The plan was to give Gotham hope by keeping the image of the White Knight alive. However, that does not mean Batman would no longer be needed.
Well I think "the plan" can just refer to his mission as Batman and what he set out to accomplish in the first place. "The plan" was always for Batman not to be needed. So again, TDKR is exploring the idea of what if the plan worked? Where would that leave a damaged Bruce Wayne?
Harvey gave the city hope to fight off the crime and corruption that has been poisoning them for decades but what TDK also established was that there was a "higher class of criminal" (aka "freaks") that now existed in Gotham due to Batman's arrival. This higher class of criminals was something that only Batman could handle, not Harvey nor anyone else which is why the Joker succeeded in corrupting Harvey and not Batman. That was a message in TDK - that no matter how good hearted and inspirational a man can be, at the end of the day he is just a man as opposed to "more than just a man" and they cannot take on that higher class of criminal.
This parallels what happened in the comics. Only difference here is that TDK made the point that only Batman can take on that higher class of criminal. Bruce originally became Batman - an extraordinary being - to clean up the crime in his city but the arrival of an extraordinary being sparked escalation and brought in other extraordinary beings. Joker even talks about multiple times in the movie how Gotham will never be the same. He says the mob will eventually fall and be replaced by that higher class of criminal and that Batman has changed things forever followed by calling him a "freak" just like himself. There is even a point where he brings up the rate at which Gotham citizens are losing their minds. TDK is not the only time we saw the whole theme of the "freaks" being played out. We got a lot of the idea of freaks in Begins too with the Arkham breakout, Crane's descent to insanity, Bruce discovering that there are bigger threats to Gotham than just Falcone, Gordon's line at the end about how escalation is occurring and how people like Batman have started to show up as well, etc. Basically it all parallels Batman's first year in the comics and what happened in his first year.
These things were all paid lip service to, but I never took these things as promises that Gotham was going to become overun by supervillains to the point where it became a near replica of the comic book world. Only that the criminals would respond. And they did respond by turning to The Joker. No higher class of criminal existed in TDK. Crane was a like a precursor to a TRUE freak like The Joker, and there were also the fake Batmen that showed how things had escalated in Gotham.
But The Joker himself was the embodiment of "freaks". He was the ultimate freak. Rather than having the entire rogues gallery rise from the madness of Gotham, he existed to personify it all. And why shouldn't he, he's Batman's greatest villain. You can't really escalate higher than The Joker in terms of freaks emerging from Gotham.
He talks about people losing their minds because of all the damage HE was causing the city, like making civilians try to kill Reese. When Joker talks about giving the city a better class of criminal, I always thought that he was talking about himself.
Your defense may be that Batman taking the blame for Harvey's death is what undid all of that but I don't believe that to be the case. This "higher class of criminal" was something that no man could handle. It was a class that only something "more than just a man" could handle. Someone like Batman. Gotham could not have handled someone like Riddler or Mad Hatter or Black Mask by themselves regardless of how much they tried. They needed Batman. Gotham was given hope to fight off the corruption and crime that has been poisoning their city for decades but this was something new. That hope was not created to fight off the new threat but the old one. It was the beginning of a new age in Gotham. Thus, Bruce would've still had to remain as Batman while being hunted down and while Gotham continued to have hope in Harvey so that he could take out the new disease that arose whenever one tried to do something on the same scale as the Joker before all of that would reverse Gotham to a hopeless Gotham again.
Also, before you or anyone else brings up that the Joker failed to bring in the freaks into the city, I would like to clear that up. The "rise of the freaks" is not something Joker wanted to bring to Gotham nor was Joker the first major freak to strike Gotham (that was Scarecrow). That was something that was already happening in Gotham regardless of the Joker and before the Joker even made his big debut. He did not try to bring in more freaks; he simply knew what was going to happen in the future - that more people like him and Batman would be created in Gotham - and he not only accepted this future but embraced it. It was mainly Batman's arrival that sparked it (and him just leaving wasn't going to take the freaks with him). On top of that, if you want to get technical, the entire mob fell at the end of TDK when the Joker temporarily took it over. That was before the Dent Act was even formed and it was something that was predicted beforehand (that the mob was going to fall). The second part of the prediction never happened though, which was the higher class of criminals AKA the "freaks" would step in.
