Some may be shocked, but I can't stand Dark Knight.
There, I said it. Yes, it's a competent film in every respect. Yes, it has things in it. Stuff, even.
And yet, for all the things, and all the stuff, it's missing one damn thing, and that's a backbone.
You know what I'm talking about. You sure as hell do. The boat scene.
My belief can suspend a lot, believe me, and if I wore suspenders, I'd have it embroidered with "Suspenders of Dis Bee Leaf" but even that wasn't enough to suspend that damn scene.
You're telling me that the entire moral suspense of the film hinges on two boats filled with saints? Have you seen what panicked crowds do? How did we dimensionally travel from a world full of gung-ho vigilante wannabes, rampant crime syndicates running unchecked, and psychotic clowns that stuff the city full of explosives overnight, and suddenly, somehow, we have two boats full of people willing to die for their brother in Chris Roberts? What on God's Green Flat Earth am I looking at.
So yeah, as you may guess, that scene took me out of the film pretty hard. After that, it didn't matter that people were dying in a fire anymore, or the heroic reputation sacrifice for the Bat at the end (I could dissect that one as well, but won't. That's just too easy), or, honestly, anything. The film lost its spine. It lost its core. Its actual message, the meaning, the potential. And for what? To cosplay two boats full of moral people that spent their entire lives in an utterly rotten society? Well. Alright then.
Now, let's get a little bloodthirsty, shall we? Let's do something that the film doesn't dare. Let's blow up the boat. Hell - let's go further. Let's blow up both! Don't like blow-up boats? Alright, fine, let's say, The Joker activates fireworks that go "Ha Ha ToLd U bAtS tHeY wIlL kIlL eAcH oThEr!", just to prove a point. And then he'll give everyone ice-cream. Better? Good.
Anyway, what does this do, besides pointlessly graphical bloodshed and the special effects crew detonating two cruise liners? It actually creates a moral question. Not for the people on the boats. Not for the audience. It creates a moral question for the hero. An existential, profound, difficult question. Was he wrong?
Yes, we get a tragedy and a sacrifice at the end of the film. Yes, we get a vague sense of bleakness, and a bit of shallow hope. But won't it simply be better, more meaningful, more challenging, if Bruce Wayne realized that maybe, just maybe, he was always fighting a losing battle? Imagine it - the real darkness a hero has to face in his own mind, realizing that all these years, he fought for what could have been worthless - at least the way he'd framed it for himself.
Imagine, too, the stakes and actual, deserved, seeds of hope - in being free from the chains that Dark Knight had shackled himself with; in the thought of what his conclusions may be, in what may bring him back from the "dead". It's no longer "Gotham is in danger again, gotta rescue it!", it's "Something made me think it's worth what may be one last ride". What would it be? Who knows. Maybe it's reframing the whole problem - maybe saving humans is still worth it, even if they suck. Maybe it's just one bright-eyed kid on the street that does something to remind Bruce that heroism isn't dead. There's a lot of ways to go from here, from the actual pits of hell made not by some villain, but by his own mind, and, dear reader, we were robbed of it. And we were robbed of a chance to ask something of ourselves. Of a chance to learn something. And for some, yeah, a chance to be recognized, if only for a second.
Because - yeah. What this film does is quietly betray anyone that's had to make a moral choice in their life. All of a sudden, they look so easy, don't they? Your goal is always right. Don't question it. You are right. You are moral. Your ideals are just. You serve a kind god. So nice, isn't it?
Now, tell me - ever wake up and realize your cause was trash? Ever notice how your driving force became a stone sinking you into a swamp that you willfully ignored for years? Ever do something you believed into so hard that you believed it to be true, even if the warning signs were all there? Or maybe there were no warning signs? After all, the warning signs hardly ever matter.
Ever see your dream rot before your eyes? Ever realize your dream was, in fact, always rot, and you kept it gilded just enough to be blind to it? Has that ever happened in real life?
Because if not, someone better make
a movie outta that one. It'll be a hell of a fantasy flick.
