The Joker's haunting words to Batman in The Dark Knight are proven to be true: Gotham did turn on Batman and cast him out "like a leper" once he wasn't needed anymore. Not to mention his assertion about what all "these civilized people" would do once the chips were down. Then again, they only turned on him because they thought he killed Harvey Dent and they did not know Dent became Two-Face. Also, a lot of Gotham's citizens locked themselves in their homes during Bane's riots which were bolstered by Bane's army. Also, at the end of Rises, Batman gets a statue of himself in Gotham's City Hall after Gotham learns the truth about Dent and Batman. So maybe The Joker wasn't so right...
During Jonathan Crane'sKangaroo Court scenes, his ruined suit looks like it has straw coming out of the frayed fabric at his shoulders, evoking his outfit in the comics.
At first, Crane's cameo in the film may seem out of place, some feeling like Nolan shoehorned him in just for the sake of a fan-pleasing cameo. Then, however, one remembers that while he's been locked up for years, Crane is also an associate of the League of Shadows, which would gain him certain privileges, to say the least.
Bane's motto seems to be "the fire rises". He says the phrase in the prologue, and it's turned up on T-shirts and so forth. Think back to The Dark Knight, when Alfred tells Bruce "some men just want to watch the world burn".
Bane's story ends at this mixed with Foreshadowing, after initially seeming contradictory. If Bane got his mask after injuries in the prison, why does the child who escape not have a mask? This is resolved by the fact that this is actually the story of two people.
The Reveal that Bane's sewer lair was right under Wayne Tech calls back to the first film, where it is revealed that all the water and sewer lines in Gotham merge at Wayne Tower. This was the centerpiece of Ra's al Ghul's original plan by using the monorail and the Microwave Emitter to vaporize the system. It may be that the League scouted the area and found that one of the main chambers was right below the R&D wing, and saved the info for later, when Bane used it.
In Begins, Lucius brags that Batman's armor can "stop a knife." In Dark Knight, Lucius warns Batman that his new more flexible suit makes him more vulnerable to knives and gunfire. In Rises, Talia is able to stab Batman appears at first because, as a member of Wayne's board, she would have been able to investigate his data and find a weak point. However, Bruce wouldn't have made the blueprints for his second suit accessible to anyone but Fox. She simply slipped the knife in one of its obvious weak points in-between the plating, which would be easier to spot as his back is turned and in a lit area.
Why does Bane's voice sound so odd? It's being distorted by a mask, and he's being pumped with anesthetic gas that ruins speech functions. Considering how much his voice echoes, he may also have a voice-enhancer in that mask, Darth Vader style. It's entirely possible that his injuries prevent him from speaking loud under normal circumstances; that would also explain why he never shouts. The front grille part of Bane's mask between the gas pipes looks awfully like a loudspeaker; he might even have a microphone inside the mask. His voice is also reminiscent of that of Lord Humungus from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, whose look and behavior may have helped inspire movie-Bane's characterization.
When Selina first meets Batman, she is largely annoyed by everything he does, from trying to order her around to the "no guns, no killing" rule. After luring him into an ambush, she is far kinder, saving his life several times and eventually starting her new life with him. What's the difference? At first, she thought he was just someone hired by Bruce Wayne which, while moderately impressive, rubbed her the wrong way since it represented how rich people can use their money to make anyone do anything for them. Finding out he actually is Bruce puts him in a very different light. Not to mention that she was shown horrified to see Batman beaten up to near-death by Bane, not to mention that that scene is how she finds out that Bruce is Batman. She also softens up to Bruce himself after learning the truth behind his Millionaire Playboy facade.
During Bruce Wayne's fake funeral, Gordon reads a passage from A Tale of Two Cities: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known." Now of course, those present at his funeral - including Alfred, Lucius and John Blake - think that Bruce Wayne has died. However, this passage applies to Wayne even when he's revealed to be alive. His "far far better rest", instead of death, is finally living a normal existence with Selina Kyle by his side, knowing that John Blake now willingly bears the responsibility of being Gotham's guardian on his shoulders, and that Alfred has his wish of seeing Wayne happy granted at last. Also, the lines allude slyly to Bruce's faked death, since the character who says them in A Tale of Two Cities is the anti-hero, who allows himself to be executed so his double, whom everyone will think is dead, can escape with the heroine.
When Bane and Batman fight for the first time, Bane mentions that the first time he saw the light in the open air was as an adult. This doesn't make sense when you see the child escape the pit, but when you realize that the child was Talia and not Bane, you see that he was telling the honest truth.
It is a bit far-fetched to believe that a child would be able to climb out of the pit, until one realizes that a child would be able to get more of a running start on the ledge, stay in the air a bit longer because they are lighter, and use smaller handholds than adults.
Also, by not using the rope, it does not hinder the child from the jump. The same goes for Bruce.
The rope presents Fridge Logic, though. It's tied at the top. While there's plenty of slack, pulling it taut would allow the prisoners to climb the rope itself, walking along the wall... rather like Adam West did.
There were two ropes. The prisoners' lifeline was tied at roughly the halfway point at the ledge, where most people could climb. The rope knotted at the top was coiled up so no one at the bottom could reach it, and as it was a dry well converted to a prison, no one at the top would have any reason to throw it down.
The second rope at the top is for lowering down food and water to the prisoners.
For much of the film, the assumption is that Bane is the child who climbs out of the pit. The discovery that the story actually refers to Talia puts Batman's eventual victory in a new light; if both he and Bane had climbed from the pit, they would be equals. However, since Bane did not actually get out of the pit on his own, this means Batman is actually stronger than him, hence his victory.
It also explains Bane's stunned reaction to the burning bat-signal - Bruce Wayne managed to do something the man who broke him never could.
It also means that Bane was lying when he said he was born in darkness instead of just using it and is thus stronger than Batman, who really was born in darkness even if Bruce Wayne wasn't.
Not necessarily. He could still have been born in the pit himself, only getting out of there when Talia sent Ra's to save him.
The canon origin story of Bane is that he was born in a Mexican prison; this is probably where Talia's story comes from to begin with. It's highly likely that, like Talia, Bane was born in the prison but was just never able to escape. This is Fridge Brilliance in itself as it would only enforce the reason why he chose to protect Talia when no one else did. He didn't just feel for the child because she was defenseless, he WAS that helpless child at one point.
Another fun bit of a Call-Back: the doctor tells Bruce to make the climb without the rope so that "fear will find you again." Similarly, in Batman Begins Ra's made a big point to surprise Bruce with his greatest fear (bats) from out of nowhere, marking one of the last times he expressed genuinely human fear for himself. As Bruce prepares for his jump, bats suddenly fly from a hitherto unknown cave in the Pit's mouth, shocking Bruce just like he was in the trial. Fear found him again.
