Foreshadowing / The Dark Knight Rises

• Here's one combined with Rule of Symbolism. When Bane first fights Batman, in part of his Break Them by Talking to him Bane says, "Oh, you think darkness is your ally? You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man. By then, it was nothing to me but blinding! The shadows betray you because they belong to me!" This first one-on-one battle takes place in Bane's barely lit underground base beneath Gotham, ending in Bats getting absolutely curb-stomped. Then, near the movie's end when Batman returns the favor and defeats him in a rematch, it happens out in broad daylight on Gotham's streets.
• To Miranda Tate being Talia al Ghul:
  • When Bruce runs into Miranda at the party, she mentions the importance of bringing "balance to the world". She also appears wearing a mask to hide herself, then removes it.
  • Miranda tells Daggett he only wants money, "and the power you think it buys you." Just before he's killed, Daggett protests that he paid Bane a fortune, only for Bane to reply sardonically, "And this gives you power over me?"
  • Miranda has a mysterious scar on her back similar to the League of Shadows brand seen early in Begins.
  • When told that Batman can't evacuate her just yet, she says "Do what's necessary." Like her father did.
  • Bane disposes of Daggett immediately after Tate gets on the board at Wayne Enterprises. In fact, Daggett enters the scene where he dies complaining about precisely that.
  • After sleeping with Bruce, she has a monologue about how much she loves fire and what it means to her. This follows a good hour of fanatical terrorists using fire as a metaphor for their Evil Plan.
  • It's very easy to overlook, but Bane tells Bruce during their first fight that he did not see light until he "was a man". We are then treated to what we are led to believe is his story, about a child escaping the prison. This might not foreshadow Miranda's true identity, but it does allude to the fact that the child is not actually Bane. Also, in prison, the doctor explains that he treated Bane and the purpose of Bane's mask. The child did not look in pain, and had no mask, at the time of her escape.
  • Also when Bruce assumes that Bane is the child who escaped, the doctor replies, "An old legend, nothing more."
  • After Lucius Fox refuses Bane's demands, even when he has another board member at gunpoint, Miranda hastily steps in and allows Bane to activate the bomb. It's a wonder Lucius didn't become suspicious of her then and there, considering that her decision put the entire city in jeopardy.
  • Just before Alfred and Bruce's schism, Alfred correctly points out that with Ra's al Ghul dead, somebody would have succeeded him as the leader of the League of Shadows — someone like, say, an excommunicated extremist. Bruce likewise dismisses Bane as a mercenary rather than a leader of a cult of psychopaths. Ironically, both Bruce and Alfred's musings are right: An excommunicated member of the League did succeed Ra's and Bane is an enforcer rather than a leader.
• To Bruce Wayne's "death":
  • Alfred's conversation that he's already buried too many members of the Wayne family and will not bury Bruce.
  • Blake mentioning that he might not get a chance to thank Batman later.
  • Batman telling Selina that he hasn't given the people of Gotham everything yet.
  • The positioning of the bat symbol behind Batman's back on the poster evokes angel wings.
  • To Bruce Wayne surviving: the official toy made for The Bat has the gimmick of launching Batman from the cockpit.
  • The Clean Slate program. Designed to allow all kinds of records concerning a person's life to be altered, destroyed or made anew entirely, allowing that person to begin with a new life (hence Clean Slate). This foreshadows Bruce Wayne "dying" and beginning a new life separate from his past as both Bruce Wayne and Batman.
• To John Blake replacing Bruce Wayne:
  • Blake throwing away his handgun after shooting two henchmen, disgusted at his use of lethal force.
  • Blake being the one to put together John Daggett's connection with Bane's construction work throughout the city.
  • Blake figuring out on his own that Bruce Wayne is Batman; and Gordon's acknowledgment of Blake as a detective.
  • Batman giving Blake the curious advice of wearing a mask.
  • Batman showing Blake how to use his smoke bombs.
  • Bruce telling Blake about Batman as a symbol, telling him that "anyone can be Batman, that's the point."
• When Gordon chews Foley out, he says "Look, Peter, I'm not asking you to march down Grand in your dress blues, but something has to be done." Guess what Foley wears for the final battle.
• At the beginning of the film, on the airplane, CIA Agent Wilson asks if removing Bane's mask would kill him. Bane replies that "It would be extremely painful." Literal truth! Then he adds "... for you" to turn it into a threat.
• Bruce Wayne notes early on that "One man's tool is another man's weapon" regarding his own armory. Bane seizes it, and puts it to good use terrorizing Gotham.
• That Miranda was the child and the protector was Bane.
  • A small one, but when Bane says, "That's a lovely, lovely voice" listening to the boy singing the national anthem at the football game? It shows that he has a soft spot for kids. Did you notice that he also says it after the kid sings the line, "And the rocket's red glare / the bombs bursting in air / Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there"? Because how do you think that bomb is going to be disposed of?
  • Look closely at the way the protector moves and fights. He does many of Bane's moves before the child could be trained. Some of the moves are strikingly similar to the moves he performs when disarming the lobby guards during the stock exchange robbery.
  • Both Miranda and Bane give similar "money does not equal power" lines to Daggett. Miranda says to him, "You only understand money and the power you think it buys." Bane says to him, "And this gives you power over me?"
  • "I didn't see the light until I was already a man."
  • Whenever they speak of the child, the prisoners use that specific phrase: "the child". Any event which undoubtedly refers to Bane uses his name, and the prisoners never speak of the two as if they're one and the same.
  • When the mother is attacked in their cell, the child stabs one of her attackers In the Back, as Miranda would later do to Batman.
• In the beginning of the film Mayor Anthony Garcia tells the audience gathered around Wayne Manor on Harvey Dent Day, that the Dent Act (which at the time made certain that over 1000 Gotham criminals stayed locked up without parole) won't be repealed as long as he's still around. He's blown up during the attack on the football stadium, and among the first of Bane's actions afterwards is to expose the truth about Harvey Dent.
• The little device Bruce used to disable paparazzi cameras foreshadows one of Batman's new toys, an EMP gun^note which renders all electronics useless.
• Selina pretends to be Bruce's wife in order to steal his car. At the end of the movie, we see she's more or less become so for real.
• In the previous movie, Fox warned Bruce that his new Batsuit, while more flexible, would increase his vulnerability to knives.
• After Selina steals Mrs. Wayne's pearls, he looks up her record, and Alfred says the pair should 'exchange notes over coffee", snarkily. At the end of the movie, he sees them in a cafe.