What’s Aged the Worst?
Lucius Fox's sonar cell-phone surveillance device
In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:36:19Read transcript
- Most candidates relate to plotting and storytelling: the ferry choice the citizens face at the end and, more broadly, the Joker's plan, widely debated on Reddit, where beat-by-beat defenses unravel under any scrutiny of what he could not have known; Gordon faking his own death; and, quoting Wikipedia's shade, Batman finding the Joker with a sonar device that spies on the entire city.
- Asked directly, the pick is the sonar device, Lucius Fox's cell phone. — Jason Concepcion
- The device is the definition of a deus ex machina, a machine built just to find the Joker; the clip of Fox calling it unethical and dangerous, every cell phone in Gotham turned into a microphone, is played.
- An honorable mention is Coleman Reese, a Wayne Enterprises employee assigned to kick the tires on Lau's company who finds the Batmobile plans in the archives and tries to blackmail Lucius Fox and Batman, then ends up on Anthony Michael Hall's television show; the hosts ask why any of that is in the movie and why a two-hour movie runs two and a half hours.
- One host's number one is the ending: rewatching the night before, they turned it off with twenty minutes to go, and argue the best version would end right after the Joker breaks out again with his head out the car window like a dog, the best shot and most exhilarating moment, chaos can win, with a Joker-led sequel or Arkham to follow.
- Reese is defended as a way to underline Harvey Dent's heroism after Dent steps up as the Batman to take the fall; still, it is absurd that a forensic accountant can trip across the super-weapon car's plans filed in the basement, like the Citadel in Thrones, while Wayne has Alfred burn his personal files.
- A second host agrees on the cell phone, citing a James Bond element: Batman cuts a bullet-shattered piece of concrete out of a wall, runs tests and essentially prints the bullet in 3D to predict the funeral attack instead of knocking on doors, which is hilariously overdone and probably exists to use the lab set, though it ties in the detective side of the character.
- The cell phone exposes a Nolan weakness, overtly saying something big, security versus freedom, by having a scanner listen to the entire city; back then the idea of anyone listening to cell phone calls seemed far-fetched.