The Dark Knight Saga: Difference between revisions

** This has actually been the comic approach for a couple of decades now, although the Batmobile being, essentially, a re-purposed ''tank'' rather than a custom-built sportscar was a new element.

*** Though even it harkens to the comics as the Batmobile from ''[[The Dark Knight Returns]]'' was an explicit inspiration for the Tumbler.

* [[Badass Beard]]: Bruce in both ''Batman Begins'' and ''The Dark Knight Rises'', and Ducard in ''Begins''.

* [[Badass Cape]]: Not only is it stylish, it's made of shape-memory fibers that allow it to turn into a hang glider when an electric current is run through it.

* [[Badass Longcoat]]: Bruce a few different times in ''Begins'', The Joker, Jim Gordon and Bane (along with a [[High Collar of Doom]]).

* [[Bald Black Leader Guy]]: Commissioner Loeb (see [[Composite Character]] below)

* [[Big Bad]]: Ra's al Ghul in ''Batman Begins'', The Joker in ''The Dark Knight'', and (if the trailers and promotional materials are to be trusted) Bane in ''The Dark Knight Rises''.

* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: ''Batman Begins.'' Also, ''[[Pyrrhic Victory|The Dark Knight]]''.

* [[Blood on These Hands]]

* [[Corrupt Politician]]: The trilogy isn't as bad as the comics. In addition to Gordon and Dent, there's an honest judge and an honest mayor, and the Commissioner before Gordon was honest as well.

* [[Crapsack World]]: Gotham is about crapsack as it can get while still having (just barely) some hope.

* [[Darker and Edgier]]: The films in ''The Dark Knight Saga'' are arguably the darkest adaptations of Batman to date.

* [[Deconstruction]]: Especially in ''The Dark Knight''. Batman is operating in the real world, where superhero armor has trade-offs between protection and flexibility. Gotham is as real a city as Hong Kong and doesn't have overly intimidating architecture. Ultimately the film can be seen as asking whether heroes (and human beings themselves) are motivated by abstract principles (Batman) or have no principles at all (The Joker). This is basically the same question that Watchmen asked ("What would motivate a real life Superhero?"), albeit ''The Dark Knight'' gives the opposite answer.

** Arguably, the armor and architecture examples are more a [[Reconstruction]] than a [[Deconstruction]].

*** Even when Maroni thought The Joker was still technically working for him and the mob, he was still too scared of the Joker to give up any information about him to Batman.

** Catwoman expresses fear of Bane in the trailer, his apparent actions make it well founded.

* [[Elaborate Underground Base]]: The Batcave in the first movie. In the second, the Batcave is basically a big white room underneath some Wayne company property with some equipment, a computer, and an incinerator. Everything else pops out of the walls.

** It's mentioned in the film that reconstruction of Wayne Manor was still taking place, so the "Whitecave" was a temporary solution.

{{quote|'''Bruce Wayne''': You think I should go to the hospital?

'''Jim Gordon''': You don't watch a whole lot of news, do you, Mr. Wayne? }}

* [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist]]: Lucius Fox appears to be an expert in toxicology, ballistics, computer technology, sonar, radio communications and personal protective equipment, to name a few.

** [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in that he used to be the head of a highly prolific R&D department, which, as shown, produced a lot of things. A working knowledge of the science behind most of those things would probably be a necessary part of the job - if not necessary, from what we know of Fox, he'd pride himself on knowing about it anyway.

* [[Porn Stache]]: Sported by Jim Gordon.

* [[Race Lift]]: Commisioner Loeb (Caucasian in the comics, African-American in the films) and Bane (Hispanic in the comics, Caucasian in the films).

* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: <s>Sergeant</s> <s>Lieutenant</s> Commissioner Gordon in both films. Also Commissioner Loeb, Mayor Garcia, and Harvey Dent earlier in ''The Dark Knight''. Later subverted with ol' Harvey Two-Face, though.

* [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job]]: The most widely known example.

* [[Rule of Cool]]: A whole ''lot'' of stuff.

* [[Shoot the Bullet]]: Batman pulls one of these off in Gotham Knight, except since he doesn't use guns, he simply punches the bullet out of the air with the armored part of his gauntlet (because, you know, a batarang wouldn't be half as badass). This is a bullet fired from a high powered sniper rifle, from a train moving at full speed, towards a moving target.

* [[Shown Their Work]]: When Bruce Wayne dumps his wine over the balcony. (To clarify: in the comics Batman doesn't drink alcohol ''ever'', and when it looks like he is then it's actually apple juice. This is perhaps the least known thing about Batman.)

* [[So Last Season]]: The batsuit from ''Batman Begins'' proving inadequate to the task in ''The Dark Knight''. At least now he can move his neck for the first time in twenty years.

