Batman acknowledges killing Ra's al Ghul.

[The Laughing Fish]

I hope nobody thinks I'm trying to start a flame war, but I need to get this off my chest.

One of the biggest problems I have with Nolan's trilogy is Batman claims to have a moral code against killing people, but then he ends up killing anyway whenever it's convenient to the story. When I first saw BB, I thought it was utterly stupid how Bruce goes from taking a stand against killing someone, but then he blows up the temple a few seconds later which kills almost everyone inside it . And I never bought the argument that Batman was never morally responsible for Ra's al Ghul's death because 1)  Batman planned to derail the train that was carrying Ra's and 2) the last few words Batman says to Ra's implies he had a choice to save him, but he decides to condemn Ra's to his death instead.

And guess what? Batman admits to killing Ra's after all!

That's right. When Talia confronts him about the death of her father in The Dark Knight Rises, Batman doesn't deny it - he justifies his reasoning for killing Ra's al Ghul because innocent people's lives were at stake.

So here is my question: why the hell couldn't Batman kill the Joker after all this time?! I have no idea what are Batman's morals in these movies; one movie shows him having no problem using lethal force to stop Ra's al Ghul, yet at the end of The Dark Knight we're supposed to believe that he is too 'incorruptible' to kill the Joker!? Even though Joker was far more deranged, deadly and sinister than Ra's ever was? And to make matters worse, Batman kills Two-Face to save Gordon's son five minutes later. Absolute nonsense.

This is yet another reason why I have very little regard for Nolan's movies and I honestly don't understand how anyone can say with a straight face that they are intelligent movies. I find it frustrating that people complain about Burton's Batman and Snyder's Superman for killing villains, yet they ignore Nolan's Batman doing the same thing. For all the faults that Burton's Batman and Man of Steel have, at least those movies' heroes don't refuse to kill one someone, and then suddenly killing someone else moments later. If people still enjoy Nolan's Batman films despite knowing they are far from perfect, then fair enough. I'm in no position to judge them because I enjoy my own share of flawed films too; after all, I'll happily admit that Burton's Batman films aren't perfect either and I thought Man of Steel was decent at best. But having said that, I'm tired of people criticising every little problem other movies have, while continuing to ignore hundreds of plot holes, contradictions and inconsistencies that this trilogy has; let alone insisting it features some of the best films ever made.

[The Dark Knight]

Fully agree. Burton's Batman is honest and straight to the point. No contradictions or lame loopholes.

Yes, he did:
Blow up a factory and squad of goons manufacturing chemical weapons;
Machine gun thugs who were firing upon the public, taking over a city with force;
Fire upon The Joker, who orchestrated the gassing plot;
Throw an African goon down a bell shaft in a genuine fight to the death.

I wouldn't make any excuse for any of that behaviour. He truly was a knight protecting his castle, doing what had to be done.

[Travesty]

I've debated this so much on other forums like SHH, and you'll have people come up with some of the craziest ways to try and justify it. I always used the Ra's killing as my prime example, in how he set out to derail the train before he even got on it. He even gave Gordon the Tumbler, just so he could blow up the track, cause he knew the train was going to derail. And of course, he says it bluntly in the film, "who said anything about stopping [the train]". But the temple one was always the funniest one, IMO. "I'm no executioner.....so I'll kill you all! HUZZAH!".

I also love how he explicitly says in TDKR, "no guns:never". I guess that's cool, unless you're driving any of the vehicles that he uses, which all have guns, and of course, that helped kill Talia in the truck. 

[The Laughing Fish]

Fully agree. Burton's Batman is honest and straight to the point. No contradictions or lame loopholes.

It never bothered me that he killed villains in those movies because at least it was never explored what were his morals beforehand. Sure, it gets a little muddled when he replies "Wrong at both counts" when Catwoman claims the law doesn't apply to both of them in Returns, but at least you can argue that Batman was desperately trying to save Catwoman from herself (having said that, I wished the movie handled Batman reflecting his own ways better). Still, it's not as bad as saying "I won't be an executioner", and then cause the deaths of so many people moments later, not to mention the two other instances we've already covered in TDK and TDKR.

I've debated this so much on other forums like SHH, and you'll have people come up with some of the craziest ways to try and justify it. I always used the Ra's killing as my prime example, in how he set out to derail the train before he even got on it. He even gave Gordon the Tumbler, just so he could blow up the track, cause he knew the train was going to derail. And of course, he says it bluntly in the film, "who said anything about stopping [the train]". 

I haven't seen the film in a long time, but here is something that I don't get:  if Gordon destroying the rails means that the train doesn't have a chance to ever reach Wayne Tower, then why does Batman even have to get on the train at all? It doesn't matter if the train's controls get broken, the train won't be going anywhere if the rails are sabotaged. So why does Batman need to distract and fight Ra's in the first place? To make sure he doesn't get out of there alive?

But the temple one was always the funniest one, IMO. "I'm no executioner.....so I'll kill you all! HUZZAH!".

