This came up in tthe Selina Kyle thread...dragging it into here:
I still can't figure out why he told her there was no autopilot.
My interpretation:
Bruce doesn't trust the autopilot in a dense urban setting with less than 2 minutes left on the timer and the unwieldy core dangling from a cable.
"No autopilot," he urgently tells Selina.
This notion is reinforced as we see the Bat scraping the core along the street. It is a cumbersome object to tow.
As the core is hoisted to the air it crashes against a lightpost. (If the autopilot does not compensate for a tow-cable, under it's guidance the Bat might have flown too low and been tethered to that post...moments later: BOOM, The End).
Then Bruce blows a hole through a building to clear a speedier path for the Bat. Another benefit of manual operation.
I can see Batman not wanting to risk autopilot in a complex dowtown setting when time is so much of the essence.
Once in the clear, wide-open over the ocean, the Bat picking up momentum and speed in a straight shot, Bruce sets the autopilot and punches EJECT.
So what do all of you think? Does this sound about right or are there better ideas out there?
I love the bold simplicity of the reveal that Bruce survived at the end. However, all the stuff we do not see would have been equally dramatic and enthralling.
To me the dynamic issue is not Bruce surviving the blast, though. It's the choice he makes after this event. The choice to pass the torch and finally find his own happiness.
Great ending!
[/QUOTE]