The jovial nature of Bane's voice bothered me much more than the "Sean Connery as Darth Vader" sound of it. How are you supposed to take a cold-blooded mercenary seriously when he defaults to being jolly? When he's not a mercenary but a zealot, driven by the 100% pure belief that he's doing the right thing. Unlike most of the film's heroes, he never doubts for a second the righteousness of his actions. And, for most of the movie, he pretty much demolishes those in power that he feels are corrupt and delivers "justice" to Gotham City with relative ease. No wonder he's such a happy guy.
Some anesthetic gases can create a state of euphoria and joyful feelings. In addition to the above, he maybe also be slightly high all the time.
And a lot people were disappointed with how Joker didn't use laughing gas as a weapon in TDK. Nolan didn't abandon the laughing gas idea, he just used it correctly. Like everything else in the series.
When Bruce shows up at a charity masquerade ball, he's the only one not wearing a mask. Until you realize how often other media emphasizes that Bruce Wayne is the mask and Batman is his true self. And given that Miranda appears wearing a mask and then reveals her true self...
Oh, this is spelled out. Selina asks him who he's pretending to be, and he says, "Bruce Wayne, eccentric billionaire." She doesn't grasp the significance of it at the time, of course; and the moment goes by so fast that the audience might miss it too.
During the Harvey Dent Day celebration at the start of the film, two cops note that Jim Gordon's wife has left him and taken the two kids. It brings to mind the rooftop scene in Batman: The Long Halloween, where Harvey Dent remarks to Gordon, "must be hell on a marriage." Gordon answers "Barbara understands..." - which, judging by her taking the kids off to Cleveland, shows she didn't really. The scene was also homaged in The Dark Knight, which had Gordon, Batman and Dent meet on the roof in a similar scenario.
It also brings to mind that in the comics Barbara left Gordon as well, though in the comics, Gordon's affair with Sarah Essen played a role in their marriage's demise. In The Dark Knight trilogy, there was no infidelity.
Fox's destruction of the cell-phone tracking system in TDK pays off big-time in this film, because if he hadn't wrecked it, Bane would have gotten his hands on it, due to its location in a Wayne property, and could have used it to round up Gordon, Blake, and all the other fugitive cops.
Speaking of the cell-phone sonar. The ending might, to some, seem like a cop-out. But then, remember what the narration says as Fox walks away from it in The Dark Knight? "Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded." The tagline for Rises was "Faith is broken. Hope is lost. A fire will rise." But as shown in the movie, some people (the audience included) still had faith in Batman. Our reward is his reward: seeing him overcoming his issues and living a full life.
Batman died in a nuclear blast and returned from the dead (as John Blake). He has become like Ras al Ghul; immortal, with supernatural methods.
The safety rope in the Pit is a metaphor for what the doctor tells Bruce. The lack of fear of death (the security of the rope) holds a person back (which the rope does literally when a person tries to jump to a certain platform.)
Figuratively, Alfred is Bruce's safety rope connecting him to the outside world. Once he leaves, Bruce is made to face the world without his help, which includes the scene where he returns to Wayne Manor after being kicked out of the company, but having to break in since he never had or needed any house keys.
The last scene in the film is John Blake, the new Batman, on a rising platform. The name of the film is The Dark Knight Rises.
The Nolanverse has mostly been about putting a more real-world edge or a different spin on the comic Batman mythos. Central to two of these films is obviously Ra's al Ghul. What was Ra's al-Ghul's greatest asset? The Lazarus Pit, where if you enter it, you come out young again but darker or slightly crazier than you were. Is there a Lazarus Pit in The Dark Knight Rises? Yes - with a Nolan spin on it. It's the Pit. Four people have an association with it: Ra's al Ghul, Talia al Ghul, Bane, and Bruce Wayne. Now consider what effect it had on each:
Ra's al-Ghul lost his wife in the Pit. It was this event that caused him realise there were some men who had to be fought. The Pit turned the mercenary he was into Ra's al-Ghul. He exists because of it.
Talia went from an innocent child to the daughter of Ra's al-Ghul in the Pit. By leaving it, she took on Ra's quest and his life.
Bane is defined by the Pit. Leaving it, he goes from protector of an innocent to would-be exterminator of all, innocent or guilty alike.
Bruce Wayne gets a new life because of the Pit. He recovers from his injuries there, but he also finds the strength he needs to give his life for Gotham - and it's that act, and that act alone, that allows him to finally leave the Bat behind.
In short: the Pit is the Lazarus Pit. It does in a psychological way what the Pit in the comics did in a literal, physical way - allows one to rise from the grave.
What first appears to be 2 instances of Fridge Logic: 1) Bane claiming he was "born in the darkness" when Talia is the one who was born in the Pit and 2) Why would Bane, a heartless thug, risk his life to help a little girl.... turns out to be Fridge Brilliance when you realize that if Bane was indeed born in the Pit, he identified with Talia and wanted to protect her innocence, because his innocence was lost at a young age.
In Batman Begins, Ra's al-Ghul went by the name of "Henri Ducard." In the comics, Henri Ducard is a ruthless French detective who is one of Bruce Wayne's mentors. Ra's's daughter, Talia - better known by the alias Miranda Tate throughout most of the film - is played by French actress Marion Cotillard, and Miranda retains a trace of the French accent even though she's supposed to be American or British. Perhaps "Henri Ducard" really was Ra's' name, and his daughter really was French.
Add to that that the prisoners chanting in the pit was Moroccan Arabic, and that Morocco used to be a French Protectorate and it all comes together. Though none of that explains why Bane's microphone-enhanced voice is still in Tom Hardy's British accent.
If you listen to Hardy in any interviews with his normal voice, his Bane accent is entirely different. Given Bane was exiled from the League of Shadows by Ra's for being too extremist, he's likely nomadic and travelling constantly, and accents are based on location - the more you're in a region, the more your accent adjusts to fit those around you. Combine that with the fact that Bane is also likely consistently high on painkillers because of whatever happened to his face, and that easily explains his odd, nondescript accent.
Alfred's poignant line of: "Maybe it's time we all stopped trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day!" could also be interpreted as a lampshade on the Surprisingly Realistic Outcome nature of the Dark Knight series and the idea that Batman can't be Bruce Wayne forever. Comic books allow us the wonderful illusion that our favourite characters will be around forever, but the truth we all know and can safely ignore is that the real world can never be that way.
Why would a cop gleefully tell his trainee that they're in for a show when Batman, wanted for the murders of five people, makes his first appearance in eight years? For the same reason Scarecrow knew that the gun-toting Heroic Wannabes weren't really Batman (besides the fact that there were three of them), and how Maroni wasn't quite as afraid of Batman as he was of the Joker. It made no sense to pin five murders on someone who'd spent a full year pulling off all sorts of crazy stunts without a death to his name.
