Day and Night

A continuation of my ideas for Year of the Bat (or at least that's what I think would make a great title for this third/final installment in Christopher Nolan's Batman series)..

We now continue, having left off with someone, apparently Batman, blowing up every wannabe supervillain in Gotham in one swift motion...


That night. Wayne Manor. Bruce Wayne walks into the kitchen. Alfred confronts him about his recent change. "You didn't mean to kill Mr. Dent, sir. But these others. The ones since then. You can't call that an accident. Batman was supposed to stand for something." As Alfred continues talking, the camera closes in on Wayne's face, and Alfred's voice fades out, replaced with words from the Joker, "You complete me. You complete me. You complete me." Wayne shakes out of the reverie and explains to Alfred that when the mob was around, he had purpose. With the Joker, he had purpose. But now, he's lost that purpose. Batman is no longer an incorruptible symbol. He's just another freak. The people are as scared of Batman as they are of the villains. Maybe even more so. And worse, he's inspired normal criminals to step up and try to be the next Joker or Batman. That's why he did what he did. He's tearing out the weed at the root. Alfred interjects that all those would-be villains aren't the root. Wayne pauses and says, "I know."

The next morning, Gordon surveys the ruins of the warehouse. One of his men delivers an initial report that "dozens" were killed. Gordon holds his hand to his eyes. "Even the Joker didn't get that many," he sighs.

The officer who delivered the report, looking around with a more hardened expression, interjects, "But these were bad guys, sir. It's not like the Bat Man's killing innocent people."

"And if he had," asks Gordon, "If he had, could you have stopped him?"

That night, a drug dealer waits on the corner. The street is unusually quiet. He starts to walk away from his post, looking over his shoulder. He's convinced someone is following him. He ducks into an alley and peeks back at the street. Nothing. When he turns back to the alley, he's suddenly sucked into the darkness. The camera pulls back from the alley to the sound of blows landing and muffled screams.

Cut to Wayne Manor, the next morning. A newspaper slams down next to Bruce Wayne's head. Alfred is shouting at him about the front page item, a low level drug dealer who was beaten so badly he's in critical condition at the hospital, and how one of Batman's symbols was left at the scene. Wayne shrugs and begins to monologue about the power of fear, how when it isn't just the bosses, but any thug who can be hurt by Batman, they won't dare to. Alfred cuts him off, arguing that if people are too afraid to do wrong, that doesn't mean that they're good or right. It just means they're scared. And that's no different than how it used to be.

Cut to Gordon, who is fielding various questions from the press about Batman: whether he's really being pursued by the police, whether Gordon think he's making the city safer. He answers that Batman was once a symbol of hope. Now he's a symbol of fear. Gordon wants people to think of the police as the new symbol of... He is cut off as a body swings into the window, much as the fake Batman in The Dark Knight. It is the officer who reported to Gordon at the warehouse. He's alive, but badly beaten. A piece of paper in the shape of a bat is pinned to his shirt.

Cut to Wayne Manor. Bruce approaches Alfred. "I need you to do something for me."


OK, this middle portion has been the hardest for me. Obviously I want Batman to descent lower and lower, taking on criminals and police alike, and becoming hated/feared by the general populace of Gotham. In the next installment, I'll outline Batman's final plans, how they go awry, the grand cinematic climax, and the muted dramatic climax.

A Break from Dissertating, or Why Everybody Else Is Wrong About The Next Dark Knight Villain

While everybody on the internet and their mothers are speculating as to which member of the Rogues Gallery will be the villain in the next Batman movie (exhibit A), I'd like to take this moment to shout into the Abyss:

There shouldn't be another villain!

At least nobody is arguing for Calendarman yet.

Nolan isn't just retelling the Batman story. He's recreating it. Sure, there are over the top moments, but his Batman exists in a real world, not a serial. That means that when people die, they die. When Batman makes a choice, he has to deal with its consequences. And when the baddest bad guy of all makes his appearance, you simply cannot top it.

This is the existential problem in Nolan's created world, and frankly, it should be the guiding problem of whatever movie follows The Dark Knight.

This Batman series has emphasized symbolism from the beginning, taking special care to show that the idealism of the first movie could in fact be twisted. It turns out, ironically, that Bruce Wayne had it only partially right when he said that as a symbol, he could be incorruptible. It's actually the man behind the mask who resists corruption in The Dark Knight, and the symbol that becomes tarnished. In fact, that's one reason the Bruce Wayne/Batman character is so relatively boring in the second movie. Call me a cynic (I am), but I say it's time to take this to its extreme and logical end: Batman must be the villain of the third and final movie. More than that, the symbol must die, and the man must learn what it is to give up everything to achieve his goal.

I give to you my concept, in varying degrees of detail, for the last Batman movie:


Our first shot opens on a pair of scruffy wingtip shoes waddling away from us. The camera pans up slightly, just enough to let us see that the man wearing them is obese and carrying an umbrella.

Cut to the back of a woman's head, well-coiffed. She's at an expensive restaurant, seated with a group of women dressed in businesswear. She holds a cat.

Cut to a side view of a man wearing a purple top hat. He stares at a group of children on a playground.

Cut to a woman wearing a labcoat. She drops a fly into a waiting Venus Fly Trap.

Cut back to the original man, who enters a convenience store and tries to hold up the clerk using his umbrella. The umbrella is awkwardly rigged to fire a gun, but it doesn't work. He runs out of the store and into an alley, panting. Someone hands him a piece of paper. [The cuts begin to increase in pace] The woman with the cat begins to call her lunch meeting to order when the waiter hands her a piece of paper. She opens it and sees a coded message. The man in the hat is looking at his paper, a few letters of which he's deciphered. The botanist has completed half of the message. The message is quickly revealed to be an invitation to a "Rogues' Gallery" by someone calling himself "The Riddler."

Cut to Commissioner Gordon having a conversation with an underling about proliferation since the Joker's capture. "Every two-bit nut is putting on a costume and calling himself a supervillain. There's no room left for the normal people in this town."

Cut to assembled villains in a warehouse (here's your chance to stick Calendarman in the movie). There is a huge round table, big enough to seat them all. In the center is a note in the shape of The Riddler's mask. Most of the villains eye each other warily. A few are talking themselves up to their neighbors, the rest are annoyed by the amateurish efforts. Finally the Penguin jumps up on the table and waddles towards the note. He picks it up, and the note tears to reveal a smaller piece of paper in the shape of a bat. The villains look around worriedly.

Cut to outside of warehouse. It explodes.

Tune in tomorrow, same Bat-channel, for continuing developments in this story...