I’d say the film, and the characters in it, are just as confused and empty-headed about these issues as the American public in general is–and I’m not sure that needs to be understood as accidental.
This comment made me remember another thought I had about the movie. I think that Nolan used the fact that comic book nerds expect the movie adaptations to “get it wrong” to his advantage. When Bats first got the idea that Bane was the son of Ras al Guul, I knew that was wrong based on the comics, and I new about Talia, but I just thought “Hmm, ok, so they’re changing that to make Bane fit into the overall storyline, I guess.”
It never occurred to me that the child had to be Talia, and therefore a girl, and that Marion Cotillard then had to be Talia (and the holder of the detonator). I thought it was clever that the movie stuck (at least in a general way) to the correct facts from the comics, but still managed to surprise at least this comic book geek.
But..it sucks…and he had great material to work with. I think we can expect better from Nolan. (Well, maybe. I guess he’s always been heavier on the action.) He does read his scripts, right?
Haven’t seen the movie, don’t know when I will, and do not care about spoilers, obviously, or I wouldn’t be in this thread.
But I have to know NOW…I know Gorden felt guilty about Batman having to play the bad guy at the end of the last film, so I can see how putting the blame on Gordon might make Gordon feel better; is that what happens in the movie? How is Gorden vilified? Seriously, I don’t care about spoilers; I read books to find out what happened, I watch movies to SEE it happen, so spoilers do not bother me one bit. I just want to KNOW 
The public finds out that Gordon was lying during the movie. One cop is pissed about it for about three minutes, but we don’t really know if the public gets angry about it. They have bigger problems at the time, and nothing shown afterwords references it, IIRC.
The last scene we see of Gordon is him next to the “bat signal” light. I took that to mean that he wasn’t going to retire, but instead would stay on and work with the “new batman”. Its not explicit either way though.
Yeah, that’s the thing that many people miss. Bruce Wayne is the costume that Batman wears.
Except in the latest movie he hasn’t been Batman for something like eight years. And the time between the first two films appears to be pretty short, so the actual time Wayne spends as Batman in the Nolan films is pretty small.
In the Cartoon there’s an episode where he mentions that he refers to himself as “Batman” in his own head. But in the films, there isn’t really any evidence that Wayne thinks of Batman as anything other then a persona he uses to scare crooks.
I agree with this assessment.
The more I look at Nolan’s oeuvre, the more I see this as a common theme. He makes very pretty, watchable, entertaining action films that appear, partly because of their darkness, to deal with big ideas and/or to make commentaries on human nature, but in the end there’s no there there…
Oh, ok, thanks! The sentence I quoted from TeaCup…pardon me, SIR Teacups 
had me confused as to who was doing the retiring and why.
I agree with this for every incarnation of Batman I have seen except this one. The Character arc for Bruce Wayne in the Nolan movies is he gets “fixed” and doesn’t need to be Batman anymore.
That’s MISTER Sir Teacups to you!
Conventional comic-book wisdom is the other way around. Usually in contrast to Superman. I.e., Batman is the mask of Bruce Wayne, but Clark Kent is the mask of Superman.
No it isn’t. At least not since the 80s. Even BTAS got that right.
He’s not pretending anything when he’s Batman though. He only pretends when he’s Bruce Wayne. He wants to be out there fighting, but needs to wear a mask. When he’s Bruce, he pretends to be a womanizing alcoholic who lounges around all day, burns his house down, and wrecks Lamborghinis.
Except that’s the very reason that Rachel says she can’t be with him at the end of Batman Begins. She even says while stroking his face, “This is the mask you wear.”
I suspect this was shot in Los Yorgo or New Yorgo. Nolanverse Gotham is Chicago with a false mustache, but he seems to have wanted the NYSE for the stock exchange.
IIRC the entire second movie was shot in Pittsburgh. Which is why they had the football scene at Heinz field and featured Steelers players
I think we are agreeing. He isn’t “fixed” until the end of the third movie. It was his arc for the trilogy, not one movie in the trilogy.
Except of course, you can’t ‘fix’ Batman, any more than you can fix the Joker or Two-Face or the majority of Batman’s villains. That’s the one trait they all share, including Batman…they are irredeemably broken.
And trapped in a vicious circle as well: some are broken by him, some break him further.
Here’s a question I had even during the film: How the hell does ALFRED know so much about the League of Shadows and Bane?