Through the film, it seems that a good deal, if not most of the population doesn't believe that Batman murdered those people, not only that makes sense, but that still protects Harvey Dent's secret, after all if they won't suspect Batman, they certainly won't suspect one of the murder victims.
The cops in particular would be more likely to know the score—especially if any kind of rumor got around about what really happened to Wuertz, Ramirez, and Maroni. In The Dark Knight, Batman was their ally, and they knew it. That's also why the younger cop shoots at Batman—he's not part of the old guard that knows the Bat is alright.
Parallels: In their first fight, Bane punches and breaks part of Batman's mask, fracturing it and revealing Bruce being weakened with pain. In their second fight, Batman punches and breaks a tube on Bane's mask, eventually leading to Bane being weakened with pain.
On a similar note, Bane cannot function normally without his mask, which is how Bruce felt after Rachel's death; he couldn't fully give up the idea of being Batman, even after eight years. The difference is that Bruce eventually realized that he can move past that pain and overcome it.
Where was Joker? Most likely, he's dead. When Bane breaks out the prisoners, why would he bring someone along whom he would probably know, if he knew Gotham as well as he appeared to, was utterly untrustworthy and wanted to burn down Gotham for the sake of burning down Gotham (as opposed to making a point)? Assuming he didn't tell his guys in advance, when he found the Joker, he would have had him killed then and there.
Bane established control primarily by recruiting the prisoners at Blackgate, and most of them would certainly not have forgotten the thing with the boats. On that note, maybe the Joker had already been killed long before Bane showed up. But then again, Heath Ledger's death was the reason no mention is made to the Joker's spree in The Dark Knight, so what happened to the Joker will be left to your imagination.
The novelization establishes that the Joker is Arkham's sole inmate... and may have escaped, adding that no one really knows. Alternately, that SWAT officer may have put a bullet in the Joker's head.
In TDK, when the Joker says that whoever doesn't want to play by his rules has to leave the city, he claims that there's a surprise for the people who go through the bridges and tunnels. Those are the first two pieces of infrastructure blown up in Bane's takeover.
And incidentally, the method that everyone was shown using in TDK as a result, the ferries and other boats, are unusable due to the ice on the water around Gotham, and the threat of the League nuking if they saw anyone arriving.
There are a lot of little hints that Miranda isn't what she seems. One involves an Ironic Echo he didn't pick up on until the second time watching the film. When talking to John Daggett, Miranda says the only thing he understands is "Money and the power [he] thinks it buys." Later, when it becomes obvious Bane is about to kill him, Daggett says "I've paid you a small fortune!" to which Bane dismissively responds, "And this gives you power over me?" to make clear he doesn't like how Daggett treats him.
Also, Miranda makes a fire in Wayne Manor. Just like Ra's Al Ghul did.
How did the cops mark the wrong truck when they were looking for the fusion bomb? Miranda was the one holding the Geiger counter and told them the wrong one.
How did Bane's troops know where the CIA specialists were meeting Fox and Blake? Miranda/Talia probably tipped them off to the meeting.
The Joker: All you people care about is money. This city deserves a better class of criminal, and I'm gonna give it to 'em!
The Joker: It's not about the money, it's about sending a message; Everything burns!
Note also that Batman throws a shotgun to Miranda right before asking Bane where is the trigger.
"Theatricality and deception are powerful agents... to the uninitiated! But you and I are initiated, aren't we, Bruce?" These are indeed Bane's deadliest tools. He shows up with a massive display of force, looses vast, bombastic speeches and makes sweeping, dramatic gestures, all the while hiding his true purpose. He's using the League's own doctrine against Gotham in a way that Ra's al Ghul never did, and it is a tremendously powerful tool. Probably even worse than the League did it.
Each of the main villains represents one of those "powerful agents". Bane is Theatricality, he is The Heavy and a Dark Messiah, his iconic skull-like mask makes him in-universe Nightmare Fuel, and his aforementioned "bombastic speeches and dramatic gestures" make sure he is always the center of attention. Catwoman represents Deception, pretending to be an innocent bystander but in actuality is a Femme Fatale who just wants to steal from you. Later, Talia takes over the role of Deception after the former's Heel–Face Turn and the latter's Face–Heel Turn. She, like Catwoman, manipulates others into believing she is innocent, but hides her true purpose. She shifts all attention to Bane, even Talia's backstory becomes Bane's. She then, quite literally, stabs Bruce in the back. Together they represent a scarily effective force, almost winning because of it.
Recurring elements between the films: In Batman Begins Thomas Wayne's final words to his son were "Don't be afraid." By embracing his fear of death in the pit, Bruce takes his first step away from the event that defined him, and towards letting letting go of his past trauma.
The Kangaroo Courts were set up so that, if somebody chose exile and even if they didn't they would have to march for at least a mile over the treacherous ice to escape the city... to find soldiers under orders to shoot anybody they caught trying to escape, lest Bane detonate a nuclear bomb, after spending the better part of an hour committing themselves to making it to freedom on the other side. "There can be no true despair without false hope."
Batman inadvertently did this himself. By putting the coin on the table, he gave Harvey the false hope that Rachel had lived.
The false hope motif can also be seen in what Bane did to the police men: He didn't kill them, he merely imprisoned them, and kept them alive via food and water supplies. Thus there was always hope for them to escape. (Which they do eventually, but that didn't seem to have been part of Bane's plan. Or even if it was, there was still the bomb.) Hell, maybe he even knew that they found a way to communicate with the outside world, and deliberately didn't close that leak, all for the sake of giving them false hope.
The safety rope in the Pit is also false hope—it keeps you from dying if you slip and fall, but its physical restriction and heavy weight, as well as the small comfort of knowing you won't die right away, mean that you can't make the last jump out while using it. If you use the rope, you choose to stay alive in prison rather than trying to escape.
Recurring elements between the films: In the second movie, The Dark Knight, Batman gets the Batpod, which is symbolically a horse.This film in turn is called The Dark Knight Rises. Fitting then that his new vehicle would be a flying craft.
In the Dark Knight, Harvey Dent says that one day the Batman will have to answer for the laws that he has broken, but it will be to the people of Gotham, and not to threats of some madman. Then at the end of Dark Knight Rises, the people of Gotham City creates a statue of Batman after it's believed he died for saving Gotham from Bane's nuclear bomb: in other words, a madman's threat.
Bane and Talia want to die in the nuclear explosion destroying the League of Shadows. However, this makes sense because the League of Shadows was already led by a Ra's al Ghul, and since the latest person to hold that title died in Begins and they never found a replacement, the League was living on borrowed time just like Gotham.
You know that meme about Batman always winning if he has prep time? What were those six months in the Pit?
