The Dark Knight Rises: Ten Connections to Batman Begins

Aside from the obvious things like casting and the fact that it’s based in the same location, The Dark Knight Rises seems to have more in common with Batman Begins than The Dark Knight did. Director Christopher Nolan, in his third and final outing with Batman, is eager to tie up the loose ends left by the first film–even the ones that didn’t obviously seem like loose ends at the time.We’ve been pointing out for quite some time that there seem to be a number of thematic, visual and even plot similarities between the two films, but after a viewing of Batman Begins last night, we decided to scribble down some notes and see what came out of it.Class consciousnessThe idea of social stratification and the inherent conflict of the haves and the have-nots is an integral part of the Nolan Batman universe. The Wayne family wants to improve the station of the less fortunate, but they do so in a fairly center-left way, almost Reagan-like, by investing privately in infrastructure that will then indirectly benefit people’s lives and help them to make for themselves. They themselves aren’t really particularly successful with it, until Thomas and Martha’s deaths spur their friends into action and the wealthy of Gotham do good deeds in memory of the fallen one percenters.Fast-forward to The Dark Knight Rises and you’ve got it all over again–an unruly blue collar mob is manipulated into Bane’s thrall, and from what we’ve seen in ads it’s pretty obvious that at least some of it is connected to a resentment of the concentrated wealth and power of Gotham’s elite.Certainly it seems to annoy Catwoman.The bridges are outThis one’s pretty obvious, but in both of the films, the idea that Gothamites are unable to escape after someone takes away their escape route by raising (in Batman Begins) or destroying (in The Dark Knight Rises) the city’s bridges seems like a dead giveaway. It’s key to setting the stage for the Gotham-as-Thunderdome thing at the end of Batman Begins and likely will serve a similar role in The Dark Knight Rises.