Well guess what? Unless the franchise is taken out of Chris Nolan’s hands, it will never happen.

You see, that’s because in the “trying to be super-real” Nolan world of Batman, everything has to be believable as being possible within reality.  Now, if he had pulled that off as well as he did in “Batman Begins”, there would be little to complain about - but the reality is broken constantly in “The Dark Knight” while simultaneously trying to reinforce “this can be real”.  “This can be real… ignore the man behind the curtain…”

Either one has to let go of the whole “super-real comic adaptation” or make it a given that there are many fantastic things which can only exist within the world of comics – one of the greatest reasons comics have such great appeal.  You can’t ride the fence.  BB didn’t ride the fence, and it worked.  TDK rode the fence in ridiculous ways, and none of them because fantastic scenarios were presented, but because it was presented as realistic yet completely unrealistic things were utilized to move the story along.

Just step back and observe the tone of “Batman Begins” and compare it to “The Dark Knight” and given the background of how Gotham was presented in either one, how the story was played out, how the theme was established, think about which version of the Batman “reality” one could possibly see Superman showing up in.  Only in the world of “Batman Begins”, but now that possibility is gone.

So, if you ever hoped for such a team-up in a movie, and realize that will not be possible, you can only blame yourself for having gone to see TDK 2, 3, 4 or more times, shooting the box office for it up, and reaffirming to Warner Bros to keep Nolan on the ticket for the next one.  Pat yourself on the back.

In the storyline (which seems to have taken place within the estimated span of 2-4 weeks), The Joker seems to be able to get mass volumes of explosives seemingly wherever he wanted them.  Literally hundreds of metal barrels filled with a liquid explosive of some kind and who knows what else (enough to blow up large buildings) in:

2 buildings (seemed like warehouses)
2 large boats
A major metropolitan hospital

1. Where could he BUY such large amounts of explosives from, considering Homeland Security?
2. How does he get such mass volumes of explosives into the buildings without anyone noticing?  Especially the hospital?  Considering he would need large trucks, dollies, drivers, and various henchmen to move it all in, and even more people and time to hook the explosives up to detonate in sync?
3. How could he replenish his henchmen so easily and regularly considering that he killed so many of them?  How does he generate and maintain loyalty, and how does he reward that loyalty?
4. If he burned mountains of money and didn’t care about having very much, how did he pay his henchmen?  Did they just work for free?
5. How did he do all this and still be able to be multiple steps ahead of his opponents?

Responses have to be PLAUSIBLE, believable, and reality-based.

Maybe the problem with the Tumbler was the same problem with the bat suit?  Maybe in Batman 3 (or 6?), there will be a scene of Bruce asking Lucious if he can have a Tumbler that can withstand missiles and Lucious will say “Yes, I have just the thing, except it will not be able to withstand a kick from a small child or cat claws.”

Secondly, it was known that transporting Harvey would lure out The Joker and it was known (Harvey even alliterated to this knowledge) that Batman would show up to save his ass.  They seemed awfully unprepared when things went ACCORDING TO PLAN.  The Joker shows up and it’s like chaos.  Not to mention the horrible “comic relief” from the 2nd driver of the van.

Now that I think of it, and all of Nolan’s films, he may have a good eye for visual impact or weaving complex stories (I actually do love “The Prestige” and “Batman Begins”), he clearly doesn’t understand humor or timing of humor in a movie.  Poorly timed, poorly executed.

“
If I understand it correctly, Gordon faked his own death (even though it’s edited to make it look like he got shot for real) to protect his family. Batman then decides to announce who he is but Dent takes his place. The Joker intercepts the Dent convoy but is himself intercepted by Batman. Carnage ensues including the destruction of large parts of the Gotham road system and various buildings and, seemingly by fortune, Batman, the Joker and, the driver of the convoy who is, of course, Gordon, reach a point at which the Joker is captured. Unfortunately for them that’s what he wanted all along.

So: doesn’t make very little sense when you try and add it up from characters’ POV. Why would Gordon legitimise such a ridiculous plan: there’s no guarantee it would work and he’s placing the lives of his men and Dent in very real jeopardy because he knows the Joker is coming for them. Batman may suffer from incredible pride but there’s no way he could have planned, forseen or even imagained such a successful scenario as him flipping the Joker’s truck, faking his defeat and Gordon’s reappearance because it all happened just metres away from his vehicle. The Joker needs Dent for phase 2 of this particular plan os his attempt at killing him is self serving. He needs to be caught AND he needs the guy with the phone in his stomach to make it with him otherwise he’s got no way to get Lao or the money. He surely should have walked into the station with his men a la Se7en!

I put this to a friend and he suggested the whole ‘agent of chaos’ angle which doesn’t work for me because Dent, Gordon and Batman ren’t agents of chaos and that’s the force they’re fighting against. If the Joker had initiated this then, yes, I could agree. But this is their party which the Joker crashes.

(I also have another one which is a little smaller and more of a quibble. But all of the Joker’s plans are well prepared, well researched and devoted entirely to a double aim in which everyone looks one way while he goes the other. The only case that’s not true for is the boats. There’s nothing the Gotham PD can do OTHER THAN look for him. That does seem a) out of character (this is supposedly the beginning of ‘the game’… he doesn’t seem to have prepared particularly well) amd b) a writer’s convenience. The end of the Joker Batman story comes again through circumstance. Not sure on this one but thought I’d mention it while I’m writing).span>

But am I wrong? Maybe I missed something? Thoghts comments and flames wanted and expected…!
”

Lots of salient points in there.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But in the context of the scene, it was awkward and a display of mediocre acting, questionable direction, or poor editing (if the editor had multiple takes to cut from, I doubt that was the best possible versions he could have picked).