Sharp-eyed viewers will notice that the shots of Batman in the plane and the bomb detonating do not occur in the proper order. Because, if the nuke went off over open water, why are there are shadows playing over Batman's face?
Somebody mentioned on a scifi stackenchange forum that Batman blowing up the building before the Bat flew out over the bay with the bomb was also the same time Batman ejected himself from the Bat, they claimed that the last time Batman was confirmed to actually be in the Bat himself was when he was still in the city. So naturally all this means that Batman was in Gotham with everyone else while the autopilot flew the Bat with the bomb over the bay. In order to confirm this for myself, I rewatched the scene closely and what you mentioned (there being shadows playing over Batman's face during the last shot where Batman was actually in the cockpit) is what sold the claim that Batman ejected himself before the Bat flew out over the bay with the bomb and was actually in the city with everyone else when it detonated. This truth also knocks out the question as to how Batman survived the blast-because he was in Gotham the whole time including during the blast and ejected himself from the cockpit while blowing up the building as a distraction for it.
In light of all of the "mask" symbolism, is it a coincidence that Bane's Music is so similar to Michael Myers's?
Bane makes all these affectations and makes out like he wants anarchy in the city for love of freedom. He invites the people of Gotham to take what they want. But instead of even briefly buying in like the crowds in 1989 did for The Joker, most people just take to their homes. Bane got his makeshift secondary army from people who had nothing to lose, who were marginalized by society or had done so to themselves. Of course, Bane mocked his own deception when he freed the Blackgate prisoners. But why didn't the middle join in the anarchic fest? Not just being invested in law and order or complacency explains this. But what does is, for all their planning and manipulations, Talia and Bane had nothing on The Joker when it came to playing with people's minds and hearts. In effect, the brutal manipulations they had suffered less than a decade ago inoculated them against doing anything but hunkering down. Gotham may have cowered in fear at their plans, but it rolled its eyes at their lies.
"How It Should Have Ended" as an parody of Bane's speech where he says the Crowd can do anything they want. They promptly ask for him to get rid of the bomb which he refuses. They then ask who has the trigger again he refuses. They ask to use the bridges or get the cops back which again he refuses becoming more and more irritated. They begin asking him so many logical questions he gets flustered about why the people of Gotham aren't just trusting he's helping them.
Batman having John throw the small grenade wasn't just setup for a joke about his utility belt. It was a warning for any officers inside to get away from the wall, producing enough noise to be heard while not strong enough to actually hurt anyone with shrapnel or burns.
Bane is described as being the pure evil that comes back from a pit where criminals are cast with no hope of escape. He's the extreme symbol of what the Dent Act and Blackgate Prison would've produced, if they weren't undone.
The battle for the courthouse at first doesn't seem to make much sense when you think about most of the context of the film. Bane's got his own army of around a hundred guys even before he takes Batman down, he's released at least a thousand ticked off prisoners from Blackgate (apparently armed up with AK-47s)to join his army, called up rioters to tear apart the city, and the cops are apparently limited to around 3,000 starving men who appear to have been deprived of most of their weaponry (we don't see any SWAT members keeping their rifles, and only about half of them have their sidearms that we see later in the fight). Theoretically, even after Bruce takes out the Tumblers Bane's deployed, the cops should still be reduced to swiss-cheese by the hundreds of assault weapon equipped henchmen. However, we're talking about Bane here, and if there's one single example of Even Evil Has Standards he would be likely to follow, it might just be a reluctance to supply gangbangers and hitmen with fully loaded automatic weapons, especially considering their unproven loyalty to him. Add in the fact that the U.S. Army outside the city is still probably strong enough to cut off any arms supplies and shipments to Bane's army, and you suddenly realize why there's only one single soldier in the front ranks actually firing on the cops; he's the only one with ammunition. In fact the only rifles you see being fired in the battle are the Heckler & Koch G 36 Cs used by Bane's Elite Mooks. And guess who are the only members of Bane's army to actually maintain a disciplined fire from behind cover?
In short words, Bane just used the Blackgate prisoners as Cannon Fodder. He just needed them to take over the city and destroy Harvey's reputation, as well as punish the people of Gotham for their corruption and lethargy. They're the vanguard against the police because he wouldn't sacrifice his loyal men who are true to the League of Shadow's cause. And he would have very likely escaped with Miranda/Talia and his men and let them all die with the rest of Gotham until Batman came back. He was doing exactly what the League did in London, Constantinople and Rome: Laser-Guided Karma against corrupt, arrogant and/or apathetic civilizations by turning its own corruption against itself. It actually becomes beautiful when you realize Bane deconstructed just about everything Batman and Gordon did; he revealed the cover-up for Harvey's crimes(thus exposing the incompetence, hypocrisy and corruption of the police force), he converted the reactor into a neutron bomb(all because Bruce was too paranoid about the potential weaponization to use it to actually help Gotham and its people, a direct jab at Batman's Omniscient Morality License and I Work Alone attitude), used Dagget and the stock exchange to help his plan(fooling and discarding the high class Corrupt Corporate Executives and Morally Bankrupt Bankers, exposing the flaws of their narcissistic and savage capitalistic mentality), freed the criminals and turned them into an army(deconstructing Batman's "one rule" and the police's submission to it; you can try and be humane, but at SOME point you will have overflowing prisons. There's also the fact all criminals in Blackgate are street-level, none of them are white collar guys like Dagget and Stryver, the true reason for Gotham's class war and thus the criminals). It's the ultimate Take That! at the whole idea of the Batman's eternal crusade to clean Gotham City. They literally picked apart and crumbled Bruce and Gotham's whole little world formula around them, as well as tearing down the arguably Anvilicious Rousseau Was Right from the second movie. They turned Gotham's little plan in on itself! Kreia and The Joker would be proud!
That that concrete cement mixer truck driver was up to no good suddenly makes more sense once you view the stock exchange robbery a second time: the truck had no apparent reason to be parked there, as there were no other workers around when Blake walks up to the truck. Also, if the truck hadn't been there, Bane and his men wouldn't have had an open escape route, even if the wedge barriers were raised.
Some viewers have questioned how the CIA interrogator could be duped into letting Bane onto his plane. It's because the soldier who tells him that the "prisoners" work for the masked man is Barsad, Bane's right hand sniper.
It's all in a name. The movie is called The Dark Knight Rises. The comic book storyline upon which it the plot is somewhat loosely based is called Knightfall. They tell basically the same story - Bane breaks Batman, Bruce Wayne must come to terms with the fact that he might not be able to be Batman any more - but have opposite themes. In Knightfall, Bruce Wayne's fall breaks him psychologically, and he spends the bulk of the storyline building himself back up to reclaim the title of Batman. In Rises, Bruce's fall is liberating. It enables him to let go of his self-imposed responsibilities and leave Batman behind. Movie-Bruce rises above his obsessions; Comic-Bruce accepts them and falls back into them.
