Does it seem a bit hypocritical that Nolan’s Batman is so “no guns, no killing” and yet his Batpod, Batmobile and Bat VTOL aircraft all have enough firepower to level a building?
Or is it simply like when he “didn’t have to save” Ra’s Al Ghul? “For legal purposes, the fall and collapsing rubble will kill you…I’m just performing a controlled bat-demolition of this structure.”
Yes. Nolan is aware of the “no guns, no killing” aspect of Batman’s character as being integral to his core persona in the comics, but Nolan’s application of this to the screen is overwhelmed by his desire to create a blockbuster action movie.
Armed Bat-vehicles have been shown since at least the 1989 Tim Burton Batman movie. Just off the top of my head there are the machine guns on the Batplane he uses against the Joker during the parade and at one point the Batmobile drops a bomb while surrounded by bad guys, but that may have been in Batman Returns.
Not only did the 1989 movie version of Batman feature machine guns (AND rockets!) on the Batplane – Batman fires them at the Joker. He misses (which is amazing in and of itself), and one could argue that he missed due to his staunch no-gun stance, but still - it sure looked to me like he was doing his dead-level best to shoot the Joker.
The '89 film is also the one featuring a bomb dropped from the remotely controlled Batmobile that destroyed a chemical factory, along with a number of henchmen who were in it at the time … in fact, the bomb dropped right at their feet.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the technology / physics involved in the rotating wheels on the Bat-cycle in The Dark Knight Rises. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how that would work.
“Rubber bullets. Honest.”
He kills at least one guy with a bomb in Returns…not by dropping it, but by hooking it onto the guy’s belt.
I think it’s safe to say that the Burton iteration’s policy was “don’t kill…if reasonably practical.”
OK, I’ve watched the video five times now, and… where the fuck did that bomb come from?
you don’t want to know…
Some days, you just can’t get rid of them fast enough.
He has it in his left hand the whole time from the start of the clip. He punches and throws henchman #1 using only his right hand. He punches henchman #2 with his right hand while (presumably) tucking the bomb into the belt with his left hand.
As to where the bomb came from before that (and why he was so casual about carrying around a bomb that was already set to explode), I’d have to rewatch the movie. But if you’re repeatedly watching that YouTube clip trying to see where the bomb came from . . . yeah, he had it in his hand the whole time.
Burton’s Batman killed for sure, I think more so in Batman Returns.
Nolan’s Batman repeatedly caused rubble and explosions that had killing potential while providing no safety measures to avoid any killing. This applies beyond henchmen to innocent bystanders even. There’s a Batpod scene where he’s for some reason blowing up parked cars- no opportunity to see if there’s anyone in the cars or pedestrians in the blast radius- he even machine guns his way through a set of glass doors in a crowded shopping mall! He no doubt caused death- but Batman couldn’t see the killing happening in front of him. Not seeing it was all he needed to be able to sleep at night, telling himself “Yeah, I’m sure nobody got hit by those bullets or got consumed by that explosion.”
Love that reference!
Remember, too, that he eventually gets the win by grimly roping the Joker’s leg to that gargoyle; death ensues; our hero shows neither remorse nor surprise.
Can anyone enlighten us as to how gargoyles are attached to buildings?
I would think Batman could have assumed the gargoyle was firmly attached to the building and wondered if a man of Jack’s build could lift a stone that size in that manner.
That most clearly wasn’t his intention; Batman was out for the kill. The Joker was already climbing a ladder to the helicopter at that point, and batman chose to snag him to a gargoyle on the crumbling roof. It’s hard to see what the point could have been short of killing the Joker.
Batman in the 1930’s had firearms.
Heck, even Superman killed in the early days.
But only people who really deserved it.
And then for a while, Superman had a truly bizarre code where his line was that he wouldn’t stop a beating heart. So he’d have no objection to dispatching robots, supercomputers, or Dick Cheney, but he’d stop fighting against a giant brainless jellyfish as soon as he discovered that it had a pumped circulatory system.
Lucky old man.
Cool.
Thank you—I thought I was the only one who noticed the bizarreness of this one, just from reading about it second-or-third hand. Including, IIRC, a few monsters who “came alive” and suddenly gained heartbeats. It always seemed more like something from a fantasy novel or a children’s show.
Superman would also kill, by the same criteria…the Horta, the Tin Woodsman, retired dentist Barney Clark, probably Treebeard, Data, Tron or CLU, Mother Brain, IT, some incarnations of Mr. Freeze, possibly The Rockbiter, JARVIS, V.I.C.I., R2, Tholians, The Doctor’s Wife…