godisawesome
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I've resurrected this thread because I am a geek and found this part of the film fascinating. I figure we can maybe focus our speculations and debates about this particular part of TDKR here.
Okay, when it comes to Bane's occupation of Gotham, there's three main questions that pop up in my mind:
1: How did Bane form a large enough army to take over Gotham, and is it just a faux-Bolshevik uprising or something more sinister?
2: How in the world does Bane keep one of the world's mightiest military forces, a superpower even, from rescuing Gotham the traditional way?
3: Why the heck is there a giant street-fight between the cops and Bane's army at the end if both sides have guns?
The way I see it, these three questions all raise fascinating points about the movies plot, and since we have remained relatively unspoiled on these parts, I'd like to hear your guys judgments on my theories.
1: A lot has been made and speculated that Bane is recruiting and resurrecting the issue of class-warfare in Gotham to employ Catwoman and cause his revolution. Things with foreboding titles like the Harvey Dent Act suggest that the city has taken proactive and perhaps even extreme measures to protect itself and shore up order after the Joker's rampage and Harvey Dent's "sacrifice." Conditions have improved enough that politicians and their like are planning on replacing Commisioner Gordon with the ambitious Foley.
Bane, meanwhile, does not simply walk into Gotham with an entire army but instead his own small guerrilla force. These guys are heavily motivated and fanatically devoted to Bane and his cause, even willing to die just to provide a cover story for Bane's activities. They are obviously extremely dangerous and possibly made up of members of the disgraced League of Shadows. But Bane will need more men if he is to ensure his rule over Gotham.
Cue Bane's propagandizing the gap between the rich and the poor through subtle methods. Catwoman steals from the rich and appears to be allied with Bane, and the ever-popular Robin Hood mythos makes Bane come off as more of a populist hero to the downtrodden, where his only competition *might* be lingering memories of Batman. Bane's attack on the stock exchange can also be seen as a brilliant gambit: he pretends he is striking at the heart of the decadent rich, when he is also agravating whatever recession or depression that is driving the wedge between the Gothamites.
Finally, Bane reveals the truth about Harvey Dent. Such a blow cast doubts on everything the city has done in the name of safety. Bane finds support among the skeletons of Gotham's former Mob empires, men who barely escaped the destruction of their organizations and yearn for the old days when Gotham was their own private cess-pit. Bane even breaks some of the worst of Gotham's criminals out of Blackgate, arming them to join his army. And Bane completes his coup-ed-tat by inflaming the poor to rise up like in Paris and strike back. This is not to say the poor have gone bad; Bane is only using them as his means to an end at this point.
Once Bane has successfully cut off Gotham from the US (see 2), defeated the police and broke Batman, Bane begins to turn on some of his own supporters. It's relatively subtle; Bane mostly just does a Robespierre on the poor and downtrodden, disarming them and keeping them paralysed through a Reign of Terror, and keeps the thugs from the gangs in charge and armed. Those who joined with Bane earlier now see their error and begin to turn back to the cops, led valiantly by Gordon, Foley, and Blake, and the people dream of the day Batman returns.
2: We know that Doctor Pavel is a nuclear physicist smart enough to be wnated by the CIA and Bane's men. Rumors make out Pavel's doomsday device to be something like an earthquake machine or plain old nuke.
The earthquake machine adds a nice bit of Science-Fiction like the microwave emitter. It also hearkens back to the comics' arc No Man's Land, and plays well with the idea of the city crumbling. If the device is capable of affecting a much larger area than Gotham, then Bane may be threatening the rest of America to keep his personal fiefdom intact.
However, a nuke puts an interesting spin on this idea.
If Bane is employing members of the LOS, their willingness to take over a city instead of destroying it comes off as odd and misplaced. And if they do in fact possess a nuke, why don't they just go ahead and detonate it?