At the beginning of the movie, Mayor Garcia says "people are talking about repealing the Dent Act, and to them I say, 'not on my watch'". Well, it's only after the Mayor is killed in the explosion at the stadium that the act is unofficially repealed by Bane's army.
Bruce Wayne wants to be a Hope Bringer. He wants to restore the faith of the people in order and justice. When he escapes the Pit, the first thing he does is toss a rope down to the rest of men in the Pit. He brings them hope too.
When Blake talks to Bruce at Wayne Manor, he says that when he found Gordon, he was babbling about Bane. Which begs the question of, "When the sewer thugs knock Gordon out and deliver him to the lair, how does Gordon know Bane's name despite none of Bane's henchmen addressing him by name?" However, it becomes Fridge Brilliance when you realize two things: the first is that Bane is a pretty well-known and wanted international terrorist, judging from Bruce's conversation with Alfred as they are watching Blake drive away from the manor. Bane is also known to the CIA, based on the opening sequence. And as Gordon is the police commissioner of one of the most populous cities in this version of the United States, it's more than likely he has access to counterterrorism reports and briefings. And that would make it easy to infer that that is how Gordon identifies Bane by sight even though none of his henchmen refer to him by name. The breathing mask had something to do with it as well.
And if that is not the case, then more likely the answer comes from reading the script. In the script, after the two sewer thugs knock Gordon out, they identify him as the police commissioner. They hesitate for a moment, then decide it's best to take him to Bane, and they mention Bane by name. This bit may have been filmed as a deleted scene and was cut.
Parallels: In Batman Begins, Bruce throws the pistol that he intended to kill Joe Chill with into the bay, disgusted that he almost used a gun to hurt someone. In The Dark Knight Rises, Blake shoots two of Bane's men in the construction yard as they try to kill him. Once he realizes that he's killed the men and probably ruined his chances of getting information in time to save the day, he looks at the gun in horror and then tosses it away. He doesn't throw it exactly the same way as Bruce did, but there is a parallel between the two moments and gives us a hint about what Blake's future might be.
As some have commented above, the title The Dark Knight Rises can be interpreted in many ways. In the literal sense, it refers to Bruce Wayne rising from the Pit. Within the movie series' continuity, it refers to Batman rising back up after he fell from grace at the end of The Dark Knight. By saving Gotham he re-establishes himself as a hero in the eyes of its citizens, after he was forced to let his reputation be tainted in the previous movie. Within this movie, it refers to Batman rising above the stature of a flesh-and-blood human; the statue seen at the end of the movie confirms he has become something more than a man: an icon. Finally, the movie's plot can be seen as the fall and rise of the Dark Knight. While saving his city, the Bruce Wayne Dark Knight falls and "dies", but John Blake, a new Dark Knight (it doesn't matter whether he calls himself Batman, Robin, or Nightwing, he will still be Gotham's Dark Knight), rises to take his place.
There is some very subtle foreshadowing of Bruce having fixed the autopilot. When the cops and the mercenaries face off, the Bat swoops in and disables the Tumblers, and then flies off. Batman then walks into the melee, less than two minutes later. It would be damn near impossible for him to have flown away, landed it out of sight, gotten out, and then calmly walked into the melee in that kind of time, even by Batman standards. The only explanation is he was flying it remotely.
At first, it bugged me that Batman seems to have been inactive for eight years between The Dark Knight and this film. (Compare that to his 10+ year career in the comics). Then, I read about the study which had determined it would be possible, with the right training, to be Batman in real life- but only for five years. Bruce in the Nolanverse simply can't keep doing this for years and years, for purely physical reasons.
Bruce also was inactive due to the injury to his leg from tackling Harvey, which the doctor notes rests in him having no cartilage in his knee.
Bane states "But I never escaped." This might have a double meaning in that despite being physically free from the pit, he's still somewhat trapped there, because he never truly learned the strength to escape.
Sort of obvious but, the title calls back to Thomas Wayne's line from Batman Begins, "Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves up." A major point of the movie is Bruce falling down a hole that's much larger and scarier than the well from his childhood and climbing out. Both in the literal and metaphorical senses.
Congressman Byron Gilly - who Selina Kyle makes use of - is a catspaw.
Also, the cops couldn't've tracked the phone down from when Daggett's henchman used it to the first sirens about a minute later. Selina had kept the phone off all this time, then turned it on shortly before she went into the bar, so the cops would start tracking it and be a distraction.
Despite pulling off a pretty efficient gambit and having the upper hand throughout most of the film, following The Reveal Talia turns out to be a pretty tall order Smug Snake, submitting to Bond Villain Stupidity over and over on the insistence that Batman live to suffer the entirety of the plan even when it's starting to show signs of failure. However, this turn happened almost instantly after Batman's Meaningful Echo "Tell me where the trigger is. Then you have my permission to die." to Bane. He was threatening to do the same to her remaining loved one as he had to her father, foil his plan and leave him to die from the aftermath. It would make sense that, given the whole driving force of her scheme in the first place, this would the straw that broke the camel's back, finally snapping and submitting to vengeful and bloodthirsty lust she's kept held in for so long.
Gotham loses most of its police force when merely 3,000 officers get trapped underground. One would think the GCPD ought to be much larger than just barely over 3,000 for its city's population size (12 million). Gotham's based on New York City, and the NYPD has 34,000 uniformed officers for the only 8 million inhabitants of the five boroughs, for an average of 6,800 cops per borough. Even if Bane only imprisoned the equivalent of a single borough of Gotham, that's still a small police force. Then you realize, if Gotham was in a period of "peacetime", and if the Dent Act was truly effective, there wouldn't have been as much crime and the police force would shrink greatly as a result.
In Dr. Crane's Kangaroo Court, those on trial are given the "choice" of death or exile, but both options end with the same result. Near the end of the film, Batman also exiles himself from Gotham out of necessity, to save the city from a nuclear bomb; and it seems like this exile will also result in his death.]] But as we see at the very end, exile doesn't have to mean death for Gotham's hero, though most citizens are unaware that he's still out there.
Bruce is retired largely because of a leg injury. A leg injury he suffered when he killed Harvey at the end of the Dark Knight. Bruce can be seen limping when he runs away at the end of TDK, which helps explain why he has to use a cane in the first part of the film, and the robotic knee brace when in action.
The non-use of the name "Catwoman" during the movie makes more sense when you notice that this incarnation of Selina Kyle isn't trying to hide her identity (apparent from her minimalist mask); instead, she's simply trying to erase her past criminal record. And out-of-universe, it may have been also to sever ties with the much-maligned Catwoman (2004) movie. In fact, in this respect, Selina can be considered a Bizarro Universe counterpart of Patience Philips: while Selina captures the entire essence of Catwoman except the name (and even still uses it in merchandise and stuff), Patience uses Catwoman's name and has little else to do with the character.
