The Dark Knight Rises Should Batman be "the world's greatest detective"?

[MessiahDecoy123]

He hasn't really earned that title yet in the movies. Nolan made Bruce smarter in TDK but he's still not a modern-day Sherlock Holmes.

Would you like to see Batman become the world's greatest detective in Nolan's trilogy?

 

[TheBatman072]

Considering this is still his "year one," no. It won't happen.

A more established, been on the job for years Batman? Sure.

But not year one Batman.

 

[obin_gam]

^I concur.

 

[hatebox]

Depict Batman as a great detective but don't make TDKR primarily a detective/mystery story. It's not conducive to a great blockbuster spectacle and works a lot better in serialized comics.

 

[ALP]

He should be a brilliant crime fighter, and a good detective when it calls for it. But is he going to become the world's greatest detective in DKR? I doubt it, Riddler is one of few villains that might have allowed Batman to gain that moniker quickly but he's not being in the film so unlikely.

 

[Paste Pot Pete]

The detective angle is always going to play a distant second fiddle to the action, but as long as there's some going on, I'm happy.

I think every movie so far has had at least one scene of Batman doing research, picking up or analyzing a clue, or something.

That said: no offense, but I think the whole "this is still year one" is a bit of a cop-out.

Yes, Batman is bound to become a better detective through time and experience, but the whole point of his training was to hone his body and mind to perfection. The bulk of his detective skills and scholarly experience should be part of his repertoire before hitting the streets for day one. He's only going to get better, but he should still start out as a genius deducer, chemist, technician, blah blah blah.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

That said: no offense, but I think the whole "this is still year one" is a bit of a cop-out.

Yes, Batman is bound to become a better detective through time and experience, but the whole point of his training was to hone his body and mind to perfection. The bulk of his detective skills and scholarly experience should be part of his repertoire before hitting the streets for day one. He's only going to get better, but he should still start out as a genius deducer, chemist, technician, blah blah blah.

Great point.

This is one of the biggest problems I had with Batman Begins. It down played the amount of diverse, expert training Bruce had leading up to becoming Batman. Instead Ras Al Ghul gets the bulk of the creadit for teaching Bruce some mystical ninija stuff after Bruce is an adult and this somehow explains how Bruce has the skillset to be Batman.

Unacceptable. I hope they fix the origin after Nolan's gone.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

Really though, Batman's never been portrayed as "the world's greatest detective" in much anything except in name only. Even in the comics, his detective work is rarely more than feeding bits of information into the Batcomputer, bashing in a thug's head for information, or simply just knowing the information already, however obscure. There's rarely any actual detective work shown, simply because its quite a hard thing to write effectively.

Its why I've always felt Batman is more like the best all-rounder than the best martial artist or detective or other, since he's often actually beat in all his specific attributes, like Cassandra Cain or Shiva in the former and the Question or Detective Chimp in the latter.

That was probably one of my biggest complaints about TDK, in that Bruce just used superscience(!) to solve the various mysteries like the bullet or Joker's location, rather than actual smarts. I'd like to see that in the next film, though not to any mythical level such as in his other media, which often takes a "tell" rather than "show" approach - that is, we are often informed that bruce is the best detective, but hardly see it.

 

[craigaat]

I think this says it all.

Obviously that's a joke but I thought TDK's level of 'detectiveness' was fine.

 

[Doc Samson]

I'm conflicted on this. On one hand, the full nickname is, actually "The Dark Knight Detective" who made his debut in Detective Comics. It is a big part of who and what he is, as a crimefighter.

On the other hand though, I didn't feel that shortchanged by what we got in TDK. As mentioned by others, while it may work well in a comic, where there's time to build upon that base, a film has a strict limit of time in which to tell the full story. And for something as frenetic as TDK, the investigative work he did was pretty good.

 

[namtaB]

These films are influenced by the comics and interpreted through the rules of heightened realism set forth by Chris Nolan. Thus, Batman can be a superior athlete, have a vast fortune, be a gifted detective, etc. But he will never be the world's foremost athlete, the wealthiest man in the world, the world's greatest detective, etc. neatly rolled up into one single person as this does not exist in reality but can easily exist in the comic books.

 

[Bat-Mite]

This is one of the biggest problems I had with Batman Begins. It down played the amount of diverse, expert training Bruce had leading up to becoming Batman. Instead Ras Al Ghul gets the bulk of the creadit for teaching Bruce some mystical ninija stuff after Bruce is an adult and this somehow explains how Bruce has the skillset to be Batman.

Unacceptable. I hope they fix the origin after Nolan's gone.

