Re: Hot Toys – MMS183 - The Dark Knight Rises: Bane Collectible Figure
This is only "IF" you subscribe to the thoery that Bruce was Batman for a little more than a year and I'm not in that "camp". I know many people think that the Joker's line in TDK says it all, but I think his line could be open to interpretation. The reason being is that there is no way that there could have been such a short gap between BB and TDK. Consider all that would have to happen in only 6 months:
Actually, the dialog and facts portrayed in the movie imply that the Gotham-portion of "Batman Begins" took place over the course of about 3 months, and that "The Dark Knight" is about a year after that - so 15 months of Batman, total.
1. The Bat Bunker is built, complete with all his gear and an elevator that doubles for a storage container, in totally secrecy.
The Bat Bunker isn't actually that impressive - it's relatively sparse and not very "Batman-specific." I don't see why a billionaire couldn't have one constructed, or modified from some existing construction, in the matter of a few months.
2. His pentouse is fitted with a secret "panic room", which is really another place to store his gear just in case he needs it.
What does this have to do with timing? Many penthouses probably have panic rooms (panic rooms are a rich-person thing), so Wayne probably specifically bought one that had one.
3. Hundreds of cameras are installed over the city, also in totally secrecy.
What? What cameras?
4. All this, with only Fox and maybe Alfred to help him, and he still manages to take out 90% of the drug dealers, put the "fear" of Batman into every criminal in Gotham and scare the entire mob into having their meetings during the day.
Word travels fast, both in the criminal underworld and in legitimate society - especially when someone is TRYING to make a loud, visible impression, as Batman is. In an era of mass media and instant communication, this should not be surprising - be it news about a new vigilante or anything else that quickly becomes a story in our modern-day society.
As far as "taking out drug dealers," I think the point is that Batman empowered the police to do that themselves - just like he empowered them to dismantle the mob's money laundering operations.
The Joker
1. Managaes to build up a "legend" among the criminals in Gotham so fierce that no one will cross him and anyone is willing to join is gang.
Plenty of people were willing to cross him - like Grumpy (though that ended in failure).
Also, the mob was pretty content to ignore him for the better part of a year, while he went around robbing their banks. Even when he approached the mob directly, they still ignored him, until Batman forced their hand with the Lau situation.
What Maroni states about "Nobody's going to cross him to you" has nothing to do with any mystique the Joker has built over the past year - it's entirely to do with the fact that it's become known that Batman doesn't kill, and after one meeting with the Joker, it's pretty damn clear that the Joker is an unstable guy who doesn't have boundaries. Thus, when presented between the choice of crossing one or the other, you obviously screw the guy who's predictable and a bit less dangerous.
Also, "anyone is willing to join is [sic] gang?" The other psychopaths from Arkham, maybe - most of his henchmen were legitimate crazies (Thomas Schiff, bomb-guy in the MCU). But the only "normal" criminals we saw join up were from Lau's crew, and they were press-ganged into joining - they didn't seem to be given much of a choice.
Plus, when your boss is literally sitting on a pile of cash worth hundreds of millions, pretty much anybody (and certainly any criminals and guns-for-hire) will sign up.
But what does this have to do with the 1-year gap?
1. A woman who's known Bruce his whole life, thought about him the entire seven years he was gone, but somehow she's able to move on when Harvery comes to town.
Rachel wasn't pining for Bruce for seven years while he was gone - she probably just thought about him once in a while (and more in a "just friends" kind of way, most likely). We know she'd been in relationships during that period (i.e., with D.A. Finch).
She had already "moved on."
2. She's not only in a romantic relationship with Dent, but she's ready to marry him.
She didn't seem very ready to marry him at first - she kind of reluctant to make a decision.
Beyond that, is this the first relationship you're aware of that goes from "first date" to "marriage proposal" in the space of a year? It happens quite a bit (though I'm not saying it's smart!)
The Mob
1. All the other mob bosses pop up out of no where.
Nobody popped out of nowhere. We saw Falcone in "Batman Begins," but that doesn't mean he didn't have other lieutenants or associates that were ready to take his place - the Falcones were only one of the five families of Gotham.
Gotham's a lot of territory, and I'm sure it was already split up before Falcone was removed.
2. Maroni steps in for Falcone and everyone else gets in line.
This is how mafia families work. When the head is indicted and imprisoned, often the families are ready to adapt with a new head pretty quickly - it doesn't take a multi-year mob war to settle things.
There's nothing in your arguments to suggest that the events discussed could not have happened in the space of approximately a year - and you would have to intentionally disregard a lot of blatant evidence (from explicit dialog from main characters to elements of the setting, like the seasons) to arrive at any other conclusion.
The film's setting and story were made deliberately and they were made pretty clear. You might not like it (though I'm still not clear why you wouldn't), but you can't really make any reasonable argument against it being what it is.
But as far as the 8-year gap after "The Dark Knight?" I think "The Dark Knight Rises" implies pretty clearly that Batman didn't retire immediately on the night of Dent's death - he just cut off his ties to the police and worked from the shadows for a time, until eventually retiring for good.
A lot of fans seem to get this wrong for some reason, though.