In Rises, John Blake makes a joke about mutant crocodiles in the sewers. Fridge Brilliance because, in the animated film Gotham Knight, Batman fought Killer Croc. If one considers that film canonical, it makes sense that rumors of the battle floated around the GCPD.
What is the absolute last thing the Batman is seen doing in The Dark Knight Rises? He's rising into the air, taking the bomb with him. Likewise, the final shot of the film is Blake on that platform in the Batcave, rising into the air and out of frame.
Everything Bane says about hope being poisonous? Talia spent the entire movie doing exactly that to Bruce.
Selina's stilettos are her equivalent of Batman's gauntlets, except hers, fitting with her personality, are show-offy as well as practical.
The reason Bane is pretty much a No-Sell during his first fight with Batman? His mask provides him with pain-numbing gas. It's not that Batman can't hurt him - it's just that Bane doesn't feel it.
Which also helps answer "How could Bane smash through concrete like it was foam and paper mache?" If the human body were to use its full strength at all times, it would tear itself apart from the strain of it - physical pain keeps us from using more than a fraction of our strength without the aid of an adrenaline spike. Bane, constantly breathing a steady supply of an anesthetic, doesn’t have to worry about that. The movie’s version of “venom” still grants Bane increased strength, just in a roundabout way.
And in addition to that, since Bane's mask is constantly feeding him anesthetic gas so he feels no pain, he's likely high on some level constantly. It's also why he never seems to shout.
By the time Rises rolls around, Batman has, quite literally, become a symbol.
That monologue that Bane gives in during the fight in the sewer about how he "was born in darkness" and "didn't see the light until [he] was already a man" becomes a lot more resonant when you realize that Bane protected Talia Al Ghul in the Pit and that she escaped thanks to him, Talia was the single ray of purity and innocence in that hellhole.
It's no surprise that Ra's al Ghul has no faith in prisons as a form of justice and punishment: they did nothing to curb the criminality of the inmates who murdered (and likely raped) his wife and would've killed his child too.
As Ra's Al Ghul tells Bruce in his vision: "There are many forms of immortality". Like continuing one's genetic line through offspring, for instance. That line is especially poignant because the vision of Ra's plants the idea that immortality can be attained through a successor. Bane and Talia are carrying on where Ra's left off, finishing his dream of destroying Gotham. Bruce always wanted Batman to be a symbol; eternal, everlasting, exactly as Ra's al Ghul already is. By putting the idea of immortality through successors in Bruce's head, the story is set up for Bruce to leave Batman to Blake at the end.
Gotham is the Pit. Not literally, but what are they? Inescapable prisons offering a glimmer of hope that can never be reached. Bruce initially planned to return to Gotham until crime was stopped, and by Rises, he's resigned himself to the city, with no fear of simply dying. But Selina and Miranda both give him a glimmer of life beyond Batman and Rachel. In the Pit he learns that a fear of death is needed to succeed, which helps him escape the Pit and reach the hopeful outside. What happens in the end of Rises? He fears death and manages to escape the Bat before the bomb goes off, reaching the hope of a life with Selina.
Many people complain that Bane's new, Jolly voice makes him much harder to take seriously as a Big Bad than Heath Ledger's Joker. But Bane's not the Big Bad. Is he?
Parallels: Think about what John Blake goes through - finding himself crippled by the system he's been serving, then deciding to throw it off altogether and go full-bore into vigilantism, thanks to some effort on Bruce Wayne's part. It is essentially a rare POSITIVE version of what the Joker did to Harvey Dent. Not so different, eh?
A throw away line about Bane's past indicates that his other major accomplishment as a mercenary was the overthrow of some small African nation. Where is the prison in which he was entombed located? Why is he now considered by the inmates of the prison to be in charge? It seems that Bane's first act was to knock over the country that was responsible for his imprisonment and the death of Talia's mother as well as Talia being raised in the pit. Also explains were a lot of his resources and recruits came from.
Batman disappears for eight years after The Dark Knight, which has been mentioned several times on this page. But then one recalls that Harvey had put away most of the influential bosses before dying, and even more criminals were put away in the Dent Act so that Gotham was at its most crime-free in years. Even if Batman wanted to stop one-off crimes like thievery, the cops would just chase him instead of the criminal, or throw the case away due to involving a wanted fugitive. There was no need for Batman, and judging by how everyone switched gears to him instead of Bane, his presence would have just tied up the force with frivolous calls or chases.
Batman never drops the voice while in costume, even after Catwoman disappears on him and to his knowledge there is no one watching. This could be explained by him being exceptionally paranoid. But it could also be explained by the fact that someone is still watching him: The audience.
Batman firing at a tumbler with Talia in it seems to be a disregard of Batman's one rule. Then you realize the tumbler itself didn't have a scratch on it until it fell. It makes sense that the Bat's cannons were designed to keep from harming Batman's other vehicles. He had most likely intended to stop Talia non-lethally, and if Batman hadn't forgotten she was driving over a bridge, she would have survived.
How was Bruce's back fixed so easily while down in the pit? Bane, and the League of Shadows, used the prison to store many of their other enemies. Now, if the Bane in this film is anything like his comic-book counterpart then breaking his opponent's back is probably his signature finishing move. So the reason that the doctor in the pit was able to fix Bruce's back so easily is probably because Bane has broken the backs of plenty of other prisoners down there, in the exact same way.
Makes a lot of sense. For a real example, Ireland is known for being extremely good at knee/leg surgery, thanks to Northern Ireland's history of Knee-capping as punishment.
When Bruce first left Gotham in order to train, his long absence made Earle declare him dead. He was outraged at such a thing back then. Now again, what is his ultimate plan, almost 10 years later? Goddamned Crazy Prepared Batman indeed.
If you think about it, specially with the importance given to symbols and masks in this trilogy, what is the climax of both Bats vs. Bane fights? That's right, the destruction of their masks. Bane smashing Bats' cowl, destroying the symbol and leaving a broken man, and Bats punching and messing up his inhaler, destroying his near-invulnerability, and beating him up just like any other thug.
The man who stands up to the Joker in the previous film with the line "We're not intimidated by thugs!" isn't named, and neither is the board member portrayed by the same actor. However, it's possible that Bruce rewarded the man for his bravery by giving him a position on the board. Might be worth noting that that "actor" is US Senator Patrick Leahy, a big Batman fan who's had several cameos in various Batman media.
Though he's pissed off at Alfred for hiding the truth about Rachel, and Alfred considers leaving Bruce and, subsequently, his apparent death saving Gotham to be his greatest failure, Bruce didn't amend his will (the last time he amended his will was before he went on his seven-year odyssey nearly 10 years earlier) because in spite of it all, he wanted to reward Alfred for all his years of loyal service.