I disagree. The Joker wanted to spread as much madness as possible. That's what he was all about. I think he saw the irony in a city relying on a masked avenger in a cape to save to uphold justice and wanted to exploit that by plunging the city into chaos. And while he didn't have a plan to create a surge of freak criminals, he did send out Gotham's D.A. on a killing spree. He just wanted chaos. He wanted Gotham to know that "a murdering psycho could be anyone".
And as far as the pre-TDK escalation, I do not count Scarecrow as a true full-on freak. He's a blip on the radar compared to The Joker. I see him as the guy who was bridging the gap between common thug and freak. Remember, he didn't actually think the LOS wanted to kill everyone, he thought they were just holding the city to ransom. He was a bit deranged, and enjoyed exploiting the fears of others, but ultimately he didn't have a dedication to a "cause"...he was driven by the same base greed of the common mobsters in Gotham. As far as the escaped Arkham inmates, many of them were employed by The Joker. If any of them had original ideas about becoming a supervillain of their own, TDK would have been the opportune time to step up.
Overall, they basically dropped an entire theme that ran and was developed throughout the first 2 movies because...well...mainly because they just didn't want to deal with it anymore.
Probably because they felt they had said all they needed to say about the "escalation" angle, and wanted to have the story turn a corner so they could arrive at their ending.
Nolan needs to read more comics then. The fully formed Batman of the comics would be what we saw in Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.
I think you can read between the lines of what Nolan said to mean "this is as close as we're getting" to the fully formed Batman of the comics. You can approximate 70 years worth of adventures and knowledge in a movie, you can't actually approach that, especially when you're trying to tell a 3 part story that starts at the very beginning. He was the Batman of the comics in the same sense that Spider-Man was the Spider-Man of the comics in Spider-Man 2.
I also believe that he became THE Batman at the end of TDK. But that is exactly why the 8 year gap just doesn't work. He finally becomes THE Batman (at least in his mentality) and is more motivated than ever before due to the realization he had from Harvey's death and due to Rachel no longer holding him back and then Nolan has him just quit. This is why I consider TDKR to be the biggest wasted potential to ever exist so far out of all the comic book movies.
I hate to say this, but that is conjecture. How do we know Bruce is more motivated than ever? Again, if he was so motivated to be Batman forever he should have said, "The Joker cannot win. Harvey's case may be destroyed, but we can STILL take Gotham back. I will not let the scum run the streets again on my watch. I'll be the symbol Gotham needs AND deserves to keep hope alive. BECAUSE I AM THE GODDAMN BATMAN."
*credits*
The whole point is, TDK's ending did not allow us to emotionally check in with Bruce. It was focused on a choice he was making as Batman, trying to make the best out of a crappy situation. We are not privy to Bruce's internal emotions about this, or how he plans to proceed with his life.
He doesn't have to be able to take out someone like Darkseid by just blinking (lol). However, his peak has to be higher than what we saw.
Does it though? This is just where fundamental differences of opinions are taking over. To me, using a sonar machine to track down The Joker, taking out an entire SWAT team while they're going after the wrong people and saving all the hostages, and then capturing The Joker, all while placing complete trust in the citizens of Gotham not to kill one another was totally peak Batman kinda stuff. I didn't watch these movies in hopes of seeing the comics, cartoons or video games replicated. It was a decidedly more grounded take, so Batman at his peak is inevitably going to be more subdued. It wasn't like I walked out of TDK thinking, "Man I can't wait to see how much more of a badass Batman becomes!" To me, he already was at legendary status. Just like Keaton's Batman in 89. How long had he been Batman before the start of the movie? Certainly less than a year I would say. But by the end of that movie he still feels like 'the' Batman. Bale's Batman felt like "the" Batman at the end of TDK. Not just because of his sacrifice, but because of everything he had done and dealt with in the movie. For me, it was never a question of wanting to see him become "more" Batman-like from that point, only a question of how he would be redeemed in the eyes of Gotham.