So maybe a hot take but: I think the thing that is most interesting about Nolan's Batman movies is in the way that they explore Batman as being a symptom of a corrupt and broken society. The entire point and climax of the Dark Knight revolves around the idea that Batman is in fact NOT a hero. He saves Gotham but at the end of it all ultimately is forced to become a pariah who society has to hunt down for the crimes he both did and did not commit.
They kinda fuck with this in part 3 but the Dark Knight Trilogy as a whole I think is about the precarity of modern society and the fact that its essentially all being held together by outright lies and contradictions. The police and district attorney follow the laws and go after the badguys....except when they are massively corrupt and also accept the help of a vigilante who breaks laws all over the place. People deep down are good and want what is right...but also they're one bad day away from going completely psychotic. Maybe the world is all held together with brutal violence and hypocrisy....but we still owe it to ourselves and others to believe in something greater.
I struggle with the idea that Oppenheimer will be an explicitly pro-nuclear-bomb film if only because it would mean Nolan gave infinitely more nuance and thought into a children's comic hero that nobody even really asked for at the time.
The entire point and climax of the Dark Knight revolves around the idea that Batman is in fact NOT a hero.
I see where you're coming from, the whole "he's the hero we need but not the one we deserve" at least pays some lip service to the fact that what he's doing is questionable, actually. Further reinforced when Batman destroys the surveilance system after he's done using it because it's too evil you guys. But here's a couple of things that dilute it a bit: 1. that police and military are already justified under the banner of pragmatism (in my view, being an anti-hero vigilante is simply cynical detachment) and 2. the counterpart, the hero gotham deserved, was harvey dent, some dumbo politician.
I actually think the subtext within the movie is far more cynical on Harvey Dent then it gets credit for. There are several clues/moments that show Dent's crusade is not pure altruism and is motivated more than a little by narcissistic ambition. Even just his monologue on the Batman and Roman suspension of democracy infers that he sees himself more like Batman than as a counterpoint to him, and he is shown interrogating a man at gun point long before he goes completely insane.
The counterpoint to Batman and what is needed in the end is not in fact Harvey Dent the person, deeply flawed and broken...but instead the idea of what Harvey Dent represented. The incorruptible white knight.
So maybe a hot take but: I think the thing that is most interesting about Nolan's Batman movies is in the way that they explore Batman as being a symptom of a corrupt and broken society. The entire point and climax of the Dark Knight revolves around the idea that Batman is in fact NOT a hero. He saves Gotham but at the end of it all ultimately is forced to become a pariah who society has to hunt down for the crimes he both did and did not commit. They kinda fuck with this in part 3 but the Dark Knight Trilogy as a whole I think is about the precarity of modern society and the fact that its essentially all being held together by outright lies and contradictions. The police and district attorney follow the laws and go after the badguys....except when they are massively corrupt and also accept the help of a vigilante who breaks laws all over the place. People deep down are good and want what is right...but also they're one bad day away from going completely psychotic. Maybe the world is all held together with brutal violence and hypocrisy....but we still owe it to ourselves and others to believe in something greater.
I struggle with the idea that Oppenheimer will be an explicitly pro-nuclear-bomb film if only because it would mean Nolan gave infinitely more nuance and thought into a children's comic hero that nobody even really asked for at the time.
I see where you're coming from, the whole "he's the hero we need but not the one we deserve" at least pays some lip service to the fact that what he's doing is questionable, actually. Further reinforced when Batman destroys the surveilance system after he's done using it because it's too evil you guys. But here's a couple of things that dilute it a bit: 1. that police and military are already justified under the banner of pragmatism (in my view, being an anti-hero vigilante is simply cynical detachment) and 2. the counterpart, the hero gotham deserved, was harvey dent, some dumbo politician.
I actually think the subtext within the movie is far more cynical on Harvey Dent then it gets credit for. There are several clues/moments that show Dent's crusade is not pure altruism and is motivated more than a little by narcissistic ambition. Even just his monologue on the Batman and Roman suspension of democracy infers that he sees himself more like Batman than as a counterpoint to him, and he is shown interrogating a man at gun point long before he goes completely insane.
The counterpoint to Batman and what is needed in the end is not in fact Harvey Dent the person, deeply flawed and broken...but instead the idea of what Harvey Dent represented. The incorruptible white knight.