According to legend, Bane was excommunicated from the League of Shadows for being too much of an extremist. Then Talia says he was excommunicated for his connection to the prison where she had been confined for the first years of her life and makes no mention of his extremist behavior. Now remember that Ra's al Ghul is not a fan of nuclear weapons, but Talia wants to nuke Gotham into oblivion, and Bane is in support of that plan. Therefore, Talia can deny it all she wants, but the truth of the matter is that Bane was excommunicated because he wanted to nuke a city targeted by the League.
Bane's thing in Rises is giving people false hope before tearing them down anyways. And what did every one of Harvey Dent's victims have in common? They were all given false hope. They thought they could get the good heads of the coin toss, didn't, and died for it. This goes double for Maroni, who did get the good heads until Dent pulled the "your driver" trick.
Many viewers complain about Bruce's off-camera return to a quarantined Gotham after escaping from the Pit. To do so, he would have had to fly in (unlikely, since Bruce probably didn't have access to an aircraft or an unobserved place to land within city limits, and since the military was monitoring the Gotham airspace), traverse the remaining undamaged, but heavily-guarded bridge, or cross the thin ice that killed everyone else who tried to do that. But in "Begins" he is constantly reminded by Ra's/Ducard to "mind his surroundings" and the lesson is driven home during a training duel on a sheet of cracking ice when Bruce initially seems to defeat Ra's, but then Ra's causes Bruce to fall through. Given the "adapt or die" nature of Ra's League boot camp, Bruce would have been forced to learn how to fight and move more effectively on thin ice. Ra's himself taught Bruce the skills necessary to cross the ice to re-enter Gotham.
Selina is disgusted when she finds out that Bruce gets to keep Wayne Manor after his fortune is lost, saying that the rich don't even go broke the same way everyone else does. But with his billions out of reach, Wayne Manor would become a white elephant for him; he no longer has the staff to maintain it, he's still responsible for the property taxes, and he doesn't even have a key for the front door. And even if his creditors seized it, they wouldn't be able to do anything with the place either; the only one who could afford to buy it would be...Bruce Wayne, the week before.
Recurring elements between the films: Ra's and Talia interestingly both die inside of rectangular vehicles that were involved in their plans, and crash from a great height.
The main page points out that in reality, the safety-rope that the prisoners use to avoid falling back down into the Pit would do a LOT of spinal damage to everyone who fell. It is very likely that some of them DID die this way. If they survived, it's easy to see despairing prisoners settle for long-term/permanent paralysis from using the rope, because the minimal protection from using it is mostly easier to deal with as a known future, compared to climbing without it—Hope Is Scary, after all. The Pit probably keeps them "prisoner" due to breaking their morale, as much as the literal challenge of climbing out does.
This is also another contrast between false hope and the real kind: Using the safety line is a false hope, because while you'll survive if you slip or miss the last ledge, a rope that's dozens of feet long and can support adult men would be heavy—using it basically dooms you to surviving in prison until your next attempt. Climbing on your own involves real hope, because while adrenaline/fear physically fuels you, you also need to believe that you don't need help to get out. Alternately, you have choose between dying in prison or dying because you tried to escape.
There's a recurring theme/motif of "Rebirth" and new identities. Selina wants to erase her past and start over. Bane created his persona to serve his ends. Miranda escaped the Pit, and took over the League. Blake quits being a cop, becomes the next Batman and works for the orphanage. And at the end, Batman "dies" to save the city, and starts over with Selina.
We get a very early indicator of just how different Bane is from the Joker during the famous plane scene. While Joker's goons were willing to kill each other for a larger share of the loot, Bane's henchmen are so loyal that one of them accepts being ordered to die for the cause without a moment's hesitation.
When Dr Pavel protests to Bane that the bomb will go off, Bane replies with "For the sake of your children Dr, I hope it does," implying that the League of Shadows is holding Pavel's family hostage. However, the film ends with the League (or at least their Gotham branch) in ruins and with Pavel's family unaccounted for. So, what happened to Pavel's family? Did the League let them go, seeing as the bomb did go off, only Talia and Bane screwed up, or did they kill them out of spite. Given their track record...
Or, y'know, it could just be that they know where the kids live, and will kill them if he doesn't do what they ask, but will leave them alone if he does do what they ask.
It was my understanding this was not meant as a physical threat. Bane is a fanatic who believes Gotham deserves to be destroyed and the world will be better for it. Therefore the children of Pavel who will live to see the new world without Gotham will benefit. Pavel himself won't.
I may be wrong, but didn't Bruce Wayne drop the rope tied at the top of the pit down, looking as though as he was helping the other inmates' escape easier than his climb and long-jump? That means he just set free a whole bunch of criminals so dangerous people have locked in the most dreadful place in the world, where they have no chance to escape.
A lot of people have brought this up in several places on the wiki. At the time that Bruce was imprisoned in the pit, it had been repurposed as a prison for enemies of the League of Shadows. It's explicitly noted in Bane and Talia's backstory that the League entered the prison and slaughtered all the prisoners prior, so no holdovers of the "worst criminals ever" would even be left.
When the prisoners kill Talia's mother (who was quite possibly the only female prisoner) you have to wonder if they did anything else before that. Especially since in the background, you could see EVERY prisoner rushing to the cell, which is a bit much just to kill one person. It also makes you cringe when you wonder what they would have done to the child as well if they had the chance...
According to the Knightfall novel; yes. Yes, they did do "something else".
3,000 police officers stuck in the sewers for months - even with supplies they must have lost a few, and they were unable to get back to their families for all that time...
Plus I'm sure a couple would have been fatally crushed by falling debris when the bombs go off.
I'm pretty sure that Bane's people didn't bother to clear the bridges before blowing them up, which would mean that there were people killed by being on the wrong part of the spans at the wrong time. It means that a couple hundred people are killed at the moment the explosives go off.
If history has taught us anything, is that mob mentality can cause people to commit truly heinous acts. So you have to wonder just how far the citizens went when attacking the upper class (including women and children). Especially since many of the attackers were probably recently freed convicts.
From Bad to Worse: The Sequel: If you're upper-class, you and your family has every criminal/ Bane henchman/Scarecrow henchman after you. If you're unlucky, they break into your house, more than likely rape, torture and murder you. If you're some regular Joe, it's not much better - you're living in a city overrun by Bane, his henchmen, and broken out criminals. And there's no one coming to save you if the criminals decide they want you, your kids or your stuff. Because remember, those people weren't locked up "unjustly" - they were violent criminals. That scene where the criminals are dragging people out of the houses? Not everyone got taken through the Kangaroo Court. Hence, merely being "exiled" or receiving "death" would have been a mercy in comparison.
