Ready, Aim, Fire!

[DocLathropBrown]

Thats your opinion.

No, that's a fact, delivered by analysis and pure logic. I'm not someone who passes off their opinion as "fact." I posted enough logical arguments to deflate this argument. Can you come up with a logical counterargument to explain why I'm wrong and it's Just" my opinion?

Any halfwit would arrive at the point I made just by watching the damn scene. The clues are there. The answer is in how Burton filmed the sequence. You honestly mean to tell me that Burton intended us to interpret the scene as "Batman deliberately misses the Joker?" Why, then, is he so obviously shocked/surprised when the weapons miss? Why would he show us a moment with Batman using the computer to LOCK ON to the Joker as a target, if the intention was to get us to realize that he was going to "fire around" the Joker?

Alternatively, why would Batman decide to spare the Joker's life? By the third act after the flashback, he wants him dead. Why bother to fire at him in the first place if not to kill him?

It's more insulting to think that Batman went into action with faulty equipment. If you're saying THAT's what Burton intended, then I don't think I like Burton very much anymore, because if that's the case, than his Batman in an unprepared idiot.

I swear, some "Burtonites" wouldn't know logic if it bit them on the ass, and I hate to admit that.

Pure logic dicates the outcome I arrived at. I didn't just say "It's a throwaway joke" because I'm some asshole/Nolanite that devoids the Burton films of any value, so don't act like I am. Based on analysis of the scene and the film as Burton put it together, this is what it is. I've studied film enough to know what the intention of the sequence is based on the actors, the events and the editing.

Any fan conjecture on this question is rendered null and void by a logical analysis of the material at hand, and fanalysis is typically rediculous and far-reaching. If it was meant to be logically explained as to why Batman missed, it would have been explained in the film BY Tim Burton.

My analysis does NOT equal "it's just a movie." I have laid it out as Burton intended the audience to see it, I haven't derided it, as I think it was brilliant. But there's no point in reading anything into it, it's a waste of time.

I mean, it's not even a case of "interpretation." There's no way in hell there's any other explaination, even if there was one Burton intended us to find. Any other explaination invariably makes Batman out-of-character for the third act, or an idiot.

Was that clear enough?

[phantom stranger]

Sometimes there's an easy explanation for ambiguous scenes but it just gets lost in editing or script rewrites.

I remember watching "Air Force One" and waiting for them to explain the motive of the man who betrayed the President. Never happened, but it was written in an early draft of the script.

[The Dark Knight]

Well said, DocLathropBrown. Batman wanted Joker dead. Not only did he aim directly at his body, but his face of surprise and disappointment is proof of his intent. There would be no point him shooting around him conidering how he was feeling at the time. I just put that thought out there for folks to discuss at the start of the thread.

Batman going out to battle with dud equipment would be worse. The fact he missed was just an amazing fluke of luck. I suppose it could have been nerves on Batman's part...something....I don't know. The aiming system was fine....I'm still thinking about this scene after all these years!

[The Dark Knight]

Well, his equipment was not faulty, and he was aiming directly at Joker. I think human error has to come into it.

[THE BAT-MAN]

Thats your opinion.

No, that's a fact, delivered by analysis and pure logic. I'm not someone who passes off their opinion as "fact." I posted enough logical arguments to deflate this argument. Can you come up with a logical counterargument to explain why I'm wrong and it's Just" my opinion?

Any halfwit would arrive at the point I made just by watching the damn scene. The clues are there. The answer is in how Burton filmed the sequence. You honestly mean to tell me that Burton intended us to interpret the scene as "Batman deliberately misses the Joker?" Why, then, is he so obviously shocked/surprised when the weapons miss? Why would he show us a moment with Batman using the computer to LOCK ON to the Joker as a target, if the intention was to get us to realize that he was going to "fire around" the Joker?

Alternatively, why would Batman decide to spare the Joker's life? By the third act after the flashback, he wants him dead. Why bother to fire at him in the first place if not to kill him?

It's more insulting to think that Batman went into action with faulty equipment. If you're saying THAT's what Burton intended, then I don't think I like Burton very much anymore, because if that's the case, than his Batman in an unprepared idiot.

I swear, some "Burtonites" wouldn't know logic if it bit them on the ass, and I hate to admit that.