People already complain about how long it takes for him to put on the batsuit in the movie. If you go into all the stuff like him training at the FBI Academy, all the different masters he trained under, etc., etc., there's not going to be any time for the actual story of the movie. That works in the comics because you can release as many issues of them as you want and aren't limited to a time frame that's slightly more than two hours. It's obvious that he's had previous training, as Ra's calls out every fighting method Bruce tries on him. You don't have to take people by the hand and walk them through every step of the process. Maybe we should have had a 10-20 minute long flashback after each fighting technique Ra's calls out so that we can see what master Bruce trained under for that style. The movie already gets criticized for spelling things out too much as it is.

It was Batman's idea to irradiate the mob's money, and we see him doing plenty of other investigative work throughout the whole movie. We also see the bat-computer analyzing the image of the Joker's face, presumably to try to find out who he is. It's easy to overlook things like that, but I think it definitely counts as detective work. He does usually have the help of Lucius or Alfred while doing his detective work, but he gets Alfred's help a lot in the comics as well. He's obviously had some sort of training to be able to pull this all off, and I'd say TDK had more detective work in it than any other Batman film, even if some of it did involve junk science (which it oftentimes does in the comics as well).

Really though, Batman's never been portrayed as "the world's greatest detective" in much anything except in name only. Even in the comics, his detective work is rarely more than feeding bits of information into the Batcomputer, bashing in a thug's head for information, or simply just knowing the information already, however obscure. There's rarely any actual detective work shown, simply because its quite a hard thing to write effectively.

This. But I don't think some people will be satisfied until they see him wearing a Sherlock Holmes hat over his bat ears and goes around scrutinizing things under a bat-magnifying glass.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

This. But I don't think some people will be satisfied until they see him wearing a Sherlock Holmes hat over his bat ears and goes around scrutinizing things under a bat-magnifying glass.

Its already irritating with fans enough with comics, who insist that Batman simply MUST be the best hand-to-hand fighter ever, the best detective ever, the smartest hero ever, the most technologically advanced hero ever, when there's clearly heroes in the DC universe that have him beat in every one of those aspects. Its why I appreciate Nolan's Batman a little more - I may be irritated that all his detective work is done via superscience, which is an incredibly lazy way of showing Bruce's detective skills, but atleast he is presented as a very human, very fallible figure, who is clearly not the best at doing everything. For instance, I've always felt that Lucius Fox should always be better with technology than Bruce, it gives him a good figure to turn to. In that same way, I'd like the next film to have him working a bit more with Gordon in detective work, since police procedurals are common it would be a more effective way of showing the detective aspects.

 

[PreK]

That said: no offense, but I think the whole "this is still year one" is a bit of a cop-out.

Yes, Batman is bound to become a better detective through time and experience, but the whole point of his training was to hone his body and mind to perfection. The bulk of his detective skills and scholarly experience should be part of his repertoire before hitting the streets for day one. He's only going to get better, but he should still start out as a genius deducer, chemist, technician, blah blah blah.

This. The time to display Batman's superior prowess was in the first film. To stand on the novice crutch is to obligingly ignore the entire point of his training that led him to the cape and cowl. Besides, it would be pretty ridiculous for Bruce to gain 70 or so IQ points in the span of a few years. That's not how intelligence works.

The comic book Bruce is so beyond smarter than what Nolan intended. It seems at every level Bale's Bruce is portrayed as above-average, rather than the peak of human capability. The every-man who had the drive, time, and focus to hone his abilities. In this regard its even truer to the mantra of "Batman can be anyone with enough training and resources", than the source material itself. An accurate and noble approach to the core concept of the character. And it's not wrong. To me, it's just not nearly as interesting.

Of course the superior intellect can tend to be ridiculous at times. Writers have been getting incredibly lazy with that luxury. But it's certainly more than feasible to pull it off at an acceptable rate, while maintaining its sense of awe and wit. Anyone that's an avid of Sherlock Holmes, be it through the books, movies, or tv shows, can outright tell you how simply enjoyable it is to watch the man work his cogs. Words cannot describe the viewer's intense gratification to head into the fog and come out with such clarity by the story's conclusion. For a character with so little words to say and little outward expression, it's almost a necessity.

I enjoy the films so far, but I do wish we'd get a Batman that can compete with his villains toe-to-toe from the entertainment perspective. It's getting tiring to accept that he needs his villains to be exciting.

Oh well. Maybe next time.

 

[BestGirl]

Its already irritating with fans enough with comics, who insist that Batman simply MUST be the best hand-to-hand fighter ever, the best detective ever, the smartest hero ever, the most technologically advanced hero ever, when there's clearly heroes in the DC universe that have him beat in every one of those aspects. Its why I appreciate Nolan's Batman a little more - I may be irritated that all his detective work is done via superscience, which is an incredibly lazy way of showing Bruce's detective skills, but atleast he is presented as a very human, very fallible figure, who is clearly not the best at doing everything. For instance, I've always felt that Lucius Fox should always be better with technology than Bruce, it gives him a good figure to turn to. In that same way, I'd like the next film to have him working a bit more with Gordon in detective work, since police procedurals are common it would be a more effective way of showing the detective aspects.