Answer: the nuke serves as a deterrent to outside interference while they make an example out of Gotham. Placing a nuclear device on American soil and threatening to detonate it could lead to a Cuban Missile Crisis type of situation: The US blockades and shuts off trade to Gotham in an attempt to starve Bane out. They won't send in their soldiers or ships since the nuke is always on the move, and they believe a siege strategy is the safer approach.
This plays right into Bane's hands. He and his men can in fact slip out of Gotham to visit Bruce or escape a bomb blast if they have to. They are letting the US starve Gotham as a way of inflicting yet more punishment on the "decadent city." They have no intention of keeping Gotham forever, they just want to show the world its greatest city brought to its knees. They will turn the people upon one another, show Gotham's true character by unleashing its barbarous criminals on the innocent, and make a mockery of the justice system by trying and executing any who resist. And then, they will detonate the bomb at the end, to show the world what happens to those the LOS deems corrupt.
The only hope Gotham has is that it can through off Bane itself. And it shall.
3: The reason so few people are shot in the street fight is tied into the US blockade. After three-plus months of fighting and no resupplying from the outside world, bullets become scarce. Owning a fully loaded pistol makes someone a huge threat to their under-armed enemies. Those with unloaded guns maintain their arms as weapons of intimidation and misinformation; if one man in a group of fifty has a fully loaded rifle, the whole group must be treated as incredibly dangerous.
Bane's elite end up being the only ones still packing military grade heat, and any advantage they have with high-ground sniping will probably be neutralized by Batman and Catwoman. So while a few officers fall to bullets in the charge, the second the battle is truly joined, bullet carrying bad guys will be swarmed and disarmed. The cops will probably have a more consistent amount of training and higher overall discipline than Bane's forces, as the LOS will have to struggle with unruly criminals and the like.
This scarcity of arms also means that the few heroes who posses pistols have some importance: Foley is one of the cops' leaders, and his sidearm is loaded to help keep him alive and the police moving forward. Catwoman, a master thieve, probably stole hers and uses it to even the odds against LOS class foes, as she will be teaming with Batman and will need an edge.
So what do you guys think?
Okay, when it comes to Bane's occupation of Gotham, there's three main questions that pop up in my mind:
1: How did Bane form a large enough army to take over Gotham, and is it just a faux-Bolshevik uprising or something more sinister?
2: How in the world does Bane keep one of the world's mightiest military forces, a superpower even, from rescuing Gotham the traditional way?
3: Why the heck is there a giant street-fight between the cops and Bane's army at the end if both sides have guns?
The way I see it, these three questions all raise fascinating points about the movies plot, and since we have remained relatively unspoiled on these parts, I'd like to hear your guys judgments on my theories.
1: A lot has been made and speculated that Bane is recruiting and resurrecting the issue of class-warfare in Gotham to employ Catwoman and cause his revolution. Things with foreboding titles like the Harvey Dent Act suggest that the city has taken proactive and perhaps even extreme measures to protect itself and shore up order after the Joker's rampage and Harvey Dent's "sacrifice." Conditions have improved enough that politicians and their like are planning on replacing Commisioner Gordon with the ambitious Foley.
Bane, meanwhile, does not simply walk into Gotham with an entire army but instead his own small guerrilla force. These guys are heavily motivated and fanatically devoted to Bane and his cause, even willing to die just to provide a cover story for Bane's activities. They are obviously extremely dangerous and possibly made up of members of the disgraced League of Shadows. But Bane will need more men if he is to ensure his rule over Gotham.
Cue Bane's propagandizing the gap between the rich and the poor through subtle methods. Catwoman steals from the rich and appears to be allied with Bane, and the ever-popular Robin Hood mythos makes Bane come off as more of a populist hero to the downtrodden, where his only competition *might* be lingering memories of Batman. Bane's attack on the stock exchange can also be seen as a brilliant gambit: he pretends he is striking at the heart of the decadent rich, when he is also agravating whatever recession or depression that is driving the wedge between the Gothamites.
