the official teaser trailer for Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises finally hits the Internet in a legitimate way.

Watch it here below.

The teaser trailer is just that, a tease. For those who haven’t analyzed this trailer, let me pick up the slack. In the teaser, we are primarily shown previously seen footage mainly from Batman Begins, the first in Nolan’s Batman trilogy. One can only assume that this is done to hammer home the finality of The Dark Knight Rises. Then we surprisingly get some new footage.

Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is bed ridden and talking to who we can only assume Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), thus giving away *spoiler* that Gordon knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman, based on the dialogue. Through this segment, we learn that either Batman has been working in secrecy, or has completely abandoned the mantle of The Dark Knight for the time being as we get the powerful statements of “The Batman must come back.” “What if he doesn’t exist?” “He must… he must.”

Throughout the trailer, we are also shown glimpses of Tom Hardy as Bane, the man who broke The Bat, as well as footage of a crumbling Gotham City. These city scenes are nothing short of stunning as the city begins to crumble on the viewer while a Nolan Bat-symbol shines through the decay. In essence, it’s the live-action version of the teaser poster we posted previously.

When I saw this in the theater, it was much more powerful, visually. However, I was unable to decipher the dialogue and what was actually going on in the Bane scenes. So, after viewing the trailer 5,000 times from the movie’s official Facebook page (where you can see it in glorious HD), I was able to see it for what it is. And I’m not disappointed. It’s not a perfect teaser like the one for The Dark Knight, but it does its job, and I can’t wait to see more teasers and marketing for Nolan’s final Bat-chapter.

Thanks to /Film and The Film Stage for the embed code.