You know what I like more? We don't even know if the guy that Bruce refused to kill even survived the explosion! If anything, he should've been the one that Bruce saved from falling off the mountain, not the real Ra's.

I also love how he explicitly says in TDKR, "no guns:never". I guess that's cool, unless you're driving any of the vehicles that he uses, which all have guns, and of course, that helped kill Talia in the truck. 

And yet people complain that Batman was eager to kill in B89 and BR, and still act like the one in the trilogy had moral restraint.  Talk about denial.

[The Dark Knight]

With the Burton films, Batman's body count isn't an issue. People decide to make it one but overlook the hypocritical nature of Nolan.

As Trav posted, Batman fired point blank at Talia's truck, killing the driver, after saying "no guns, no killing" earlier in the film. Apologists will say he was in a hurry with a nuclear weapon about to go off (yet he had time to kiss Goggle Woman, etc etc). Well, this just further cements lethal force is required in certain situations. Don't shy away from it - Nolan wanted his cake and to eat it too.

I would much rather a Batman that intends to kill, rather than some incompetent hypocrite who accidently blows up a monastery or 'indirectly' breaks a man's neck. And yeah, he killed Ras with his inaction.

Also let's remember, this is a Batman that blows civilian cars away with cannons to clear a path. What a strong moral code Nolan Bat has. When presented with a similiar situation, Keaton's Bat stopped his car, shielded it up and took the fight to the back streets.

[Travesty]

It just doesn't bother me that Batman kills in the Burton movies, cause it's not presented to us that this is a Batman with a strict no-killing rule. But with Nolan's, he talks about it so many times, yet, he is constantly killing people. And the justifications that people come up with are mind numbingly stupid.

-Kills Ra's? Naw man, he just didn't save him. It said it in the movie!

-Kills the ninjas in the temple? Dude, that was before he was Batman. And seriously, we didn't see anybody die, so you don't know for sure if he actually killed anybody.

-Kills Two-Face? What was he supposed to do, let Gordon's son die? He had no other options, like using a Batarang to knock the gun out of his hands.

-Kills Talia and her driver? Come on man, the city was about to blow up. He had to do something!


Me:

[The Dark Knight]

People say Batman does not kill, but that is nothing but a concept. He does kill. Batman is dark and mean. If he has to put you down, he will. But it's not like he's offing purse snatchers. Keaton's Batman kills absolute garbage. I don't hold the sanctity of chemical weapon sprayers lives all too much.

Burton's Batman has guns on his vehicles because he realises it is a war on crime. If someone crosses the line, he will too. But if Nolan Batman is so against the use of guns, why on Earth are they strapped to The Bat? It should have been a total no go zone for him - have them removed.

It is laughable.

[The Laughing Fish]

It just doesn't bother me that Batman kills in the Burton movies, cause it's not presented to us that this is a Batman with a strict no-killing rule. But with Nolan's, he talks about it so many times, yet, he is constantly killing people. And the justifications that people come up with are mind numbingly stupid.

-Kills Ra's? Naw man, he just didn't save him. It said it in the movie!

Are they really that oblivious to the fact that not only he planned to derail the train and intended to make sure Ra's didn't get out of there alive, Batman's words actually suggest he could have saved him? Christ...

-Kills the ninjas in the temple? Dude, that was before he was Batman. And seriously, we didn't see anybody die, so you don't know for sure if he actually killed anybody.

Anyone who says that clearly didn't pay any attention to what was going on in that scene; the fake Ra's and many other ninjas were killed as a result of Bruce's destruction of the temple. And the fact this happened before he became Batman makes it even worse for Bruce. At the end of that scene, he doesn't even look distraught or affected about what he had done. And we're supposed to buy into his non-killing code after a move like that?!

-Kills Two-Face? What was he supposed to do, let Gordon's son die? He had no other options, like using a Batarang to knock the gun out of his hands.

-Kills Talia and her driver? Come on man, the city was about to blow up. He had to do something!

Again, it demonstrates TDK's point about Nolan wanting to have it both ways. If Batman is prepared to consider using lethal force under dire circumstances after all, how come he allowed the Joker to kill so many people?! What is the difference between Joker reaching for his detonator to murder thousands of people, and Two-Face flipping a coin to decide whether or not to murder a child (not to mention a nuclear bomb is about to go off at the end of the third film)?! Don't these people even stop and think about this?

I really don't know which is worse; watching how badly written these pretentious movies are, or people actually eating it up as they try to come up with excuses for the most illogical scenes. Again, if people realise how absurd all of this is but still enjoy the movies, then more power to them. But I really can't believe that for movies that have become the objects of worship in the eyes of fans and critics, this entire trilogy actually has outrageous and idiotic faults that not even crap like Fantastic Four or Batman & Robin suffer from. These people need to pick a stance and stick with it: either Batman should have a non-killing policy, or he is prepared to kill villains to save lives. It CAN'T be both. And that includes the use of guns.

I guess Nolan thinks that as long as he can make a Batman movie that takes itself so seriously, and it has a ridiculously convoluted plot that includes twists and themes, even though they do not make much sense, people will accept anything and call it genius - because it's not a Joel Schumacher movie. Sadly, he's right.