Finally, Bane reveals the truth about Harvey Dent. Such a blow cast doubts on everything the city has done in the name of safety. Bane finds support among the skeletons of Gotham's former Mob empires, men who barely escaped the destruction of their organizations and yearn for the old days when Gotham was their own private cess-pit. Bane even breaks some of the worst of Gotham's criminals out of Blackgate, arming them to join his army. And Bane completes his coup-ed-tat by inflaming the poor to rise up like in Paris and strike back. This is not to say the poor have gone bad; Bane is only using them as his means to an end at this point.
Once Bane has successfully cut off Gotham from the US (see 2), defeated the police and broke Batman, Bane begins to turn on some of his own supporters. It's relatively subtle; Bane mostly just does a Robespierre on the poor and downtrodden, disarming them and keeping them paralysed through a Reign of Terror, and keeps the thugs from the gangs in charge and armed. Those who joined with Bane earlier now see their error and begin to turn back to the cops, led valiantly by Gordon, Foley, and Blake, and the people dream of the day Batman returns.
2: We know that Doctor Pavel is a nuclear physicist smart enough to be wnated by the CIA and Bane's men. Rumors make out Pavel's doomsday device to be something like an earthquake machine or plain old nuke.
The earthquake machine adds a nice bit of Science-Fiction like the microwave emitter. It also hearkens back to the comics' arc No Man's Land, and plays well with the idea of the city crumbling. If the device is capable of affecting a much larger area than Gotham, then Bane may be threatening the rest of America to keep his personal fiefdom intact.
However, a nuke puts an interesting spin on this idea.
If Bane is employing members of the LOS, their willingness to take over a city instead of destroying it comes off as odd and misplaced. And if they do in fact possess a nuke, why don't they just go ahead and detonate it?
Answer: the nuke serves as a deterrent to outside interference while they make an example out of Gotham. Placing a nuclear device on American soil and threatening to detonate it could lead to a Cuban Missile Crisis type of situation: The US blockades and shuts off trade to Gotham in an attempt to starve Bane out. They won't send in their soldiers or ships since the nuke is always on the move, and they believe a siege strategy is the safer approach.
This plays right into Bane's hands. He and his men can in fact slip out of Gotham to visit Bruce or escape a bomb blast if they have to. They are letting the US starve Gotham as a way of inflicting yet more punishment on the "decadent city." They have no intention of keeping Gotham forever, they just want to show the world its greatest city brought to its knees. They will turn the people upon one another, show Gotham's true character by unleashing its barbarous criminals on the innocent, and make a mockery of the justice system by trying and executing any who resist. And then, they will detonate the bomb at the end, to show the world what happens to those the LOS deems corrupt.
The only hope Gotham has is that it can through off Bane itself. And it shall.
3: The reason so few people are shot in the street fight is tied into the US blockade. After three-plus months of fighting and no resupplying from the outside world, bullets become scarce. Owning a fully loaded pistol makes someone a huge threat to their under-armed enemies. Those with unloaded guns maintain their arms as weapons of intimidation and misinformation; if one man in a group of fifty has a fully loaded rifle, the whole group must be treated as incredibly dangerous.
Bane's elite end up being the only ones still packing military grade heat, and any advantage they have with high-ground sniping will probably be neutralized by Batman and Catwoman. So while a few officers fall to bullets in the charge, the second the battle is truly joined, bullet carrying bad guys will be swarmed and disarmed. The cops will probably have a more consistent amount of training and higher overall discipline than Bane's forces, as the LOS will have to struggle with unruly criminals and the like.
This scarcity of arms also means that the few heroes who posses pistols have some importance: Foley is one of the cops' leaders, and his sidearm is loaded to help keep him alive and the police moving forward. Catwoman, a master thieve, probably stole hers and uses it to even the odds against LOS class foes, as she will be teaming with Batman and will need an edge.
So what do you guys think?
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