The Dark Knight Trilogy Official Timeline
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, we are tonights entertainment .
After reading and analyzing all the dates in the movies and official material on the Batman trilogy, I was able to come up with this time line, which is the most solid I could do.
Before beginning I must clarify some points, firstly there were many retcons with the dark knight trilogy and I discard the idea that there are a few months difference between batman begins, in the movies that is never said, it is explicitly said that Bruce was Batman for years in the dark knight rises
3:38
With this established we can continue with the timeline
First, where is batman begins located?
In Batman Begins we see Bruce Wayne's journey to becoming Batman.
In the visual guide they tell us that Bruce was orphaned at the age of 10.
This is an important retcon for the timeline, since originally Bruce was orphaned at age 8 as seen in the credits of batman begins.
Well we continue, Bruce then spent 14 years until the Joe Chill trial was held.
those years 14 years would be these:
year 10 (Bruce's age)
year 11
year 12
year 13
year 14
year 15
year 16
year 17
year 18
year 19
year 20
year 21
year 22
year 23
in year 23 Bruce returns to Gotham from Princeton and attends Joe Chill's trial, after which he begins his 7 year trip around the world.
Those 7 years are these
year 23 (the rest of the year)
year 24
year 25
year 26
year 27
year 28
year 29
In the year that Bruce turns 29 , shortly after turning 29 , he returns to Gotham and begins his quest as Batman .
Now, what year does batman begins take place?
The Dark Knight's Handbook gives us the answer.
As you can read, the death of Harvey Dent was in 2004 and the dark knight rises takes place in 2012.
Now batman begins, as you can read Bruce was batman for 5 years until the dark knight, if the dark knight takes place in 2004 batman begins should take place 5 years before that is, in 1999.
But how long does batman begins last? years? the manual also answers this
As you can read, the batcave was used for months before the League of Shadows burned it down.
Batman Begins takes place in 11 months at the most.
Bruce Wayne's birthday has been made official since the 1980s with the date of February 19.
For the sake of the timeline we will place Bruce's birthday from Batman Begins in February 2000.
As we know Bruce turns 30 at the end of Batman Begins.
That implies that he was born in 1970 and in 1980 Thomas and Martha Wayne died.
Then in 1993 he would begin his training around the world and return to Gotham in 1999 after turning 29.
Something else that reinforces that Batman Begins takes place between 1999 and 2000 is a dialogue from Batman Begins.
2:04
In this scene Rachel mentions that Falcone is 52 years old, this scene takes place on Bruce's birthday which as we already established is in February.
In the manual we are given Falcone's date of birth.
As you can see, he was born in July 1947, so that scene could only take place in February 2000.
Well where would gotham knight be located?
In 2001, in the novelization it is mentioned that they are in summer and in the movie in the deadshot clock it is seen that they are in July and the date matches the 2001 calendar.
When did Bruce start writing the manual?
Probably in 2002 since Gordon's file mentions that he has 22 years of experience in the gcpd.
If we take into account that Gordon was in his first year as a police officer when the Waynes died in 1980, in 2002 he would have 22 years of experience.
This fixes the continuity error in the age of Gordon's children, a 5 year span sounds more reasonable.
Now, when does the Joker card scene take place?
December 1, 2000 as mentioned in the Batman Begins novelization.
With this we already have a timeline on the trilogy, in summary it is this:
TIMELINE
1970 Bruce Wayne is born
June 1980 Thomas and Martha Wayne are murdered
June 1993 Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham from Princeton and after Chill's trial he is going to start his trip around the world
1997 Bruce trains with Cassandra who teaches him to control his physical pain
February 1998 Bruce Wayne (28) meets Ras al ghul in prison and begins his training in the League of Shadows.
February 1999 Bruce (29) finishes his training and returns to Gotham where it would take weeks to start his mission.
March 1999 Batman makes his first appearance capturing Falcone
April 1999 Bruce continues his crusade as a vigilante stopping criminals
May 1999 A missing microwave transmitter is reported at Wayne Industries and Batman locates a decoy while investigating (this happened in the Batman Begins video game)
June 1999 Bruce Wayne starts partying and buying hotels and dating European models to cover his secret identity.
July 1999 after months of insisting Falcone manages to get Crane to visit him, after a section Falcone goes crazy because of the gas, the fear also Bruce meets Rachel in the scene of the hotel in batman begins.
August 1999 Batman decides to investigate Falcone's drug shipment so he goes to Gordon's house to ask him.
September 1999 Batman chases a decoy and some thugs (batman begins video game)
October 1999 Batman investigates Falcone's club to see if he finds any connection to drugs or to find Flass for questioning.
November 1999 Batman investigates Gotham's black market and eventually locates Flass and interrogates him.
December 1999 Batman goes to the Narrows to investigate.
January 2000 Batman investigates Crane and the madmen of Arkham while in the Narrows investigating the drug connection.
February 2000 Batman vs Scarecrow and Bruce's birthday
December 2000 The Bat-Signal is planted and Batman is informed about the Joker
June-September 2001 Batman Gotham Knight takes place
Late 2001 Roger Garcetti promoted to district attorney
2002 Bruce Wayne begins to record his experiences as batman in the dark knight manual for the day he must choose a successor for batman
2003 The Shadow of Ra's al Ghul takes place
The Shadow of Ra's al Ghul
January-March 2004 Gotham Tonight 6 short where Harvey Dent wins the election for district attorney
March-June 2004 The Dark Knight main events
2007 Bruce Wayne begins work on the reactor project
2009 Bruce orders to hide the reactor and stops going out to the public.
March 2010 Dent Act is approved (probably here Bruce Wayne would stop being batman when he saw that the Dent act was approved)
June 2012 the dark knight rises begins
September 2012 Robin John Blake begins to investigate the orphans and the main events of the dark knight rises occur until the batman vs bane fight
February 2013 Batman returns to Gotham after 5 months to save it from the bomb explosion
March 2013 the dark knight rises ending
Well with this we can say that Bruce Wayne was Batman for more than a decade.
if we count his journey around the world training that began in 1993 until his retirement at the end of the dark knight rises we have 20 years of experience training and fighting criminals
If we count his minimum time as Batman is 5 years and a few months of experience
If we expand that maximum time, he could have been Batman from 1999 to 2010, which is 11 years and some appearances in The Dark Knight Rises.
His journey as Batman from start to finish technically spans 15 years.
Something to add is that Nolan confirmed that Bruce had a 5-year plan in batman begins but in the dark knight this had to be extended.
Thank you all for your attention
If you want a summary, this is it:
Batman Begins takes place between 1999 and 2000.
Gotham Knight takes place in 2001
The Dark Knight takes place in 2004 and
the dark knight rises takes place in 2012
