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Re: ...you do understand that my reply was not a personal attack on your opinion, right? Cannoli Send a noteboard - 28/07/2012 04:03:51 PM

All I'm saying is that Batman the symbol is not incompatible with Batman the superhero, and I'm disappointed that they humanized him to such a degree in the third movie.
This in a bit.

Yes, he did come back to be relevant one last time. He wasn't motivated by pride or arrogance and he wasn't looking for recognition, but he thought that his city needed Batman again, despite Alfred (who generally portrays the voice of reason) insisting that he could better serve Gotham by using his wealth and influence.

But that was another thematic clash. The age-old political debate between the constrained and unconstrained view of humanity. The latter perspective says "think of what good we can do with power" while the constrained visions warns "power can be used for evil too. Think of all the harm that can be done and try to limit or divide power so there are checks on it." Alfred was missing the point because he was trying to get Bruce to shed the burden of power. Throughout the film there is the consistent theme that concentrations of power are bad. The unconstrained point of view says "Let's build a super-reactor to give energy to the world." Batman's point of view was "That super-reactor can easily be turned into a weapon of terror." The point of the trilogy was all about the misuse of power and its corruption. The police have always been part of the problem in Gotham, and even at its best, there are still institutional flaws inherent in the department. That's the whole point of Blake's arc. Gordon, despite having cleaned up the department and by now, Gotham, still doesn't trust the bureaucratic and institutional methods and policies. He looks for individuals who can do the job and have the right attitudes and mindsets like Blake, and we also see that without Gordon's personal protection, the "hot-heads" get marginalized.

Does Bruce trust Gordon implicitly and would he trust him with his technology? Of course. He trusts Blake as well and in the end does turn over his tech to him. But he canNOT follow Alfred's prescribed course and hand over that power to the same department that marginalized and ignored Blake, the department that ignored Bane and the real threat to go on a chase after Batman, because they lacked the vision to see the threat of latter and acted according to bureaucratic dictates to chase the figure who didn't fit into their SOPs and regulations.

Gordon himself even sets up Blake's departure with his furious rejoinder to the latter's chastisement about the Dent lie, with the warning that "structures become shackles." The GCPD is one such structure and by empowering it, Batman would make it an even more restrictive shackle.

This is the follow-up and development of the issue that arose in tDK with Batman's eavesdropping machine that he destroys after using it to find the Joker.

In short, he tried to "be Batman" a final time, and, while he managed to capitalize on what he'd done in the past, he failed to live up to his former self in a big way.

His whole purpose was to save Gotham. What was he supposed to do, SUPER-save it? He became Batman not to top himself or to surpass his previous accomplishments, but as a combination of the retired fighter coming out for one last showdown and the technician going under the hood for one or two final tweaks before the finished project is ready to go or maybe the artist making one or two final touch-ups to his nearly complete composition.


Yes, he was. And that was vitally important. I just wish he'd been MORE than an inspiration. He built a reputation for himself in the previous movies by doing awesome, amazing stuff. In the third movie he does very little except use his reputation. This is great if your main character is a skilled orator trying to incite rebellion, but somewhat disappointing when your character is a futuristic superhuman action hero.
But he was always trying to start a rebellion against the degeneracy of Gotham. He is made more awesome because he doesn't just go out and fight for the sake of fighting, but he fought to accomplish something and did. Unlike video games, the final battle does not feature the enemy at his strongest and most powerful, but rather a war tapers out as the winning side gains the upper hand. Gettysburg was in the middle of the Civil War, not the end. This is a conclusion to his career, not the climax or the epitome.

When you think about it for even a second, the physical hardships he overcomes in this movie make his getting up and walking a far greater triumph than the fisticuffs with Falcone's goons in the first film. His descent with Selina into Bain's lair is a demonstration of this. It looks like a stroll in the park, because he's so good that the various thugs in ambush are really no serious obstacle to him.

You're right, and that's a fair criticism. I tried to stay high-level but didn't do a very good job. I still maintain, though, that however poorly I described them, Batman's exploits in this movie were significantly less impressive than those of the previous films. He had one new gadget which did almost nothing that a standard helicopter could not, he displayed no new abilities, he lost most of his fights and he was outsmarted at virtually every turn. As a legend/symbol, he got the job done. As the figure who earned that status, however, he was a pale shell of his former self.
He was up against worse enemies, greater numbers and with more weaknesses. Any reasonable comparison makes this a lot more of a spectacular win. The draw of this trilogy from the first has been about a realistic Batman. An eternally young superhero bounding about the rooftops, winning fights with no cumulative damage to his body or psyche hardly fits in with that concept.

Let's say that discarding the Bruce Wayne identity makes sense for all of the reasons you stated. So now:

1) Why do you fake your own death? As far as I could tell, every baddie who knew his secret identity was killed. There are much easier ways of "getting away from it all" than faking death.
To cut his ties with his old life and let people do their own thing. To stay in Gotham would have meant sitting on his hands when every bad thing happened, or it would have meant becoming Bruce Wayne, Civic Leader, and the point of his refusal to share his crime-fighting tech or death-reactor was that such power should not invested in a polity or civic interests.

He didn't save Gotham so he could take care of it, he saved it to live its own life. Getting rid of Gotham's favorite son is the equivalent of kicking Gotham out of a nest it didn't even know existed. Bruce Wayne WOULD die, sooner or later, and then where would Gotham be, if he stayed and kept up his vigil?

