Will’s Unpopular Opinion – Sequels or Second Cousins? – 4-1-16

If you aren’t in the “TDKR /Alfred/day dream” camp for the ending of Nolan’s Batman trilogy, and can forgo the idea that Batman blew up over Gotham Harbor, and is bat-dust all over Gotham Bay. Apparently, because Bruce fixed the auto-pilot but failed to mention it to anyone, and that he loves haunting his old butler Alfred by trying to give him surprise heart attacks, assuming that Alfred isn’t a delusional kook who has hallucinations of his dead boss sipping an espresso at a cafe in Florence… If you believe all that, then just possibly something may have happened after The Dark Knight Rises cut to credits.

Somewhere in a press release floating aimlessly on the inter-webs, reads some vague remark or proclamation that ‘BvS’ would be in an alternate universe, separate from the Nolan-verse, and that this would be a new Batman for the masses to clamor over. This was never officially released by any decree at Warner Bros., but as soon as this “news” was nebulously and probably roguishly purported as a way to drive hit counts on websites, (to warrant “BvS gossip” on a slow news day) it became a common assumption by media and fans alike that this was a brand new incarnation of the Caped-Crusader. (Even though that was never considered prior to ‘Man of Steel’.) Not to mention ‘Man of Steel’ was specifically titled to coincide with ‘The Dark Knight’; to informally affirm a shared anthology through obvious marketing, but moving on… If you carouse the webs, you’ll undoubtedly be able to unearth multiple press interviews with current and former Bat-men, answering questions of connectivity of the the two series; with vague and underwhelming answers, only given to fend off anymore redundant hackneyed questions. They sit there overly disinterested with the interview, fearing more questions shooting down the pike at 100 miles an hour. The last thing anyone would be interested in doing at that point would be feeding the rumor mill, especially for a film they may not even be apart of.

Moving forward, lets assume for a moment that Snyder’s ‘Batman v Superman’ is in the same universe as Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy; similarly to how Schumacher’s Batman movies are seemingly in the same world as Burton’s (but not vice versa). Now before the fanboys throw their coffee mugs at their computers and scream obscenities at their cat, lets think this through for a second and pay it halves a mind attention before completely dismissing the idea and writing it off as fanzine blasphemy. Through out multiple moments in ‘BvS’, we learn a lot about Batman/Bruce without ever being directly told his backstory. Moments in Bruce’s past are insinuated and vaguely discussed, if ever. Specific shots reference the Nolan-verse, as well as allude to a missing narrative, transpiring sometime between TDK trilogy and ‘BvS’. So do the movies connect? I surmise they do. Tangentially if not directly.

The Theory:
Suppose once John Blake found the Bat-cave at the end of the TDKR, he went on to build a persona for himself in the likes of “Robin”. The Joker who has at some point escaped prison during the events of Bane’s tyrannical rule, finds himself in Robin’s crosshairs (or vice versa). Due to Robin’s personal ties to the Gotham Boys Home (Wayne Manor), Joker decides to use this as leverage, to lure Robin into a trap. Joker blows up the boys home and kills a now broken Robin in the process. This now forces Batman and Alfred to make their way back to Gotham and build a small lake house within a mile of the now dilapidated Wayne Manor, because that’s where the cave resides. The two then build a newer underwater Batcave entrance similar to the one we’d seen multiple times in the TDK trilogy. Alfred and Bruce rebuild the car and the batwing that were both previously destroyed, and Bruce realizes he can’t leave this life; there must be a Batman. He starts branding criminals and loosens his moral compass regarding killing, feeling responsible for losing Robin to the hands of the Joker when he had the chance to kill him himself..

Proof:
• The Wayne logo on the satellite in ‘Man of Steel’ is the same one from Wayne Tech from the Nolan verse.
• Bruce mentions in ‘BvS’ that he once spent three nights with a Bolsheviks ballerina, and we  know in TDK he absconds the entire Russian ballet for a holiday.
• Bruce refers to Harvey Dent/Two-face when arguing with Alfred in ‘BvS’ about how they’ve  seen friends go bad in Gotham.
• The interior of the cave still resides over water and requires a ramp, and now even a bridge to get there.
• The new Batmobile is of similar design from the Tumbler from before.
• His parents cemetery is still located on the Wayne Estate.
• Years have passed making it possible for Robin to come into the fray, and Joker to still be alive somewhere.
• The time frame makes sense. We know that in TDK trilogy, that Bruce was Batman for on average 10 years. In ‘BvS’ he says it’s been 20. It’s perfectly plausible that there are 10 years completely unaccounted for between then and now, which would make his current state  and new demeanor probable.

Nitpicks:
• Bruce Wayne is declared dead at the end of ‘TDKR’. This isn’t a huge issue really. He was proclaimed dead in ‘Batman Begins’, so I’m sure it can be posteriorly resurrected once again.
• Alfred clearly looks younger in ‘BvS’, but that’s really just minutia. The character is portrayed the same, but now even a bit more bitter than before.
• The Bruce Wayne origin story seems tweaked. I feel this is just slight creative license. The scene is still the same and illustrates the same points.
• When he falls into the cave, again, its different but essentially the same. There’s nothing saying both couldn’t have happened at different times.

In the age of reboots, prequels, re-imaginings, soft reboots, why couldn’t this be possible? In fact doesn’t it make more sense and seem somewhat probable? If it’s a totally different Batman, why have so many nods to the Nolan-verse? This type of connectivity has happened more times then we can count in the past ten years. Marvel, the current “Gold Standard” of how to run your movie universe did it themselves with it’s Hulk series. ‘The Avengers’ directly refers to 2008’s ‘The Incredible Hulk’, and ‘The Incredible Hulk’ even refers to 2003’s ‘Hulk’. All the X-men movies connect (kinda) and they’ve been pumping those out for over 15 years. So in the end, is it possible that ‘Batman vs Superman’ is a quasi sequel to The Dark Knight Trilogy? Do the Nolan-verse and Snyder-verse take place in the same world, or are they just mirrored parallel images of each other, similar to DC’s own infinite earths? When Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns came out it was just a possible future dystopia for the caped-crusader. It wouldn’t be designated to “Earth-31” for years to come. Maybe Batman and his mythos are just too big to cram into one universe, or maybe it’s too small to ignore specific events in it either. Because it’s possible Batman isn’t just a typical super-hero; but rather the legend we all want him to be.

-Will Valle