Are we being warmed up for the appearance of Robin in the next installment of the series?  A return to nipples on the rubber suits?

How in the world can a big yellow school bus crash through a bank and nobody on the street seems to notice?  Further, after the bak robbery, the bus COINCIDENTALLY pulls out of the bank and into the middle of a line of other school buses in broad daylight, with cops right up the street and no one decides to pull the bus over?

Has wnyone ever seen a school bus line?  They follow each other closer than elephants, they barely give inches of space between them yet somehow The Joker had enough room to pull out of a gaping hole in a building into traffic in the middle of a bus line and everything continues as normal in traffic as if nobody could have possibly noticed.

This was the end of the opening scene of the movie.  It pretty much matches how the rest of the movie goes – “This is supposed to be real – oh wait, now we have something completely unrealistic happen. But, serious, it’s real, don’t suspend your disbelief just yet. Oh, but wait, actually do suspend your disbelief.  No, it’s realistic. OK, it isn’t.”

Yes, “The Dark Knight” is a piece of fiction.  It is a piece of fantasy, based on a comic book.  However, the clear premise of the rebooted Batman series, and the clear goals of Chris Nolan, the director, is to ground the fiction in reality.  Nolan goes to great effort to place the world of Batman into the real world, including: the locations, the characters, the story dynamics, and the plausibility of the elements of the story and plot.  That is the obvious goal. Especially in “The Dark Knight”, extending from the basis of “Batman Begins”, there is a persistent focus on keeping things realistic and not idealistic.  TDK is an attempt at taking something sourced from fantasy and placing it into reality, and also removing any semblance of idealism.

That’s all find and good – it’s an interesting goal and “Batman Begins” pulled it off quite well.  Watching BB, the audience can truly believe the various aspects of the story.  The main problem with TDK is that it fails miserably in that regard.  There are numerous scenes and situations that are completely not plausible at all, and the audience is expected to have a greater suspension of disbelief than what is implied throughout.  It steals from the audience the very thing that is meant to prop the value of the movie up in the first place.  The movie contradicts itself, it cheats itself, and the audience.  To compensate, what the audience is given is a lot of explosions and sadistic scenes, and the masses appear to have bought into it.

So one would think that given this degradation of bat suit quality, there’s a prime opportunity in the movie for the addition of cool new gadgets.  Ya know – to make up for the stupidity.  What we get is: some sharp stuff that shoots out of his gloves.  Wow, cool.  Sharp things that fly out of the forearms of his gloves.  And the Bat Pod (motorbike) which lasted all of a single segment before getting trashed because, although he could control it enough to do a 180 against a wall, he can’t keep from crashing it when trying to avoid smashing into The Joker.

I almost forgot – we also got the amazing new addition of a short-lived hydraulic glove which allows him to bend steel… only in the first minutes of the movie.

So in anticipation of Batman 3 (or is it 6?), here are some thoughts for new gadgets and costume ideas:

• Taser guns, so he can keep The Joker from getting close enough to beat him nearly bare-handed when endless ninjas can’t
• Mace, so when The Joker or a small child with an attitude does manage to get too close he can distract them long enough to run like a bat out of hell
• A stick, so he can hit people and inflict actual damage – like causing blood to come out of their face (apparently as the interrogation room scene shows us, his fists can’t make blood come out of The Joker’s face even when he punches him dead-on and hard multiple times)
• A piece of steak so he can distract ravenous puppies
• A muzzle – not for puppies but for himself so that nobody has to listen to his rock-gargling voice as batman

I know it’s a lot of expensive-sounding gadgetry, especially for a billionaire, but we’ve got to suspend SOME disbelief, OK?

The time period of the hospital evacuation segment is implied as being enough time to evacuate an entire hospital.  The initial moments of The Joker’s threat hitting the airwaves, Gordon is heard shouting to various police crew to evacuate Gotham General Hospital as the priority (and it happens to be the one The Joker picked).  Regardless, it’s implied that the whole ruckus about the hospital happened in less than 30 minutes since the Reese guy was about to go on a TV show to expose who Batman is (seems to imply a show teaser at the beginning of a 30 or 60 minute “news” show hosted by Gary Wallace from Weird Science).  So, it’s IMPLIED as being enough time by the dialogue of the movie but in reality it would take HOURS, if not an entire day, to completely evacuate an entire hospital.  If it was the case that there was such an evacuation ahead of time, and it was evacuated before The Joker went to Dent’s room, why was Dent not evacuated?

Why would Dent be the sole patient left (contrary to Gordon wanting desperately to keep Dent safe throughout the story)?  The implication, then, is that the hospital is being evacuated at the same time The Joker shows up to Dent’s room.  The entire exchange between The Joker and Dent took place over 2-3 minutes and when The Joker walks out of the hospital it appears to be fully evacuated.

An entire major city hospital evacuated in 3 minutes.

The realness of this movie is astounding.  Not to mention how much the building actually looked like a hospital from the outside rather than an abandoned building in the middle of an industrial zone.