[The Laughing Fish]

I've found this picture on some meme website with a caption titled "How The Dark Knight Rises Really Should Have Ended".

[The Laughing Fish]

Warning: long post.

I had an interesting yet bizarre debate with somebody awhile ago about Nolan's Batman, specifically The Dark Knight. Upon arguing how I thought Batman's sparing of the Joker was all in vain because his moral code had already been compromised before and after the fact, I was presented with the counter-argument that Batman considers himself as a soldier, and killing the Joker would've made him an executioner because the Joker was already "beaten". This person argues that Batman's "I'm no executioner" speech in Batman Begins meant that he won't rule out killing – he just won't do it in cold blood. Plus, Two-Face's death was argued to be accidental, and I was told that if Batman breaking his moral code bothered me so much, then I might as well condemn every comic that had him breaking his code instead of criticising Nolan. And get this – apparently this person thinks it's "unfair" to use Batman's murdering of Ra's al Ghul as an "excuse" to criticise the sequels, and each film should be viewed as standalone. Un-farken-believable. 

Here's a problem I have with these arguments:

• First of all, soldiers do NOT endanger an entire city by keeping psychotic mass-murderers alive, nor would they ever allow getting lots of people killed in the process. If Batman truly saw himself as a protector and a solder then he should've put the Joker down with his Batpod a long time ago. And what the person in question doesn't remember (or most likely disregards) is the fact that the Joker was about to blow up both boats with his own detonator and murder everyone on board, until Batman threw him off the building before saving him. I don't buy the excuse that killing the Joker would have been an execution. If anything, it would have been a justifiable homicide (if such a term even exists) had Batman let Joker fall to his death. And besides, wouldn't keeping Joker alive not only allow him to escape again, but also endanger the Dent cover-up too? This isn't like Batman trying to talk Catwoman out of killing Max Schreck in Batman Returns. Schreck was a crime boss, but he wasn't a threat to the entire town in that scene, at least not on the scale that Ledger's Joker was. Unlike Ledger's Joker, Schreck had his limitations and wasn't "an unstoppable force of nature".
  
  And even if Two-Face's death was supposed to be an accident (which I'm still not convinced that it was, at least not any more accidental than, say, Superman supposedly "murdering Zod in cold blood" in MOS), it still goes to show that lethal force is required in certain situations. You can't have it both ways.
  


• As far as the comics is concerned? The difference is that while Batman certainly killed in the comics, the ones that I've read always featured Batman taking that course of action as a last resort. Yes, he broke his rule, but he still saved Gotham in the end. So far, I've NEVER read a comic where Batman spends the majority of the plot by keeping a psychopath alive that puts the entire city in danger...only to kill another psychotic villain in the last five minutes of the same story because a hostage was in trouble. And on top of that, he covered up that villain's death in the worst possible manner by framing himself and telling a lie that's eventually exposed – easily I should add. Call me crazy, but I don't find any of that heroic at all.
  
  If anything, Batman Begins is the only Nolan film that can be arguably compared to Batman breaking his rule in the comics. Yes, he broke his rule, but at least he saved Gotham in the end. But in TDK, he suddenly upheld his meaningless rule to the detriment of the entire city for no reason, and many people died as a result. How the hell is that supposed to be heroic? Maybe that actually happened in a comic that I'm not aware of, I don't know. If it did, it seems pretty obscure and I really doubt I'd like it that much.


• And finally, regarding the frankly absurd rebuttal how it's "unfair" to condemn Nolan's whole take for his mistakes in getting Batman to murder Ra's al Ghul? Excuse me, but that's just utter BULLSH*T. Since when was it ever acknowledged by Batman in the movies – or the director himself – that killing Ra's al Ghul was a "mistake"? That's right, never. It's such a cop-out thing to say. We never saw a change in Bruce after that, and we're encouraged to turn a blind eye to all of it...yet in TDKR he defiantly tells Talia that he got her father killed to protect millions of people. Well, like what the caption in the meme above says, why didn't he apply that same course of action against the Joker then?! And then people hypocritically say that Batman's so-called moral dilemma makes for a "rich character arc". What the hell?!
  
  And it's harder to view the second film as a standalone, not only because it contradicts the first film, but it also ends on an unfinished note like The Empire Strikes Back; paving the way for events in the third movie. Isn't this supposed to be a trilogy after all? For a series that tells Batman's story from beginning to end, it lacks horribly when it comes to continuity and logic because of the contrived writing. It makes his moral triumph against the Joker rather pointless, no?

   
I don't care how arrogant this might sound: if forcing myself to enjoy these movies mean I have to murder my brain cells by ignoring these massive flaws that otherwise would've been condemned by another director in another franchise or making faulty arguments to defend them, then I think I'll stick to staying "locked in a mindset in hating these movies", thank you very much.

It's unbelievable how some people will come up with the lamest excuses to defend the obvious problems in these movies. But I guess it's my fault for wanting these movies to make sense. It is apparently too much to ask.