War Handwavium

SPOILERS!

 So, there’s this Joker guy, see? And basically he is the epitome of chaotic evil. And the question at the heart of the movie seems to be “What will people become in the face of chaotic evil?” Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and others think that the answer is that people will rise to the occaission. Joker likes to point out when people sink to new lows. The response when either Batman or Joker is proven wrong is to have the other character point out how alone they are.

There’s an interesting game theory scenario involving two ferries full of people. Joker manages to plant massive explosives on each ferry, and then kill the engines. He then radios both ships and announces over the PA system that each ferry has the detonator for the other ship. And whoever detonates the other person, wins. If by midnight, neither side detonates the other, the Joker says he’ll detonate both.

 Evil Chaos ensues on both ships. One ship takes a vote, and the result is 300-100 in favor of blowing the other ship up. Sort of a condemning take on what democracy is capable of when immersed in fear adn removed from the consequences of their actions. But then no one on the ship can actually push the button to blow up the other ship. So, maybe when forced to face the consequences, maybe the idea is that people will step up and do the right thing, even if it means risking their own death, rather than murder someone else in an attempt at survival.

The other ship, well, that has a bunch of convicts on it, being guarded by a few police officers with guns. The guards are outnumbered, but the convicts don’t rush the guards and force them to hand over the detonator. Instead, there’s a shouting match, and the guards have basically frozen in indecision. One of the convicts stands up and goes up to the guards and tells him something to the effect of “you’ve never murdered someone, I have. You can’t push the button, I can. Give me the detonator. You can even tell them that I took it from you”.

So, the guard gives the convict the detonator. The image of men charged with upholding the law handing over their job to a bunch of criminals because the law men are too afraid and don’t know what else to do, I believe is no accident. We’ve seen it over the last few years with Bush and Cheney and company in charge. So the criminal takes the detonator…. and throws it out the window… Which only amplifies the idea that the men in charge were the real criminals and the real cowards.

There’s a piece where Batman creates a weird, universal surveillance post that lets him see everything that is happeing everywhere in Gotham. Unfortunately, rather than show the realities of universal surveillance (i.e. too much information to be useful, wide open potential for abuse), the movie instead invokes some handwavium and shows the technology being used to stop the Joker.

There is some objections from Lucious Fox to Batman for building the machine, and Batman says Lucious is the only person who can run the machine. But this might have been an opportunity to show Batman slip, misuse his power. If not Batman, at least some unintended consequence such as some lower level flunky at Wayne Enterprises finds the machine and uses it for nefarious purposes. It would have been a perfect opportunity to show that there are unintended negative consequences to total power.

In the finale, the police are gun-ho to start shooting up some of the Joker’s bad guys who are holding hostages. Batman asks them to give him a couple minutes. The police, including commissioner Gordon, don’t want to wait. Batman charges in on his own before the police can go in. Turns out that the Joker’s men are actually hostages tied up with Joker masks put on them and guns taped to their hands. Only Batman knows this. At this point, the police barge in and are about to start killing what they think are bad guys but Batman knows the truth and has to stop the police to save the hostages.

The idea that there are issues with targeting and sometimes the wrong person is targeted is clear. It just seemed to be handled in a slightly ham-handed way.

In the end, Batman stops the Joker, and manages to keep his hands clean. There seem to be a number of moral dillemmas presented in the movie regarding the use of violence and unintended consequences, but Batman manages to keep his hands clean. In the end, there is a subplot with Harvey Dent. He was the District Attorney but had turned into Two Face and started killing people (mostly dirty cops, but mobsters too). And Batman and Gordon decide that the people’s faith in Dent’s incorruptability is too important, that if that faith is lost, Gotham is lost. So Batman tells Gordon to blame all the people Dent murdered on Batman, and they’ll keep Dent’s name and legacy clear.

There was something about this that seems… off. And I’ll have to ponder it a bit more, but basically, Batman and Gordon decide that its OK to lie to the public. I think this angle was used so that Batman could become the misunderstood vigilante who is wrongly hunted by the police, setting  us up for the next sequel. The last scene in the Dark Knight shows police with dogs chasing Batman, and Gordon (who knows the truth) smashing the bat signal while surrounded by angry cops. But in a movie that made numerous overtures to a number of moral dillemmas around misuse of power, the abuse that comes from lying to the public seems to have been missed.

Rather than have Batman choose to take on accusations against him that aren’t true, rather than Batman take the blame for Dent’s/Two Face’s murders in order to save Dent’s legacy,  I think it would have been more realistic and less handwavium if Batman had actually become corrupted in some way, showing the problem inherent in vigilante power. And maybe the next sequel he somehow redeems himself, or at least tries to.

 But as much as the movie points to some very real moral issues around violence, of how democracy can vote for evil, of how the state can hand power over to criminals, it is, in the end, a comic book vigilante story, and the one thing it can’t do is condemn the star. There are sequels to be made, you know.

So, I haven’t tabulated the war handwavium score yet. But I can tell it will a low score compared to something like “300″. However, it will still be a positive handwavium score, if for no other reason than the fact that it is a comic book vigilante story, and by the end of the movie, Batman himself has managed to keep his hands completely clean.

(I’ll do the actual score when teh DVD comes out)