I think whatever parallels are there are intended for an examination, not an endorsement.
Why? It acknowledges negative impacts in pursuit of the greater good (protecting Gotham). Gotta break a few eggs and all.
I disagree. We are certainly expected to sympathize with Bruce Wayne/Batman. (And by extension, with Bush.) We are expected to feel sorry that he must take on this great burden and be hated and pursued for our sake.
Leaving that aside for a moment and returning to the Robin question… 
Didn’t they set up a potential Robin at the end of Batman Begins? The young boy Bruce saved? That screamed “Look, it’s Robin” when I saw it the first time.
Robin is the ruination of Batman as a character. Please! No Robin! 
Jesus Christ people, superheros don’t play buy the rules. If they did then they’d be working 9-5s and nobody would give a shit.
Either this film had some crappy editing, or I suck at following hyper shaky camera action sequences. Can anyone explain to me what happened during the mayor’s speech? This is what the series of events looked like to me, someone correct me if I’m wrong:
Bruce reaches an apartment overlooking the procession. He finds a group of bundled up police officers. There is an egg timer next to a pair of binoculars looking out the window.
Bruce approaches the window. The timer goes off and the window shade slides open. A sniper sees this and shoots Bruce (??).
Panic ensues on the street. Gunshots and shaky camera work. Joker, dressed up as an officer, takes a shot at… something.
Gordon lies “dead” on the street. Did Gordon plan on faking his death? If not, how did he survive?
Dent interrogates a crazy man in the back of an ambulance. Who is this guy, and how did Dent find him? What is his connection to the Joker? What the hell is going on? I was seriously lost at this point.
Another strange scene is when the Joker pushes Rachel out of the window. Batman dives after her and catcher her midair. They tumble the entire length of the building and land on a car, perfectly OK. How the hell did they survive the fall? I can buy that Batman survived, because he’s Batman, but how did Rachel not turn into soupy pulp? As I recall, it’s not like she even landed on Batman, so there was nothing to break her fall except a car. Batman didn’t use a grappling hook or extend his wings to cushion their decent. Am I supposed to believe that landing on a parked car is enough to break a 50 story fall? I know it’s a superhero movie, but that was ridiculous.
She landed on Batman. They turned in the air right before they hit the car so Batman hit the top of the car and cushioned her fall.
All of the police officers that were there to do the 21 Gun Salute were the Joker’s men. The real police officers were in the apartment that Bruce found. I don’t think the trap at the apartment was meant specifically for Batman, though. The sniper on the opposite balcony was supposed to take out the possible assassin, so the Joker set a timer for the shades to go up so the sun would reflect off the lens of the scope and distract the sniper. The sniper turns to take a shot at the window (where Bruce happened to be) thus leaving the Mayor unguarded. Gordon realizes the Mayor is being shot at, and he dives for the Mayor, trying to get him out of the line of fire (and ostensibly taking a bullet in his stead). Meanwhile, Harvey catches one of the Joker’s men (dressed as a police officer). Either that particular henchmen is supposed to be caught or all of his henchmen are wearing Rachel’s name tag (a message for Batman since the Joker now knows Batman loves her). Harvey recognizes it as a message. Eventually, it becomes clear that the kid has no idea really what’s going on where he is because he’s mad–like all of the Joker’s men.
It’s actually not that bad, IMO, as far as shaky cameras go. I found the last two Borne movies unwatchable but was okay with this one.
That entire row of people with guns turned and fired on the mayor. They were either corrupt cops or Joker’s people in disguise, or both.
I was wondering about that too. My guess is that the shot he took knocked him down but didn’t kill him, and he saw it as a chance to fake his death.
He was one of the officers that fired on the mayor. I guess they managed to catch him.
He actually did extend something to help slow the fall. It was like a parachute, but I don’t think that’s what it was.
The bundled up officers were the ones to give the 21 gun salute. The police officer shooting at the opened window was simply a cop trying to protect the mayor from snipers. He saw the window open and assumed it was the Joker or his men taking a shot at the mayor.
The Joker and his crew of schizos were taking a shot at the mayor as planned.
Yeah. It was all planned. I thought it was a bit odd that any officer there wouldn’t be wearing protection and also that the shot was a bit off anyways.
He was one of the schizo honor guard that was shot in the legs.
Got me on this one. I figured that he used his wings enough to break their fall, but I didn’t think about it much. Did raise an eyebrow though.
Sorry to be a bit late to this, but here are my questions/comments:
First, a nod to spoke about the mayor… why the eyeliner? At least that made me smile every time he showed up screen.
Also, I thought that it was implied (after Harvey became Two-Faced), and based on whom he went after, that Harvey was known to had been corrupt/known too much more than someone with a clean record. He knew about the cops working with the mobsters (and with whom in particular), for example.
I didn’t see Batman Begins, so this discussion about Scarecrow and Batgirl confuses me… Whom do they think is Batgirl, and who is this Scarecrow?
I thought Harvey was dead, but my companion thought Two Face was still alive… We’ll see if they make a third one.
How did Batman use the Joker’s fingerprint on the reconstructed bullet to find the apartment with the tied up police officers?
Oh, there’s no “maybe” about it.
And I disagree. We are meant to see the complicated decisions, and sacrifices, Batman must make. I don’t buy that Nolan is making sweeping statements about parallels.
Nolan may not be making sweeping parallels, but “how do you fight a terrorist without becoming one yourself” sure seemed to be a major theme of the movie.
I would imagine that’s because “how do you fight a villain without becoming one yourself” is a common theme for Batman and was a big part of Batman Begins.
I was a little creeped out about the acceptance/justification of an armed vigilante keeping crime off Gotham’s streets, but if you want to examine it with Bush up there, consider the destruction of the cell phone sonar. Why didn’t Bats keep it? Why would he destroy a tool like that? Sure, this one crazy bastard might be torn down because of it, but what about the other crazy bastards to come? Wouldn’t this be a useful tool? Would a man of high moral standards decry something so important and necessary as the Patriot Act – whoops, Bat-Sonar?
Take the movie’s own imagery if you want. Knowing that a nasty dude is in a particular area, using creepy spy technology to infiltrate and get that one guy out is one thing. Everyone is cool with that, more or less. Spy on everyone in Gotham and it’s morally indefensible. But that’s what Bats is – he does horrible things so his city doesn’t have to suffer the consequences of nobody doing them. His hands are dirty so nobody else’s are. Which is still creepy, but he does have one moral bone in his body.
As for me and the movie: I dunno. It was good, though I’m not sure I could see it again soon. But there was something lacking in this movie and in Batman Begins, for me, sort of like watching a young man try a little too hard to impress his date. Ledger as the Joker was excellent, but I never liked the Bat-Snarl. In the animated series, Batman just sounded seriously pissed off all the time. There is a difference between growling hatred at villains and doing a bad Harvey Fierstein impression.
I agree; it’s a difficult question, worth examining.
And it’s not a new question, frankly. Much more than 8 years old, I wager…
Thanks for the explanations. I’m not sure why I missed some of those important details. I guess I was suffering from IMAX sensory overload or something. For what it’s worth, my friend I was with also had trouble following that scene. The editing could have been more clear.
Speaking of being creeped out, I was a little disturbed when the entire audience cheered and pumped fists when Joker did the disappearing pencil trick. A man just got his face impaled! Yay?