* [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]]: Crane, one of the main villains from ''Batman Begins'', was reassigned in the sequel to the head Mook of the [[Batman Cold Open]]. On the other hand, [[The Joker]] ends up being worse than ''the entire mob'' put together!

* [[Status Quo Is God]]: Averted in [[Batman Begins]] and [[The Dark Knight]].

* [[Armor-Piercing Slap]]: Rachel delivers ''two'' of these to Bruce after he shows her the gun with which he planned on murdering Joe Chill before an assassin hired by Falcone beat him to it.

* [[Ax Crazy]]: Mr. Zsasz. Though he's pretty quiet during his small amount of screen time, the tie-in video game displays him as very much so.

* [[Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop]]: Supposedly most of Gotham's police are portrayed as corrupt. Gordon and Loeb are the only apparent exceptions to this (though you might assume Loeb is fairly incompetent).

{{quote|'''Batman''': You're a good cop. One of the few.

'''Batman''': Falcone brings in shipments of drugs every week. Nobody takes him down. Why?

'''Gordon''': He's paid up with the right people. }}

* [[Batman Gambit]]: The League of Shadows pulls off a major one towards the end of the movie; {{spoiler|they release several rapists and serial killers from Crane's asylum, so as to have a lot of police sent to the island it's on, and said island isolated from the rest of the city by having the bridges connected to it raised. Once the police are in, and the island is isolated, they disperse the fear toxin to incapacitate the police and drive them and everyone else into mass panic. Of course, said League didn't anticipate that there were people on the island that had antidote to the fear toxin, and sure enough, Gordon uses the antidote and manages to remain rational, until Batman shows up and gets Gordon to have a bridge lowered and drive off the island to get to the point where the train carrying the microwave emitted would be destroyed. Still though, it was a considerably clever use of the gambit, since you can't really blame the police for failing to guess that the releasing of a bunch of rapists and serial killers from an asylum would actually only be the MILD part of the problem.}}

* [[Beard of Evil]]: Ducard sports the Fu Manchu of villainy, as does {{spoiler|fake! Ra's al Ghul.}}

* [[Dull Surprise]]: The Wayne employee overseeing the water is remarkably blase about the idea of {{spoiler|the entire city's water supply exploding}}.

* [[Entitled Bastard]]: [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] with Ra's.

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: Jonathan Crane might show signs of this in comparison to the other main villains of the movie, [[Alternate Character Interpretation|depending on how you interpret some of the dialogue]]. Examples include:

** When Ducard explains his plan for {{spoiler|poisoning Gotham}}, he adds that Crane helped under the impression that the plan was to hold the city to ransom. Does this imply that Ducard expected Crane to object to mass murder, or that Ducard wanted to make sure Crane thought there was something in it for himself?

* [[Mr. Exposition]]: A bit part exists to quickly recap the train situation as it's happening. {{spoiler|After it blows up spectacularly}}, he cheers, so anyone who hasn't been paying attention knows that it's a good thing.

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Ra's Al Ghul translates in Arabic to "Head of the Demon". Ra's is obviously not one of the heroes with that name.

* [[Needle in a Stack of Needles]]: Ducard's training, where he hides amongst his followers.

* [[Never Trust a Trailer]]: A lot of promotional material made Scarecrow look like he was the [[Big Bad]].

* [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]]: Carmine Falcone's [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] to Bruce Wayne gives him the idea of becoming Batman.

* [[Non-Idle Rich]]: Thomas Wayne, Bruce's father, who still works as a doctor at the hospital despite being worth billions. Bruce also qualifies, when he's not engaging in frivolous pursuits in order to maintain his image as a [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job]].

* [[Oh Crap]]: Averted by Ra's when Batman swoops down to confront him. In contrast with the terrified reactions of Batman's previous opponents, Ra's nonchalantly remarks:

{{quote|'''Ra's''': Well, well. You took my advice about theatricality a bit... ''literally''.}}

** Played straight when he realises Batman intends to ''crash'' the train, as well as leave him there.

{{quote|'''Batman''': I won't kill you. But I ''don't'' have to save you.}}

* [[The Paragon Always Rebels]]: Bruce for Ducard and the League of Shadows

* [[Psycho Psychologist]]: Dr. Jonathan Crane; AKA Scarecrow.

** During the "secrets of scary people" scene, Flass warns Falcone that there's something going on and they should bail. Falcone just sits there in his car for a little while, then decides to get up to see for himself what's going on... namely, that Batman's beating up several of Falcone's goons at the same time. Apparently even with this going on right in front of him it takes him a little while to figure out that Batman's someone to be feared. So, he decides to get back to his car to get a gun. {{spoiler|Too late.}}

* [[Soiled City on a Hill]]: Gotham City is this from the point of view of Henri Ducard and the League of Shadows.

* [[Suspect Is Hatless]]: During the Batmobile chase with the increasingly frantic cops.

{{quote|'''Cop''': It's a black...tank!}}