For 8 years I have held the position that The Dark Knight Rises is a great stand alone film but a crappy sequel to Nolan's first two Batman movies. But that latter criticism was always expressed as merely nerdy whining that it contradicted what I felt The Dark Knight was saying was gonna happen next after the credits rolled.
However I have come to terms with having a deeper ideological issue with TDKR even as a stand alone film, that has also shown how it's in my eyes incongruity with Nolan's prior Batman films had more substance then I originally thought.
The Dark Knight Rises becoming it's endgame made the Nolanverse quite possibly the most Pro-Cop and Anti-Anarchist interpretation of Batman ever. And perhaps that was always where it was destined to go, Batman Begins has all this Police Corruption stuff taken from Year One and The Long Halloween, but it was kind of always implying this is unique to Gotham and why Gotham uniquely needs The Batman. And then TDK had the sonar plot that I've grown more conflicted on how it was handled. But still the first two movies can be authorial intent or not read as pretty Anarchistic and here's why.
One of the problems with Ledger's Joker being called an "Anarchist" is that his view of Human nature is one actual philosophical Anarchists reject, when he says "when the chips are down, these civilized people, will eat each other" he is expressing a Hobbesian view of Human nature. Watch the Jack Saint video on Post Apocalyptic fiction for a primer on what that term means.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwVN95XfOPM
BTW in this movie, of the scenes where The Joker is at least seemingly explaining his world view and motivations, what he says to Batman is where I think he's most honest, Batman is who he sees himself as making this argument with. He lies to Batman about a basic statement of fact by switching Dent and Rachel's locations, but not about his goals and philosophy. What he said to Dent was I think partly honest but also designed to "push" Dent where he wanted.
At the climax of the movie comes the scene which provides the title of this post, where all of the sudden Batman of all people is the DC character who sounds like an Anime protagonist expressing faith in the innate goodness of humanity. And he is proven right and The Joker is proven wrong just like in The Killing Joke.
However there is a frequent take that the fall of Harvey Dent means The Joker did win, which is how The Joker saw it, he wanted us to think he already had Batman in a no wins scenario. But from an Anarchist perspective what does that actually prove? The one person corruptible enough for him to corrupt was an agent of the state, Gotham's second highest ranked politician. And he needed to vindicate Dent's distrust of two corrupt cops to do it. Even The Joker's victory vindicates actual Anarchism more then it does Hobbesianism.
But then comes The Dark Knight Rises with it's Tale of Two Cities inspired plot, Bane's plan is a Statist's perception of Anarchism much more so then The Joker's was. And thus this film suddenly is vindicating a Hobbesian view of the unwashed masses while glorifying The Police with a heroic last stand.
However let's return to the Sonar plot of The Dark Knight. The common cynical reading of the film is that it's saying this was okay in this extreme circumstance since it did work. First of all I think arguing an authoritarian measure shouldn't be done because it doesn't work is the cheap cop out. You can argue all day long that the death penalty isn't a good deterrent and torture doesn't get people to tell the truth and I would not consider you wrong, but I also feel those methods are inherently amoral even if they did work.
The Sonar did work for Batman at first, but it also glitched out and caused him to lose the actual physical fight with The Joker. The fact is the people on those ferries are who actually defeated The Joker and not just ideologically, since The Joker probably wouldn't have been so caught off guard by that glove trick if he hadn't been frustrated by there being no fireworks.
And while the Sonar worked for finding The Joker was it really necessary? Fact is he wasn't particularity hiding at that point, once the Ferry situation started places overlooking them would naturally be the first place to look.
The one thing that was always going to need to be a part of the third Nolan Bat-Film was for the truth about Harvey Dent to come out and for Gotham to move past it's idealization of a fallen idol. However everything surrounding what TDKR did with that undermined what the prior two films had built.
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