Pure logic dicates the outcome I arrived at. I didn't just say "It's a throwaway joke" because I'm some *******/Nolanite that devoids the Burton films of any value, so don't act like I am. Based on analysis of the scene and the film as Burton put it together, this is what it is. I've studied film enough to know what the intention of the sequence is based on the actors, the events and the editing.

Any fan conjecture on this question is rendered null and void by a logical analysis of the material at hand, and fanalysis is typically rediculous and far-reaching. If it was meant to be logically explained as to why Batman missed, it would have been explained in the film BY Tim Burton.

My analysis does NOT equal "it's just a movie." I have laid it out as Burton intended the audience to see it, I haven't derided it, as I think it was brilliant. But there's no point in reading anything into it, it's a waste of time.

I mean, it's not even a case of "interpretation." There's no way in hell there's any other explaination, even if there was one Burton intended us to find. Any other explaination invariably makes Batman out-of-character for the third act, or an idiot.

Was that clear enough?

You got me all wrong.  I completely agree with you, I know batman was trying to kill the Joker.  If you even read my view of the scene I wouldn't be getting all this outraged nonsense.  I only meant that it is your opinion that there is no explaination as to why batman missed? and that not even an intelligent fan theory can fit in.  I believe there can be a plausible explaination as to why Batman  was unable to kill the Joker?  I do know that he wanted the Joker dead,  therefore he was not trying to miss him.  I know that his equipment was not faulty, and I know that Batman's aim is very precise and accurate, but the one thing that I think everyone  underestimates is the Joker.  Could it be possible that Joker calculated the range of the Batwing? or he knew that no matter what batman threw at him, he could not get hit?  There are probably more explainations but for right now I apologize for the miss understanding.

[DocLathropBrown]

Oh brother.

That thoery is just as whacked out and unsubstantiatable as ALL of the others.

Why, how would the Joker know the Batwing's capabilities? Did he buy the plans online and study it? He seemed pretty surprised to me that Batman had "one of those... things!"

It is exactly as I said, there is NO plausible explaination unless you want to accept something completely hairbrained and stupid. I don't mean to be, well, mean, but any theory (especially the Joker somehow knowing the capabilities and physics related to a plane he's never seen or used before in his life) is going to be absolutely moronic.

Joker was standing BEFORE Batman targeted him. You saying that the Joker has ESP, and could detect where Batman was aiming?

I know as a fan that you desperately want a concrete answer to this mystery, but there isn't an idea that can be made to explain it that doesn't border on fanboy wishful thinking. There isn't a single thing in the comic adaptation, the novelization, the shooting script OR the film that makes an explaination possible. You would just have to accept faulty equipment, that is the most logical choice. But as I've said before, it doesn't make Batman look very professional, or very smart.

I mean, calculating the Batwing's capabilites, when he knows nothing about the plane, it being completely custom and never before used.... are you ****ing kidding me?

But then, I've never been enough of a fanboy to want to make up an answer to fill a plot hole that is unfillable. You can only make a theory that works based on evidence given (Unless you want to be able to explain it any way imaginable), but the only theory that fits with the given evidence is that the equipment was faulty, and even then, it does not fit because the rest of the Batwing's functions were working perfectly earlier, so that squashes that idea, really.

This theory is just as logical and proveable as the others: Bob the Goon knows who Batman is and messed with the Batwing's targeting computer, making it uncalibrated, all to protect the Joker because he knew Batman would use it to fire at his boss.

See? That fits in just as well as any other idea, because there's not enough evidence in the film to deny it. The same with all of the other theories fans have come up with.

I've learned to separate myself from my love of Burton's film to be able to step back and see it for the intentional lapse-in-logic/reality that it is supposed to be.

[Paul (ral)]

All these explainations are very inventive - but as I say - we don't need everything explained.

[Dark Knight Detective]

What's your opinion on this scene?

[Paul (ral)]

What's your opinion on this scene?

I gave it 
http://www.batmanmovieonline.com/forum/index.php?topic=572.msg9516#msg9516

[The Dark Knight]

The idea that Joker knew where and when Batman was going to fire is ridiculous. Batman could have fired from the clouds as he began his approach, but he fired up close. Joker had no idea, he was willing to die right there and then.

That equipment was not faulty, so I'm going to have to put it down to human error. It's all that can explain it.