2) Even if you go forward with your crazy plan, why do you let all of your closest friends, who have kept huge secrets for you for nearly a decade, think that you're dead? ESPECIALLY if you just plan to reveal yourself to them later on? This either makes no sense, or reveals an incredibly callous side of Bruce Wayne. "Eh, let them be grief stricken for a few days while I figure out how to be cleverly observed at that restaurant Alfred likes. Oh, and I should probably bring a date..."

That applies, at most, to Alfred. Period. And he did what Alfred wanted him to do. Alfred didn't WANT to be part of Bruce's life, he wanted Bruce to no longer need him. He wanted to know that Bruce would be fine on his own. The grief for a day or two was probably deserved payback for messing around with the Rachel stuff. Lucius wasn't so much a friend as a colleague, and by signing off on his repairs to the autopilot, he let Lucius know the truth in his own way. It's part of their thing that they never directly discuss the secret they share. Lucius knows, and Bruce knows he knows, but neither comes out and says it. No one else really knows. Gordon was friends with the Batman and he shows when Bruce reveals his identity that he really didn't know who Bruce was. Since the Batman is done and gone, so is Gordon's friend. For all intents and purposes, he WAS dead to Gordon. To Blake, he wasn't a real friend or person, he was the symbol and the fact of his true identity only highlights the importance of that symbol to Blake, because it just adds another layer of significance for him. By bequeathing Blake the cave, he gives him the symbol which is a better thing he could do for Blake than hanging around being intimidating. By giving him the tools and entrusting the legend to him, he is giving him a purpose and means to fulfill it, but without the original hanging around over his shoulder the whole time. If Bruce stays, BatBlake is forever second fiddle, which can't help his suppressed fury issues. Even if he only knows Bruce is still alive, he's still got to be thinking of what Bruce would want or looking to consult with him or all kinds of things overshadowing his own career.

3) So you've gone through all the trouble to fake your own death, keeping even your friends in the dark to make sure that your past can never again catch up to you. Why on earth do you now show up with no disguise whatsoever in a highly public place? I mean, in our world, even D-list celebrities have their every sighting posted all over the internet for the world to see. Does Bruce really not believe that he'll be immediately recognized and determined to be, you know, alive?
He and Selina seem to think that McGuffin she wanted would prevent that. And who really knows him well enough to recognize that beyond a shadow of a doubt, THIS is the reclusive billionaire who was seldom seen by even his servants for the last 8 years, and who everyone KNOWS is dead anyway?

Batman is a comic book superhero. Treat him seriously, incorporate his abilities into a realistic setting as best you can, but don't turn him into just another concerned citizen. HE might think that's what he is, but we, the viewers, watch him because he is not.
But was for this movie. What's the point of another cookie-cutter interpretation that ends up being the same old thing? The winding down of his career was what made this story realistic.
Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
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Dark Knight Rises anyone? - 21/07/2012 12:22:24 AM 2592 Views
I really liked it. - 21/07/2012 12:42:10 AM 869 Views
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Any three month olds in the theater??? - 21/07/2012 06:29:39 AM 868 Views
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I was mocking the idiots that took their little kids to the movie. *NM* - 24/07/2012 02:21:02 AM 492 Views
RACHEL!!!!! ... oh wait *NM* - 21/07/2012 03:13:14 PM 524 Views
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you miss the point - 22/07/2012 09:56:19 PM 1047 Views
I had the feeling ... - 22/07/2012 11:01:31 PM 900 Views
That wasn't the point. - 24/07/2012 01:01:42 AM 916 Views
Come on. - 24/07/2012 12:50:53 AM 834 Views
Suck it up, whiny-boy. - 22/07/2012 01:15:47 AM 931 Views
Eh. The "political message" was a sham, a smokescreen. There wasn't one. - 01/08/2012 02:46:50 PM 1112 Views
Cillian Murphy is Irish - 21/07/2012 11:27:38 PM 928 Views
Re: Cillian Murphy is Irish - 24/07/2012 01:04:31 AM 862 Views
It had a few issues, but overall I thought it was great. *spoilers* - 22/07/2012 06:00:57 PM 886 Views
I too thought it was great. - a SPOILERish reply ... - 23/07/2012 07:37:26 AM 790 Views
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I liked every part of that movie that didn't involve Batman. (spoilers) - 23/07/2012 04:32:32 PM 880 Views
I wonder what you could possibly have liked. - 23/07/2012 05:49:12 PM 895 Views
...you do understand that my reply was not a personal attack on your opinion, right? - 23/07/2012 08:33:30 PM 983 Views
Re: ...you do understand that my reply was not a personal attack on your opinion, right? - 28/07/2012 04:03:51 PM 992 Views
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It was Satisfactory. - 30/07/2012 01:10:38 PM 858 Views
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Re: I liked it, but have nitpicks - 01/08/2012 06:46:14 PM 983 Views
Re: I liked it, but have nitpicks - 02/08/2012 04:03:52 AM 718 Views
That probably went against his philosophy. - 02/08/2012 04:23:28 AM 875 Views
Well, his goal is despair. It'd be even more effective if there was a guard at the top. - 04/08/2012 03:12:45 AM 812 Views
That's not the theme of it, though. - 04/08/2012 04:02:20 AM 781 Views
Also, guys with guns have SO MUCH success against Batman, right? - 03/08/2012 03:26:55 PM 882 Views
Re: I liked it, but have nitpicks - 03/08/2012 03:33:59 PM 826 Views
They might have, but there was no mention of it at all. - 04/08/2012 03:16:04 AM 738 Views

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