This a bit minor compared to everything else here, but when Bruce is in the pit and he throws a rock and breaks the television out of anger when he hears about the Special Forces hung from the bridge, judging by the conditions of the pit, this may have been one of the few working televisions in a prison housing at least a few hundred people. Luckily, the prisoners are broken out when Bruce throws them the rope.
I presumed that was the only TV, which Bane had installed escpecially for Bruce... why would a prison labelled "Hell on Earth" have US cable?
There's a parody video on YouTube where the "when Gotham is ashes" speech is interrupted with Bane having an argument with cable technicians installing the TV set. He gets upset when he learns that they cannot come back to set up a follow-up appointment for another two weeks, which will put his stadium attack on hold, and says, "You guys are evil, you know that."
It seems like Batman repeatedly and callously screws over one of his closest allies and friends, Commissioner Gordon. First he just disappears after the events of The Dark Knight, leaving Gordon to deal with the mess caused by the Joker and Harvey Dent. Gordon struggles with the guilt of their coverup of Harvey's actions, and eventually drafts a speech of confession. Being the good guy he is, he doesn't throw Batman under the bus with this confession, however it seems like that would make it appear that Gordon framed Batman for killing Harvey, without Batman's consent. At the end of the movie, as far as Gotham knows, Batman was innocently accused of a crime by Gordon for years and is now dead; Gordon may now have to deal with the fact that it's not just the remaining criminals that Bane freed who hate him for his part in their incareration, it's the regular citizens of Gotham who hate him for apparently betraying Batman, who is back to being their hero. Batman does nothing to correct this mistake; the fact that Gordon is even alive, much less still employed, at the end of the film is actually quite surprising.
From the speech; "The Batman didn't murder Harvey Dent, he saved my boy then took the blame for Harvey's appalling crimes so that I could, to my shame, build a lie around this fallen idol. I praised the mad man who tried to murder my own child but I can no longer live with my lie. It is time to trust the people of Gotham with the truth and it is time for me to resign." It's pretty clear that Batman chose to take the rap, and if not, they'd ask Gordon in the hearings. At which point he becomes basically bulletproof again.
Wait, so... Blake inherits the Batcave. The cave right under Wayne Manor, which has lately been deeded to the city, where it will be a home for orphans. Orphans who will, probably, like to go exploring... Boy, I hope Bruce cleaned up after himself, or things could get out of hand real fast!
I personally guessed that Blake would simply go to work at the orphanage. That way, he has an excuse to be nearby, and he can make sure that nobody finds any unfortunate entrances to places they ought not go.
Take note, he himself is an ex-orphan. He wouldn't be out of place in the new orphanage, and kids would listen to him, they know him!! To the orphans, he's one of them, and a hero, a role model to boot.
Batman manages to get the bomb far enough away from the city to escape the blast radius, but blowing up a fusion bomb in the water should be enough to cause a massive tsunami that Gotham would be in no way prepared for.
Fortunately, it's winter, and although the ice isn't all that thick, it should greatly reduce the strength of any waves that make it all the way to Gotham.
Not to bring up the Inferred Holocaust but like...pretty sure the people of Gotham are going to have to deal with massive amounts of fallout. That's epidemics of both radiation sickness and cancer, by the way.
Fusion doesn't actually produce radioactive waste. Real world fusion bombs do, because they use the detonation from a fission bomb to produce the heat necessary for fusion, but this bomb in particular was repurposed from a fusion reactor, so no fission would be involved.
The Nolanverse Jonathan Crane is either descended from, or more likely just a subtle reference to, the original inspiration for the Scarecrow - Ichabod Crane, of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Not only does he do a Headless Horseman bit in Batman Begins, but considering his role in this film, recall that after his initial fright Ichabod Crane went through many other careers and was finally "made a justice of the Ten Pound Court"...
The Joker was right. He said that people are just as murderous, evil, and insane as he is, only they need to be pushed to be shown that. People lost it during Bane's takeover. When you really think about it, the only thing he did truly wrong in his war against Gotham was not push the people enough.
When the child appears, you wouldn't think it's actually a little girl. Then you realizes the reason why she kept her hair short and passes as a boy was because she was growing up in a Hell Hole Prison chock full of the most depraved scum, implied to have done things to her mother. Even worse, she was a pre-teen at the time. A chance Bane was there to protect her.
She escaped at the right age. What if she had hit puberty and had been unable to maintain the masquerade?
This is likely a key part of where she found the fear to drive her to escape, the knowledge that she'd be raped and murdered if she didn't escape soon. Indeed it's very possible she didn't forgo the rope so that the 'fear of death' would motivate her, but because she knew that falling to her death would likely be a quicker and less painful fate than what would've awaited her soon had she failed to escape.
Why is Bane so strong? He is constantly supplied with morphine, which means he can work out much more than the average man, since the stiffness doesn't stop him from doing extra exercises. A very realistic substitute for the comic counter part of Bane's venom.
Why does nobody bat an eye at Bruce Wayne mysteriously dying at the same time as the Batman? Because not only has Bruce faded out of the public eye after holing up in a mansion for years, he was one of the richest men in Gotham when the elite were made to walk on the ice. He was probably not the only aristocrat to go missing after the siege, and he wasn't famous so his death was glossed over.
The Gender-Concealing Writing surrounding Talia as a child makes sense in light of the fact that she was born in a prison, so there would have been very practical reasons for hiding the fact that she was female, and add to that the heavy implication that her mother was raped before the other prisoners killed her and it reaches a whole new level of Fridge Horror.
This may not count as Fridge Horror, given how the initial situation was already horrible, but the ending of The Dark Knight is even sadder now that The Dark Knight Rises has been released and we know how that scene affected Gordon's family in years to come.
When you think about it, part of the reason Gordon's wife took the kids and left Gotham is likely because she couldn't stomach constantly hearing everyone, including her husband, sing the praises of a man who attempted to murder her children in front of her. She and the kids were very possibly traumatized by what happened and every time Harvey Dent is mentioned it's just going to rip the wounds open...and having him spoken of as a hero is just extra salt in those wounds. Young as they were, the children, especially Gordon's son, probably also couldn't fully understand why they were being forced to lie about the night they almost died and the person who saved them being demonized, which would probably be very upsetting and confusing.
Remember what the Joker said about ordinary people, how they will eat each other when things go bad? What happens in Rises? The people go nuts and begin attacking each other. The Joker was right all along. He just failed to push the ordinary people hard enough.
Jen might not survive very long without Selina's protection. She seems a little clueless generally and it is probably only a matter of time before she tries to rob the wrong guy - especially since The Dark Knight Rises implies she isn't a very good pick pocket.
is so similar to Michael Myers's?