I feel exactly the same way.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Really though, Batman's never been portrayed as "the world's greatest detective" in much anything except in name only. Even in the comics, his detective work is rarely more than feeding bits of information into the Batcomputer, bashing in a thug's head for information, or simply just knowing the information already, however obscure. There's rarely any actual detective work shown, simply because its quite a hard thing to write effectively.

Its why I've always felt Batman is more like the best all-rounder than the best martial artist or detective or other, since he's often actually beat in all his specific attributes, like Cassandra Cain or Shiva in the former and the Question or Detective Chimp in the latter.

That was probably one of my biggest complaints about TDK, in that Bruce just used superscience(!) to solve the various mysteries like the bullet or Joker's location, rather than actual smarts. I'd like to see that in the next film, though not to any mythical level such as in his other media, which often takes a "tell" rather than "show" approach - that is, we are often informed that bruce is the best detective, but hardly see it.

Batman's methods aren't always shown but the fact that he is out-thinking gothams best detectives and the FBI consistantly is made very clear in the comics.

Just showing Bruce catch clues that evaded everyone on numerous occassions with little effort would show how brilliant he is. And the fact that Batman is almost always right about his suspicions even though everyone around him completely lost by comparison.

I think the same methods used to emphasize Sherlock Holmes' brilliance could be used in a Batman movie. The super science angle doesn't really address Batman's smarts because Lucius gets credit.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

People already complain about how long it takes for him to put on the batsuit in the movie. If you go into all the stuff like him training at the FBI Academy, all the different masters he trained under, etc., etc., there's not going to be any time for the actual story of the movie. That works in the comics because you can release as many issues of them as you want and aren't limited to a time frame that's slightly more than two hours. It's obvious that he's had previous training, as Ra's calls out every fighting method Bruce tries on him. You don't have to take people by the hand and walk them through every step of the process. Maybe we should have had a 10-20 minute long flashback after each fighting technique Ra's calls out so that we can see what master Bruce trained under for that style. The movie already gets criticized for spelling things out too much as it is.

I'm not asking for any FBI academy stuff. If Batman were to train it would be off the grid and in secret.

Showing that Bruce knows different fighting styles is not enough. You need to show the diversity of training it would require to be the worlds greatest crime fighter (master at escape, disguise, forensics, spying, tracking, etc). You could cut out 100% of the Joe Chill murder plot and 50% of the Ras Al Ghul training and have plenty of time to show Bruce world travel for diverse crime fighting methods. Better yet everytime Batman is challenged show a breif flash back of a foreign master drilling him in some exotic location. This is one way to give an overview necessary to show why Batman is such a prolific crime fighter.

 

[The Guard]

Really though, Batman's never been portrayed as "the world's greatest detective" in much anything except in name only. Even in the comics, his detective work is rarely more than feeding bits of information into the Batcomputer, bashing in a thug's head for information, or simply just knowing the information already, however obscure. There's rarely any actual detective work shown, simply because its quite a hard thing to write effectively.

They don't show it as much now. In the late seventies, early 80's, and certain spots in the 90's they did.

I thought THE DARK KNIGHT did a decent job showing his detective skills, but I still want to see that nigh-impossible Holmes level intellect at some point.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

The comic book Bruce is so beyond smarter than what Nolan intended. It seems at every level Bale's Bruce is portrayed as above-average, rather than the peak of human capability. The every-man who had the drive, time, and focus to hone his abilities. In this regard its even truer to the mantra of "Batman can be anyone with enough training and resources", than the source material itself. An accurate and noble approach to the core concept of the character. And it's not wrong. To me, it's just not nearly as interesting.

While agree with you for the most part I don't think "anybody can become Batman" is truer to mantra. I think the mantra is any gifted human with enough motivation, training, and resources could become a legendary superhero. You have to be naturally gifted to have any chance at reaching Batman's level. Mentally, Clark Kent is the everyman. Bruce Wayne is a born alpha male genius who took his natural gifts and honed them through the best training available to become something legendary.

Bruce Wayne is closer to Alexander the Great than he is to the average joe.

 

[Paste Pot Pete]

While I stand by my original points, I also agree that the reverse is true, that some people underplay Bruce's intelligence/resourcefulness in the films.

It could be improved upon my miles. I do think Begins could've afforded a few more montage minutes devoted to his training in criminology and forensics; it wouldn't have taken little more than simple shots of Bruce reading a book and the classic image of him with a test tube and beaker. Such basic imagery goes a LONG way. It costs nothing, and it adds so much more to the character. It's really character illustration 101.

