It's not a plot hole in TDKR (Off-Topic)

by Kahzgul, Saturday, January 09, 2016, 00:39 (3245 days ago) @ Xenos

I figure it is our own fault that we assume every scene is shown in chronological order. I mean, not entirely our fault, since most movies are structured that way, but still not something we should take at face value.

Movies which show events out of order establish that trope early on so you know to expect it when its important, or they clue you in with flashback flashes or desaturation or whatever to show it's not real time. Batman does none of this. I'll be honest though, the editing in that film sucked ballsack. It was horrendous. There is ONE establishing broll shot in the entire movie, and it's of the pit in Tunisia. I saw the thing in IMAX and I was like... "Why is this an IMAX film? There's no wide shots at all. Everything is an ECU outside of the action sequences." But I digress.

If we consider the tick-down scene happened several days after Bruce escapes the prison, everything makes a lot of sense (further review pending, of course), including how well-off a few of the characters seem.

People always bring up this plot hole, but I've never seen a single person be right. They do NOT show the timer at 3 hours BEFORE he comes back.

Hmm.. Okay, you're definitely right about that.

They also suggest quite a bit of time passing between the the bomb being put in trucks and then Bruce showing back up (weather change that implies season change, Selina has territory, conversations imply a lot of time has passed, etc.). And further this is the last we see of the bomb before Bruce shows up:

That's minutes and seconds in large numbers, so by logical conclusion that's seconds, minutes, hours, days, and then months

There is nothing logical about that conclusion. Where are you pulling hours, days, and months out of? There are (and yes, I counted because I wanted to be sure): 79 green ticks and 10 red ones in that image. Those values don't evenly come out to any sensical measurement of time.

If you extrapolate the green bars to go all the way around the dial back to the red bars, there would be about 110 (roughly 15 bars per screw hole). Including the red bars, you have 120 total bars, which IS a number that relates to time. And 31 bars have ticked away so far, with the timer displaying 57:34, which we know is minutes and seconds because the shot lasts long enough for us to see it tick down a few times... Which doesn't add up either. It doesn't make any sense any way you slice it. The production designers thought it would look cool but there's no other rationale other than to make the red lights blink later when the bomb is about to go off and batman, in less than 2 minutes, kisses the girl, says goodbye to gordon, flies the nuke 6 miles out to sea (past a bunch of army dudes who were told to kill anyone going in or out of gotham), and - presumably - miraculously escape to safety. Even if he never got on the copter (we know he did though, and we never see him dive out of it either), the thing would have to fly pretty goddamn fast (like more than 200+ mph fast with instantaneous linear acceleration) for that to work.

In addition remember that it was stated it would take about 5 months for the core to deteriorate, which means when the spec ops team shows up in Gotham and it's been "about 3 months" since the occupation starts, that still leaves them with about a month remaining (remember Bane didn't immediately free prisoners from Blackgate, so it's actually been a little longer than 3 months since the core was removed). The time before that was when Bruce is recovering and attempts to escape the pit at least one time that we see on camera. The last indication of time remaining before Bruce escapes the pit is 23 DAYS (by Lucius to the Spec Ops team right before they die), and then when Bruce arrives there are only about 18 hours remaining. And if anyone thinks Bruce Wayne can't make it to Gotham in 2-3 weeks, even without money or Bat-gadgets, then we have nothing left to talk about.

Fair point, though I also think 2000 cops underground for 5 months would grow beards, lose their tans, probably lose some weight, too, and get a little big dusty, but who am I to argue?

And, honestly, Bruce Wayne with zero money or gadgets getting back to Gotham is probably a way more exciting and interesting story than the entire rest of the film. I'd have loved to see that part.