As for relying on Fox for a lot of his gadgets and such, while this isn't a defense of that choice, I bet that for Nolan it's less "I don't get Batman; I didn't know that he was supposed to make his own gadgets" and more
"I really want to make a Bond movie, so I threw in Q scenes. Plus, Freeman is awesome and I want to give him a lot of screentime." Once again, not a defense, but a reasonable explanation.

But I agree that Nolan does have quite a few things going on in the background. It's weird, because in so many ways Nolan holds the audience's hand in explaining things. In other areas, it's almost like he relies on the audience's assumed knowledge of Batman. We know he's a master investigator, and Nolan throws things into the background to kind of indicate that he's got all of these separate investigations going on offscreen. As mentioned, the supercomputer in the bunker is very telling; he's got a lot of stuff going on - lots of data and video and images, etc - it's kind of short hand to show that he's on top of everything. Also, little things like knowing Thomas Schiff's name and psych profile go a long way in showing a Batman who is wired in and prepared. And, as has also been mentioned, the fact that he had the foresight to prepare the sonar device project, not for any specific use but just as another tool in his war.

In summation, he's not explicitly the World's Greatest Detective, but he's no dummy either. I've been reasonably satisfied so far.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Its already irritating with fans enough with comics, who insist that Batman simply MUST be the best hand-to-hand fighter ever, the best detective ever, the smartest hero ever, the most technologically advanced hero ever, when there's clearly heroes in the DC universe that have him beat in every one of those aspects. Its why I appreciate Nolan's Batman a little more - I may be irritated that all his detective work is done via superscience, which is an incredibly lazy way of showing Bruce's detective skills, but atleast he is presented as a very human, very fallible figure, who is clearly not the best at doing everything. For instance, I've always felt that Lucius Fox should always be better with technology than Bruce, it gives him a good figure to turn to. In that same way, I'd like the next film to have him working a bit more with Gordon in detective work, since police procedurals are common it would be a more effective way of showing the detective aspects.

Bane was better at combat and tactics and fans were fine with it but it needs to be established that Batman has mastered everything that has to do with crime fighting to the extent where he's unmatched by almost anyone.

Showing him being good at crime fighting isn't enough. He needs to display incredible supremacy in all crime fighting areas in order to live up to his name. That's what gives the character the "wow" factor.

 

[namtaB]

While agree with you for the most part I don't think "anybody can become Batman" is truer to mantra. I think the mantra is any gifted human with enough motivation, training, and resources could become a legendary superhero. You have to be naturally gifted to have any chance at reaching Batman's level. Mentally, Clark Kent is the everyman. Bruce Wayne is a born alpha male genius who took his natural gifts and honed them through the best training available to become something legendary.

Bruce Wayne is closer to Alexander the Great than he is to the average joe.

I don't think anyone can be Batman. I'd go even narrower and say any gifted human who has the requisite psychological scarring but the self-discipline to channel it into a productive force could be Batman. There's very few people throughout history who fit that profile and even fewer who channeled that towards a noble outcome.

I don't think Bruce Wayne is an alpha male at all. Alpha males are natural leaders. Bruce Wayne is not, he'd rather hide himself in the social fabric as a narcissistic playboy. He shuns social norms and engages in behavior (as Batman) that is socially unacceptable. In private, he's an introvert only trusting Alfred and a few select others. In public he's a foppish buffoon.

Bruce Wayne has more in common with a serial killer (obsessive loner) than an alpha male (natural leader).

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

The "damn he's good" reputation of Batman is one of the reasons the character is so popular.

Him doing crime fighting things isn't enough. He needs to be among the best in order to deserve his top place among legendary superheroes.

 

[hatebox]

If you accept that we couldn't see Batman much later than the one hour mark in a massively expensive blockbuster film then I think Begins depicted Bruce's training about as effectively as one could reasonably hope. To simply get rid of Chill and his parents' murder just to make more space for 'different kinds of training' is a bit ludicrous, we have to see why Bruce became so messed up.

Some would say Bruce isn't as perfect as they'd like, others might that say Nolan went out of his way to convey a hero who's not infallible and, thus, relatable.

 

[Doc Samson]

You don't have to take people by the hand and walk them through every step of the process. Maybe we should have had a 10-20 minute long flashback after each fighting technique Ra's calls out so that we can see what master Bruce trained under for that style. The movie already gets criticized for spelling things out too much as it is.

Agreed. At some point, you have to give the audience the benefit of the doubt, which I think Nolan did with Inception. Granted, Inception isn't a world renowned property like Batman, but at the same time, Batman is world renowned.

After all the movies, all the games, all the cartoons, everybody should be pretty familiar with the fact that he's intelligent. Even the prior movies touched on this somewhat, with Batman figuring out the chemical combination for Joker's toxin & deciphering Riddler's "puzzles" rather easily.